Free COZY MYSTERY: Trail Mix Murder: A Cozy Mystery in the Mountains (Book 2) by Liz Turner Page B

talent too, I think,” Steve said. “Declan told me he had worked in two different movies that won him local awards. Unfortunately, though he acted well, both movies themselves were terrible and he didn’t quite have a career.”
    “If he was telling the truth, that should be easy enough to verify,” Adam said. “But why do you bring it up, Steve?”
    “Because the entire time he was here, I was watching him.” Steve said, “And I think Declan is a lot smarter than we give him credit for. He disarmed us all. He made us feel sorry for him, and then he made us want to root for him as the underdog.”
    “What are you saying?” Adam asked.
    “That I wonder how much his roots as an actor helped him with that little charade.”
    “Charade? I thought he looked genuinely grief-struck.” Adam said.
    “I thought not,” Steve said. “He looked and sounded like a very good actor giving a monolog.”
    Victoria considered this. No, what Steve said didn’t feel right. After all, she had looked into Declan’s eyes, and he seemed convincingly upset and unhappy about LeeLee’s death.
    Yet…
    Yet she wondered whether a good enough actor might be able to fake that like Steve said.
    “How about that other bit, though?” Adam asked. “That’s what I want to know more about.”
    “What other bit?” Steve looked confused.
    “LeeLee’s daughter!” Adam said. “Declan casually slipped it into his speech but he mentioned that one of the reporters had found out that LeeLee had given a daughter up for adoption a long time ago. If LeeLee did have a biological daughter, who would inherit her estate?”
    “So the murders are linked, then?” Steve said, considering. “I always thought that the red-coated girl was just a mentally disturbed tourist who somehow snuck into the party and then killed herself. I still think that.”
    “No,” Victoria said. “I told this to Corporal Jager too, and he agreed with me. Someone local had to show that girl how to get up that trail. It’s too well hidden for her to just have stumbled on it. Besides which, she had no car and she didn’t have the proper shoes. How did she just blunder her way up there? No, I think it was a murder. That trail is very rarely used and if the rockslide hadn’t occurred the night before, I might never even have seen her body given the steep cliff in that area.”
    “Alright. Fine.” Steve said. “Maybe it’s a murder instead. But why would it be connected to LeeLee?”
    “Because the girl in the red coat was LeeLee’s biological daughter!” Adam said excitedly. “That has to be the case, doesn’t it? LeeLee abandoned her at birth, and now this girl came back into her life. Perhaps LeeLee murdered the girl herself, and then in a fit of unhappiness, killed herself the next week…”
    “If what you’re saying is true and the girl was LeeLee’s daughter…” Steve said, “And mind you that’s a really big if. Even then it makes more sense that Declan committed the crime. Maybe he figured out she was LeeLee’s daughter somehow and killed her, then he panicked and killed LeeLee too.”
    “It’s a possibility.” Adam conceded. “Though after the way, he sobbed today I can’t find it in my heart to doubt him. Maybe it is best if we just let the police continue their investigation without making up our own theories.”

Chapter 13
    Victoria couldn’t sleep that night.
    Threads of conversation kept spilling over in her brain and joining other, unrelated thoughts. She thought back to everything that had occurred since the day she found the red-coated girl’s body. That was the beginning of this whole affair, wasn’t it?
    No. Victoria told herself. That was inaccurate. The murder of the red coated girl wasn’t the beginning. From the point of view of the murderer and the girl, it was, in fact, an end. There was a thread stretching behind that point, a thread which, followed to its true beginnings, would reveal the motive and the true killer of