Eternal Forest: An English small town cozy mystery (The Seacastle Mysteries Book 2) by PJ Skinner

Author:PJ Skinner [Skinner, PJ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-08-30T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

Mouse couldn’t have been happier when I asked him to use his hacking skills to find out about David de Frontenac’s murky past. He set himself up in the window seat of the café, barricaded off from visitors by a couple of sturdy kitchen chairs. He had become a fixture in the Vintage, as the café was called. Many people with zero interest in vintage or antique goods made a detour to the cheap end of the high street, just to have a coffee and make eyes at Mouse. His regency good looks appealed to the Mills and Boon crowd and he flirted with everybody, regardless of age. He enjoyed the attention and always had time for the shy or lonely. I felt privileged to be his sort-of stepmother.

Our lunchtime regulars came and went that day, but Mouse never left his seat in the window. I tried my best to be welcoming and social, but some raised eyebrows made it clear the clientele considered me a poor substitute. I’m better at sarcastic banter than small talk, and it shows. Even a large angry herring gull tapping the window with its beak and demanding food failed to distract Mouse from his search. The clouds scudded past on a fresh breeze and I shut the windows to prevent the napkins blowing off the tables. As I passed by, I gave him an absentminded kiss on the top of his head. How could I be unhappy with such riches?

Amanda made Mouse a sandwich and a cup of tea, and they sat together chatting and scrolling through their phones. I noticed Mouse shut his laptop when she came over to him. It told me he didn’t want her to know about his search, which I found interesting. Amanda had showed signs of a crush on David, but I thought her interest in Mouse had cancelled it out. Perhaps they had a past? I hoped Mouse would not discover things he would find distressing. His search was bound to turn up some of David’s secrets, good or bad. I hadn’t told Lexi about our continuing interest in David’s murder. She did not seem surprised to learn he had been murdered, and she didn’t seem that interested in finding out who did it either.

Instead, she had gone back to her job of convincing the stakeholders to vote for the sanctuary. Since he had been murdered, Lexi had leaned on them to create it as his legacy, an argument which seemed to work better than saving the environment. David’s murder had generated a mountain of free publicity for the sanctuary which she intended to milk.

‘This is our fifteen minutes of fame,’ she said. ‘I can drum up hundreds of projects for the consultancy on the back of it.’

She posed for photographs and endured many carbon-copy interviews, sounding devastated and determined to carry on David’s legacy in all of them. Her telephone never stopped ringing. Amanda fielded the calls and emailed the consultancy bank details to donors and took on more responsibility in the company.

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