Murder in a Cup

Book 2: Crystals & CuriosiTEAS Mystery

by Lauren Elliott

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Culinary Cozy Mysteries; Supernatural suspense

Synopsis

Self-taught "seer" Shay has much to learn as autumn hits the quaint coastal town of Bray Harbor. Since attempting the art of blending herbs at her popular shop, Crystals & CuriosiTeas, she's set on growing ingredients in the mysterious greenhouse on the second floor—if only she can separate the medicinal plants from the deadly ones. Her new skills are put to the test when she meets pub owner and ex-detective Liam Madigan's Gran. A psychic from Ireland known for interpreting tea leaves and people, Gran encourages Shay to build upon her natural talents and hold her own group reading . . .



Despite Shay's reservations about putting herself in the spotlight, the evening goes off without a hitch. At least, until she does a reading and a customer goes from chatty to dead in a flash, poisoned after sipping a toxic substance recently grown in the greenhouse. Worse, Shay's assistant is suspected of intentionally serving the lethal brew and committing cold-blooded murder. Now, aided only by Liam and her dog Spirit, Shay must exonerate her employee and save the future of Crystals & CuriosiTeas. But when clues start lining up like leaves in a teacup, she'll need to understand the signs right in front of her to catch the manipulative murderer before it's too late . . .

Release date: November 28, 2023

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

We all have our small daily rituals. They range from a must-have, take-on-the-go morning cup of coffee or tea to double- or even triple-checking the front door to make certain it’s locked behind us. However, whether we recognize them as rituals is another thing. For Shayleigh Myers, certainly no workday could commence without her spending quiet time in the second-floor greenhouse of Crystals & CuriosiTEAS, her tea shop in Bray Harbor, California. Although, if you referred to this part of her morning routine as a ritual, she would totally dismiss it and tell you she just enjoyed the peace and quiet before she started another busy day peopling.

She would climb the spiral, wrought-iron staircase to the second floor; pause at the top in the entrance to the small alcove office; and immediately close her eyes. This part—blocking out the sight of all the paperwork that screamed at her daily from the desk—was a must. Then she’d reach around behind her with her left hand and grip the handrail to keep her bearings—stumbling blindly down the staircase was not her idea of the perfect start to any day.

She’d draw in a deep breath, and because she had done this every workday morning for the past year, she would take exactly four steps to her left until she was well past the handrail and steep stairs it surrounded, and then she’d slowly blow out that initial cleansing breath. After that, she’d slowly inhale another deep breath and savor the pungent, earthy scents of recently watered soil and the accompanying spring-like fragrance of the plants and herbs growing in the planter boxes that filled her second-floor conservatory. Next, she’d open her eyes, smile at the vast array of greenery that surrounded her, and take a seat on the bench beside the potting table, where she would sit for precisely thirty minutes to reflect on and give thanks to all in her life that had brought her to this moment in time.

On occasion, her tranquility would be threatened. It would start with a churning in the pit of her stomach, and fleeting images would pop into her mind of her cheating, thieving ex-husband, who had ruined her career and her reputation back in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She’d quickly draw another deep breath, releasing it along with her pent-up anger toward him. Then remind herself that sometimes when things fall apart better things fall into place, and if Brad hadn’t done what he had, she might well not be sitting here today.

She would then give thanks not only to him for his infidelity and scheming behind her back, but to Bridget Early, the woman who by her bequeathment had led her here and given her this new lease on life. The mother Shayleigh would never get to know except through the journals and letters she’d come across living in Bridget’s cottage and running Bridget’s tea shop.

Without fail, tears would well up in her eyes. Yes, this tea shop had been a new beginning and had led Shay down a path she never thought or knew existed, but it hadn’t been an easy road. Far from it. It had tested her resilience this past year for certain. The warming of the amulet under her blouse against her chest was a constant reminder of the powers it awakened in her. Not to mention the confusion that followed on the rare occasion she had opened not only the pouch encasing the amulet but also the door that by doing so opened up in her mind.

On that reflection, a shiver would race up her spine and settle at the base of her skull. Yearning to speak with Bridget not only in spirit but in body, with tear-filled eyes, she’d once again scan the opulent greenery that surrounded her. There were still too many unanswered questions, and she had no idea where the answers lay.

