The Inn at Holiday Bay: Message in the Manuscript

Book 28: The Inn at Holiday Bay

by Kathi Daley

Genres: Animal Cozy Mysteries; Culinary Cozy Mysteries

Synopsis

A heartwarming cozy mystery series about losing everything, taking a chance, and starting again.

After suffering a personal tragedy Abby Sullivan buys a huge old seaside mansion she has never even seen, packs up her life in San Francisco, and moves to Holiday Bay Maine, where she is adopted, quite against her will, by a huge Maine Coon Cat named Rufus, a drifter with her own tragic past named Georgia, and a giant dog with an inferiority complex named Ramos. What Abby thought she needed was alone time to heal. What she ended up with was, an inn she never knew she wanted, a cat she couldn't seem to convince to leave, and a new family she'd never be able to live without.

In book 28 in the series, Abby finally has a moment to sit down with the manuscripts her friend Gayla left to her in her will and realizes that the murder Gayla wrote about in her stories might actually be a fictional accounting of an unsolved murder.

Meanwhile, Mylie and Jeremy are settling in as new parents, Georgia is still trying to come to grips with the ins and outs of the decision she made at Danny's welcome to the family party, and Abby makes a proposition to Bailey that could very well change both of their lives.

 

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Release date: July 16, 2024

Publisher: Kathi Daley Books

Print pages: 160

Sample

Chapter 1

I once met a woman who told me that there comes a moment in each of our lives when we are faced with no other option but to take an unbiased inventory, not only of every decision we’ve made but of every action and outcome that resulted from those decisions. Apparently, if this woman was correct in her beliefs, not only do we own our victories but our failures as well. I’m not sure that such an all-defining moment is the reality in all lives. Still, I am open to the idea of these transformative moments, and I take a breath and consider my life choices from time to time, which is what I was doing when my best friend, Georgia Carter, entered the room. 

“Hey, Abby. You look so serious. Am I interrupting something?” 

“Not really. I was taking a few minutes to think about the totality of it all.”

“Totality?”

I smiled. “Never mind. You just caught me in a moment of introspection.”

Georgia sat down at the small table tucked into the nook of the cottage where I’d spread out the manuscripts my old friend, Gayla Woodford, had left me in her will. “Are you thinking about whether or not to publish the manuscripts?”

“Sort of.” I looked Georgia in the eye. “I read the manuscripts from beginning to end when Gayla’s attorney first sent them to me. The writing was pretty good, and the plots gripping, but after the first manuscript, I realized the stories had a fatal flaw. They don’t provide an ending.” I paused and then continued. “I guess each story provides a conclusion of sorts when it turns out that the protagonist has hit yet another dead end, but in my experience, eventually, readers want the killer to be named.”

“Well, sure,” Georgia said. “You have to reveal the killer.”

“After I realized that the first story ended in ambiguity, I wasn’t going to read the next manuscript, but the first one was good enough to nudge me forward. The plot in the second manuscript featured the same murder but a new lead. The fictional character followed the clues as presented, but once again, the amateur sleuth came up empty. There are five manuscripts that all follow the same pattern. A single murder links them, but each manuscript is a different story that ends in a dead end. I will admit that the unsolved murder was presented in a way that held my interest, but at some point, the killer needs to be revealed, and he or she never is. 

“I guess there are TV series like that. A mystery is introduced in episode one, and each episode after that is a failed attempt to solve the mystery.”

“That’s true, and I suppose I could turn the manuscripts into screenplays, but that sounds like a lot of work, and eventually, even if a single murder is presented as the core of a series of episodes, there comes a time when you have to wrap things up.”

“I guess that’s true,” Georgia said. She looked at the table. “But if you already decided not to publish Gayla’s work, why do you have them spread out all over the table?”

I frowned. “I’m not sure, but the longer I let the story percolate in my mind, the more certain I am that I’ve heard this story before.”

Georgia frowned. “So Gayla stole the story. She plagiarized it?”

“No. While I don’t believe Gayla plagiarized it, I suspect the murder might be genuine.”

“Genuine?”

I nodded. “I think Gayla either witnessed the murder she talks about in these stories or she knew someone who did. I think Gayla might have written about the murder as she attempted to solve the whole thing, or maybe she was just trying to reconcile things in her mind.”

Georgia just looked at me.

