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Crime in the Café
Crime in the Café (A Lacey Doyle Cozy Mystery—Book 3)
Fiona Grace
Debut author Fiona Grace is author of the LACEY DOYLE COZY MYSTERY series which includes MURDER IN THE MANOR (Book #1), DEATH AND A DOG (Book #2), CRIME IN THE CAFE (Book #3), VEXED ON A VISIT (Book #4), and KILLED WITH A KISS (Book #5). Fiona is also the author of the TUSCAN VINEYARD COZY MYSTERY series.
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Copyright © 2020 by Fiona Grace. 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 canadastock, used under license from Shutterstock.com.
BOOKS BY FIONA GRACE
LACEY DOYLE COZY MYSTERY
MURDER IN THE MANOR (Book#1)
DEATH AND A DOG (Book #2)
CRIME IN THE CAFE (Book #3)
VEXED ON A VISIT (Book #4)
KILLED WITH A KISS (Book #5)
TUSCAN VINEYARD COZY MYSTERY
AGED FOR MURDER (Book#1)
AGED FOR DEATH (Book#2)
AGED FOR MAYHEM (Book#3)
CHAPTER ONE
“Hey, Lacey!” came Gina’s voice from the back room of the antiques store. “Come here a minute.”
Lacey gently placed the antique brass candelabra she’d been polishing onto the counter. The soft thud it emitted caused Chester, her English Shepherd, to quirk his head up.
He’d been sleeping in his usual spot, stretched across the floorboards beside the counter, bathed in a beam of June sunshine. He tipped his dark brown eyes up to Lacey, and his tufty eyebrows twitched with evident curiosity.
“Gina needs me,” Lacey told him, his perceptive expression always making her feel as if he could understand every word she said. “You keep an eye on the store and bark if any customers come in. Got it?”
Chester whinnied his acknowledgment and sank his head back onto his paws.
Lacey headed through the archway that separated the main shop floor from the large, recently converted auction room. It was the shape of a train carriage—long and narrow—but the ceiling stretched high like that of a church.
Lacey loved this room. But then again, she loved everything about her store, from the retro furniture section she’d used her past knowledge as a New York City interior designer’s assistant to curate, to the vegetable garden out back. The store was her pride and joy, even if at times she felt it brought her more trouble than it was worth.
She entered through the arch, and a warm breeze came in through the open back door, bringing with it fragrant smells from the flower garden Gina had been cultivating. But the woman herself was nowhere to be seen.
Lacey scanned the auction room, then deduced Gina must have been calling to her from the garden, and headed in the direction of the open French doors. But as she went, she heard a shuffling noise coming from the left-hand corridor.
The corridor housed the more unsightly parts of her store—the cramped office filled with filing cabinets and steel safes; the kitchen area where her faithful kettle and variety of caffeinated beverages lived; the bathroom (or “loo” as everyone in Wilfordshire referred to it), and the boxy storage room.