A Killer Ending
A Snug Harbor Mystery
Karen MacInerney
Copyright © 2020 by Karen MacInerney
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
For Lee Strauss, author extraordinaire, with gratitude.
Without that long September beach walk in Florida (and your intriguing and wise suggestions), Snug Harbor, Maine—and Max Sayers—would not exist.
Thank you from all three of us!
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Recipes
Max’s Favorite Coconut Cookies
Brown Sugar Shortbread Cookies
Raspberry Meltaways
Chocolate Toffee Bars
More Books by Karen MacInerney
Acknowledgments
About the Author
1
Two years ago, if you'd told me I'd be spending the day after my 42nd birthday driving north on I-95 with all of my worldly possessions hitched to my Honda CRV in a U-Haul trailer like some sort of oversize snail shell, I'd have told you you were crazy.
But things change.
Boy, do they change.
It wasn't the best time to head out of Boston. It had been after two o'clock on Friday afternoon when I had gotten the last picture of my two darling girls packed up into a box and loaded into the back of the trailer. Since it was the first weekend of summer vacation in Massachusetts, I was now trapped on the highway with several thousand fellow motorists, many of them with kayaks or bicycles strapped to the backs of their SUVs. Like a lot of them, I was headed north to the Maine coast to enjoy a sunny, sparkling summer weekend. Unlike them, however, I didn't plan to come back on Sunday.
Or at all.
Just three months earlier, listening to a deep gut instinct for the first time in almost two decades, I'd signed a stack of paperwork, plunked down my life savings, and purchased my very own bookstore, Seaside Cottage Books in Snug Harbor, Maine. With the help of an assistant, I'd spent the last several weeks clearing out years of debris from the storage room, dusting the shelves, taking stock of the inventory, and using what little money I had left to add a carefully curated selection of new books. I'd also spent a good bit of time redecorating the place, rolling up my sleeves and repainting the walls a gorgeous blue, making new, nautical-print cushions for the window seats with my mother's old sewing machine, and scouring second-hand stores for the perfect cozy armchairs to tuck away in corners.
The grand re-opening celebration was scheduled for tomorrow night, and I was as nervous as... well, as nervous as a middle-aged, recently divorced woman who's just spent everything she has on a risky venture in a small Maine town can be. I'd used my final pennies (and a small loan) to take out ads in the local paper and spread flyers all over town; I hoped my marketing efforts worked.
From his crate behind me, Winston, my faithful Bichon-mystery-mix rescue, whined. I reached back to put my fingers through the grate and pat his wooly white head; he licked my fingers. "I know, buddy. But once we get there, you'll get to go for walks on the beach and sniff all kinds of things. I promise you'll love it." He let out a whimper, but settled down.
Walks on the beach. Fresh sea air. A business that allowed me to be my own boss. A home to call my own. I repeated these sentences like a mantra, as if they could wipe the memory of the complicated and painful last year-and-a-half from my mind and my soul.
Move forward, Max. Just move forward.
I took a deep breath and let my foot off the brake unconsciously. The car rolled forward and I slammed on the brake again, just in time to avoid rear-ending the Highlander in front of me, which had four bikes strapped to the back. Two adult bikes, and two smaller pink and blue sparkly bikes, one of which had pink ribbons trailing from the handlebar grips. Two daughters. My eye was drawn to the heads in the car: a happy family, going to Maine for the summer. A dull pain sprouted in my chest, but once again, I banished it.
Forward, Max.
By the time I reached the exit for Snug Harbor, the sun was low in the sky and my stomach was growling. I glanced back at Winston, who was still giving me a reproachful look from his dark brown eyes.
"We're almost there," I promised him.
I turned at the exit. Within moments, we'd left the impersonal, clogged highway behind and were heading down a winding rural route, passing handmade signs offering firewood for sale, a sea glass souvenir shop, and a log-cabin-style restaurant advertising early-bird lobster dinners and senior specials. I hooked a left at a T-intersection marked by a large planter filled with dahlias and white salvia. And then, as if I had crossed the threshold into another world, I was in Snug Harbor.
I glanced at Winston; he was perking up as I tooled down Main Street, which was already buzzing with summer visitors, and when I opened the windows and let the cool, fresh sea breeze in, he sat up and started sniffing. Quaint, homegrown shops faced the narrow, car-lined street, which was landscaped with trees and flower-filled planters. Business appeared to be booming; a line snaked out
