One Bad Egg (A Rainy Day Mystery Book 5) Read online

  One Bad Egg

  By Jeff Shelby

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  One Bad Egg

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright ©2017

  Cover design by Alchemy Book Covers and Design

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited without the expressed written consent of the author.

  Books by Jeff Shelby

  The Joe Tyler Novels

  THREAD OF HOPE

  THREAD OF SUSPICION

  THREAD OF BETRAYAL

  THREAD OF INNOCENCE

  THREAD OF FEAR

  THREAD OF REVENGE

  THREAD OF DANGER

  The Noah Braddock Novels

  KILLER SWELL

  WICKED BREAK

  LIQUID SMOKE

  DRIFT AWAY

  LOCKED IN

  IMPACT ZONE

  The Moose River Mysteries

  THE MURDER PIT

  LAST RESORT

  ALIBI HIGH

  FOUL PLAY

  YOU'VE GOT BLACKMAIL

  ASSISTED MURDER

  DEATH AT THE DINER

  The Deuce Winters Novels (Under the pseudonym Jeffrey Allen)

  STAY AT HOME DEAD

  POPPED OFF

  FATHERS KNOWS DEATH

  The Rainy Day Mysteries

  BOUGHT THE FARM

  WHEN THE ROOSTER KILLS

  CRACK OF DEATH

  PLANTING EVIDENCE

  ONE BAD EGG

  Novel for Young Adults

  PLAYING THE GAME

  Short Story Collections

  OUT OF TIME

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  ONE

  I stared at the 25-lb. carcass on my kitchen counter.

  “I think you might be too big,” I told it.

  This was a massive understatement.

  I was staring at the frozen turkey I’d picked up from Toby’s earlier in the week. Thanksgiving was only a few days away and I’d gone into town for groceries for the big holiday dinner.

  Except it wasn’t big.

  It was Laura, her boyfriend, Connor, and me.

  The only big thing about Thanksgiving was the frozen turkey carcass I was staring at.

  “I hope you can defrost in two days,” I said to the headless bird. I slid it across the counter and dumped it into one side of the kitchen’s double sink. I mentally crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.

  I didn’t usually make a habit of talking to dead animals or frozen carcasses. But nervous energy buzzed through me as I prepared for Laura’s visit, and I apparently thought that talking to Thursday’s dinner would have a calming effect.

  I wasn’t nervous about Laura’s visit, per se. She was my daughter, the little girl who had grown into a beautiful, confident, successful woman. She was a teacher, she had a nice boyfriend, and she’d carved out a nice life for herself.

  Unfortunately, she didn’t think my lifestyle choices were quite as nice.

  She had been the most vocal opponent of my packing up and selling off the house in Arlington and moving to my little hobby farm in Latney. And she had been the one to continue to question my choices, especially as she learned of all the little…nuances of the town I’d moved to. Like burned-down bungalows and dead bodies.

  Needless to say, she wasn’t exactly a fan of my new hometown.

  She’d visited a couple of times, quick day trips where she’d pursed her lips and furrowed her brow as she tried to find good things to say about the farm. She grudgingly loved the house—what wasn’t there to love about a gorgeous, one-hundred-year-old farmhouse?—but the other stuff that went with it? The town and its eccentric inhabitants, and the trouble that seemed to find me, despite the fact that I was never looking? Not so much. It also didn’t help that said farmhouse was a two-hour drive away from Arlington. She wouldn’t say it flat-out, but I knew she missed having me close by. Knowing this almost made up for the difficulty she continued to give me over the move.

  Almost.

  But this trip was different. Laura was coming for two whole days. Staying overnight. And bringing her boyfriend with her.

  We were celebrating a holiday. Family time. And I was determined to make sure that this house of mine, with all of its quirks and eccentricities, felt like home.

  For me and for my daughter.

  I turned away from the bird sitting in the sink and surveyed the rest of the kitchen. It was one of my favorite rooms in the house. I loved the whitewashed cupboards, the exposed wood beam ceiling, the terracotta flooring. The addition of Declan’s chicken-themed décor, an entire box of goodies he’d brought over before Halloween, only added to the room’s rustic charm.

  I sighed.

  I loved my home.

  And I wanted my daughter to love it, too.

  There was a knock on the kitchen door and it swung open.

  Gunnar stood in the doorway, bundled up in a fleece-lined flannel, a knit cap replacing the baseball hat he typically wore. A few stray strands of hair peeked out, the salt and pepper brown matching the stubble that dotted his chin.

  He smiled. “Got any use for these?” he asked, holding out a pail of potatoes. “I finally dug up the hills. Bumper crop this year. Way more than Jill and I can eat for Thanksgiving. Or the rest of the year.”

  My Thanksgiving consisted of a party of three, so it wasn’t like I needed a ton of them, either. But homegrown potatoes were homegrown potatoes.

  I took the pail from him and planted a kiss on his cheek. “I’ll find a good use for them.”

  His arm snaked around my waist and he pulled me to him, shifting so my lips slid from his cheek to his mouth. My insides turned to jelly.

  Gunnar wasn’t just my handsome next-door neighbor. He was much, much more.

