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  VEXED ON A VISIT

  (A Lacey Doyle Cozy Mystery—Book Four)

  FIONA GRACE

  Fiona Grace

  Debut author Fiona Grace is author of the LACEY DOYLE COZY MYSTERY series, comprising nine books (and counting); of the TUSCAN VINEYARD COZY MYSTERY series, comprising three books (and counting); of the DUBIOUS WITCH COZY MYSTERY series, comprising three books (and counting); and of the BEACHFRONT BAKERY COZY MYSTERY series, comprising three books (and counting).

  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 © 2020 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 Helen Hotson, 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)

  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)

  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 ONE

  “How’s it going up there?” Lacey called fretfully, peering up the metal rungs of the ladder at Gina’s feet.

  The two women were in Lacey’s antiques store, displaying a bunch of ugly marionettes Gina had found in the storeroom and insisted would “sell like hot cakes.” And, despite being twenty-odd years Lacey’s senior, Gina had also taken it upon herself to climb the ladder into the recesses between the ceiling beams to hang them.

  “I’m sixty-five years young, missy,” she called down to Lacey, who’d been left helplessly at the bottom, holding the ladder. “I’m not a frail old lady yet.”

  Suddenly, a creepy wooden marionette bounced down on its strings, making Lacey start. The grotesque-looking man had a hooked nose and jester’s hat, and he dangled above Lacey’s head, grinning evilly. She shuddered, silently questioning Gina’s judgment. Who on earth would want to buy such an unpleasant-looking thing?

  “So?” came Gina’s trilling voice from the top of the ladder. “Have you worked out where Tom is taking you for your romantic getaway yet?”

  Lacey’s cheeks warmed at the mention of her beau. Tom had recently announced he was taking her on a romantic trip, and had been sending her photographic clues every day since as to the location. The last image had been of a craggy white cliff with a gorgeous blue sky behind it.

  “Somewhere by the sea,” Lacey replied dreamily.

  Wherever it was, it looked absolutely idyllic. But it could be the most desolate place on earth as far as Lacey was concerned, and she’d still be thrilled for the break. To say she was overdue some time off was an understatement. Ever since she’d opened her antiques store in the seaside town of Wilfordshire, England, the only time she’d had so much as two consecutive days off had been when she was investigating gruesome murders. That didn’t really count as a break, as far as Lacey was concerned!

  Just then, another marionette bounced down on its strings above Lacey’s head, snapping her out of her daydream. This one depicted a portly scullery maid, with a bonnet and apron. She had the same grotesque face as the first. Lacey scrunched her nose with displeasure.

  “Whose idea was it to suspend these horrible things from the ceiling again?” she said. “I don’t know how much I’m going to like them peering down at me all day.”

  From above, Gina cackled. “I promise you they’ll sell quickly. Punch and Judy puppets are an institution here in England. I can’t believe you’ve had them hidden away in a box for so long! At least we got them out in time for the summer crowds.”

  Lacey couldn’t understand the appeal of the ugly puppets, but she trusted Gina on this one. As a born and bred New Yorker, the oddities of English culture often went right over Lacey’s head.

  “So, what were the other clues?” Gina called down. “I want to get to the bottom of this mystery!”

  Holding onto the ladder with one hand, Lacey used the other to scoop her cell phone from her jeans pocket. She scrolled through the images with her thumb.

  “A castle,” she called up. “A bird… maybe a bluebird? A sandwich! A black-and-white photo of a lady holding one of those 1940s-style microphones. And a Roman emperor.”

  “A Roman emperor?” Gina repeated, surprised. “Maybe he’s taking you to Italy!”

  “Italy? It’s not exactly famed for its sandwiches, is it?” Lacey quipped, before another marionette fell into place and wiped the smirk right off her face. This one was a creepy clown with lurid orange curls. Its cracked paint work made it look even more sinister. She shuddered.

  “Careful with that sarcasm, young lady,” Gina trilled down. “I see our British humor is rubbing off on you.”

  “It’s a staycation, anyway,” Lacey continued. “So it’ll be somewhere in Eng—ah!”

  Gina had released yet another one of her marionettes, only this one had smacked Lacey right on her head. She batted it away and found herself staring into the face of a police officer, grinning threateningly and holding a truncheon in its silly puppet hand. She immediately thought of Superintendent Turner of the Wilfordshire Police Department, a man she certainly hoped she’d have no dealings with again any time soon.

  “How many of these nasty things do you have up there?” Lacey cried, rubbing her sore head.


