Knockout (A Holly Hands Cozy Mystery—Book 1)

By Mia Gold

Fans of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum and Jana DeLeon's Miss Fortune will find a new character to love in Holly Hands!

Holly Hands. 29. Single mom. Disgraced, former boxing pro. Repo woman.

Repossessing Lamborghinis and other exotic toys from criminals is second-hat for Holly.

But finding a dead body—and solving a murder—is not.

Luckily, Holly has Lucky by her side—a neglected pit bull she found on the wrong side of a job, who refuses to leave her side—and who, like her, has nowhere to go but up.

Together, maybe they can crawl their way out of the urban hell of their bad slice of Baltimore, where coming home at night is even more dangerous than going to work. Maybe Holly can manage to get her young daughter the medical treatment she desperately needs, and manage to get her out of her dangerous public school and into the private school of her dreams. Just maybe, she can fall in love with that private school Dad from the other side of town and start a whole new life.

Or maybe not.

Life has never been easy for Holly. And if the past few days—and the dead body in her trunk—are any indication—it’s about to get a whole lot worse.

KNOCKOUT (A HOLLY HANDS COZY MYSTERY) is book #1 in a riveting new cozy mystery series, a page-turning thriller that grabs you from page one and does not let go. Get ready to find yourself reading all night, bleary-eyed, and falling madly in love with a new character who will fight her way into your heart.

Book #2 (SUCKER PUNCH) and Book #3 (BELOW THE BELT) in the series are also available.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mia Gold
• Release date: Jan 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9781094372167

Book preview

KNOCKOUT

(A Holly Hands Cozy Mystery—Book One)

MIA GOLD

Mia Gold

Debut author Mia Gold is author of the HOLLY HANDS COZY MYSTERY, comprising three books (and counting); the CORA CHASE COZY MYSTERY series, comprising three books (and counting); and of the RUBY STEELE COZY MYSTERY series, comprising three books (and counting). Mia would love to hear from you, so please visit www.miagoldauthor.com to receive free ebooks, hear the latest news, and stay in touch.

Copyright © 2020 by Mia Gold. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Jacket image Copyright Svet_Lana, used under license from Shutterstock.com.

BOOKS BY MIA GOLD

HOLLY HANDS COZY MYSTERY

KNOCKOUT (Book #1)

SUCKER PUNCH (Book #2)

BELOW THE BELT (Book #3)

CORA CHASE COZY MYSTERY

JACKPOT (Book #1)

ALL OR NOTHING (Book #2)

HIGH ROLLER (Book #3)

RUBY STEELE COZY MYSTERY

ON THE ROCKS (Book #1)

EXTRA DIRTY (Book #2)

FULL BODIED (Book #3)

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

Holly Hands Aldren swayed, rocking on her feet like a cobra about to strike. Beneath the spotlights in the small arena behind Glazer’s Bowling Alley, she watched her opponent from across the boxing ring, knowing she was only two fights away from a chance at the championship.

But her excitement quickly faded as she faced the inevitability of what had to be done. A flood of emotions swirled through her chest, and a sob almost crept from her mouth.

She gritted her teeth—this was the first round. She didn’t have to fall—not yet.

She forced a smile, and for her, that smile was a matter of pride. The way some women bragged about other gifts, Holly took pride in her all natural pearly whites. Her ears, on the other hand, would give most cauliflower farmers reason for envy. A gift of the trade. Her nose, though broken once before, had set well enough beneath her sea green eyes, and her body was toned, a happy consequence of years of training.

A jab followed another jab. Holly ducked under a lazy roundhouse, her hair rubbing her opponent’s forearm flying overhead. She leaned in, sending two uppercuts straight to her opponent’s ribs.

Her opponent reeled back, awarded a bloody nose and a new complexion dappled brown and blue.

Behind her, Holly could hear Cannizzaro’s basset hound voice cheering the loudest. Her manager had always known how to bring down the house, with the car and garage thrown in for good measure.

 She risked a glance over, and saw his sweaty face behind the lights of the boxing arena. The sound of the fans echoed through the stadium. The place was packed—nearly five hundred in attendance.

Cannizzaro flashed her a thumbs-up beneath his jiggling chin and gave an emphatic wink before ushering a shooing motion toward her opponent. The gesture was an obvious instruction: finish her.

