Green with Envy Read online

  Green with Envy

  A Heather’s Forge Cozy Mystery

  Book 1

  By

  N.L. Cameron

  www.NLCameron.com

  Copyright

  First Edition, December 2017

  Copyright © 2017 by N.L. Cameron

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is entirely coincidental. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and situations are the product of the author's imagination.

  All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written consent from the author.

  License

  This book is available exclusively on Amazon.com. If you found this book for free or from a site other than an Amazon.com country specific website it means the author was not compensated for this book and you have likely obtained this book through an unapproved distribution channel.

  Table of Contents

  Green with Envy

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  More Books From N.L. Cameron

  About The Author

  Chapter 1

  Heather’s Forge, the eagle has landed! I yanked the parking brake on my old battered red Ford station wagon in front of the pump at the gas station. A painted sign hung over the canopy: Max’s Garage. I swung out and slammed the door. The freezing cold wind hit me in the face but nothing could dampen my enthusiasm.

  I took my first good look around the little town that would be my home for…well, hopefully forever. Okay, so it wasn’t much to look at. Everything there was to see lined up along two streets crossed in the center of town. Across from the gas station, the local bar towered over every other building in the town. A huge sequined sign over the door read in fancy curlicues: NightHawks. Not a very creative name. I hoped that didn’t portend the character of the rest of this one-horse burg.

  A statue of a young woman stood at the crossroads. A brass plaque under her full-length skirt hem read Heather Calliwell, daughter of Ashfield Calliwell. So that was one mystery solved. A small park with a tasteful fountain surrounded the statue.

  Down the street, I spotted the windows of a rustic antique store with a book section on one side. Looked interesting, but I had more important things on my mind. For some reason known only to themselves, the people of this town supported a florist shop almost as big as the bar. Curious.

  Next to that stood the police station. That was a good place for it. Then the drunks wouldn’t hurt themselves walking from the bar to the jail. Potter’s Hardware and the DoubleDown Diner completed the picture. So, that was the whole town in a tea cup.

  An old guy tottered out of the garage section of the gas station. That must be Max. He pulled the handle out of the pump and started fueling up my car. I couldn’t help but beam at him. My first local! “Cold, isn’t it?”

  He gave me a sad look from under his bushy eyebrows. Stupid thing to say, Allie. Of course, it’s cold. It’s winter in the mountains. What do you expect?

  I tried again, and this time I stuck out my hand. Another mistake. My fingers went instantly numb. “I’m Allie Garrett. I’m Beatrice Garrett’s great-niece. Maybe you’ve heard of her. I’m going to take over the Barrell Inn since she died six months ago.”

  He made a sour face and humphed under his breath. He ignored my hand until my fingers turned blue. I stuffed it back into my pocket. Well, that didn’t go as planned, but maybe it was a fluke. Maybe this Max was a cranky old eccentric who didn’t like visitors. I was sure the rest of the locals were friendly and welcoming.

  I turned away while I waited for him to finish. I was too excited to let one person spoil it. I’d looked forward to this for weeks. This was the first day of the rest of my life. I was starting over in a new town, with a new job, and a whole new life in front of me.

  Even so, I couldn’t escape the sinking sensation hanging over the town. My great-aunt Beatrice turned up dead at her inn six months ago. Maybe the locals didn’t want to talk about it. The local medical examiner had ruled she’d died from natural causes, but I’d always had my doubts.

  The death certificate stated she’d died of cardiac arrest, but Aunt Beatrice never had any health problems. She exercised and ate right. She wasn’t taking any medications, and she ran the Barrell Inn single-handedly for years. Then, all of a sudden, she turned up dead on the parlor floor, to be found by one of her guests? Sounded fishy to me.

  Then again, maybe I’d been watching too many detective shows. Still, you gotta wonder. I’d be the first to admit Aunt Beatrice surprised the pants off me by leaving me the inn in her will. Me!

  She’d never married, and she’d kept her distance from the rest of the family since I was small. My dad told me she’d had a falling out with somebody, but he wouldn’t tell me who or what the falling out was about—not that it mattered. Still, I would have thought she had someone in her life closer than me, her nephew’s daughter.

  Anyway, here I was, and I was gonna make a life for myself here if it killed me. I’d never lived in the country before, but I couldn’t stand city life anymore, especially not after the way Tim cheated on me like that with that sex kitten I thought was my best friend.

  I shook those thoughts out of my head. I refused to consider Tim’s existence ever again, especially when I had so much to look forward to. I had a million plans. I was going to restore the Barrell Inn to its former glory.

  I’d researched Heather’s Forge before I drove up here. The Barrell Inn used to be a focal point in this town in past generations. City people came up here to drink during Prohibition. Most of the families living in the area settled here generations ago. Now more outsiders and tourists had started to move in.

  If the Barrell Inn had been a focal point before, I could make it that way again. Aunt Beatrice let the place slip these last few years. I was gonna have to work on that. I would use some modern-day marketing techniques. I would make it a household name.

