He nodded, but he was slightly distracted. He motioned at her shoulder. “How are you doing with that shoulder now?”
“I’m better,” she said, cheerfully lifting her cup and taking a big drink. Mack just glared at her. “Okay. It still bothers me. But not like it did.” When he remained silent, she worried. “What’s the matter?” she asked, her gaze sharpening. He shrugged and wouldn’t meet her eyes. “There’s more coffee in the kitchen, if you want a cup.”
“I’m fine,” he said.
“Uh-oh.” Something was really wrong. “And that means something pretty ugly is going on.”
He nodded. “There is, and you’ll hear about it soon enough,” he said, his fingers tapping the table.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“Have you—” And then he stopped.
“Have I what?”
He sighed. “You know the marigolds in the flower garden down at the big Welcome to Kelowna sign? The old one? There’s talk of a new one north of the airport.”
“Yeah, the one that I spent a lot of time on, trying to design a layout for the city? It was a lovely bunch of flowers, as I remember. I can’t remember all of them, but some lovely marigolds were there, I think.” They are tearing that one down? So that’s why the contract didn’t go through. Or maybe I misunderstood, and they were designing the new one.” She frowned at that thought. It did explain why that scenario never moved ahead.
He nodded. “Yeah, that one. We found a body there this morning.” He shrugged. “It’s the first I’ve been there and was quite surprised the sign was gone.
Her eyebrows shot up, and she had to admit—even though it was ghoulish and wrong of her—that she was definitely curious as to what was going on. “I am too. I’ll have to follow up on that garden design bid. And of course, I’m sorry for whoever it is,” she said, “but don’t keep me in suspense. Who was it, and what’s going on?”
“Well, that’s what I came to ask you about.”
She stared at him in surprise. “Okay, now I’m confused.”
“It might be somebody you know.”
“Someone I know?” she asked incredulously. “Oh, dear, I hope not.”
He pulled out his phone and slowly flicked through the photos there.
“So, this is a delay tactic,” she said, “and I admit you’re scaring me.”
“No, it’s not that,” he said, “but circumstances require that I ask you a couple questions.” He proceeded to ask where she’d been an hour ago, where she’d been four hours ago, and if she had an alibi.
She sat back and stared at him in shock. “Seriously, Mack?” she said. “I woke up about an hour ago. I was home alone all night. Why? Who is dead?” Suddenly she leaned forward. “Is it one of the bad guys?”
“Well, maybe,” he said. “I’m sure a lot of people would say it definitely was a bad guy, but a lot of people wouldn’t.”
“Stop now,” she said, raising both hands in frustration. “Just tell me who it is.”
Then he held out his phone.
She looked at it and stared in shock.
“That’s the thing,” he said. “This is our dead body. So where were you last night? And where were you early this morning?”
She stared at the picture of Robin, her former divorce lawyer. Her very dead former lawyer. “What on earth?” Doreen raised her gaze slowly to stare at him.
“And I’m sorry, but I have to ask,” he said. “Did you murder her in the marigolds?”
This concludes Book 12 of Lovely Lethal Gardens: Lifeless in the Lilies.
Read about Murder in the Marigolds: Lovely Lethal Gardens, Book 13
Lovely Lethal Gardens:
Murder in the Marigolds
(Book #13)
A new cozy mystery series from USA Today best-selling author Dale Mayer. Follow gardener and amateur sleuth Doreen Montgomery—and her amusing and mostly lovable cat, dog, and parrot—as they catch murderers and solve crimes in lovely Kelowna, British Columbia.
Riches to rags … Chaos has never been so supreme … Now a suspect herself … No calm in sight …
Being a suspect in the murder of her ex-lawyer is not the fun Doreen thought it would be. And, of course, she’s been ordered to stay away from the case, … but she can’t help being interested. So she enlists Mack’s brother, Nick—her new lawyer—to help.
Mack’s first priority is to clear Doreen as a suspect. No one in their right mind would seriously believe she’d done the deed, of course. … But, the fact is, she had both motive and opportunity, so clearing her of suspicion isn’t the walk in the park that Mack would like it to be. Especially not when she insists on sticking her nose into his case, where it doesn’t belong.
And just when Doreen is certain things can’t get any worse, answering her doorbell shows her that this nightmare has just started. Who just walked into her life? None other than her soon-to-be-ex-husband, … Mathew …
Find Book 13 here!
To find out more visit Dale Mayer’s website.
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Author’s Note
Thank you for reading Lifeless in the Lilies: Lovely Lethal Gardens, Book 12! If you enjoyed the book, please take a moment and leave a short review here.
Dear reader,
I love to hear from readers, and you can contact me at my website: www.dalemayer.com or at my Facebook author page. To be informed of new releases and special offers, sign up for my newsletter or follow me on BookBub. And if you are interested in joining Dale Mayer’s Reader Group, here is the Facebook sign up page.
Cheers,
Dale Mayer
About the Author
Dale Mayer is a USA Today best-selling author, best known for her SEALs military romances, her Psychic Visions series, and her Lovely Lethal Garden cozy series. Her contemporary romances are raw and full of passion and emotion (Broken But … Mending series). Her thrillers will keep you guessing (By Death series), and her romantic comedies will keep you giggling (It’s a Dog’s Life, a stand-alone novella; and the Broken Protocols series, starring Charming Marvin, the cat).
Dale honors the stories that come to her—and some of them are crazy and break all the rules and cross multiple genres!
To go with her fiction, she also writes nonfiction in many different fields, with books available on résumé writing, companion gardening, and the US mortgage system. She has recently published her Career Essentials series. All her books are available in print and ebook format.