Chalk Lines & Lipstick: a Maren Colepepper cozy mystery (Maren Colepepper Mysteries Book 1)

  My first day on the job, I got shot at, and I'm pretty sure the two new men in my life are the prime suspects. One is a really good kisser. When I tell people that returning to my tiny, boring hometown would be the death of me, I hadn't meant to be literal.

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  CHALK LINES & LIPSTICK

  by

  OPHELIA LONDON

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  Copyright © 2015 by Ophelia London

  Cover design by Yocola Designs

  Gemma Halliday Publishing

  http://www.gemmahallidaypublishing.com

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  TABLE OF 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

  FREE BOOK OFFER

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  BOOKS BY OPHELIA LONDON

  SNEAK PEEK

  To Eureka, the most beautiful spot on earth and the best hometown a girl could come from. And to Mommy.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  I kept my eyes closed during the last leg of the drive. Not sleeping, but not able to face my surroundings either. Besides reading the same copy of The New Yorker and trying not to touch anything, I'd spent most of my journey watching the same five movies on my phone, over and over.

  I'd been in the mid-four hundreds in my most recent counting-backward-from-one-thousand calming ritual, when loud brakes screeched, and the Greyhound came to a stop, rocking up and down on its worn out springs.

  People around me were up and moving, gathering their belongings to disembark, but I remained where I was. Eyes sealed shut, chanting now, instead of counting.

  It's going to be fine, it's going to be fine, it's going to be ffff—

  "Miss?"

  I opened one peeper to find the bus driver standing in the aisle in front of me.

  "Eureka. Your stop, right?"

  It's so not going to be fine. This is one pitiful, heck-of-a homecoming.

  "Thanks," I said, swallowing the sour taste lapping at the back of my mouth. I reached for my purse and hugged it to my chest like a bulletproof vest as I made my way toward the exit, part of my brain happy to be off this four-wheel death trap after the five-day journey from my beloved New York.

  At least I'd have plenty of fodder if I ever wanted to write a travel/horror novel.

  As I stumbled off the bus, my two tartan-plaid suitcases were the only ones left on the sidewalk. Standing guard over them—flanked by fog-covered, sky-high redwoods off in the distance—was a fresh-faced woman, medium height, slight build, long ponytail of blonde hair with two purple streaks. She wore a brick red cotton dress that reached the toes of her combat boots and a long black and white houndstooth peacoat.

  She looked sweetly menacing. Looks could be deceiving.

  "Hey, Maren," she said, her arms spread wide open to me. "Your life sucks the big one, huh?"

  I blew out a long exhale as we hugged. Then I felt like liberating the sob I'd been holding inside since crossing through Ohio. "Stupid, sucky life," I muttered with a teary chuckle.

  After an extra-tight squeeze, I pulled back and gave my baby sister the up-down. Even at five years apart in age, we looked a lot alike. Piper was a few centimeters taller, always thinner, but, especially in photos, we were often mistaken for twins.

  Piper took both my hands and swung them between us. "You look amazing." She beamed, much too enthusiastically, even for an actress.

  "Truly?" I tucked some blonde flyaway frizzies behind my ear. Darn North Coast humidity, I didn't miss you. "I haven't showered in four days, and I think the guy sitting beside me had a flesh-eating bacteria." I arched an eyebrow. "What you meant was I look amazing considering."

  "Considering you were fired, dumped, and evicted in the space of forty-eight hours?" Piper grimaced then twirled the end of her ponytail. "Sorry."

  "No, no, that was a very succinct summary. Except you left out how I lost my favorite knockoff Louboutins in the move."

  "At least you haven't lost your sense of humor." She flashed another too-bright grin. I noticed it wobble as her eyes did a double take on my clothes.

  I thought I looked staggeringly spectacular under the circumstances. At the Nevada border, I'd convinced the bus driver to let me retrieve a fresh outfit from my suitcase. Then I managed to take a sort of bird bath in the tiny bus lavatory less than an hour ago. It was a tight squeeze, and I got more mascara on the wall than on my lashes, but at least I no longer felt like the floor of a movie theater.

  After all, I didn't want to resemble a scene from The Walking Dead the first day at my new job.

  "How's it going with you?" I asked as we towed my bags toward her hatchback, the top already flipped up. "The plays and your research?"

  "Research is way more time consuming than I thought."

  It still astonished me that my sister—the one who used to daydream about starring in Disney princess movies—was working on her PhD dissertation, combining her two big loves—the stage and psychology.

  "Did I tell you?" she continued. "The Repertory is running Earnest and the Light Opera's rehearsals for Starlight Express start next week." She hefted one of my morbidly obese suitcases into the car with one hand.

  "You're starring in both productions, I presume?"

