Free BlueBuried Muffins (Black Cat Cafe Cozy Mystery Series Book 1) by Lyndsey Cole

table.
    Mia finished her last sip of wine and cleared her throat. “I got curious why Roy brought that sleazy art dealer, Vincent, to our house the day before Max was killed. I didn’t spend any time with him. He gave me the creeps so I poked around in Roy’s desk today and found his journal. Roy is a creature of habit and has always been a little compulsive about keeping track of his daily schedule. Not in a lot of detail, but notes that must be reminders for him of what happened when.” She looked at the others. “When Annie left two years ago, Roy hired a private investigator to find her.”
    “I can’t believe the nerve and distrust. I didn’t exactly disappear off the face of the earth, and besides, JC knew where I was. Who did he hire?” Annie asked with a scowl on her face.
    Mia shrugged. “I couldn’t find a name in the journal and I didn’t find anything to indicate how he paid the guy.”
    “Okay, so he found me, then what? Did he keep stalking me?”
    “Yes. From what I could find, he made weekly entries in the journal just saying update from the PI. Right up to the week before you came back here.”
    Annie stood up, pacing around the room. “I wonder if Max found out about this and tried to warn me not to trust anyone. What on earth was the PI finding out about me? It’s not like I was leading a particularly exciting and mysterious life.”
    Mia said, “Maybe it wasn’t you. It could have been the people around you, Max and Vincent. And the art gallery.”
    “Dad is part of that art mess?”
    “I don’t know. I wonder if finding you overlapped with discovering something else that he thought you were part of.”
    Annie faced Leona, Martha and her mother. “I trust all of you. Let’s keep this information between us and see what else we can uncover. A lot of people will be in town this weekend. Keep your eyes and ears open, especially with that scum bag Vincent around. I’m afraid he’ll be here until he finds what he came for. And since I’m his connection to Max, my guess is he’ll be hanging around Cove’s Corner. It would be helpful to find out what exactly it is he’s after.”
    “We’re with you, Annie, until we get to the bottom of this.” Four empty glasses clinked together.
    Leona drove Mia and Martha back to Cove’s Corner to get their own cars. Annie cleaned up the dishes before cuddling with Smokey on the sofa. “What are your thoughts? Was Vincent in the café fighting with Max? Or Jake? Or Danny? I wish you could tell me what happened.”
    Smokey purred and twitched his tail.
    Annie slowly got up from the couch. “This has been a long couple of days but I shouldn’t procrastinate any longer. I’ll be right back after I get the rest of my stuff out of the car.”
    Annie struggled back into her apartment with a half dozen framed photographs. “Look what I found, Smokey. I don’t have a clue why these are in my car. Max took my photographs to the gallery for the show. Strange. I may as well hang them here. Is that okay with you?” Smokey always mewed when Annie talked to him, making her feel a little less crazy for bouncing her ideas off her cat.
    She set each one around the room to decide which to hang since she only had room for a few. The opening at Max’s art gallery was supposed to be everything about food so this project was outside her comfort zone with her photographs.
    “I forgot about this blueberry muffin photo. I’ll set this aside to take to the café.” She left that photo near the door to bring to work. She decided to hang three in her apartment. One was apples, scarves and mittens, another was a watermelon cut in a fancy design and filled with fruit, the last one was a beautiful ceramic bowl filled with eggplant, artichokes and wooden spoons. “Max did a perfect job with the matting and framing. He had an eye for making the colors come alive.”
    After the photos were in place, Annie stepped back to admire her work. “My next project will be the