  “That’s the last of them,” Gina called down brightly, none the wiser. The ladder squeaked under her weight as she reversed down it. When she safely reached the bottom, she faced Lacey. “You don’t have the dog puppet, unfortunately, and the string of sausages fell off.”

  She held up the pretend sausages. Lacey didn’t even want to know what that was all about.

  “Show me these piccies then,” Gina said, craning her head to peer upside down at the image on Lacey’s cell phone screen.

  Lacey thumbed through them.

  “Oh!” Gina suddenly exclaimed. “Why didn’t you tell me they were white cliffs? Darling, you’re going to Dover!”

  And with that, she launched into song. Her shrill, high-pitched voice echoed through the entire store, right up into the ceiling beams. Lacey scrunched her face into a wince.

  “There’ll be bluebirds over—the irony of course being that bluebirds aren’t native to England,” she added as a hurried aside before launching into the next line of the song, “—the white cliffs of Dover.” She resumed speaking. “You must know the song? It’s an old wartime classic.”

  “I know the song,” Lacey said. Then she clicked her fingers. “The black-and-white photo of the singer with the old microphone!” She scrolled to the picture and showed it to Gina.

  “Oh yes. That’s Vera Lynn, all right,” Gina confirmed with a nod.

  The bluebirds. The cliffs. The Roman emperor.

  “Tom’s taking me to Dover,” Lacey said with breathless wonder.

  “How charming,” Gina gushed, giving Lacey a playful poke in the ribs.

  A ripple of excitement peeled through Lacey’s whole body. She’d been happy enough about the secret romantic getaway as it was. Then Tom started sending his trail of bread crumb clues, and she’d grown increasingly excited. Now that she’d worked out where she was actually going, she was utterly delighted.

  She quickly texted Tom, “Got it!” and glanced through the window of her store into his patisserie opposite, watching him check his phone and begin to laugh.

  But just as Lacey was gazing at her beau through the window, a sudden figure moved into her line of sight, spoiling her view. As she realized who it was staring at her, the excitement she’d been feeling just moments earlier seeped out of her all in one go, like a candle being extinguished. It was replaced instead by an ominous feeling of dread. Taryn.

  The boutique owner from the store next door was always meddling in Lacey’s life, trying to drive her out of town. Why she had such a vendetta against her, Lacey had never quite gotten to the bottom of, beyond the obvious fact she’d briefly dated Tom many moons ago. It was more likely because she was jealous of her success, or because she was prejudiced toward an American blighting the otherwise perfectly British high street. It was probably a bit of both.

  The store bell jangled angrily as Taryn barged her way inside and charged across the floorboards in black stilettos and her customary LBD. Her sharp, bony shoulders were on full display.

  “Oh look, it’s the Grim Reaper,” Gina murmured under her breath, as the two women watched Taryn give a wide berth around the collection of ugly marionettes, pulling a disgusted face and almost stepping on Chester, the dog. The English Shepherd let out a little whine of distress at the sudden intrusion on his slumbering. Then he dropped his head and covered it with his paws, something Lacey would do as well if social convention allowed it.

  The scowling woman halted abruptly in front of Lacey and Gina.

  “How can I help you, Taryn?” Lacey asked thinly, with wry expectation.

  “Are you aware,” Taryn began haughtily, “that a PIGEON has made a NEST above your door? Its constant twittering is driving me mad! You need to call an exterminator. NOW.”

  “Firstly, she’s not a pigeon,” Lacey retorted.

  “Her name is Martina,” Gina added, with mock offense.

  Taryn’s stony glare went from one woman to the other. She folded her arms. “You named a pigeon?”

  “I told you,” Lacey said. “She’s not a pigeon. She’s a house martin.”

  “And Martina is a fine and fitting name for a house martin,” Gina said, nodding along with Lacey.

  “She’s flown all the way from Africa to raise her babies above my store’s porch,” Lacey added.

  “And we’re both honored to have her here,” Gina finished, rounding off their comedy double-act.

  Lacey could hardly hold back her laughter.

  Taryn looked furious. Her nostrils flared. “If you don’t get rid of it, I’ll call an exterminator myself,” she threatened between her teeth.

  Gina scoffed. “I think you’ll find there’s no such thing, my dear. No one will move a nest during breeding season!”

  Taryn looked like she was about to blow a blood vessel. “When does breeding season end?” she asked through gritted teeth.

  “November. Ish,” Gina said.

