Cards Shards and Danger

By Lizzie Lewis

A second attempt to hold the previously abandoned celebratory meal at Parke’s with Janika, Toby, Courtney and Ollie ends once again in catastrophe. There are accusations all round, but who is innocent and who is being set up? Janika wants to help sort out the innocent from the guilty, because she’s about to be arrested for a crime she didn’t commit. And Courtney is suspended from the CID.
Amabelia Flores, who is opening a small flower shop just up the road from Button Up, is suspected of giving false evidence about Janika to the police. But why would she do that? What harm has Janika done to her? And when Janika looks into the florist’s background, she discovers a suspicious past ‒ or is there something important that she has yet to discover?
Janika and Courtney hold their own investigation into the accusations which are the subject of two separate police enquiries, and try to find the connection. Toby Walton? Fortunately for Janika, he’s still hanging in there ‒ for now. Then their investigation takes them all to the edge of disaster.

• Language: English
• Publisher: White Tree Publishing
• Release date: Dec 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9781913950750

Book preview

About the Book

A second attempt to hold the previously abandoned celebratory meal at Parke’s with Janika, Toby, Courtney and Ollie ends once again in catastrophe. There are accusations all round, but who is innocent and who is being set up? Janika wants to help sort out the innocent from the guilty, because she’s about to be arrested for a crime she didn’t commit. And Courtney is suspended from the CID.

Amabelia Flores, who is opening a small flower shop just up the road from Button Up, is suspected of giving false evidence about Janika to the police. But why would she do that? What harm has Janika done to her? And when Janika looks into the florist’s background, she discovers a suspicious past ‒ or is there something important that she has yet to discover?

Janika and Courtney hold their own investigation into the accusations which are the subject of two separate police enquiries, and try to find the connection. Toby Walton? Fortunately for Janika, he’s still hanging in there ‒ for now. Then their investigation takes them all to the edge of disaster.

Cards Shards and Danger

A Button Up Detective Agency Cozy Mystery #5

by

Lizzie Lewis ©2022

This eBook ISBN: 978-1-913950-75-0

Also available as a paperback

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-913950-76-7

Published by

White Tree Publishing

Bristol

UNITED KINGDOM

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Cards Shards and Danger is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner of this abridged edition.

Table of Contents

Cover

About the Book

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

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Epilogue

The Abi Button Cozy Mystery Romance Series

The Button Up Detective Agency Cozy Mystery Series

About White Tree Publishing

Chapter 1

My diary is just about empty for the next few days. The only proper job on my books is next Tuesday at a large detached house five miles out of town on the Brevelstone road. The owner, the sole occupant called Nigel Frampton, is a rather unusual man in his fifties. He’s convinced that aliens are landing in his garden at night.

He wants me to set up a camera so he can prove it to the police. The police, it seems, are not totally convinced by his reports. His words! I guess I should be visiting his doctor rather than the man. But if it helps him to have a camera set up, I’ll do it for him. And I’ll make my hourly rate clear. I might not be over-busy, but I don’t intend to waste my time.

The only reason I’m prepared to go along with this nonsense is the possibility of earthbound intruders in his garden who are up to no good. The man seems rather vulnerable, and whoever the intruders are – assuming there are any – they might be planning something unpleasant.

But that’s next Tuesday, and between now and then the big event will be tomorrow at Parke’s, by far the poshest restaurant in town ‒ and reputed to be the most expensive. Having been there a couple of times with Piers Pillinger for morning coffee, and also for the disastrous celebratory meal for four, I can’t argue with that. We had to pay for our meals, but never got round to eating them!

I’m sitting in the window of my upstairs office, scratching around at my usual breakfast of muesli, when something interesting catches my eye further up the road. My office is above the Button Up coffee shop owned jointly by Abi Wells and Melanie Donovan.

I’ve only been here a few months, and I’m still waiting for business to pick up, especially clients who are able to pay, rather than clients taking advantage of my soft nature to offer to work for them pro bono.

What has captured my interest is activity at the old tobacconist’s shop a bit further up, on the opposite side of the road, next to the launderette that I use for major items like bedding and towels. Underwear goes in the kitchen sink. That’s better than sitting with strangers while they watch my undies going round in the machine.

There are very few retail shops in the road. Most of the shops have been turned into offices. That helps Button Up for customers, but doesn’t do much to the neighbourhood generally.

The tobacconist’s shop has been empty for as long as I’ve been here, and Abi says it’s been empty for more than two years. Although Button Up is only on two floors, it is a slightly later addition to the road, where nearly every premises has three floors.

I knew the building was sold, and Abi says she’s heard that a florist has bought it. It has separate living accommodation on the two floors above, and the florist will shortly be setting up business. Shortly looks like now.