I continued. “I believe that it may be possible that Gayla wrote about a real murder that occurred back when I knew her. After she’d moved to Oakland, but before she moved to Santa Barbara.”

“Okay, let’s say that’s true and that Gayla is writing about a real murder. Maybe rather than witnessing it, she saw a news article about the murder and decided to use it as her plot for her fictional story.”

“Perhaps.”

Georgia didn’t reply right away, but I could see the idea that Gayla might have actually seen something had begun to take hold. Eventually, she shared her thoughts. “Okay, let’s say that Gayla actually did witness a murder, and she used these stories to try to run scenarios in her head. What are you going to do? Finish it and then publish it as an Abagail Sullivan mystery?”

“No. I’m not thinking of publishing it, but I’m thinking of picking up where Gayla left off in terms of attempting to solve the mystery.”

Georgia sent me a curious glance. “Exactly how long ago did this murder occur?”

I paused to think back. “I’ve been living here in Holiday Bay for five and a half years. Ben and Johnathan died a year before I made the move, and Gayla’s husband, Roger, died a year and a half before Ben. Gayla lived in Oakland for four or five years and didn’t move from Oakland to Santa Barbara until after her husband’s death. I guess the murder talked about in the story must have occurred between eight and ten years ago. It’s been a long time, and the details aren’t clear in my mind, but I know where to look.”

“Okay, so who is the murder victim Gayla seemed to have written about?” Georgia asked.

“Jacquie Arabella.”

“Jacquie Arabella, the heiress whose body was found in a shallow grave behind the mansion where she lived with her millionaire husband, Baron Fielding?”

I nodded. 

Georgia made a face. “How likely do you think it is that Gayla saw anything? If I remember correctly, the estate where Jacquie’s body was found was gated. It seems unlikely that Gayla was simply strolling by and witnessed either the murder or the burial.”

“I agree. I’m just telling you what I suspect.”

“Did Gayla reveal the name of the victim in her story?” Georgia asked.

“No. The victim in the story is identified only as ‘The Lady on the Train.’”

“‘The Lady on the Train.’ Don’t you think that sounds familiar?”

I smiled. “It does, but while it sounds like a total rip-off, it’s more of a coincidence in this case. When Ben and I first met Gayla and Roger, they were our neighbors in San Francisco. Eventually, Roger received a promotion, and his company moved him across the bay to Oakland. Gayla didn’t want to give up her job in San Francisco, so she arranged to work remotely part of the time and to commute into the city two days a week. Gayla chose to utilize public transit rather than drive and deal with traffic, tolls, and parking. She took a bus from her home to the BART station, then took the train from Oakland to San Francisco, where she transferred to another train that stopped within a block of her office. At the end of the day, she did the whole thing in reverse. Based on what is shared in the manuscripts, Gayla first noticed the woman while riding the train.”

“I see. Okay, so how does that lead to murder?”

I paused while I gathered my thoughts. “That’s a very long story, but basically, according to the story that Gayla penned, the protagonist, who I assume to be a representation of Gayla herself, saw this woman on the train between Oakland and San Francisco several times over several months, and while the woman had caught the protagonist’s attention, she never spoke to her. Then, maybe four months after the protagonist first began seeing this woman on the train, she met a man who worked in the city. The man offered to give her a ride on those days that she needed to go to work, which resulted in the protagonist reducing the number of trips she took on BART.” I paused to gather my breath and then continued. “Then, at some point, and I’m not sure I completely understand the timeline, the protagonist, who Gayla begins to refer to as Roxy, was riding a city bus across town so she could meet an old friend who asked her to join her for lunch at one of those hole-in-the-wall diners that everyone raves about as having the best food. The bus was passing through an older part of Oakland when Roxy noticed the woman from the train walking on the sidewalk on the opposite side of the road. Since the bus wasn’t going to stop for another two blocks and Roxy needed to meet her friend, she didn’t stop to speak to the woman or anything like that, although she did find it interesting that this woman, who was dressed in designer clothing and seemed to be from an upper-class sort of situation, would be walking down the street by herself in what can only be described as one of the rougher parts of town.”

“Maybe this upper-class woman was doing charity work or something.”

“Maybe. I won’t recite every sighting Gayla included in the manuscripts. It is, however, important to know that Roxy was curious and returned to that neighborhood several times over the next few weeks. While Roxy didn’t see the woman every time, she did see her a couple times but was either on the bus or across a busy street, so she was never close enough to talk to her.”