Holly’s eyes flicked to Lucas, who wasn’t as loud as his uncle—but his eyes blazed with double the passion. If ever there was a boxing aficionado, it would be found in her five-foot-nine, half Italian training partner, hidden somewhere beneath his buzzed head and beak-shaped nose. Lucas wasn’t waving, though; his eyes were fixed on her opponent’s pink shorts, shouting all manner of creative expressions and turns of phrase one might expect to find in the literary halls of the local high school’s bathroom stalls.

Luckily, the expletives were drowned in another round of clapping and cheering and hooting from the Baltimore crowd.

Holly licked her lips, tasting salt and sweat, and refocused on her opponent. Never make it personal. Cannizzaro’s first rule. But for Holly, this fight meant everything.

Pink-trunks, a.k.a. Susan Chips, a.k.a. Chips the Hips, came swaggering forward all bluster and brash. She stood two lip whiskers short of six foot, with legs that would’ve put most tree trunks to shame. She snarled, her fuzzy lip tilting up as she squared her shoulders, gesturing with her gloved hand toward Holly. She shouted incoherently through her mouthpiece.

Holly, though, remained quiet, still forcing her smile, still enjoying the moment as best she could—she might not ever have one like it again. Besides, trash talk wasn’t her style.

Chips howled and this time came rushing in. Holly’s eyes flashed as she spotted the opening. A quick feint and an uppercut—Chips was all-in, but Holly could call her bluff.

Except, she didn’t.

Instead, she blocked a wild swipe, grappled, and waited for the ref in his black and whites to separate them. She avoided ringing Chips’s bell for the rest of the round, preferring to allow the timekeeper to ring his instead.

She disentangled, smelling the sweat of the arena, the cheap scent of concession stand beer on the air, the odor of the harbor sweeping through the open, upper windows in the back of the gray building.

The ref sent them off to their corners, and Holly watched as Chips collapsed in her stool, gratefully guzzling at the water pushed to her mouth, spitting out her mouthpiece and listening to her coach’s instructions as stray hands iced her already forming bruises.

Holly’s gaze flicked through the ropes, all the way to the back of the arena, and spotted the man in the baseball cap leaning against the back wall, his face illuminated only by the pale glow of his oversized Samsung—a compensation if ever she’d seen one. He had two warts on his chin. He scowled at her from beneath the bill of his hat, and scratched at his chin. He inched an eyebrow and fixed his gaze on her.

She knew what she had to do…

But could she? How could she—Holly Hands had never thrown a fight in her life.

For her eight-year-old daughter, Holly knew she’d throw more than a fight. Medical bills were expensive, way too expensive. More than even her family knew. They needed the money, and Olivia needed the help. As much as she loved boxing, as much as it gave her a reason to wake up in the morning, none of it mattered when weighed against her daughter.

The man in the shadows just looked at her, seemingly trying to cow her with the force of personality alone. His greasy hair beneath his cap and his equally unctuous gaze made Holly feel like she needed a double shower. She held his gaze a moment longer, waited for him to blink, and only then did she look away.

Holly had been fighting her entire life—fighting in a fighter’s family in the heart of Baltimore. Fighting since before she could remember. She wasn’t about to let some skeezeball with a warty lip give her the stink eye for free.

Then again… she’d already agreed to the deal, hadn’t she?

Now, her smile was completely missing. The joy that normally came in a fight, the exhilaration, had vanished.

For a brief moment, she could only think of her daughter… She swallowed, feeling a flicker of the same sympathy now redirected inward. Her shoulders tightened and she closed her eyes for a second as she leaned back in her stool, bare shoulders pressing against the padded post in her corner.

A flash of an image in her mind: A small smiling face streaked with spaghetti sauce. Two sea green eyes staring up. A little grin on little lips, and a giggle that would’ve melted even a heart encased in cement.

Holly found her smile coming back, if only for a moment. This time, a deeper smile, a more intense emotion. Some things mattered more than purpose. Some things mattered more than chasing a dream.

She felt a hand shaking her shoulder.

Hands, Lucas’s voice echoed in her ear. Come on—liven up out there. You had an opening for a knockdown, yeah? You’re too fast, too quick. She ain’t got a chance, all right? Just focus!

