Free Resorting to Murder (A Darcy Sweet Mystery Book 11) by K.J. Emrick

now.
    The town of Bear Ridge wanted to take that land for their own through an eminent domain claim.  What had the mayor said?  They wanted to build an arena, to draw in tourism.  To offer concerts and that sort of thing.
    Carson was going to lose his property to the town if that happened.  He was already worried about losing his shop from the increased taxes.  If anyone had a reason to want Mayor Donnie Wasson dead, Carson certainly did.  She'd just found his motive.
    She was just putting the pages back together, aware of how much time she had taken already, when Carson came back through the door.  She shoved the folder back to where he had left it and smiled at him as he carefully placed a box of books down in front of her on the counter.
    "Here you go," he said, obviously thrilled to be sharing his written word with another bookstore owner.  "Plenty of copies of me for you to sell.  Like I said before, we can work out the details later.  Got a suggested sale price on the dust jacket but you can just work it up or down depending on what you think will work for you."
    Smiling, thanking him and trying to make it look like this was all she had come back for, she started to turn away when her eyes fell on the folder next to the box.  The corners of a few of the pages were sticking out.  She hadn't had time to put them all back neatly.  If Carson noticed…
    "Well, I have to be going," she said to him.  She hefted the box, which had a lot of weight to it with all those hardcover books, and started out of the shop.  "Thanks again, Carson.  Shoot me an e-mail as soon as you can, all right?"
    Almost to the door, she heard him call her name.
    "Hey, Darcy?"
    Cringing inside, certain that he had noticed how she had been snooping inside his folder, Darcy turned around, placing her back to the door in case she needed to push through and escape.  "Yes?"
    His left hand was over the folder.  His huge fingers spread possessively over it.  Darcy's mind began yelling at her that she needed to run, run now, run fast, but then Carson smiled, and touched the brim of his floppy hat.  "Good luck.  With the books, I mean."
    "Oh.  Right.  Thanks," she stammered, backing her way out of the Golden Bear Bookstore.
    She didn't start breathing again until she had taken f ive whole steps without anything happening.
     
    ***
    They sat in Darcy and Jon's cabin an hour later, puzzling through what Darcy had found out.
    JoEllen fisted her hands on the little table in the room just like Darcy had seen her do at lunch.  "So this Carson Middlemiss is the one who killed my Audie?  Kidnapped my son?"
    Sitting next to Jon on the bed, Darcy twisted her antique silver ring around her finger again and again.  The design on its surface played out under her fingers in an endless pattern.  It made her feel a little better to know she was still connected to her Aunt Millie in this small way.
    Was Carson the person blackmailing JoEllen?  That was the question they had kicked around for the last twenty minutes.  "It certainly looks that way," Darcy finally said.  "He has plenty of motive.  If Donnie resigns as mayor, or dies, it isn't likely that whoever takes over is going to go ahead with his plan to build an arena.  It isn't a very popular idea, especially since it means the town will take land away from people with no compensation.  So, Carson tried to scare Donnie out of the position of mayor.  When that didn't work, he must have decided killing Donnie was his only choice.  Otherwise, he's going to lose everything he has."
    JoEllen nodded, but she didn't seem to feel any better that they were one step closer to finding her son.  If anything, she looked even more stressed than before.  "So he hired me, so to speak, by kidnapping my son."
    "And when Audie went after him," Jon added, "he had to kill him first."
    "So why not just kill the mayor himself?" JoEllen wondered out loud.
    Jon was ready with an explanation for that.  "Probably