A Villa in Sicily: Capers and a Calamity Read online

  A VILLA IN SICILY:

  CAPERS AND A CALAMITY

  (A Cats and Dogs Cozy Mystery—Book Four)

  FIONA GRACE

  Fiona Grace

  Fiona Grace is author of the LACEY DOYLE COZY MYSTERY series, comprising nine books; of the TUSCAN VINEYARD COZY MYSTERY series, comprising seven books; of the DUBIOUS WITCH COZY MYSTERY series, comprising three books; of the BEACHFRONT BAKERY COZY MYSTERY series, comprising six books; and of the CATS AND DOGS COZY MYSTERY series, comprising nine books.

  Fiona would love to hear from you, so please visit www.fionagraceauthor.com to receive free ebooks, hear the latest news, and stay in touch.

  Copyright © 2021 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 EugeniaSt, 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)

  PERISHED BY A PAINTING (Book #6)

  SILENCED BY A SPELL (Book #7)

  FRAMED BY A FORGERY (Book #8)

  CATASTROPHE IN A CLOISTER (Book #9)

  TUSCAN VINEYARD COZY MYSTERY

  AGED FOR MURDER (Book #1)

  AGED FOR DEATH (Book #2)

  AGED FOR MAYHEM (Book #3)

  AGED FOR SEDUCTION (Book #4)

  AGED FOR VENGEANCE (Book #5)

  AGED FOR ACRIMONY (Book #6)

  AGED FOR MALICE (Book #7)

  DUBIOUS WITCH COZY MYSTERY

  SKEPTIC IN SALEM: AN EPISODE OF MURDER (Book #1)

  SKEPTIC IN SALEM: AN EPISODE OF CRIME (Book #2)

  SKEPTIC IN SALEM: AN EPISODE OF DEATH (Book #3)

  BEACHFRONT BAKERY COZY MYSTERY

  BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A KILLER CUPCAKE (Book #1)

  BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A MURDEROUS MACARON (Book #2)

  BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A PERILOUS CAKE POP (Book #3)

  BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A DEADLY DANISH (Book #4)

  BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A TREACHEROUS TART (Book #5)

  BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A CALAMITOUS COOKIE (Book #6)

  CATS AND DOGS COZY MYSTERY

  A VILLA IN SICILY: OLIVE OIL AND MURDER (Book #1)

  A VILLA IN SICILY: FIGS AND A CADAVER (Book #2)

  A VILLA IN SICILY: VINO AND DEATH (Book #3)

  A VILLA IN SICILY: CAPERS AND CALAMITY (Book #4)

  A VILLA IN SICILY: ORANGE GROVES AND VENGEANCE (Book #5)

  A VILLA IN SICILY: CANNOLI AND A CASUALTY (Book #6)

  A VILLA IN SICILY: SPAGHETTI AND SUSPICION (Book #7)

  A VILLA IN SICILY: LEMONS AND A PREDICAMENT (Book #8)

  A VILLA IN SICILY: GELATO AND A VENDETTA (Book #9)

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  “You’ve done it again, Concetta!” Audrey Smart said, checking out the wound her mentee had dressed on an injured Labrador. “This is perfect.”

  “I know!” the model-pretty brunette said, finishing up the stitches and giving the animal an affectionate pat. “I love sewing. My stitches have always been the neatest.”

  “I couldn’t have done it better myself,” Audrey admitted. “Now, we just have to—”

  “I got it,” she said, reaching for the gauze before Audrey could.

  “All right, but—”

  “I know, I know, keep the wound clean,” she said, reaching for the antiseptic. “It’s all under control. This is easy-peasy!”

  It was. Concetta Busillo, Audrey’s new second-in-command at Mussomeli, Sicily’s new veterinary center, was only a year into vet school, but she was already proving to be a very quick study. Not only was she young, beautiful, and fashionable, like a model who’d just walked off the pages of a magazine, but she was also capable, and had the confidence to match. It was almost intimidating. But after quite a lot of growing pains and working herself to the bone, Audrey had to admit that having her here was a big relief.

  Plus, Concetta was fluent in Italian, a big help, since in her four months on the island, Audrey hadn’t quite gotten the language down yet. As a local, too, she’d given Audrey a good dose of the culture and history of the town.

  Yes, Audrey could safely say that Concetta was a lifesaver, and hiring her was one of the best decisions she’d made since moving to Mussomeli.

  Not that she’d made many of those. It seemed like everything good she got out of her life, she did it the hard way. Nothing ever seemed to come to her easily.

  “I think it’s time to lock up and go home,” Audrey said with a yawn.

  Concetta nodded. “Oh. I just want to check in for tomorrow’s appointments and make sure we’re all ready. And this place could use a little scrubbing, don’t you think?”