  Max finished pumping the gas, and I paid. He wouldn’t even look at me. What did he know about Aunt Beatrice and her death that I didn’t? The longer I spent in this town, the more my spider sense prickled—even if I had only been here ten minutes.

  I tried one more time to engage in casual conversation, but Max retreated to the garage, right behind the No Entry sign. So much for that brilliant idea.

  I hopped in my car and fired it up. I cruised out of town toward Lake Ashfield. The sooner I got to the inn and sorted things out, the better. As soon as I left the town behind and drove through the trees, the cloud lifted. Of course, Aunt Beatrice had died a natural death. Why shouldn’t she? She was eighty years old, after all. Wasn’t that what eighty-year-olds did?

  All at once, I slammed on the brakes and screeched to a stop. I had to catch my breath. There was the inn. It was a big old timber frame house set among the woods overlooking Lake Ashfield. A sweeping vista of dark treetops framed the crystal-clear lake melting into the sky. The sun glinted off a large glass greenhouse tucked among the trees behind the main building. This was the most perfect scene I could possibly imagine, and it was all mine.

  I got my car moving again, and since I didn’t know what else to do, I parked in the main guest parking lot near the front
door. I climbed the steps to the large overhanging front porch and waltzed right in like I owned the place. After all, I did own the place!

  I didn’t see anybody around when I stepped into the carpeted front hall. A staircase with a carved wooden bannister rose to the second floor. The front desk was deserted. No wonder the inn fell out of use. With service like that, no one would want to stay here. I was gonna have to change that.

  I looked down the hall. Still nobody. I took a few tentative steps in both directions. I stuck my nose into the dining room, the parlor, the library, and the card room. The place was deserted. If anybody was staying here, they must have been taking care of themselves.

  I called up the stairs. “Hello!”

  The building creaked in answer. This was ridiculous. I made up my mind right there I wasn’t putting up with this. I was the owner. I could do what I wanted. I didn’t have to wait for any lackluster service people to welcome me or invite me in.

  I got my suitcase from the car, parked it by the front desk, and started rifling the papers I found in the drawers. A big book lay open on the desk. Names of guests and the dates of their visits dated all the way back thirty years. That would come in handy when it came to marketing. Past guests would be interested to know the place was under new management and I was taking customer service seriously.

  A black cat slinked down the stairs and hopped onto the desk in front of me. She purred and wound her tail around my face while I tried to read the ledger. I stroked her and tried to push her out of the way, but she kept twisting around and blocking my view.

  I found a cash box with three twenty-dollar bills and a fifty parked in the desk’s bottom drawer. I was just in the middle of counting it up when a lanky man trotted out of the kitchen. He screeched to a stop and fixed me with sparkling green eyes. “What do you think you’re doing? That’s private.”

  I squared my shoulders at him. This was the moment of truth. I thrust out my hand to him. “I’m Allie Garrett. I’m Beatrice Garrett’s niece, and I inherited the inn. I’m here to take over managing the place.”

  He cast a disdainful glance at my hand. “And how do I know you’re telling the truth?”

  My jaw dropped. I wasn’t expecting that. “What exactly do you want me to do—show you some form of ID? Who else would I be? Do you normally catch your guests going through the cash box?”

  He threw his nose in the air by way of answer. Now he was making me mad. I stomped over to my suitcase and dug out the file folder of papers I brought with me. I flipped it open. “See? Here’s the will. It says right there she left me the inn. Now start talking and tell me who you are, because I’m your new boss and that’s all you need to know about me.”

  He changed his tune in the blink of an eye. He waved his hand at me and broke into a brilliant smile. “Oh, of course! Why didn’t you say so? I’m Nathaniel, Nathaniel Rowe. I’m the gardener, but I also do odd jobs around the inn. That’s what I’m doing in here.”

  He snatched my hand and pumped it so hard my shoulder almost fell off. Then he rushed over to the desk and shoved the cat onto the floor. “Get down, Pixie. You have to use a firm hand with her or she gets into everything. She’s always bringing random stuff into the inn. She brought a sparrow into the dining room and made a terrible mess spreading the feathers around.”

  He grabbed the cash box and pushed it back into its drawer. “If there’s anything you need, you just let me know. I know almost everything there is to know about this inn. I helped Beatrice run this place for years. It’s such a tragedy, her dying the way she did. Don’t you think? Now you’re here, and it’s a new era for us all. Would you like me to show you to your own quarters? They’re right back here.”

  He opened a door behind the front desk. Without waiting for permission, he grabbed the handle of my suitcase and wheeled it through the door so I had no choice but to follow.

  The doorway led into a huge suite of rooms. A large living room with a wood-burning stove and tasteful furniture communicated with three bedrooms and a modern kitchen.

  “This is the owner’s residence,” Nathaniel told me. “Maybe you’d like to get settled in.”

  “Actually, I’d like to take a look around. Thank you for your help. Maybe I’ll wander around the gardens later.”