“And then?” Georgia asked.

“And then, in the story Gayla penned, Roxy saw a story on the news about a missing woman. The missing woman was an heiress in her own right, but she was also married to a multimillionaire. The husband was sure that his wife had been kidnapped and was asking for help from the public to bring her home safely. He offered a five-million-dollar reward for information that would lead to her safe return.” I sat back in my chair. “The exact, and I mean exact, same thing happened to Jacquie Arabella. She went missing, and her husband, Baron Fielding, likewise made a public appeal and offered a five-million-dollar reward.”

“Okay, wait,” Georgia said. “I want to make sure I have this straight. In the manuscripts, Gayla penned the protagonist, who is referred to as Roxy, is watching the news and sees a story about an heiress who has gone missing. The husband of the woman in the story offers a five-million-dollar reward.”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“And, according to what you remember from the past, a real heiress married to a multimillionaire likewise went missing, and the husband likewise offered a five-million-dollar reward.”

I nodded.

“So is it your opinion that Roxy’s story is actually a true accounting of what happened to Jacquie Arabella?”

Again, I nodded. 

“Does the woman on the train eventually show up in a shallow grave behind the mansion where she lived with her husband the same way Jacquie did?”

I crossed my arms and rested them on the table. Leaning forward slightly, I answered. “She does. Here’s the thing, though. In the first couple of manuscripts, the police don’t know that the woman on the train is dead and, in fact, assume that she’d been kidnapped. Roxy, however, seems to know that the woman is actually dead even before the police do.”

“In the manuscripts, did Roxy tell anyone that the woman on the train was dead?” 

“She did not.”

“Did Roxy tell the police anything? Perhaps she might have suggested to them that the missing woman had been seen in Oakland.”

“In the manuscripts, Roxy never went to the police. At least not directly.”

“How about Gayla? In real life, did she tell the police about seeing Jacquie in Oakland?” 

“I don’t know.”

Georgia paused before she continued. “Okay then, in the manuscripts, what did Roxy do?”

I gathered my thoughts and then answered. “In one of the manuscripts, Roxy is frightened by something she saw and isn’t sure who she can trust. The details relating to the person or event that scared Roxy are never defined, but as time passes, the reader realizes that Roxy actually saw the murder or something relating to the murder, which is how she knew all along that the woman was dead and not simply missing. In the manuscripts, Roxy decides to look into things herself. The motive for Roxy to do this is somewhat vague, but the reader has the sense that Roxy needs to understand what she thinks she knows before she brings anyone else in on things.”

Georgia didn’t respond, but I could sense that she was trying to work things out in her mind. 

I continued. “If you want to read the manuscripts, you’re welcome to, but the first few stories Gayla wrote describe the events that took place before the police discovered the body. As I already mentioned, based on Roxy’s thoughts, as shared by the author of the story, it seemed to me that the police initially believed that the heiress had been kidnapped, and they were focused on locating the woman. It was only later in the series of stories that the police found the body and discovered what Roxy seemed to have already known. There’s a bit more to it, but it occurred to me somewhere along the way that if you substitute the name Roxy for Gayla, the name ‘Lady on the Train’ for Jacquie, and the name Howard for Baron, it really does seem as if Gayla saw something that scared her, so instead of telling anyone, she just wrote about it.”

“So you believe that Howard is the fictional name for Baron Fielding?”

I nodded. 

“So in the manuscripts, was the body of ‘The Lady on the Train’ found in the same manner Jacquie’s body was found in real life?”

“It was. In both the fictional story of ‘The Lady on the Train’ and the real story of Jacquie Arabella, an anonymous caller provided a clue that eventually led the police to the location of the body. In real life, Baron was initially considered a suspect, but if I remember correctly, he had a solid alibi. Baron’s staff and others who had access to the estate were also considered suspects, but none of the leads ever panned out.” 

“So why would the caller make the call anonymously?” Georgia asked. “There was a five-million-dollar reward the caller would likely have collected if he or she would have given their name.”

“I suppose the caller in the story knew who the killer was and, like Gayla, if my assumptions are correct, was afraid of what might happen if they identified the killer. That’s the only logical reason I can come up with.”

“So, do you think that Gayla was the anonymous caller in real life?” Georgia asked.