  “Yes. That’s . . . great.” Audrey hadn’t thought of that. Being a vet in this town, with the massive stray problem, she’d gotten used to being reactive, rather than proactive. Concetta clearly liked to plan ahead. It was a good thing.

  But as much as Audrey tried to push the feeling away, she couldn’t help the tendrils of envy that creeped into her mind. Being a supervisor and owner of her own clinic, the one calling the shots, was new to her, and just about as foreign as the island she now called home. She was the one who was supposed to be making those important decisions to keep the place running.

  They finished washing up and Audrey looked over at her young protégé. After only a week, Concetta had become almost indispensable to her. She was way more together than Audrey had ever been, when she was that age. In fact, the young woman could probably have run the place on her own, like clockwork.

  Which only made Audrey feel a bit . . . unnecessary. When she’d moved here, this had felt exciting. Like a challenge. And now that everything was under control, the challenge seemed to be gone.


  Oh, stop it, Audrey. You’re the vet here. She looks up to you. And she’s amazing. There’s still a lot to be done with the stray problem in Mussomeli. You’ll get the challenge back. And you’re just feeling low because of what happened with Mason.

  Yes, a week’s time had done nothing to mend the tear in her heart.

  She cringed as a thought came back to her. Mason Legare, the man she thought she loved, standing at his front door, gorgeous and speechless, tail between his legs.

  Forcing those thoughts away, she said, “Then you can lock up?”

  She nodded. “Sure. I think I’ll also straighten out that supply cabinet in the back. It’s not very neat and we don’t want anything going missing.”

  “Okay,” Audrey said. What was wrong with the cabinet? She hadn’t even noticed that it was messy. “Sounds goo—”

  “You ever think of cataloging everything online and checking things out as they’re taken? That way, when something is out of stock, we’d know it right away and could automatically reorder.”

  “Uh . . . no,” she said. Truly, she’d had so much else on her mind. “But that’s a great idea. I’ll put you in charge of that.”

  As she went to gather her things, more thoughts of Mason intruded. He’d been the main thing on her mind lately, and every time she thought of him, she got a little sick to her stomach. A week ago, she’d been so sure her fellow American expat, lured to Sicily by the one-dollar home promise, was fated to be her one-and-only. He’d been so sweet to her, doing little things for her vet practice and for her, fixing the place up with his carpenter skills, providing her homecooked Southern meals.

  Last week, she’d realized it had been Mason all along. She’d run to his house, more certain than ever. In fact, she’d wanted to scream it from the rooftops. I love Mason Legare . . . and I think he loves me, too.

  With that thought firmly in her head, she’d rushed off, so fast that even her pet fox, Nick, had had trouble keeping up with her. She’d dashed past her house at the corner of the Piazza, down another drive, to via Milano, and didn’t stop until she’d arrived at Mason’s front door. As usual, the place was awash in light.

  And it had felt so right, to be standing there in front of him. So excited was she to see him again that she’d flown up all three steps in one leap and knocked on the door.

  He’d opened almost at once, and the smell of something delicious hit her. He had a dishtowel slung over his shoulder, like he’d just been cleaning up, and was wearing little wire-rimmed spectacles. She blinked. He looked like a sexy Harry Potter. His first reaction was delighted surprise, which morphed into something she couldn’t quite understand. Something uncomfortable. “Hey!”

  He’d looked over his shoulder, as if hiding something. And he was hiding something. Something big.

  It was mortifying, now, to think how she’d begun to babble, about how sweet he was and how she really wanted to tell him everything on her mind. Her face had been heating, and his seemed to heat right along with it. Right then, she didn’t know why.

  But now she knew. He’d been embarrassed for her. She grabbed her purse from the hook on the wall of her office, and cringed again at the thought of what had happened next with Mason. That woman.

  “Mace, who is it?” a female voice had called from inside.

  Before Audrey could register what was happening, the door had been pulled wider, and standing in the way was a dark-haired bombshell. She was tanned and toned and lithe and every supermodel’s worst nightmare. “Hi . . .” she’d said flatly, her gaze shifting between the two of them before landing on the soup in her hands. “Are you delivering food? You must have the wrong address. We already ate.”

  “Um, no, I just . . .” She looked over at Mason, who said nothing. He did nothing, too. Just allowed her to stew in her humiliation.

  She’d made up some excuse about how she was thanking him for fixing her mold problem, and started to back away.

  “Mold? Gross,” the woman had said, flipping her long hair over her shoulder. “Macey, I’m going to take a bath upstairs. Okay?”

  Macey?

  He didn’t answer her. Instead, he’d just continued to stare at Audrey, a guilty look on his beautifully kissable face.

  It was all Audrey could do not to burst into tears. Instead, she’d rushed back home and consoled herself, alone, with a bowl of soup.

  In fact, she’d been consoling herself with a lot of bowls of soup lately. Soup, and some of the most decadent of Sicilian delights—arancini, risotto, and lots and lots of pasta. This morning, she’d had trouble buttoning her jeans. After only a week of moping, she’d already gone up one pants size.