Like clockwork she’d hear the reverberating ping of footsteps on metal. She would hurriedly wipe her damp cheeks and then hear her sister Jen asking in a cheery voice, “Shay? Are you up here?” as she reached the top of the stairs and came around into the greenhouse. “I can’t believe you always manage to beat me in. Here’s your morning coffee,” Jen would say, and given the day, her blond hair might be a single long braid that hung down her chest, giving her the appearance of a Norwegian Viking queen, or it might be tucked up in a high ponytail like the cheerleader she had been back in high school. Shay never knew what version of her sister she would encounter, but it didn’t matter because every version of her sister reminded her why she loved being back in Bray Harbor after a sixteen-year absence. It meant she was reunited with the only remaining family member she had in the world.

Then Jen would take a seat on the bench beside Shay. Her forget-me-not, pale-blue eyes would sparkle as she’d say, “I just love that we take a few minutes every morning to sit and drink in all this.” Jen would then wave her hand toward the expanse of the greenhouse. “But best of all, I’m glad we still have our morning coffee before a day of tea services.” Then she’d giggle at their naughtiness and take a sip from her steaming take-out cup from the coffee shop across the street.

Shay would nod and smile, then take a sip from her cup and silently give thanks for the opportunity to work side by side with the person she loved most in this world. Even though she’d never had the heart to tell her sister that she purposely arrived thirty minutes before their prearranged meeting time, just so she could have all this to herself while she had her morning chat with Bridget.

No, this wasn’t just a daily routine or even a ritual. It was Shay’s way of keeping in touch with her new life and the new her. It was a time to quiet and separate her erratic thoughts from her heightened senses. The ones that meant she could sense other people’s energy. Inky feelings is what her sister called them, and Shay would smile with Jen’s description, but most important to her, no matter what they were called, was that they had served her throughout her life. Even though there was still so much about her abilities she didn’t understand. She hoped this part of her morning routine would bring a kind of enlightenment to her because the secret to harnessing her power was here, somewhere. She was sure of it. Why else would Bridget, the mother she never knew, have left all this to her if not to teach her . . .

However, today something was off.

There was a disturbance, an unusual static buzzing in the air, disrupting the greenhouse’s usual reassuring setting. When the static level increased and found a home at the base of Shay’s skull, she tilted her head, much like Spirit, the dog who had claimed her, did when he sensed something. No matter how she positioned her head, she couldn’t detect the origins of the odd sensation prickling her skin. Instinctively, Shay reached over and gently squeezed her sister’s hand in hers.

“What brought that on?” Jen turned to her, a puzzled expression on her face.

“Just because . . .” Shay shrugged and weakly smiled.

“Ah, Sis, are you having one of those moments again? You’ve been thinking about Bridget, haven’t you?” Jen gently cupped Shay’s cheek in her hand. “You know that just because we discovered we aren’t related by blood, it doesn’t mean our bond isn’t strong, right? Because I’ve told you a thousand times this past year that the lifetime bond we have can never be broken, as it goes deeper than blood ties ever could.”

Shay shook her head. “No, it’s not that. Something in the air is off, and I can’t quite put my finger on it.” She took another sip of her morning elixir, but instead of a sense of contentment rushing through her, a shiver tingled across her shoulders. She scanned the rows and rows of waist-high planter tables veiled with pots of flourishing vegetation that grew like weeds in the protection and warmth of the greenhouse. Whatever was wrong was here, in front of her somewhere in all this greenery.

Her overall sense of uneasiness narrowed in on the closest table, and the amulet in the leather pouch she wore around her neck, tucked discreetly under her blouse, grew warm against her skin. She rose to her feet and took a step toward the planter. However, in that moment, Spirit, her pure white German shepherd companion, skulked around the end of the staircase rail, crept over to the same stand Shay was eyeing, sat back on his haunches, and let out a low, woeful howl.

“Did you let Spirit into the shop when you came in?”

“No,” said Jen, rising to her feet. “Didn’t he come in with you?”

“No, he didn’t. After I let him out of the cottage this morning, he took off down the boardwalk.”

“Well,” Jen gulped, “someone let him in.”

“Did you lock the door behind you?”