  “When is Jill due in town?” I asked when his lips released mine. His adult daughter was coming back to Latney for the long holiday weekend.

  He loosened his grip around my waist and I walked the potatoes over to the counter, setting them next to the other Thanksgiving dinner ingredient sitting in the sink.

  “Sometime today, I think,” he said. “She was a little vague on her arrival time. How about Laura?”

  “Tomorrow morning,” I said. “At least that’s the current plan. With Laura, though, things can change on a dime.”

  He leaned up against the counter. “You looking forward to her visit?”

  It shouldn’t have been a loaded question.

  “Yes,” I said, after a moment’s hesitation.

  “That wasn’t a very enthusiastic yes,” he said, one eyebrow raised.

  I shook my head. “No, I am happy she’s coming. I just…I want her to love this place as much as I do.”

  “And if she doesn’t?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Then what?” he asked. “Will you move? Will you love it less?”

  “No, of course not,” I told him.

  “So what does it matter if she likes where you live? You’re the one living here, not her.”

  He didn’t say this in a confrontational way. His tone was matter-of-fact, as if he were simply pointing out the weather conditions, or the fact that turkey was on the menu for Thanksgiving.

  “I know,” I said. “I’m being ridiculous.”

  “You’re not
being ridiculous,” he said. “You care about what she thinks. That’s totally fine. But in the end, you have to keep in mind that it doesn’t really matter. You made the choice to move here, Rainy. For you. What your daughter thinks of your choices is irrelevant.”

  He was right. I knew all of the things he was telling me. But he wasn’t the one who would have to face her disapproving looks, her barbed comments, and everything else she could throw at me over a 48-hour period of time that would kick every single layer of my guilty conscience into overdrive.

  “Are you sure you and Jill don’t want to join us for dinner?” I asked, changing the subject. It was my go-to strategy: if something was difficult to talk about, switch to something else instead. I’d used it on Laura for years.

  Gunnar grinned. “I’d love to come for dinner,” he said. “You know that.” I did know this. It wasn’t the first time we’d talked about potentially spending the Thanksgiving holiday together. “But I also think you need your time with Laura. Let’s save throwing her together with your new boyfriend and his adult daughter for another time. Like Christmas.”

  I chuckled. “Because that will be easier? When we all have to exchange gifts with each other?”

  “No. I just know you want Thanksgiving to be perfect,” he said, his hazel eyes twinkling. “And since this is her first extended visit, it makes sense that it’s just the two of you.”

  “It isn’t,” I pointed out. “She’s bringing her boyfriend.”

  “Who you’ve known for years,” he countered.

  “I think you don’t want to come because you’re worried you’ll get mushy middle apple pie.” The last pie of mine he’d eaten had been the pie that had basically caught fire in my oven. I’d managed to scrape off the blackened crusts, top and bottom, and served him the innards. With a generous dollop of whipped cream, of course.

  It was his turn to laugh. “I’d eat your mushy middle apple pie any day,” he said. “You know that. Look, Jill and I can stop by sometime while Laura is here. I would love to spend some time with her, and let her get to know me, too. But you’ve put enough pressure on yourself with this holiday; I don’t want to add to your stress.”

  And these were the reasons, right there, as to why I was pretty sure I was falling in love with Gunnar Forsythe. Because he was thoughtful and reasonable and no-nonsense, and he cared enough about me to both support and guide me.

  He knew that having Laura come for Thanksgiving was ratcheting up my anxiety, and he didn’t want to do a single thing to add to my stress level. But he also wasn’t going to tiptoe around the issues behind it.

  “Alright, I should probably get back to the house and start cleaning,” he said, pushing away from the counter. “I may live in a bachelor pad, but it doesn’t have to look like one.”

  “Bachelor?” I asked, closing in on him for a quick hug goodbye.

  He folded me into a bear hug.

  “In name only,” he said, burying his lips in my hair. “Because my heart is about as wrapped up as it can be.”

  TWO

  Toby’s was a zoo.

  Apparently I wasn’t the only one who’d decided to make a last-minute run to the grocery store before the big holiday. There was only one parking spot left in their lot, and I squeezed my car between a massive pick-up truck and a minivan parked at a crooked angle.

  After Gunnar had left, I’d done a quick survey of the refrigerator and cupboards and jotted down a few things I’d need for both the holiday dinner and our other meals. Rain was in the forecast for later in the day so I decided it would be wise to run to the store sooner rather than later.

  The rest of Latney’s residents had obviously come to the same conclusion. There were only a handful of carts left at the front of the store; the rest were being pushed up and down the aisles, the people behind them grabbing food like DC residents do when a mere inch of snow is in the forecast.

  I waved to Sophia and Becky, both pushing their own carts, and nodded coolly at the woman from St. Stephen’s who’d advocated for biblical costumes for the annual Fall Festival party. There were other folks there, too: Trudy, the receptionist from the bank, and Charlotte, Mikey’s sister, navigating a cart with her young daughter strapped into the front. The little girl, normally so cheerful and exuberant, had a blanket in her hand and a thumb in her mouth. Her nose was red, her eyes glassy, and I wondered if she’d just finished a crying jag or if she was fighting a cold.