  Yes, it was safe to say that Audrey was in a bit of a slump. Almost thirty-five years old, she felt like she was spinning her wheels, both in her career and her love life.

  Maybe Mussomeli is a mistake. Maybe I should go home.

  That thought had occurred to her many times over her four months in Sicily, but never so strongly as it did right then. Yes, escape would’ve been nice, if she had something back in the United States to escape to. The fact was, she’d left Boston to escape the exact same thing—a dull and dead-end career, a go-nowhere love life.

  And maybe that was the worst feeling of all—that no matter what she did, she couldn’t escape that fate.

  The phone rang as she was heading for the door. Concetta could have let it go straight to voicemail, since office hours were over, but always willing to go the extra mile, she picked it up. “L’ufficio di Dottore Smart,” she said, patiently and efficiently. “Si.”

  Audrey hovered at the door, waiting to see if she was needed, and she was. Concetta looked up and raised a finger to her.

  One moment, she mouthed. “Si. Qualcuno parla inglese? Dottore Smart parla solo inglese.” Pause. “Si.”

  She handed the phone to Audrey and said, “Someone who says he is from Lipari.”

  “From where?” Audrey’s sense of geography had never been good.

  “It’s an island. North of here.”

  “Island? What do they want with me?”

  She laughed. “I don’t know. They want to speak to you. I told them you only speak English.”

  Audrey took the phone. “Hello?”

  “Dottore Smart?” a heavily accented voice said. “Are you the veterinarian in Mussomeli we have heard much about?”

  She blinked. “I don’t know. What have you heard about me?”

  There was a chuckle. “We hear that you have done a great job with the stray problem in the town. Yes?”

  “Well, I’ve been trying,” she said, happy to know her work was helping. Mussomeli’s stray pet population had been a bit of a nightmare, but little by little, it seemed to be getting better. Just a few days ago, Councilman Falco had stopped by to tell her the rest of the council was noticing an improvement, and they were pleased.

  “I’m Matteo Gallo. I’m on the town’s council, and the mayor has charged me with seeing what we can do with the problem of our stray cats.”

  “Cats?”

  “Yes. We have too many, they are becoming a nuisance. Mayor Ernesto Bianchi is requesting your presence here on the island.”

  Audrey’s eyes widened. She looked at Concetta, who mouthed, What is it?

  She mouthed back, How far away is Lipari?

  Now, Concetta’s eyes were wide. “Pretty far. Like six hours. Plus you have to take a ferry.”

  “Hello?” Gallo said over the line. “Did I lose you?”

  “No, I’m here!” Audrey spoke into the phone. “I was just trying to find out where Lipari was. It’s quite a ways from here.”

  “Yes, yes. We’re about half a day’s travel away. So we’d put you up for a few days in our lovely town. In that time, you can see what we have in place right now and make recommendations for us for the future. Would you be amenable to that?”

  “Well, I have my practice here, and it needs me.”

  “I understand. But we’re desperate
. It would only be a few days. And I promise, you will be well compensated.”

  Audrey frowned. She’d been putting a lot of the renovations on her house and the clinic on credit, and she’d only just begun to pay them off. So the money was definitely tempting. But what would it say to the town, to Falco and the rest of her new customers, if she picked up and left so soon?

  “I’m sorry. I don’t think I can leave the practice. It’s just so new.”

  “I understand, but please. You are the only one who can help us. If it’s a question of money, just name your price.”

  She laughed. “It’s not a question of money. It’s my clients. They—”

  “We will pay you handsomely. Very handsomely. We need you here, Dottore. These animals are suffering.”

  Her breath left her. She never could stand to hear of animals suffering. But what about the animals here? She looked over at Concetta, unable to force her mouth to form any response.

  Concetta stood up, concerned, and rightly so, because Audrey felt faint.

  Finally, Audrey choked out, “Well, I can see . . .”

  “Please do. We’d love to welcome you to our island, as soon as you can make the trip.”

  She gripped the phone in her sweaty hand. The instinct was there, to jump at the offer, but this vet center needed her, too. They’d just gotten a litter of kittens in, and the bunnies they’d saved a few weeks ago were going to need to be homed. There was just so much to think about. “I wonder . . . could I have twenty-four hours to think it over?”

  “Oh yes. Of course. I’ll give you my number.”

  Audrey sat on the edge of the reception desk, grabbed a pen, and wrote down Matteo Gallo’s information. When she hung up, Concetta said, “What was that all about?”

  “They want me to consult with them about their stray problem. It seems very dire. It’d only be for two days, but—”

  “If the animals need you, you should go!”

  “They didn’t mention how much money, but it would help me pay off my bills for renovating this place, for sure,” she said, tapping her finger against her chin. “But no. I can’t. This place needs me.”