Deadly Brewed: Cozy Mystery Short Story

By S. Y. Robins

When Hannah opened her cafe on a busy downtown street she had high hopes that she would finally be able to fulfill a dream. That dream however gets squashed when a man is found murdered in the alley behind her cafe. The detective isn't giving her much information and it is clear from the start he suspects her being involved. When being a suspect starts hurting business she decides to take matters into her own hands and investigates the murder herself. Will she find who truly did it, or will she get charged with murder before she can find the real culprit?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lovy Books Ltd
• Release date: Aug 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223346180

Book preview

1

Looking around her cafe Hannah couldn’t help but smile. She knew she was taking a big risk by going into debt to open the cafe of her dreams but as she stood in the middle of it, she couldn’t help but think it was worth it. The past few months had been hectic while dealing with builders, code inspectors and the health department but now that she was set to open it all seemed insignificant. Her cafe would serve small meals, drinks and bakery items mostly looking to attract the business people in the area.

The cafe was located in the center of town in the middle of a large section of high rise office buildings. She had always seen these people go out to lunch every day and knew that it was the perfect location to offer something new, something they hadn’t had before. The lunch items were designed to be served quick, mostly consisting of soups, salads and sandwiches. There were plenty of bakery items as well, which would allow her to be open for breakfast and have people stopping in for desserts. Her drinks were mostly coffees and teas, but she also had regular soda and such.

She planned to be closed for dinner, at least at first, and she had only hired one waitress by the name of Andrea. Hannah would be doing all the kitchen work while Andrea would be taking care of the customers, but eventually Hannah hoped to grow enough so she could do a lot of the baking ahead of time and then help serve customers while someone else actually prepared the food in the kitchen. She loved the interaction with people and she had always been better at what she did when not under pressure, which she would be if they got busy. The cafe was supposed to open the next day and she had just spent the morning training Andrea on everything she needed to know. The rest of the afternoon was going to be spent baking, and the next morning at six she would open for the early birds. She had been advertising for weeks and had distributed a copy of her menu to all the office buildings around in the hopes that it would help bring in customers. Many people were creatures of habit and they went to the same place every day, which meant she would have to make a good impression right from the start to draw in those who were hesitant to change but who heard good things from their co-workers.

With a final look around she walked back to the kitchen, ready to get to work. Looking around at all the ingredients she couldn’t help but smile as it had been many months since she had stood in a kitchen and actually cooked or baked anything. Planning to open a cafe might have always been a dream of hers, it did interfere with actually cooking and baking and she would not be doing it quite as much. Pulling out a list of everything she planned to make she started by grabbing the measuring spoons, nearly dropping