  I made my way through the aisles, exchanging smiles and murmuring hellos to the people I passed. Despite the hustle and bustle, everyone had time for a quick greeting, and my heart swelled a little as I realized what was happening.

  I belonged.

  Sure, people still thought of me as the stranger who bought the old Konrath house, and some people—especially those aligned with Sheriff Lewis—thought I’d brought trouble and intrigue to their tiny little town, but for the most part, it felt like people were finally beginning to accept me. I was just another townsperson, a face that had become as familiar to them as theirs had become to me.

  And I liked that.

  I rounded the corner and nearly ran over Brad Lattimore, the manager of the grocery store.

  “Rainy,” he said, jumping back so I wouldn’t flatten his toes with the wheels of my cart. “How are you? Finding everything you need?”

  I glanced at my cart. Milk, eggs, flour, produce…the groceries were quickly piling up. “I think so. Busy in here today, huh?”

  Brad wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. His blue button-down shirt had armpit stains, and his tie hung loosely at his neck. “You can say that again! You have a good Thanksgiving, you hear?”

  I nodded and wished him the same and headed for the checkout. The line moved surprisingly fast and ten minutes later, the groceries were loaded in the backseat and I was driving back through town, heading home.

  The smell of grilled burgers hit me as I approached the Wicked Wich. It was barely lunchtime, not quite eleven o’clock, but it seemed as though Mikey had already fired up the grill and was cooking away.

  My stomach growled.

  I loved Mikey’s burger creations. If it were up to me, I’d eat one every day. Unfortunately, my waistline and cholesterol levels disagreed, so I tried to limit myself to a weekly visit. A treat for getting things done around the house or property, or a reward for eating salads for the rest of the week.

  I pulled up to the stop sign and made a quick decision.

  My daughter was coming for two days. Which meant two days of cooking and entertaining loomed in front of me.

  And, yes, I was looking forward to her visit.

  But that didn’t mean I couldn’t reward myself for all of the work I was about to put in.

  I glanced at the backseat filled with groceries and did some mental calculations. The temperature outside was a cool 42 degrees. I had lots of refrigerated items but nothing frozen. At this time of day, Mikey could get a burger from grill to table in under ten minutes. I could eat it even faster.

  Yeah, I had time.

  I pulled to the curb and headed into the Wicked Wich.

  I spied Mikey right away, his back to me as he worked the grill. There were a couple of customers at tables, and one seated at the bar. I looked for Dawn behind the counter. She wasn’t there.

  A man was standing in her place instead.

  A man I didn’t know.

  Mikey glanced my direction and I waved. He gave me a nod in greeting as I made my way to the bar. The guy standing behind the counter was chatting with the guy sitting on one of the stools. He had a beer in front of him, half-full.

  I took a seat a few stools over and offered a smile to the new employee.

  The guy gave me a once-over, then smiled in return. He was younger than me by at least ten years, and wore his blond hair a little long. It flopped in front of his eyes so this combined with the dim lighting in the restaurant made it impossible to get a good look at him. Still, there was something slightly familiar about his
face and the barely tolerant expression he wore.

  He didn’t ask me if I wanted anything, which struck me as odd. I’d just sat down at the bar: wasn’t that a universal sign of wanting to order something?

  “Are you serving lunch yet?” I finally asked.

  The guy glanced at Mikey. “Sure looks like we are.”

  I tried to ignore his tone, or at least not read into it. Maybe he wasn’t trying to be snide and I’d just misinterpreted. I looked at the handwritten menu mounted by the register that advertised the specials of the day. There was a Thanksgiving burger, a patty of meat topped with mashed potatoes and gravy. I was immediately intrigued. Mikey had never made a burger I didn’t like.

  “I’ll have the special,” I told him, pointing at the menu.

  He didn’t grab a pad and write it down. Instead, he turned to Mikey and called, “You hear that, kid? One of your weird specials.”

  I frowned and immediately began scouting the restaurant for Dawn. Now, Dawn Putnam was about as prickly as people came. She was abrupt, abrasive, and definitely didn’t put up with any nonsense. Not from her customers, not from her husband, and definitely not from her skeletal staff. She would have blown a gasket if she’d heard this new employee refer to a menu item in those terms.

  The guy didn’t ask for my drink order. Instead, he turned and started talking to his friend again.

  I cleared my throat and he glanced back at me, a little irritated. “Yeah?”

  “Can I get a diet Coke?” I asked. And then, because he made a face at my request, I added, “And do you know where Dawn is?”

  He scowled. “Who wants to know?”

  “I do,” I said.

  “And who are you?”

  My temper began to flare. I wasn’t Dawn’s biggest fan—not by any means—but this guy was bad news. She deserved to know how he spoke to customers. Even at her most abrasive, Dawn was rarely flat-out rude.

  “I think the better question is who are you?” I said evenly, fixing him with a steely gaze.

  His expression changed, a smile replacing the scowl. It changed his entire countenance, and he went from scary punk to charming schoolboy in two seconds flat.