I knew Abi at school when she was Abi Button, and she is now my landlady – although I’m sure she wouldn’t want to be known by that title. Like most of us, she wants to be seen as perpetually young.

My office is combined with a very small studio flat, or what I still think of as a bedsit. The office is the larger part of the floor area, with two windows overlooking the road directly outside. It has the two small leather armchairs. I’m sitting next to one of the two large windows with a good view of the road. The other window is more or less taken up with a large board advertising my business, the Button Up Detective Agency, run by me, Janika Jones.

I’m so distracted by what’s happening at the tobacconist’s shop that I almost forget how boring my muesli is. I know I can mix bits and pieces with it, but I’m trying to cut down on sugar. By cut down, I’m ignoring the fact that shortly below in Button Up coffee shop I’ll be having an apple Danish or something similar, along with a large cappuccino. At least I don’t take sugar in the cappuccino, which is just as well because I have several every day.

The sign writers who made my large sign with my business name in my office window have their van parked partly on the pavement outside the shop. I’m wondering who the new florist is going to be. Abi isn’t sure, but she thinks it’s a woman about our age, early thirties. I’m assuming Abi is right, because if anyone wants to know what’s going on in the neighbourhood, she’s the one to go to!

I must get chatting to the florist as soon as she opens for business. Several of the shops here in Craidlea have agreed to put my black and gold flyers and/or business cards on their counters. They’ve been responsible for bringing me business – and occasional danger.

I’m going to hold on and not go down to Button Up yet for my caffeine fix. I can see what’s happening much better from up here. The sign writers are removing a large board from the back of their van. It says AMABELIA FLORES. Is Amabelia an Italian or a Spanish name?

I was born Janika Bartol, here in Craidlea, but changed my name from Bartol to Jones when I married Sam. Hence Janika Jones, private detective ‒ trained private detective with a certificate on the wall. Sam was a gorgeous detective constable with Brevelstone CID. And that was a marriage that worked well ‒ until the drugs gang Sam was helping investigate realised he was getting too close to the leadership, and decided to murder him.

I nearly choke on my last spoonful of muesli. If the shop is going to be a florist, shouldn’t that be FLOWERS? Well, Amabelia, whoever she is, is going to be in for a shock when she stands back and reads it. Of course, if she’s Italian or Spanish, maybe she wrote out what she wanted and didn’t know how to spell Flowers! I sincerely hope not.

But if it is the sign writers’ mistake.... I hurry to my other window and lift my own sign away so I can read it clearly. What if it says BUTTON UP DEFECTIVE AGENCY? It would explain why people passing by don’t call in on an impulse. I’m online, but most of my clients seem to have picked up a flyer or card from a local business.

To my great relief I’m a Detective Agency, not a Defective Agency. Well, I think Flores has something to do with flowers, so for the moment I’ll give the sign writers the benefit of the doubt, and relax on behalf of the florist.

I wonder if Abi has picked up on the activity further up the road. Time to go down and have a coffee in company, rather than making my own up here with my Nespresso machine ‒ good though that is. And I’ll possibly partake of one of the Button Up delicious pastries, and see if I’m the one to break the news of activity at the old tobacconist shop.

Of course Abi knows. She’s actually outside as I come out through my downstairs door to the road. The door is set back slightly, and Abi is standing in the recess, probably hoping not to be noticed by passers-by. Or perhaps by Amabelia Flores, if that really is her name.

Seen enough? I ask jokingly, as I put an arm around Abi.

She grins. I told you it was going to be a florist, she says triumphantly. Anyway, come on in. There’s an empty table waiting for you.

There’s always an empty table waiting for friends and family. It’s at the far end of the coffee shop, and has a permanent Reserved notice on it. It’s not exactly private, but all sorts of private conversations have gone on there, usually in lowered tones.

Pete Wilders, the twenty-year-old student is behind the service counter making a customer an Americano coffee. It’s quite early, and Melanie Donovan will still be dropping young Liam off at school. She’s usually here a bit before nine.

Melanie is Liam’s stepmum. She and Abi jointly own the café business. Abi used to be Button before she married Danny Wells, and Melanie was Melanie Upton before she married Steve Donovan. Hence the name of the coffee shop: Button Up.

You think that’s her name? Abi asks.

The florist?

Abi nods. Sounds foreign to me.

Since I’m half Polish ‒ English mother and Polish father ‒ I detect only curiosity in Abi’s question.

Flores is Latin for flowers, I think, I say. So maybe her business name is a clever play on words. Not that I’ve ever met anyone called Amabelia. Get your phone out, Abi, and see where it comes from. My guess is it’s Italian or Spanish. Probably Italian, if Flores is meant to mean flowers.

Hold on a minute, Abi says. The rest of the sign is going up.

Whatever Abi can see from where she’s sitting, it clearly isn’t enough. She stands up and darts towards the door, nearly tripping over the foot of a man sitting sideways in his chair. In my experience, men rarely know how to sit properly.