Holly looked at her training partner, and her gaze flicked to his uncle, her manager. Cannizzaro was leaning through the ropes, but not speaking. He just watched her, shrewd.

Everything all right? he asked, his voice gruff and low, a bit of his belly visible through half-done buttons near his waist. His wife, Moira Cannizzaro, the queen of casseroles in three counties, loved her husband, feeding him so there was simply more to love. Holly adored them both—though she’d once discovered the casseroles’ secret ingredients were a pinch of love and two heaps of lard. Hadn’t gone down the same since.

She shrugged one shoulder, nodded.

He grunted. We’re counting on you, yeah? Go get ’em.

Holly winced, eyes flicking back to Lucas. Her training partner glared now, breathing. We worked hard for this, he said, slowly. He glanced toward the shadowed portion of the gym, following her gaze for a moment, then looked back, some of his famous temper beginning to show. Real hard, yeah? Hands, ya hear me? You don’t want to do anything stupid.

She thought of early mornings—Lucas coming in at four a.m. sometimes just to warm her up, just to help her practice. Taking shot after shot, round and round the ring for hours before the rest of the gym even arrived. He wanted this as much as she did.

Hands, Lucas said, his voice rising. You saw those shots—why didn’t you take them? Hey, hey—look here.

But the bell clanged, and she pushed off, grateful not to have to meet their eyes anymore: the second round had started. 

She could feel her adrenaline swirling, swirling, and she danced on her heels. She half glanced toward warty-baseball-cap-in-the-shadows, and could feel his odious eyes fixed on her. She could feel the heat of her trainer, the shouting of Lucas behind her. With a glance of shame, she looked to the part of the stadium seating she’d forced herself to ignore up until now: three men, each of them the size of small trees. One with gray hair, the other two with shaved heads and shoulders as wide as most linebackers’, or six-lane highways.

Her two brothers and her dad caught her eyes. Not the sort to wave, but her dad raised a fist in solidarity. Her older brother, Freddie, standing on the right side of the old man, was rumored to have put half his rent on the fight.

She winced, feeling hot shame douse her.

She couldn’t… She simply couldn’t…

Then again… She swallowed, tasting salt and sweat. She breathed, huffing, her chest heaving, ignoring the crowd, the lights, the eyes burrowing into her soul.

Remember what’s at stake, she thought to herself. A chance at an operation. Olivia would finally be able to live the life of a normal eight-year-old girl. She didn’t deserve this. Didn’t deserve weekend trips to the hospitals instead of to soccer practice.

And for a moment, in the heart of the fight, in the heart of the calm—the eye of the storm where the winds fell still and the rain stopped falling—she allowed her mind to drift, to sway on the storm-abandoned seas.

She thought of one thing… only one.

There was no other choice. She thought of spaghetti-stained lips, of an echoing little giggle.

Holly swayed, head moving, body always in motion, an impossible target.

She dropped her left hand just a gauge.

Chips was no slouch—she spotted the opening. If Holly had wanted to, she could have avoided the blow. A powerful roundhouse, meant to chop wood. At the very least, she could have leaned back, minimizing the damage.

But Holly had made her decision. Besides, she deserved a hurting.

She leaned in to the blow, sending her cheek to meet the flying fist. Her head snapped back, her neck took half of it and she reeled, spinning like a corkscrew, and toppled, slamming to the canvas. A loud whoosh of air exploded from her lungs; she blinked, her eyes bulging as she stared up at the lights above. She could hear the noise of the crowd reaching a crescendo, but at the same time, discerned the steady count of the ref.

Even now, even after an axe-swing of a punch, Holly knew she could get up. She’d made her name on taking punishment, on trading blush for bruises. But now she lay still, lay on the mat like a good little girl.

Her own fury at herself, with her sweat slicked to her back and arms, she supposed would be nothing compared to the disappointment and disdain from her family, from her manager, from everyone.

She wondered if her father was still holding up a fist.

She thought about half her brother’s rent, bet on the fight… She’d been too late to warn him.

Five… six…

The count was echoed by the crowd, the ref’s fingers springing out one at a time—a passing favor to half the audience.

Seven… eight… nine… ten.

Done.

