Colorful Death: Cozy Mystery Short Story

By S. Y. Robins

So far, it has pretty much sucked. And unfortunately, it's about to get worse. When she catches attractive neighbor Maddox out in a horrible rainstorm, Jade invites him in out of the cold, only to see scratches on his arms. Maddox is pleasant and polite, but even Jade can see that something is wrong. When she learns the next day that an old lady was murdered in her cottage, Jade has a sinking feeling that she knows who's to blame. When another body crops up soon after, Jade sets out to find the truth. After all, how much worse could this vacation get? She might as well tramp over the heath and figure out what's going on. But all this poking about is going to put her squarely in the killer's sights. And now that they've murdered twice, they're not going to stop until all of their enemies are dead.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lovy Books Ltd
• Release date: Aug 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223009559

Book preview

1

Jade slammed the cupboard shut and glared at it. She glared at the mug, too, as she threw a tea bag into it, and at the kettle as she filled it, and the stove as she turned it on. She threw an extra glare around the room for good measure, and crossed her arms while she waited for the water to boil.

No doubt it wasn’t fair to take her frustrations out on innocent inanimate objects, but there was no one else to take it out on. She had no one to call up and bemoan to, because she hadn’t bought an international phone plan. She knew no one here to go out with, and even if she did know someone, there was no hope of getting something fruity and pink to drink at the pub in town. No, they just had beer, beer, beer, beer, and more beer. So she was stuck with tea. Alone. No one to shriek at that she’d had it up to here with this bloody trip.

The day had started out fine, of course. She’d woken up to birds chirping and a rainstorm clearing, and for about an hour she thought this trip had been the perfect idea. Cottage in the English countryside. Secluded. Lots of tea. The best place for her to finish the manuscript that just would not go right.

And then she spent all morning and part of the afternoon staring at a blank page. Jade was stubborn. She did not give up quickly. Still, after three hours with not a single word, even she had to admit that she was beat. She piled into the teeny car that came with the cottage and drove into town, almost killing someone right as she pulled out and swerved onto the left side of the road.

The day had continued downhill from there. There wasn’t a decent cup of coffee to be found, and the pretty blue skies clouded up almost immediately. Used to the heat and sunshine of Phoenix, Jade found herself shivering as she tried to buy groceries. Without peanut butter or macaroni and cheese to be found anywhere, she settled for a loaf of bread, some Nutella, and a bag of apples, which she then had to carry home when the car broke down a mile from the cottage.

Which was approximately when it had started to rain—and 'rain' was a generous term. Jade might as well have swum home. She arrived as darkness was falling and bumbled around the cottage in the dark, trying to find the light switches while she banged her shins into every shin-height object in the immediate vicinity.

She was going to scream. Jade gave another glare at the kettle, and then turned to look as the glare of car headlights flashed across the room. The car sped past at terrifying speeds, considering the deluge outside, and Jade glared at it, too, more out of habit than anything else. She flumped down into the armchair by the cast iron stove and gave a groan. She was still damp, which