“Of course I did.”

“I know he’s smart, but”—Shay cocked her eyebrow at Spirit, who looked at her with puppy-dog eyes—“he doesn’t have a key.”

“This . . . this is no time for jokes,” said Jen, choking out her words. “Someone let him in, and no one other than us is supposed to be here now.” On tiptoes, she unsteadily crept to the top of the railing, peered down at the main floor of the shop, and cocked her hand to her ear. “I can hear someone moving around,” she hoarsely whispered.

“It must be Tassi,” Shay said, coming to her side.

“It can’t be. It’s nearly nine. She’d be in class by now.”

“Tassi, is that you?” Shay called.

“I tell you, it’s not her because it’s not a school holiday.”

“What?” Shay’s young part-time assistant’s voice echoed up the staircase.

“See, I told you. Tassi,” said Shay.

“I sure hope her Aunt Jo didn’t see her come in. We’ll never hear the end of it if she’s skipped school to come into work,” snapped Jen, and then added as she trotted down the steps. “Something must be wrong.”

Shay glanced back at Spirit, still beside the planter table. When he lay down and whimpered, a cold hand gripped her chest.

“Yes,” whispered Shay. “Something’s wrong for sure.”

It was clear that Spirit sensed the same shifting energy in the air, but what wasn’t clear was why he had singled out that particular planter table today. It had been months since Madam Malvina, the owner of Mystical Gardens in Monterey, had swept through the greenhouse like the whirlwind that she was, pointing out several questionable plants Bridget had used in her healing treatments. Then she’d casually strolled out of the conservatory with a good-bye warning to Shay, declaring that although parts of the herbs and plants she had pointed out had healing properties if harvested and used correctly, the subsequent dried tea made from them in the hands of a novice could also be deadly.

Since Shay considered herself just that when it came to the healing properties of plants, naturally Shay had panicked at the woman’s parting words. Wanting to take no chances, she had immediately set about separating the questionable plants from the ones she knew she could safely use without inadvertently poisoning any of her customers. Then to be extra safe, she had cordoned off the entire table and placed a warning sign on it, CAUTION: POISON, and called Dr. Mia Harper, an area botanist, with an urgent plea for assistance. Shay had met her last year by way of an introduction through her old friend Dr. Adam Ward, the local coroner, the day he’d announced to Shay that he and Mia were soon to be married.

Since Mia had made it clear from that first introduction that she was itching to go through the greenhouse, she’d jumped at Shay’s invitation. Mia’s years of experience as a college professor had showed in her ability to explain, in layman’s terms, the properties of the plants in question. She’d even offered Shay some of the textbooks used in her classes so that Shay could do some extra reading.

Shay had then spent the better part of most days reading everything she could about her plants and what parts were safe to use and what she should discard. Some, like tansy, with its fragrant ferny leaves and bright yellow flowers, could be safely used in small amounts as an external wash or poultice for sprains and bruises. However, ingesting it in large amounts could be deadly as the essential oil in the plant was toxic. Others like cinnamon, jasmine, fennel, clover, lemongrass, and rose hips were safe, and these plants or parts of them could be extracted and dried for tea. On the other hand, nutmeg was great for cooking and baking, but it could be deadly when brewed in a tea.

The never-ending lists of the plants whose stems or flowers were safe but whose leaves and berries were poisonous, or vice versa, had caused Shay’s confidence level to plummet. The more she read, the greater her doubts grew in her abilities to distinguish between what was safe and what wasn’t, and she’d expressed her hesitancy to Mia.

Mia had completely understood and suggested that once she got settled into this new school year and had time to screen her graduate students for the brightest and best, she would have them remove any of the plants Shay wanted to donate to the college’s botany program. Shay had been thrilled, as her biggest fear was that she might accidentally poison either herself or an unsuspecting customer.

“Shay!” Jen’s shrill voice rang up the stairwell, pulling Shay back to the present. “I think you’d better come down here, now.”

“Did you hear that, boy, we’re needed downstairs.”

Spirit raised his head but didn’t move. She had learned long ago that he also had an uncanny sense and she shouldn’t question him or his actions. If he felt the need to stand guard by the poison table, she’d let him be, at least until she knew what was going on with Tassi.

