A Dead Ringer

A DEAD RINGER A MAGNOLIA MANOR MYSTERY JOY PATRICK MERMAID SISTERS PUBLISHING, INC. For Dad, the real Reds, who always reminded you to be the captain of your own ship 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 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 The End Copyright © 2023 by Joy Patrick 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. * * * Written in collaboration with Matthew Meade * * * Edited by Chandi Lyn * * * Book cover design by Chris Hunter inspired by the lovely Magnolia Plantation B&B Gainesville, FL CHAPTER 1 Lilly felt like her life was split into two halves—the half that was thrilled to be starting over and the half that had to deal with the heat. The heat in Drifter’s Cove, Florida, always seemed to seep into everything. The wooden tables swelled with moisture, soda cans dripped sweat like top-tier athletes in the playoffs, and every shirt Lilly wore quickly soaked through. Lilly had experienced the dry heat of Arizona visiting her aunts when she was a child, and she remembered the razor-sharp rays of the sun on her Pennsylvania town as a teenager. But the thick, wet heat of Florida was something new and frustrating. If it was a battle, the heat was winning. “Don’t you have any other kind of weather here than oppressive?” Lilly asked. Pete Quigley, who was working on replacing flooring in the kitchen, was the only other person in the quaint inn Lilly now owned, and she was looking for conversation even if he was not. He was a thick-necked guy with a nice smile if he ever bothered to show it, and despite being on the wrong side of 30, he was still fit and had a nice head of hair on him, so Lilly did not mind his company. “This?” he asked, pausing his work long enough to notice the heat and the humidity of a Florida afternoon. “This is downright mild.” Lilly rolled her eyes as the two continued their respective projects. Quigley was working on the kitchen flooring which had been damaged in a recent, unexpected flood, while Lilly was cleaning out everything under the sink and in the cupboards and cabinets. Quigley had tried to convince her to just pull out all the cabinets and replace them, but she liked them. The place was old. At least 100 years old and Lilly liked it the way it was from when she was a child. She had run through the kitchen barefoot as a kid and she wanted to avoid changing it as much as she could. She had explained to Quigley that it just needed a bit of polish, and it would be as good as new. However, Lilly had not anticipated how grueling it would be to apply that bit of polish in the afternoon heat. “Don’t they have heat waves in DC?” Quigley asked as Lilly pulled old items from under the sink and tossed them into a nearby trashcan. “Most of the time we were inside private jets on our way to meetings with oil companies, remember?” she said, playing on the assumptions he made about her old job working for a US Senator. “That’s what I figured,” he said wryly. “Speaking of politicians,” she said. Lilly pulled a dead rat from under the sink and dropped it into the garbage with the rest of the old chemicals and moldy cleaning products. “Ugh,” Quigley winced. “That’s awful.” “It’s just a dead rat,” she said, putting on gloves to pull out a small bottle of arsenic from under the sink. “It must have eaten this poison.” “It’s arsenic,” Quigley said, still frowning at the rat. “I don’t want this in here,” she said and turned toward the sink to dump the contents down the drain. “Don’t,” Quigley said. “I know a place that disposes of this stuff. Dumping it down the sink is dangerous. It can get into the groundwater.” Quigley took the vial and put it with the rest of the pulled-up flooring he had been adding to all morning. “Thanks for taking care of that,” she said, dusting her hands off. “Besides this unpleasantness, the place is almost ready,” he said. “Almost ready for your first paying customer.” “It’s coming together,” Lilly agreed. “Who do you think my first guest will be? An aspiring actor researching a role? A famous chef sampling the local cuisine? An heiress?” “Do your fantasies always involve rich and famous people coming here?” “Of course. That’s what makes them fantasies. “There was that couple the other day. Remember?” “They were here asking directions to the beach, which you already know since you were here,” Lilly said, pretending to be hurt. “Maybe they were CIA!” The excitement returned to her voice. “That’s right! They were secretly scoping the place while pretending to not be able to find the beach.” “Exactly! I mean, who can’t find the beach? Just go west, you can’t miss it!” Quigley chuckled. “I suppose your daydreams help to deal with the realities of how you got this place.” “Hush, Quigley,” she said, calling him by his last name as she always did. “No one asked you.” “You know, you can call me Pete,” he said, not sure why she preferred his last name to his first. “I’ll call you whatever I like. I could think of a few nicknames if you’re interested,” she offered. “No thanks,” Quigley responded. Lilly felt satisfied that