  Taryn clenched down on her jaw furiously. “Typical!” she bellowed, before spinning on her heel and storming right into the marionettes. She screamed and batted them out of her face. With a final glare over her shoulder at Lacey and Gina, she stormed out the way she’d come.

  The moment she was gone, Lacey and Gina burst into laughter. Lacey laughed so hard, tears started to roll down her cheeks.

  “Never a dull moment,” she said through her dying chuckles, wiping the tears away. But then she paused. “Hold on a minute. Chester didn’t growl at Taryn.”

  Normally, her English Shepherd would emit a low grumble the entire time Taryn was in his line of sight. Since he came with the store, he’d actually known Taryn far longer than Lacey and there was more bad blood between the two of them than between Taryn and Lacey! Chester treated Taryn like she was his very own Cruella De Vil.

  “Maybe he doesn’t mind her now?” Gina suggested, dabbing her sleeve beneath her bright red glasses to remove her own tears.

  Lacey looked unconvinced. “I highly doubt that. I mean, she literally almost just stepped on him! No, it’s something else.”

  She hurried over to Chester and gently moved his paws off his head. He barely seemed to notice, so Lacey lifted his head up from beneath his chin. It felt heavy, like he was too weak to lift it himself. When their eyes met, Lacey saw his were watery and a little bloodshot. He let out a soft whine.

  “Oh, darling,” Lacey said, her heart skipping several beats. “Are you sick?”

  Chester whined as if in confirmation, and Lacey’s stomach clenched with worry.

  “Gina, I’d better get him to the vet,” she said hurriedly, looking over at her friend. “Will you be okay to mind the shop?”

  “Of course,” Gina said, waving her concerns off with a hand. “I always am.”

  Lacey clipped on Chester’s leash and coaxed him out of the store, her mind frantic with worry for her poor, sick pup.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Chester!” the receptionist called.

  Lacey had spent a short but anxiety-provoking wait in the reception room of Wilfordshire’s finest veterinary practice, having raced Chester through the winding cobblestone streets in her rusty secondhand car.

  She stood from the uncomfortable plastic reception room chair and gave Chester’s leash a little tug. He let out an angry huff—extremely out of character, Lacey noted anxiously—and slowly plodded after her into the treatment room.

  The vet, Lakshmi, looked up as they entered. She was a short Asian woman, completely swamped by her dark green scrubs. Her childlike features made her look far too young to have completed the years of education her profession demanded.

  “Oh dear,” she exclaimed, after taking just one look at Chester’s lumbering figure. “What’s the matter here?”

  Lacey gulped with apprehension as Chester leapt dutifully up onto the examination table. “He’s not himself,” she explained. “He seems lethargic. Like he’s lost his usual spark.”

  Lakshmi began to check him over, placing a thermometer in his ear, shining a min
iature torch in his eyes. Chester obliged, either comfortable enough with Lakshmi to allow it, or too tired from whatever was ailing him to resist.

  “I think someone’s suffering from a case of canine influenza,” Lakshmi said, clicking off her torch and returning it to her breast pocket. “Do you have any other pets at home?”

  “Not at home, but he spends almost every day with his best friend, Boudica,” Lacey explained, before hastily clarifying, “who’s also a dog.”

  “Well, in that case, it might be a good idea to keep him here in order to stop him from infecting her. I can keep him under close observation, and prescribe him some water pills to prevent dehydration.”

  Lacey felt her heart break in two. Her poor pup!

  “But I’ve never gone a night without him since I got him,” she said, mournfully.

  Lakshmi’s features softened in understanding. “You can come and visit him whenever you want. In fact, I’d encourage it. Seeing a familiar face can really help reduce their stress levels.”

  Lacey bit down on her lip. The thought of Chester locked in one of the kennels out back, all alone and confused, was making it start to tremble. “How long will he need to stay in?” she asked.

  “Canine flu is a bit like human flu,” Lakshmi explained. “So it could be up to two weeks.”

  “Two weeks!” Lacey exclaimed. She could feel her grief lodged in her throat.

  “I know it will be hard,” Lakshmi said kindly. “But it’s for the best. He’ll be in good hands. Do you want to go ahead and admit him?” She held out a clipboard, upon which was a pink form of admittance, and gave it an expectant nudge toward Lacey.

  Despite the agonizing ache in her chest, Lacey grabbed the pen and signed on the dotted line. Then she bent her face into the ruff of Chester’s neck, letting her tears discreetly fall into his fur.

  “You’ll be okay, boy,” she murmured.

  Chester whined sadly.