Dead Groupie: Cozy Mystery Short Story

By S. Y. Robins

After a long move, the drama of settling in, and the almost foreign world of New York after living her whole life in Tennessee, Jenny is having a hard time adjusting. When she takes a cooking class to get her out of the house and meet new people she never expects to be offered a place in a cooking competition, or that she'd become a murder suspect! When Jenny's husband's old flame turns up dead after a scene is made at the competition all eyes turn to Jenny. But all is not as it seems and maybe that old flame was more of a fling? And perhaps that fling wasn't even that much? As Jenny struggles to introduce good old-fashioned southern cooking to the competition in the north she has to fight two battles; one for a trophy and the other for her freedom. Will her husband, Derrick, be enough to get her through one of the hardest battles of her life, or will duplicity and a whole lot of crazy be more than Jenny can defeat?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lovy Books Ltd
• Release date: Dec 20, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386094449

Book preview

1

Jenny, have you seen my gloves? Jenny turned from plaiting one of her twin daughter’s curly hair into a French braid and called out to her husband.

They’re hanging over the fireplace darling; you left them there this morning after you cleared the snow from the driveway. Jenny smiled as she went back to plaiting her daughter’s hair, thinking to herself that she was the ultimate mystery solver in this house.

Bending down once she had finished with Macie’s hair she kissed her blonde haired and green-eyed daughter, the spitting image of her father in tiny feminine form, on the top of the head, squeezing the three year old girl’s shoulders.

Tell Mercy it’s her turn my love. Jenny said, sending her giggling daughter to get her sister.

A little girl that looked just like Macie, but with a tiny scar just beside of her nose from a fall when the girls were learning to walk, came into the bedroom Jenny shared with her husband, Derrick, and sat at the stool in front of her mother’s vanity.

Where are we going today, Mommy? Mercy asked, fiddling with some of the bottles in front of her while her mother brushed her hair out.

I thought we’d go pick out a Christmas tree, get some new decorations, and maybe see Santa. What do you think of that? Jenny asked, smiling into the mirror as her little girl looked up at her with excitement in her eyes.

Can we have a black and yellow tree? With bee decorations? And I know just what I want to ask Santa for! Mercy said in a high-pitched voice, her excitement plain to see.

Jenny suspected the little girl wanted something to do with bees for her Christmas present but kept the thought to herself.

Well, darling, I’m not sure we’ll find much in the way of a black and yellow tree, but perhaps we can find some decorations in those colors. We can put two smaller trees in your nursery, if you’d like? Jenny suggested, hoping to appease the little girl with her own tree. It meant having one for Macie as well but if it made her girls happy, she was happy.

Jenny finished Mercy’s hair and finished her own, taking the rollers out and brushing her own blonde hair out with her fingers, letting her hair settle into a large halo around her head. The look wasn’t necessarily the current fashion but Derrick loved it. Pleasing him was far more important to Jenny than pleasing some fan magazine or the newspapers so she smiled, loving how the golden curls shone in the light of her own private bathroom.

You ready, honey? She heard Derrick call from downstairs and grabbed her bag before heading down the stairs.

Here I am, are we all ready? Looking around Jenny saw her daughters, their nanny Isadora that helped Jenny with the girls at home and when they went out, serving as security, and her husband.

She looked up at the tall man, his laughing green eyes smiling down at her, his charming, cheeky grin melting her heart for the one millionth time. Oh, he is so handsome! Jenny pecked his lips with her own as everyone walked out of the front door