Naturally I feel compelled to keep Abi company. By the time I’ve caught her up, the foot has conveniently been withdrawn. Not many customers come in this early to sit down. It’s coffee and pastries to-go for office workers. Opposite Button Up is a shoe shop selling a range of not particularly fashionable shoes.

When I moved here I hoped that there would be lots of residents to keep me company, but it turns out that the few shops there are use the upstairs for storage, not accommodation.

Amabelia Flores, if that’s the woman’s name, might be planning to live above the shop. I hope so. I have high security doors and a good alarm, but that hasn’t stopped members of the drugs gang getting in ‒ the gang that my husband Sam was investigating. I became their target, because they believed I was hiding evidence that could convict them.

The two sign writers have already installed a sign below AMABELIA FLORES. It says, BEAUTIFUL FLOWERS FOR EVERY OCCASION

Told you, Abi says, probably forgetting she has already made the same point.

A young woman is standing outside, staring up at the sign. From the body language, I guess she’s approving. So Flores probably isn’t a misspelling of Flowers!

Come on, Abi says to me, let’s see if I can enrol another customer. And perhaps one for you if she has a problem requiring a private investigator.

It’s a bit early‒‒‒‒ I start to say, but Abi is already crossing the road.

She might need a coffee and a pastry, I say as I catch up with Abi, but it’s unlikely she needs anything investigating at this stage. The girl has only just appeared on the scene.

I’m using the word girl advisedly. Abi still refers to us as girls. Girl or very young woman are acceptable terms.

The very young woman who is standing looking up at the signs seems to be about our age, so at least Abi got that right. She’s standing back slightly in the road, and smiles as she sees us approaching.

She has darkish skin and flowing, long black hair, so I was right in thinking she’s Italian or Spanish. Or maybe South American. I’m sure Abi will find out very quickly.

Chapter 2

Amabelia Flores, for she assures us that definitely is her name, has a strong Welsh accent, far from the southern Mediterranean accent I was expecting.

She seems pleased to see us, and when Abi invites her back to Button Up for a coffee and cake, on the house, she says she’ll be over in a few minutes. She has some display stands to assemble.

Abi turns to me. Pete, she says. Then she turns to Amabelia. Pete isn’t required at Button Up at the moment, Amabelia, she says. Pete’s a young student with evening classes who works in the coffee shop. I’ll send him to help, or he could even do it all himself while you come across for a hot drink and refreshments. He’s quite handy.

I’m assuming that Abi is telling the truth. I’ve no idea how handy Pete Wilders is, but probably Abi knows. I’m guessing she’s keen to get information out of Amabelia that she isn’t going to get standing here on the pavement.

Don’t call me Amabelia, the young woman says. Everyone calls me Bella.

The sign writers have finished, and seem anxious to move onto their next job. Bella thanks them, then turns to Abi. I’m gasping for a hot drink, she says. I’m going to live directly above the shop, but I haven’t even started unpacking yet. Even if I could find my coffee stuff, the electricity isn’t being turned on until sometime after midday. Such is life, see.

She pauses for a moment. I’m waiting for furniture to arrive later this morning. And I may have found a tenant for the top floor. She’s coming at the end of the week to view. I’m not too optimistic. She wanted to know about all the stairs to the top floor..

Do you have anyone ... with you? Abi asks. You know, someone....

Abi tells me to hurry back to the coffee shop and ask Pete to come over. That makes me wonder what questions Abi is going to be asking while I’m gone, but I’m sure she’ll pass on any interesting snippets of information, such as a husband or prospective boyfriend.

Melanie Donovan has just arrived, and Pete is standing idly watching while she serves the first of the early shoppers with a freshly squeezed orange juice. Pete smiles when I say why he’s needed to help Bella Flores, and says of course he’s happy to help. How young is she? he asks.

Since Pete is going steady, to use one of my mother’s expressions, with Hayley, I hope that doesn’t indicate a cooling off in that relationship. But when Pete hears that Bella is about the same age as me and Abi, there’s an immediate loss of interest. Quite old then, is his observation, and he keeps a straight face.

I explain to Melanie what’s happened. It seems she’s also noticed the florist starting to open up for business, and she tells Pete to hurry across.

I like Melanie.

Reviews for Cards Shards and Danger

[Sheena Gurbakhash · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book is different from the other two. Both Courtney and Janika are accused of crimes they didn't commit and need the community to support them. Some irritating thing are how much Abi is in Janika's head- the number of times she compares herself to Abi is a little weird, also her prudishness about Toby touching her which she seems to want but isn't sure about- it's all a bit all over the place. Also Janika, after not caring what she looked like for years seems to have developed an obsession about her weight. Not my favourite book in the series.