“Okay, you win, but I will admit you’re kind of freaking me out this morning.” Shay took one more look at her protector lying prone on the floor and shook her head. “That planter has been there for months. What’s so different about it today?” she muttered as she trotted down the stairs.

When Shay reached the bottom step, she hesitated. Tassi was seated at the round table in the back room, her gaze averted to the wooden-planked floor. Jen’s face was contorted in her best stern mother expression as she hovered over the girl. It was clear that Tassi had done something Jen, a mother of two, didn’t approve of.

“What’s up?”

“Are you going to tell her or should I?”

Tassi shook her head and looked up at Jen, then over at Shay. The whites of Tassi’s gunmetal-gray eyes were streaked with red, and her smudged charcoal eyeliner dripped down her cheeks.

“What’s wrong?” asked Shay, hurrying to the girl’s side.

“She cut class, that’s what’s wrong,” snapped Jen, crossing her arms over her heaving chest. “If Joanne finds out about this, it will be the end of her working here, and do you want that?” She glared down at Tassi.

“No.” Tassi’s bottom lip quivered. “But I did go—”

“Then why are you here now?”

“Wait a second, Jen. Let her explain. Something clearly happened,” said Shay, pinning her gaze on Tassi’s pale face. “Is that right? Did something happen when you got to school?”

Tassi nodded, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.

“Take your time.” Shay sat next to Tassi and held the girl’s hand. “Just take a deep breath and tell us what upset you this morning.”

“I . . . I got to school, and Spirit was sitting by the bike rack—”

“Like he was waiting for you?” asked Jen skeptically.

“Yeah, it was weird. He’s never done that before, but, anyway, I locked up my bike, and I heard Spirit growling behind me. I turned around to see what was going on, and my dad was standing there.”

“Your dad?” said Shay in astonishment.

“Your aunt’s never mentioned him dropping by before,” said Jen doubtfully as she eyed Tassi.

“He never has. I’ve barely heard from him since he and Mom got divorced. I always thought it was because he was mad at me for embarrassing him back home. You know, when I got into so much trouble at school and then with the police.”

“Yeah, which led to you coming to live here with your aunt Joanne, right?” said Jen, taking a seat at the table.

“Yeah, so she could straighten me out, I guess.” Tassi said, casting her gaze downward.

“So, how do you think your aunt is going to react to you cutting school today?”

“I had to, though.” Tassi looked back up at Jen. “He was just standing there, grinning at me.”

Jen opened her mouth but Shay sent her a warning glance. “What did he want?” Shay asked encouragingly.

“He wanted to introduce me to his girlfriend, and he insisted that he’d pick me up after school to take me out to dinner so she and I could properly get to know each other.”

“You’re kidding.” Jen’s usual pale blue eyes flashed sapphire. “He blindsided you at school when you were heading to class to introduce you to that woman?”

“Yeah, I guess, because there she was, sitting in his car, waving and smiling at me with those dark red puffy lips and fluttering her butterfly eyelashes like I’d be all happy to see her.”

“What did you say to her?” Shay asked, inwardly cringing at what Tassi might tell them next.

“Nothing to her. When she started to open the door to get out, Spirit leapt at the side of the car and stood snarling at her through the window. She slammed it shut and stayed put.”

Shay quietly let out a sigh of relief. Sometimes Tassi’s seventeen-year-old internal filter was lacking, and she could often make a bad situation worse with an outburst. A lesson the girl was slowly learning, it appeared.

“Then Dad yelled at me about controlling my dog. I told him it wasn’t my dog but obviously he was protecting me from something. Dad blew a gasket and shouted that I didn’t need protection from him or the woman who was going to be my new mother. I told him I already had a mother and didn’t need a new one.”

“Good for you. I bet he couldn’t say much after that,” said Jen.

“Nope, he did. After he stopped laughing, he said”—Tassi dropped her voice to mimic her father—“ ‘Yeah, you’ve got a great mother, don’t you? She shipped you off to live with your aunt the first chance she got and look at you with your crazy dyed hair. What are those, rainbow streaks? I thought it was bad enough when you hacked it off and then bleached it white. Now you look like one of those little pony toys you played with as a kid, and what’s this I hear about you working at that witch’s store after school?’ ”

Shay dropped her mouth open in indignation, ready to give her two cents’ worth, but she took one look at the tears forming again in Tassi’s eyes and quickly snapped it shut.

