The Diva Steals a Chocolate Kiss (27 page)

½ cup sugar

½ cup water

1 bottle white wine, sparking wine, or rosé

1 cup peach schnapps

1 bag frozen peaches

1 fresh peach

Sliced fresh strawberries (optional)

In a small pot, dissolve the sugar in the water. When cool, pour into a large pitcher. Add the white wine, peach schnapps, and frozen peaches. Refrigerate.

Before serving, slice the fresh peach and add to the pitcher with the strawberry slices.

1½ ounces peppermint schnapps

½ ounce coffee liqueur

1 mug hot chocolate

Whipped cream

Pour the schnapps and the liqueur into the hot chocolate and stir. Top with whipped cream.

2 ounces chocolate vodka

2 ounces Baileys Irish Cream

Pour in a small glass and stir. Makes one drink.

1 ounce chocolate liqueur (like Godiva)

1 ounce Chambord

1 ounce Irish cream

Pour the liqueurs into a small glass. Swirl and enjoy!

2 ounces chocolate liqueur

2 ounces vanilla vodka

Pour into small martini glass and stir. Makes one drink.

TURN THE PAGE FOR A PREVIEW OF KRISTA DAVIS’S NEXT PAWS & CLAWS MYSTERY . . .

Murder Most Howl

COMING DECEMBER 2015 FROM BERKLEY PRIME
CRIME!

You ask of my companions. Hills, sir, and the sundown, and a dog as large as myself that my father bought me. They are better than human beings, because they know but do not tell.

—EMILY DICKINSON

“These are the murder weapons.” Val Kowalchuk reached into the chestnut leather tote she had brought with her and pulled out a pearl-handled pistol.

The new owner of the popular Wagtail pub, Hair of the Dog, Val was brimming with clever ideas to bring tourists to Wagtail. Enthusiastic and hardworking, Val was quickly becoming a good friend. She wore her dark brown hair short. No surprise there since the hours she worked at her pub left little time for primping.

We were on our way to Café Chat for brunch to finalize some details about Murder Most Howl, Wagtail’s murder mystery weekend. I stopped dead. “That looks real!”

Val twirled it on her forefinger with alarming ease. “Amazing, isn’t it?”

We walked on. “Frightening. Someone could mistake it for a real gun.”

Val snorted. “Wouldn’t do them much good. It’s made of wood.”

We reached the entrance to Café Chat but when we turned to enter, Trixie, my Jack Russell terrier, took off. I
no longer used a leash to walk around town with her. We had been practicing coming when called and most of the time she listened to me, but she still had a mind of her own and sometimes followed her nose elsewhere. I knew where she was headed this time, though, straight to the doggy play area. “I’ll meet you inside,” I said to Val.

Trixie sped across the green, the park in the middle of Wagtail’s pedestrian zone. When I caught up to her, she was politely sniffing a corgi.

An attractive blonde woman bundled in a puffy purple jacket and faux fur boots talked on the phone. Although I didn’t know who she was, I’d seen her around town before and thought the corgi belonged to her.

I looked up at the silvery gray sky. Even though it was ten in the morning, and other people walked dogs, there was a silence in the air. A peaceful stillness that meant snow was on the way.

The woman on the phone whispered, but it was so quiet that she might as well have come right up to me and spoken aloud.

“Blanche is in town.”
She paused.
“That’s what I thought, too.”
She sucked in a deep breath of the cold air.
“I’m finally going to do it. I can’t go on like this.”

I gave Trixie a few minutes to play with the corgi. She would behave better at Café Chat if she burned off some energy. I felt a little bit guilty about listening to the woman’s phone call, but good grief, if she was going to have a private conversation in public, what did she expect?

“
Of course I’m nervous! Why do you think I’ve put it off for so long?”
She smiled at me in spite of eyes rimmed in red from crying.

I dug in my pocket for a treat, held it out, and called to Trixie. She gave the corgi one last look and evidently decided that a cookie was more enticing. As Trixie and I walked away, I heard the woman say,
“This weekend. The sooner the better.”

Trixie scampered into Café Chat, probably as relieved
as I was to be out of the cold. I helped her out of her plush pink coat and hung it on the rack with my own boring winter white jacket.