I paused and then responded. “I’m not sure. The stories penned by Gayla present the mystery of the woman on the train as one aspect of Roxy’s life, and there are chapters where other things are going on. If I decide to dig around in this a bit more, I think the first thing I will need to do is to weed out the segments of the story that are included to provide clues from those segments that are provided to keep the reader engaged.”

“If you decide to tackle this, I’m in to help. You know how I love a good mystery.”

“I know, and I welcome your help. I already have a lot on my plate. While this is the sort of thing I can play around with in the evenings, I certainly don’t have much time to spend on it. Given your upcoming wedding and everything that entails, you aren’t going to have time to spend on it either.”

Georgia’s smile faded. 

“Did I hit a nerve?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“So what’s going on?” 

Georgia got up and walked over to the window. She looked out at the sea. I sensed that Georgia was gathering her thoughts, so I just waited. Eventually, she turned around to face me and began to speak. “While I want to marry Tanner, I’m not sure I’m on board with having a big wedding. I had a big wedding with my first husband. It was absolutely perfect, but it was also a lot of work, and it caused a lot of stress. And a perfect wedding certainly didn’t lead to a perfect marriage, so I think I should do it differently this time.”

I raised a brow. “You want to have a disaster of a wedding?”

She laughed. “No. I’m thinking no wedding.”

“So, do you want to elope, or are you saying you just want to live with Tanner and skip the ceremony?”

“Elope. I know how Tanner feels about us being married, and I think I finally feel as if I’m ready to go there.”

“Have you talked to Tanner about your idea of eloping?”

She blew out a long breath. “No. We haven’t talked about it, but Tanner seems excited about having a big wedding we can invite our friends to.” She walked into the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of water. “I get it. I’ve been married before, and it turned out badly, but that doesn’t mean that Tanner shouldn’t want to celebrate our relationship. But Mylie and Jeremy’s wedding reminded me how much I really don’t want to deal with all of that again.”

“So why not do something intimate, like a small ceremony, followed by an outdoor party here at the inn. We can keep the guest list small and invite immediate family only. And by family, I’m referring to our closest friends, the ones we consider to be our family. Lonnie and Lacy, the gang at the Bistro, the gang at the bookstore. You know, family.”

Georgia paused as if to consider this option. “If we skipped all the formalities, that might be okay. I guess I’ll talk to Tanner about it.” Georgia looked around the cottage. “In the meantime, I suppose I should take the last load of stuff out of my room into my Jeep and make the move official. I don’t know why it has taken me so long to relocate just one room of my belongings.”

“I do,” I said. “You needed time to settle into your new normal and the best way to accomplish that is to move slowly.” I moved over so Georgia could sit down next to me. “I’m glad you’ve taken your time. This move has been hard on both of us.”

“But it is time. Right?”

I nodded. “I think so.”

Georgia reached out and hugged me. “You know I’m still going to be here almost, if not every, day.”

“I know. And you know that the only reason that I haven’t completely melted down is because you will be here almost, if not every, day.” 

Georgia looked toward the door to the space that had belonged to her for over five years. “So what are you going to do with the room? Make it into an office? A home gym?”

“Actually, I’m thinking about taking on a new roommate.”

Georgia looked surprised. “Really? Who?”

“Bailey,” I referred to my newest employee, whose real last name I still didn’t know. “She’s fine in the basement with Haven for now, but once her baby is born, she’ll need to have a place a bit more isolated from the guests. We haven’t discussed her plans for herself or her baby once the baby is born since that first day on the drive here, but I’ve given it quite a lot of thought.”

“Do you want to adopt the baby?”

“I’m not sure if I want to adopt her, but I know I want Bailey to move in here so we can raise her together. At least for a while. I assume that Bailey will meet her prince charming at some point and want to take her baby and live in the palace with him.” 

Georgia touched me softly on the arm. “Are you sure about this? I know you have a big heart, but if you don’t adopt Bailey’s baby, you won’t have any legal rights to her. I’m afraid if you raise that baby for two or three years and then Bailey leaves with her, it will kill you.”

Georgia did make a good point. I supposed I was taking a risk, but at the moment, it seemed like a risk worth taking. I couldn’t take Bailey’s baby away from her, and I certainly didn’t want Bailey to leave town with her, so for now, the best idea I could come up with was a parenting partnership. “I’m not even sure Bailey will be interested in my idea, so I’ve decided not to get ahead of myself by making too many plans, but the idea I just presented seems to make the most sense, so it’s the one I’m going to go with for the immediate future.” 