  "When they were casting Starlight, I told them I'd been skating my whole life."

  "You don't even know how to roller-skate, Piper. Remember that summer we both got skates?" I opened the passenger side and got in. My sister was already seated, checking herself out in the visor mirror. "You tried to keep up with me and ended up crashing into old lady Kinsey's bushes. And you're telling me Lie-Oh, the only major musical theatre group in a hundred miles, cast you to roller-skate around stage while singing Andrew Lloyd Webber?"

  "I'm an actor," she said, starting the ignition. "I'll act like I can skate."

  Our sisterly laughs turned into snorts, and fo
r a moment, I forgot to be ashamed about returning home with my figurative tail between my legs. That wasn't like me, anyway. I'd always been the positive influence, the one with high moral fiber, integrity to a fault, a survival instinct to handle anything in a flash—which was why I had taken to the New Yorker lifestyle so easily.

  But now, for a while at least, I'd have to remember how to move at a slower pace.

  "So, Mare, what are you going to do?" Piper asked as we began the drive across town. The bus depot was on Q Street, which crossed the numbers. All of the streets downtown were numbers or letters, which out-of-towners found extremely hilarious. "Now that you're back here for good, I mean."

  "My job at The Standard." I pointed out my window in the general direction where my new office building was located. "Where you're taking me right now, Piper, yes?"

  For once, I didn't feel like vomiting while speaking aloud about my new job. Because, after what happened with my old job at The Book…

  I took in a hard, deep breath and stared through the windshield.

  The Book. Thinking that name actually did make me want to puke. I'd loved working there. Well, not there, specifically, but I loved that I'd finally made it in Manhattan. I'd been a junior-junior copyeditor at one of the most prestigious fashion magazines in the country. So what if it didn't offer the hard-hitting, investigative journalist front-page stories I'd always dreamed would be connected to my byline? It was a job in a skyscraper with a view of Central Park. I'd had dental, a cubicle, and a potted plant. I'd also had a boyfriend who I thought was at least a little supportive and a best friend I'd assumed I could say anything to.

  And now I was back in my rinky-dink hometown. Alone.

  As if to punctuate the dreary situation, a gust of wind shook the car while a few fat raindrops fell from the sky. If I'd been looking for a sign from Mother Nature that I should turn back, this couldn't have been clearer.

  Maybe I should've listened.

  Writing for The Standard felt like two monumental steps backward, but at least it was a job. I hadn't had one of those bad boys for one very long, broke month, even after sending out so many résumés my laptop started to smoke. Rent had been past due, making inevitable eviction from an apartment I couldn't afford alone hang overhead like Madame Guillotine.

  My ex-boss at The Book had been dead right when he'd thrown down the classic threat:" You will never work in this town again!"

  Once you did what I'd done, there was no going back.

  I stared out the window at the passing scenery: wet foliage, bushes of bright rhododendrons, old Victorian homes converted to business fronts, clean streets, Historical Landmark signs on practically every corner, and the thick, foggy morning sky.

  It's early. The fog might burn off by lunchtime. I smiled reminiscently as I recalled how we used to voice that same hope every morning in high school. If it was just breezy enough, and that wind came from the east past the Sierra Nevadas, and it wasn't too cold, and all the planets were aligned, the fog would lift and the gorgeous California sun would break through.

  But that was a rare phenomenon in Eureka, especially now. Chilly coastal fog just loves March.

  Piper broke into my thoughts. "Sorry, but you had it going on hardcore in New York, and now you're back here in Sucksville, population twenty-eight sucky-thousand."

  My sister had a way with words. Maybe she should be the journalist.

  "Thanks for the reminder." I pinched her arm at the spot I knew tickled more than hurt.

  "We've got another five minutes in the car," she said, arching away from my pinch. "You going to tell me what happened back there?"

  "Hey. How 'bout them Kardashians? How gigantic can one butt be?"

  "You are not dodging the question." Piper hit the all-lock button, trapping me inside the moving car. "I've been waiting a month, very patiently, and you know I'm not a patient person when it comes to other people's private drama. So, what happened in New York? Whatever I conjure up is worse than what really went down."

  "Don't bet on it," I said as we drove past the high school. "This place still resembles a prison. If they're going to paint it every ten years, why not choose a color other than beige?"

  "You're deflecting, Mare. Come on. Spill it."

  I sighed and ran a fist over my mouth. "Okay, the gist of my woeful tale is this: if you want to keep your job, don't continue an assignment your boss tells you to drop, especially when you discover it involves him, and the whole thing is two shakes shy of a federal crime."

  Piper's sculptured eyebrows shot to her hairline. "Seriously?"

