Not a Creature Was Purring: A Christmas Cozy Mystery by Summer Prescott

Author:Summer Prescott [Prescott, Summer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Summer Prescott Books
Published: 2022-07-05T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

The three of us left Jack to finish up and packed into Carter’s SUV, headed for the shelter to pick up the carriers that we’d need. I climbed into the passenger seat and Carter opened the rear door on his side for Chloe.

“You’ll have to be in the confinement area,” he said. “Sorry.”

“No biggie.” Chloe slid into the back seat without a qualm. “I’ve always wondered what it would be like back here. It’s roomier than I thought. Criminals deserve leg room too I guess.”

Carter backed out of the driveway, seeming preoccupied, understandably.

“Seems like Jack’s taking all of this in stride,” he commented.

My gaze met Chloe’s in the rearview mirror.

“He’s definitely the same kid underneath,” she agreed. “But clearly he’s more upset about the whole thing with his dad than he’s willing to let on.”

“I’m afraid things are about to get worse,” Carter replied. “It looks like his mom might have something to do with Maddison’s murder.”

“What!” Chloe and I gasped in unison.

“Well, we actually talked to Maddison when the first murder occurred. She was Ava’s best friend according to multiple employees at Jimmy’s. They had their own little disagreements from time to time, of course, but were apparently pretty tight. Maddison was devastated by Ava’s murder – she was an absolute wreck when we spoke to her. She couldn’t believe that Hugo had done it either, but I think that’s how half the town felt in the beginning of all this. No one wanted to believe that a regular guy like Hugo was capable of something like murder. If someone like him could do it, who else might be about to snap, you know?” Carter shook his head.

“Anyway, after the landlady discovered Maddison and we were made aware of the link between the two women, the first thing I did was to go to Hugo to see how he’d react. He was very agitated, and it took a while, but he finally told us that he’d taken Maddison out a few times too. I don’t know how this guy managed to juggle a marriage and two additional relationships without each of them finding out about the others, but as far as he could tell, all of them were oblivious, except for Maddison, who knew the truth about the other two.”

“Wow. The chickens came home to roost in a pretty profound way for him,” I commented.

Chloe snorted and crossed her arms over her chest, shaking her head.

“I can believe it,” she declared. “All of it.”

Carter glanced back at her in the rearview mirror, but she had turned and was staring out the window. “We also discovered that someone did know about Hugo’s extracurricular activities. Maddison’s laptop was analyzed by the tech guys, and they told us that she was getting multiple threatening messages through text and email, which explains why people said she was nervous and anxious all through her last shift at the roadhouse. We ran the IP address and phone number and determined that the messages all came from Emily Brignell.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.