Zelda York and Shelley Dixon spied me, and waved their hands in the air. Zelda and Shelley worked with me at the Sugar Maple Inn. In her spare time, Zelda was building a pet psychic business. I wasn’t sure that she could really read the minds of dogs and cats, but so far, she’d been fairly accurate.

Wagging her tail, Trixie greeted a half dozen dogs on the way to our table. My little girl with the black ears and spot on her rump had the good sense to approach Zelda’s cat, Leo, cautiously. She stopped short of him and gently extended her nose toward his.

An extraordinarily confident cat, Leo stretched his white paws forward, showing off the blaze on his chest and demonstrating his total lack of concern about Trixie’s presence. Everyone in town knew the large tiger-striped tabby with the characteristic M on his forehead.

I slid into the chair next to Val.

Zelda, as full-figured as she was full of life, held a gold candlestick, turning it in her hands. She had braided strands of her long blonde hair on both sides and pulled back the braids. They hung like beautiful garlands on the sides of her head, reminding me of a Norse princess. “This is so cool. But I don’t get it. Why only four weapons? Doesn’t everyone get a weapon?”

I guessed the wicked meat cleaver Shelley held was also a weapon. Shelley had cut her light brown hair and streaked it blonde to lighten it. It was a layered bob of large waves that I envied. My own straight brown hair would never cooperate in that kind of cut.

She wore Wagtail chic, a fisherman style knit sweater in cream. Her bulky olive-colored jacket hung over the back of her chair. “You want me to hide this in”—Shelley tilted her head to read a note on the cleaver—“oh my word, it’s a little rhyme!”

The waitress interrupted to take my order. I was so
spoiled by the terrific breakfasts at the Sugar Maple Inn that I found it difficult to eat breakfast out. “Coffee, two eggs sunny-side up with roasted potatoes, and the same for Trixie, please, without the coffee.”

Zelda looked at Val with an apologetic expression. “I’m sorry I had to miss the last few meetings. I’m lost. This sounds like a scavenger hunt.”

Val placed a gorgeous bottle on the table. About four inches high, it had been painted in vivid blues and reds, and on one side, bore a skull and crossbones painted in gold. “Murder Most Howl is a cross between a scavenger hunt and a murder mystery game. The participants all play themselves. But each of them will have a secret from his or her past to hide. They’ll receive their secrets at the initial meeting at Hair of the Dog Pub tonight. It’s up to each one to decide whether to share the secret with anyone. The goal is to solve the mystery of who killed the victim. They have to figure out who the killer is and how he or she murdered the victim.”

“Where do the weapons come in?” asked Zelda.

Val passed each of us a couple of bloodred envelopes. “I’ll get to that. These contain clues. There’s a yellow sticky on each one telling you where to hide it. The players will receive information that will lead them to the clues and the weapons. Everyone starts with the same basic information but obviously, not everyone will find the same clues. Three weapons will be hidden. They’re sort of a bonus. If you’re lucky enough to find one, you can use it to force competitors to share clues with you. Obviously, having a weapon is a big advantage, so they’ll be trying to steal them from each other. The merchants around town know more clues, and that will draw people into stores, restaurants, and businesses to chat.”

“That’s so clever,” said Shelley. “A really great way to get people out and about in Wagtail.”

“Each of you will hide one weapon. All the players will have the same opportunity to discover them—so make them a little bit difficult to find, okay? The first victim will be
killed by poison, so I’m keeping the bottle.” Val handed me the candlestick.

“It’s so light! This could actually be used as a candlestick.”

Val grinned. “They’re hand-carved. That’s real gold leaf covering the candlestick.”

The waitress delivered our food and set two small dishes on the floor, along with water bowls for Trixie and Leo.

I glanced at Zelda. “I hope Leo is hungry. Trixie might try to eat his food.”

Zelda laughed. “Are you kidding? Look how big Leo is. It’s Trixie’s food that might be in danger.”

I kept an eye on Trixie anyway. She had spent time homeless and scrabbling for food before she adopted me. I assumed her insatiable hunger was a result of that terrible time.

Val was drinking coffee when she groaned. “Not Norm Wilson, please,” she whispered. “He’s been such a pill.”