  The helpful smile evaporated off his face. and he scowled at me again. “I can show you around as well as anybody.”

  “I’d rather go alone. Thank you anyway.”

  His frown deepened—if that was possible. Then he threw up his hand with an exasperated gasp and stormed off without a word. I stared after him. What was that all about?

  Chapter 2

  I shrugged off my less-than-stellar introduction to Nathaniel Rowe, gardener. I was the owner here. I didn’t have to put up with any attitude from him or anybody else. I headed down the hall toward two swinging doors leading into the kitchen.

  Enormous clouds of steam misted over the place. I swam through the murk to find a tall dark-haired woman standing at the big iron stove. Huge cauldrons of some unidentifiable brew simmered on the surface. They cast their plumes of fragrant steam into the air.

  She didn’t notice me until I tapped her on the shoulder. She whirled around so fast droplets of moisture flew off the wooden spoon in her hand. “Aaargh! What are you doing in here? Guests aren’t allowed in the kitchen. It’s strictly against Health and Safety Regulations.”

  “I’m not a guest. I’m Allie Garrett. I’m the new owner.”

  “Owner!” she shrieked.

  I tried to play it off. “You must be the cook.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “I’m Camille Hayes.”

  I smiled. “Great. I’m just taking my first look around. Would you mind showing me your menu and purchase orders for the last six months—not now, of course—just when you get a chance.”

  She turned back to her work. “I can’t do that. They’re strictly confidential.”

  My eyes popped out. “Confidential! How can they be confidential from the owner?”

  She spun around again. She set the fist holding the spoon on her hip and cocked her head to one side. “I don’t know who you’re used to dealing with wherever you come from, but I’m a trained chef, you know. My menus are my personal intellectual property. If you want to use your own menus, go right ahead, but you won’t get any help from me.”

  I summoned all my willpower to remain calm. “The purchase orders aren’t your intellectual property when my aunt paid for the supplies out of her own pocket. I understand you don’t want to stop what you’re doing to go through all that right now, so just tell me where you keep them. I can take care of myself.”

  She bent over her witch’s brew. “No. If you want to see the purchase orders, you can find them yourself.”

  I couldn’t stop staring at her. This couldn’t be happening. Why was everybody so unfriendly? If I didn’t think they were too isolated to understand good manners, I might start to think they were hiding something.

  I couldn’t stand there gawking at some looney cook, though. I would find the purchase orders later. Looking at them was no big emergency. I was just curious. I could take this slow on my first day.

  I turned around to walk out of the kitchen and ran smack dab into a tall man with short brown hair and pale blue eyes. I bounced off his chest with a startled cry.

  He stood still and waited for me to pull myself together. My hand flew to my heart. “You scared me.”

  He scanned me up and down. “The new owner, huh?”

  I took a closer look at him. His tight black T-shirt stretched across a solid chest, and his jeans bulged around chiseled thighs. Calluses darkened his fingers. He might be actually handsome if he wasn’t so ice cold. “What’s that got to do with you?”

  “I’m Levi Stokes,” he replied. “I work here as a handyman.”

  I caught my breath. “I’m Allie Garrett.”

  “I heard.”

  I cast a glance back at Camille, but she didn’t
turn around. So, Levi had heard my conversation with Camille. He was standing right there behind me when Camille gave me the big smack-down.

  I couldn’t look him in the face, so I hurried out of the kitchen. To my chagrin, he followed me back to the front desk. I covered my embarrassment by making chit-chat. “So… how well did you know my aunt?”

  “I didn’t know her,” Levi told me. “I only came to work here five months ago, after she died. I hear a lot about her, though.”

  My ears perked up. “What did you hear?”

  “I hear she was something of a dragon. She had a way of ordering the staff around, making enemies, and generally turning people away. That sort of thing.”

  Now I really got interested. “Tell me more.”

  “I know she didn’t interact much with people in town. That’s really all I can tell you.”

  “That explains the reaction I got at the gas station. The guy wouldn’t even talk to me when I told him what I was doing here.”

  At that moment, a heavy-set lady in a tailored traveling suit clumped down the stairs. She didn’t even look at me before she started thundering loud enough to be heard in the next county. “What is wrong with this place? Where’s the room service? I don’t even have a drinks fridge in my room. Where’s the bell boy? I pulled the bell rope in my room ten times, and he never came.”

  “I’m sorry, Miss…” I began.

  She fixed me with her flashing eyes. Her jowls jiggled when she moved her head. “It’s Mrs., Mrs. Ornelia Forester to be precise, and I’ll have you know I’ve stayed in some of the finest five-star hotels in the world. I’ve sailed on the finest luxury liners you ever saw, and this place takes the cake. The cook told me you don’t even have any caviar for breakfast. What kind of a place is this, if you don’t have caviar?”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way,” I replied, “but this isn’t a five-star hotel. We’re a country inn, and we’re never going to have caviar for breakfast. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’m quite sure any literature you read about the inn would have said the same thing.”