  I nodded. "Of course I wouldn't drop the story, and the day before I planned on turning over my findings to HR, I got fired. My computer and all my notes were confiscated."

  "Holy shiz."

  "My head's still swimming from how fast it happened. And when I got home that night, Scott was already—"

  "Ugh." Piper cut in. "That guy was a moron. So what if he dumped you? The two times I met him, I wanted to ring his scrawny neck."

  "He was a fixer-upper," I admitted, chewing my thumbnail. Honestly, I didn't think about Scott anymore. He was kind of a moron and a major asshat for ending our six-month relationship the way he had…with a note scribbled on the back of a Chinese food takeout menu. I hadn't been able to look at a carton of moo shu pork since.

  "It's been over a month," Piper said while making a left turn, cutting off a cop car that didn't bother to follow. "By now, you should be wailing Taylor Swift songs about how much you hate his face."

  "I will," I promised with a laugh. "First chance I get."

  "And what's Joey's problem? Why did your best friend turn all passive-aggressive and freeze you out? She should be grateful you told her about her lying, cheating fiancé."

  I bit down on my nail. Scott was one thing, but I was not going to cry about Joey. I'd done the right thing. "She still doesn't believe me—that's the problem."

  "When's the last time you spoke in person?"

  I swallowed hard at the hot tears creeping up my throat. Maybe someday I'd stop missing Joey like I'd already stopped missing fixer-upper Scott. "The day before Scott and I broke up, which very much sucked because not only had I just been dumped, but fired. I really needed my best friend."

  Piper turned to me while we idled at a red light. "Jeez, Mare. What the hell did you do to Karma?"

  "Something extremely heinous, evidently." I pressed my forehead against the window. Adding to the gloom, the clouds had cracked open and it was showering like mad, which felt about right for the sulky mood trying to weigh down my spirits.

  "It doesn't matter now." I pushed back my hair and sat up in my seat, trying, despite my fatigue of body and attitude, to display positivity. "This is a new beginning for me—totally fresh. How many people get to start their lives over?"

  "By writing for The Standard?" My sister's voice went monotone. "You won't find an exciting news story to save your life. Nothing ever happens around here. Trust me." She uttered this so matter-of-factly that I felt a block of ice swish around in my stomach. "Though I did hear from this one guy that something weird is happening at the paper. Like an internal shuffle, new rules, new management. Honestly, I was surprised they hired you."

  "Yeah?" A rock of dread replaced the ice in the pit of my stomach.

  "It's probably just gossip. You know, small town."

  I blew out my held breath, but the rock didn't go away. "Yeah, I know."

  As far as it potentially sucking here? My brain had already come to terms with that. Ten years ago, I'd fled Eureka three days after high school graduation and spent four years at NYU waiting tables and writing for the Washington Square News, the university's student newspaper.

  While working at The Standard, the best I could hope for was a story about a new color of seaweed washing up on the beach at high tide. My organs lurched when Piper shifted to second gear, ready to pull into the parking lot of my new office building.

  "Be honest. Do I totall
y reek of bus?" I asked, ignoring the wretched glob of nerves writhing in my gut.

  Piper pulled to a stop then leaned toward me and sniffed the air. "Surprisingly not. But I can't believe you have to work already, and we can't hang out. You just landed—or, you know."

  "Today's the date my boss and I agreed on." I yanked down the visor mirror and gave myself a quick check. "I didn't think it would take five frickin' days to get here."

  "Mom offered to fly you, but that delightful stubborn streak of yours wouldn't allow it."

  I rolled my eyes. "I know."

  "She was coming to meet you too, but she had some exercise thing—tap dancing, this time. She's letting you drive the Taurus until you get your own car."

  "That's thoughtful," I said, though I wasn't surprised. Our mother was extremely unselfish, just kind of…a handful.

  "You and I are hitting the town tonight," Piper added.

  "Do you really think I'll be in the mood to go out?"

  "Precisely why we are." She hit a button, and my door unlocked. "Text when you're done for the day, and I'll pick you up. Good luck." She lifted a bright, genuine smile. "I know you think this place is a drag and everything, but I love living here—it's special. I wish you could see that. Mare, I'm so glad you're home."

  A rush of heavy, mixed emotions made it hard to speak, so I simply nodded, took one last deep inhale, and climbed out of the car. "Thanks for the ride."

  "Don't forget, it's going to suck!" she called as I shut the door. "Nothing wicked, corrupt, or evil ever happens here!"

  I didn't realize it at the time, but neither of us knew how deathly wrong she was.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I dashed through the drizzle to the building entrance, a wide awning sheltering me from most of the rain. I stared at the double doors with the words The Standard etched across the glass, not quite able to grasp the handle. Piper was already pulling away, I was completely out of money, so really, what other choice did I have?