I glanced up to see him heading our way. Norm had a round face and a rounder belly. I imagined that he looked much like he had as a young man, except heavier. The buttons on his blue Oxford cloth shirt strained against the fabric, threatening to reveal all. He wore khaki pants, loafers, and no socks despite the cold weather—a Southern male affectation that I had never quite understood. His fair hair was sparse but a bit of it hung over his forehead.

“Look at this, the four prettiest ladies in all of Wagtail.”

I thought Val might spew her coffee.

The rest of us politely murmured greetings.

He spied the pistol. “Who’s packin’? Is it legal to have a gun in a restaurant?”

“That one is perfectly legal,” said Val, a bit testy.

He took in the clue envelopes and the candlestick. “Oh, I get it. You’re meeting about Murder Most Howl. Mind if I pull up a chair? You should have notified everyone if you were going to have a meeting.”

Was Val holding her breath?

I smiled at him. “I think Val has everything under control, Norm. But it’s kind of you to offer.”

“Always happy to pitch in.” He thumped the table. “Y’all just give me a call if you run into trouble.” He ambled away muttering, but I was pretty certain he said, “And you will.”

I leaned toward Val and spoke under my breath. “What was that about?”

She looked around at us, her brown eyes sincere. “I know I’m new to Wagtail, so don’t think poorly of me. I detest that man.”

Shelley picked up a piece of toast. “What did he ever do to you?”

The corner of Val’s mouth twitched. “I don’t really want to tell you. You’ll think I’m a petty and horrible person.” She paused. “You know what? I shouldn’t say anything.”

Zelda grinned. “Now we’ll be thinking the worst. Spill, girl!”

Val heaved a sigh. “I bought the pub at auction, and Norm was such a jerk. He kept bidding it up and up. Honestly, I don’t think he wanted it. I truly think he did it just to jerk me around.”

Shelley’s eyes met mine. “I don’t know, Val. That would have been an expensive mess for him if you had stopped bidding.”

“Tell me this, then. If he wanted a pub so badly, why didn’t he take some of that money and open one across town somewhere?” She shook her head. “Nope. I paid much more than I should have because he was getting a kick out of it.”

I figured I shouldn’t mention that she could have stopped bidding.

“It was nice of him to offer to help with the mystery weekend,” said Shelley.

Val’s hands curled into fists on the table. “Are you kidding? I wouldn’t be surprised if he sabotaged it. Norm was against this mystery weekend as soon as Hollis Hobbs tried to limit Norm’s involvement. Hollis hates him, too. Norm is not the sweet, amiable guy you might think.”

Zelda set her coffee cup down. “Everyone I talked to was excited about the mystery weekend.”

“Everyone else has been so generous and helpful. The grand prize is a week at the Sugar Maple Inn, thanks to a certain Holly Miller and her grandmother.” Val grinned at me. “Plus a host of free meals at restaurants and cafes, and massages, beds, and food for dogs and cats, not to mention gift certificates to spend at some of the stores. Runners-up will win gift certificates for stores and services, like the zip line and pet grooming.”

“So they just run around looking for weapons and clues?” asked Zelda.

Val swallowed her last bite of Eggs Benedict. “No. It’s quite interactive. People can play by themselves or in teams. Just you wait. They’ll tell lies to throw one another off the track of the murderer. I hear people get very competitive in these types of games.”

“So who is the killer?” asked Zelda.

“I’m the only one, besides the killer and victim, of course, who knows who they are.”

“Aww, c’mon. Let us in on the secret,” Zelda begged.

“Okay,” said Val, looking altogether too mischievous, “the victim is the Baron von Rottweiler, a resident of Wagtail.”

Shelley, Zelda, and I exchanged glances.

“I’ve never heard of him,” said Shelley. “And I’ve lived here forever.”

Val laughed. “Well, you’d better meet him soon because someone is about to do in the poor fellow.”

Zelda scowled at Val. “That’s not fair. At least tell us who the killer is!” She leaned forward, gleeful.

Val tilted her head at us. “No way. I’m not having you supply additional clues to someone just because you like him or her.”

“You don’t trust us!” said Shelley.

“Isn’t that always the first rule of a murder?” asked Val. “Trust no
one.”