Deadly Dye and a Soy Chai: a Danger Cove Hair Salon Mystery (Danger Cove Mysteries Book 5) by Traci Andrighetti, Elizabeth Ashby Read Free Book Online

their private lives. I was no Jessica Fletcher or Veronica Mars. I was Cassidi Lee Conti, a hairstylist from Fredericksburg, Texas. And regardless of what happened in those cozy mysteries, I knew that real-life hairstylists didn't go around investigating murders. No, I was going to do the smart thing and leave Margaret's case in the hands of the qualified professionals.
    I turned to my side and closed my eyes, but I couldn't sleep. Something was eating at my gut, and it wasn't fear—or that Oregon Blueberry Patch ice cream. It was guilt. My Uncle Vinnie had shocked our entire family by leaving all his worldly possessions to me. He'd explained his decision in his will, stating that I was the only member of the family who would give The Yankee Clipper, as he had called the salon, "the love the old girl needed." (In retrospect, I wish he'd used a different phrase, but whatever.) He'd believed in me, so I had to repay his trust, not to mention his generosity. To do that, I not only had to save The Clip and Sip, but I had to find his killer too—whether his death was connected to Margaret's or not.
    I rolled onto my back and covered my face with a pillow.
    If I made it through what was left of this wretched night, I would start my inquiry after breakfast.
    And I knew exactly who to investigate first.

CHAPTER FOUR
     
    "Here's your espresso," the baby-faced teen said as he placed the cup and saucer on the weathered table outside Carolyn's Coffee and Creamery.
    I flashed a wan smile and dumped three packets of sugar into the black gold. It was only 7:00 a.m., and I was in no mood for anything bitter.
    As I stirred the sweetener, a breeze blew across the pier, and the combined aroma of the sea air and the coffee soothed my nerves. A small seagull perched on the pier railing caught my eye, and I felt an unexpected moment of calm.
    A thwack shattered my serenity as a copy of the Cove Chronicles landed beside my cup.
    "If you haven't seen this morning's paper, you'd better take a look," Amy warned. She was standing before me in a stark gray sack dress, and her mouth was set in a grim line. "And prepare yourself," she continued as she dropped into a chair. "It's pure yellow journalism."
    Better than blue journalism . Or so I thought. When I opened the paper, a photograph of spread-eagle Sadie with the caption "Sex and Suffocation at the Salon?" greeted me.
    Without a word, I tossed back my espresso like it was a shot of whiskey. Gia's titles suddenly sounded a lot more appealing.
    The young server approached and took my cup. "Can I get you anything else, ma'am?"
    "I'll have another," I whispered, too shocked to be upset about that "ma'am." "And make it a double."
    "Whoa." Amy raised her hand in a stopping motion. "Pull the reigns on the caffeine, cowgirl. My mother says it's like rock music—it causes addictions to cigarettes and reefers."
    Amy, like her mother, obviously, was more than a little square. "First of all, I might be from Texas, but I'm no cowgirl. And second, if anything's going to drive me to drugs, it's stories about people suffocating in my salon, not a few shots of espresso in my system."
    Her eyes grew wide. "Be careful, then, Cass. Because the reporter who wrote that article is convinced that there was some sort of funny business going on at The Clip and Sip."
    I sighed—both because of the reporter's cheekiness and because of Amy's cluelessness. For such a bright girl, she often struggled with the difference between sarcasm and seriousness. "Who is this reporter, anyway?"
    "Duncan Pickles. And the surname fits him. He's a real sauertopf ."
    I gave a frustrated sigh. Amy was German on her father's side, but she told me that she hadn't known a word of the language until she'd studied it in college. Since that time, she'd taken to peppering her speech with the occasional Deutsch word "to exercise her ancestral right to speak the 'fatherland tongue.'" "You know, just because I'm half German and grew up in a town