Popcorn and Panic (Peridale Cafe Cozy Mystery Book 24) by Agatha Frost

Author:Agatha Frost [Frost, Agatha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pink Tree Publishing LTD
Published: 2022-09-12T23:00:00+00:00

15

Olivia didn’t want a thousand cuddles.

She didn’t even want one.

Jessie rocked her for a respectable amount of time, but the more she tried, the more Olivia revealed her tonsils. Jessie passed her sister back to Barker. “Nine months is almost an eternity for her. I know what babies are like. She’ll get used to me.”

As calm as he’d become around Jessie, Barker had reacted to her sudden return with the same shock and confusion underlying his excitement as Julia had experienced. When Jessie snuck off to wash the flight away, Barker had all the same questions Julia hadn’t been able to get the answers to.

“She’ll tell us in her own time.”

“Julia, are you coming to fill us in?”

Julia obliged her gran, rewinding back to talking with Mix at the salon, through her arrest and the diagrams, to Georgia’s reappearance. Dot scribbled it all down on the chalkboard, where the notes from Barker’s office had been edited down in Dot’s mind-mapping style.

“At least you finally got your money back,” Dot said. “Is there any way to get a DNA test done to check if Jett is her father? I still think she’s bonkers, but it would be worth proving. I know he’s dead, but he’s not buried yet. Julia, did Georgia leave any DNA at yours?”

“Just a stained towel,” said Barker. “Two, actually. And let’s not even go into the ethics of what you just said. Georgia hasn’t consented to a test, and Jett is dead.”

“Exactly! What does he care?”

Dot added ‘DNA TEST’ to her ideas section regardless. She added ‘(DELUSIONAL)’ next to it, which Julia thought was the likelier explanation.

“Jax sounds like a more braindead version of Jett,” Dot announced as she dusted her hands, taking in her notes. “My money’s still on Mix.”

“Not illegally gambling again, are you, Dot?” Jessie pushed open the door while towelling her hair. “And things continue to get stranger. Where did your dining room go? Is that a drone?”

“We don’t have a drone,” Julia said with a laugh, glancing at her gran. “We don’t have a drone, do we?”

“It was in the sale!” Dot tugged a box from among the baskets of walkie-talkies and tactical equipment. “You never know when you’ll need an aerial view of something.”

“And it has good pixels,” said Percy. “Or something.”

“Just stay away from airports and army bases.” Barker glanced at the box over Dot’s shoulder. “And don’t let Christie see it. The last thing we need is for him to put us on a watchlist.”

“We are the watch.” Dot shook the box. “And now we have the skies covered.”

“You’ve all lost your minds. Drones and a murder investigation chalkboard? What happened to litter picking and food drives?”

“We do those too.” Percy patted the pile of cardboard boxes marked ‘FOOD BANK’. “We have varied charitable interests.” He yanked on the wire that pulled the red curtains across the board. “And just like magic, it’s a normal dining room.”

That trick might have worked when they’d first chosen Dot and Percy’s dining room as the hub for the neighbourhood watch, but Julia was seeing it through Jessie’s eyes now.

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