CHAPTER TWO

Holly’s shoulder pressed against the canvas and her breath came in labored rolls, rising from her clenched abdomen. Chips stood over her, seemingly half stunned herself. The crowd, for its part, had ushered a series of shouts which had faded to a confused silence. With a shaking hand, Holly pressed her glove against the canvas and hesitantly began to rise.

The ref was stepping in, but Chips shouldered past him and extended a hand, hooking Holly’s boxing glove with hers. At least there was someone left with a spoonful of respect.

She’d done it. The fight was over.

Trembling, Holly began to rise with Chips’s help. The six-foot contender with corn rows turned after sending Holly back toward her corner, wheeling around, arms extended, hurrying to celebrate with her corner—all of whom looked like children in a candy store, laughing and shouting and waving their hands.

Holly could just barely hear the ringmaster’s voice echoing through the arena, …defeating Holly Hands…

Holly’s jaw was on fire, her cheek throbbing from where it had been whacked. She winced as she moved toward Lucas and his uncle. Both of them were staring at her like her mascara-streaked face had just appeared on the news, over some heading about a hit-and-run. A little more than a decade ago, Holly’s worst nightmare had been to wander stark naked onto the stage in front of her tenth grade class. The horror of that dream had haunted her for years.

This was worse. Much worse.

Holly leaned against the ropes in her corner, her eyes closed. She knew why she’d done it—she’d had no choice. But that didn’t make it feel any better.

She looked up, her eyes searching, landing somewhere near the stands where the three tree-sized men had been waiting. But her family was already moving. Her father and brothers were stalking away in disgust, moving toward the exit beneath the bleachers. She spotted Freddie, her older brother, lean in and crumple a ticket, tossing it angrily at a green trash can. The balled up paper bounced off the lid and landed on the ground, where Ernie, her other brother, kicked it hard.

Her father looked back for a moment, his eyes piercing across the stadium. His hand no longer held a fist and his eyes only held accusation. Most people said he had kind eyes. And while this was true, he also did this thing with his jaw, where a tooth would click in the back as he clenched. He reserved this delightful little gesture for when he was in his worst mood. As kids, they’d always known to warn the others before dinner, Dad’s tooth is clicking! in the solemn and hushed tones of palliative care workers, each desperately hoping they weren’t the source of the ominous click.

Now, Holly couldn’t hear the tooth, but she could see the clenching of his jaw, and she knew full well she was the source.

She found she couldn’t hold his familiar gaze and quickly glanced away. A moment later, when she glanced up again, her family had already left—the very first in the crowd of five hundred to exit the arena. All of them, even her dad, were boxers. They would have known she’d thrown.

And they weren’t the only ones.

Are you joking? Lucas was yelling at her, his shaved head jutting through the ropes and peering up at her like a scruffy version of whack-a-mole. You’re joking?

Lucas’s uncle had a hand on his nephew’s shoulder and was trying to pull him back through the ropes, but Holly’s fiery training partner was still shouting. Somehow, though, his words didn’t quite register, as if she were hearing him from underwater.

Perhaps Chips’s haymaker had knocked a screw or two loose after all.

Holly just breathed, sweat trickling past the tip of her nose and tapping against the canvas between her feet.

Lucas, seemingly aware she wasn’t paying attention, jabbed a finger up toward her, through the ropes.

Her manager, Lucas’s uncle, was just staring at her. His thick, drooping mustache was pure white and angled past his equally large chin. Was it worth it? he asked, looking at her.

She closed her eyes against a sudden headache.

Cannizzaro just looked at her, long and hard. Oh, Holly, he said with a small shake of his head.

That was bad. He never called her just Holly unless he was really upset.

She tried to find the words, something to say, but her head was still ringing. Cannizzaro sighed in disappointment and then turned, moving after his nephew before Lucas started a fight with someone in the audience.

Holly hardly registered them leaving.

Her mind was on her daughter’s future, paved in the money she’d just earned.

The hard part was over; now she just had to pick it up.

***

The chill air nipped at Holly’s nose and near-dented cheek. She’d changed in the locker behind the arena before scramming quick. Now, though, as she stood in a hoodie and sweatpants on the sidewalk in the downtown harbor strip, in distant sight of the blue-gray coast, her eyes flicked toward the alley over her shoulder. By the looks of things a man was peeing into a garbage can. This place was nothing if not classy.

She thought of the man in the baseball cap back in the arena—the loan shark who’d offered her