“Then he said”—Tassi’s bottom lip quivered, and tears she’d been holding back streamed freely down her cheeks—“ ‘Well, I’ll tell you, little Missy, this is all going to stop. You’ll be coming to live with me and Jasmine and have a proper family life from now on. Mark my words, Tassi, you haven’t heard the end of this. You and that mother of yours—if you can call her that—will be hearing from my attorneys, and I’ll make sure you never set foot in this town again. You belong with me and Jasmine, and you’d better start getting to know her because, unlike you, she isn’t going anywhere.”

Shay and Jen gasped a collective breath.

Spirit then silently meandered past Shay and rested his head on Tassi’s lap, his sorrowful whimpering sending shivers up Shay’s spine.

Shay closed the door into the back room behind her, glanced over to the sales counter, and gave Jen a weak smile.

“How’s Tassi doing?”

“Better,” said Shay. “She freshened up and is just finishing her tea before she comes out.”

“Good. As you can see, we don’t have any customers yet, so while you were calming her down, I locked up and went across the street to Cuppa-Jo and told Joanne what happened.”

“Is she upset about Tassi cutting class?”

“Not at all. As a matter of fact, she completely understands and is going to call the school to tell them Tassi is having girl issues today—”

“Girl issues?”

“Yeah, they’re less likely to ask many questions with an excuse like that. She feels it’s up to her sister to fill them in on the details if she needs to. Anyway, she was giving Karen a call when I left to tell her about Peter’s latest antics and find out what she wants her to do now.”

“It’s just not fair to put Tassi in the middle like this. I would love to have two minutes alone with that man.” Shay glanced over her sister’s shoulder to see what she had in her hand. “What’s that?”

“These are the posters for the Fall Harvest Wine and Artisan Festival. Joanne gave me a couple, one for inside the shop and one to hang in the window.”

“Yikes, I forgot all about the festival coming up.”

“Are we going to have a table on the sidewalk again?”

“I can’t see why not. Giving away tea samples at the town events seems to be the number one way we’re gaining new customers.” Shay scanned the shelving units of gold-bagged, premade tea blends she had prepared. “But I can see a few busy evenings topping up our inventory between now and then if we’re going to.”

Jen’s gaze followed her sister’s to the half-empty shelves, and she nodded. “Yeah, who’d have thought a year ago when we were struggling to make a name in this town as the premier tea shop and not the witch’s weird store that it would actually work and be such a success.”

“Oh ye of little faith,” laughed Shay.

Jen shook her head. “It wasn’t us I doubted. It was the people in Bray Harbor. You know, between the bizarre junk collection Bridget had stacked up in here for years and the dead body on the greenhouse roof, I really thought we’d never gain a foothold in the business community, and now, we can’t keep up with the demand.”

“I think the new décor has a lot to do with that.” Shay cast her gaze around the tea shop and smiled. Pride swelled in her chest at the work she and Jen had put into bringing the musty old space into the twenty-first century with its linens in soft hues of green and cream and the large potted plants around the room’s perimeter that brought life back into the space. “Yeah, we’ve done good, Sis, but don’t discard all the other stuff Bridget used to do. It is the reason a lot of our customers come back.”

“I know your afternoon tea leaf readings have been a hit.”

“I only wish I knew more about all the stuff I read about in Bridget’s journals. Like how to read crystals and palms. To learn just by looking at someone what ails them and then finding the right tea solution to ease their ailments. I’ve only touched the surface on what we could be offering our customers.”

“I thought you could already do that. You know, with those inky feelings you get.”

“I can to a certain extent tell when something is wrong, but I want to be able to look at someone and just know what it is instead of just sensing they have an issue or ailment.”

“I thought you wanted nothing to do with all that other stuff.”

“I don’t. Well, not really, but the more I read in Bridget’s journals, the more intrigued I am, and it makes me wonder if perhaps there is more to it than I thought.”

“What about Madam Malvina? You’ve been spending a lot of time with her. Hasn’t she been some help with all that. . .