Georgia took my hand and gave it a squeeze. “Bailey would be crazy not to take you up on your offer, but if you are going to go there, then I think you need to know who she is and what she’s running from.”

I struggled with a brief feeling of doubt and then answered. “I know you’re right about trying to get the rest of the story from Bailey, but I hate to push. She seems to have relaxed since she’s been here. She appears to be downright happy most days, and I’d hate to do or say anything that will send her running again. The doctor has been great and is treating Bailey without any of the information she would normally require. Every now and then, Dr. Chan will ask about something related to Bailey’s past, and Bailey will immediately get a look of terror in her eyes. I have no idea what happened to her or what she’s running from, but I sense there’s something or someone out there she isn’t willing to risk returning to.”

“I really feel for the girl and am happy that she found you. I can tell that she trusts you. At some point, when it’s just the two of you in the room, maybe you can talk to her. I don’t know Bailey well enough to know if there will ever come a time when she’ll be comfortable enough to share even a small glimpse of her past with you, but I do think that if she’s ever going to open up to anyone, it will be you.”

“Yeah, I guess. I’m going to be patient and take it one day at a time and rely on my instincts to let me know when to push and when to back off.”

Georgia agreed that taking things slow might be the best idea.

“By the way,” Georgia said, “before I forget to tell you, I just spoke to Sydney Whitmore.”

“How’s she doing?” Sydney Whitmore was a past guest and a friend. An agent for the San Francisco office of the FBI, she lived on Shipwreck Island and took the ferry to work on those days when she had a case that required her presence in the city. She worked for the FBI as a forensic psychologist when we first met and had been sent to the area to check out the mass burial site that Georgia and I had uncovered while inspecting a parcel of land I’d found out I’d owned and have since sold. 

“She’s doing well,” Georgia answered. “She told me that she needed to be on the East Coast to interview potential witnesses in a serial killer case and wanted to come and stay with us for a few days if we had room for her. I happened to have that cancellation in cottage one, so I told her I’d reserve it for her.”

“That’s wonderful. When will Syd be here?”

“She thought either Thursday or Friday. She can only stay through the weekend, but I’m excited to have time to catch up with her.”

“Yeah, me too. Syd is such a nice person and has such an interesting job. It sounds like she should be able to join us for our Founder’s Day party and fireworks display on Saturday.”

Georgia nodded. “I mentioned the Founder’s Day event to her, and she said she’d love to participate. You know, maybe she can help you with the Jacquie Arabella case. I’m not sure she worked for the San Francisco office of the FBI back then, but even if she didn’t, she’d likely have access to case files pertaining to the case.”

“That’s actually a good idea. I’ll do my best to get my ducks in a row so I can efficiently explain the situation once Syd gets here. As long as we’re talking about guests, who do we have staying with us this week? I meant to ask you earlier, but I got distracted.”

She glanced toward the window as if doing so would help to refresh her mind. “None of the cottages will turn over except cottage one, which I’ve reserved for Sydney. George and Brit are still in cottage four and will be through October. The writer who checked in a week ago and hasn’t ventured out since arriving is still in cottage two, and the couple on their honeymoon have reserved cottage three through the weekend.”

“And the inn?”

“We have two couples checking in this afternoon. They are vacationing in the area and will be here for a week. I put them in suites two and three. Additionally, an older couple, Cass and Ada Stockton, are arriving tomorrow. They’re coming to town to see if they can track down a missing granddaughter, and they will be staying in suite one.”

I raised a brow. “Missing granddaughter?”

“Shawna had been on a cross-country road trip with a group of friends for the past four months, and, for the first three months, she’d text her grandparents every few days to check-in. Then the texts stopped five weeks ago, and the grandparents have been looking for her ever since.”

“Do they have reason to believe she’s in Holiday Bay?”

“When Cass and Ada were unsuccessful in their attempt to locate their granddaughter, they hired a private investigator, and he told them that the last place her cell phone pinged was in Holiday Bay two weeks ago.”

“Wow. That must be so stressful. I hope Cass and Ada can track their granddaughter down. Do they have reason to suspect foul play?”

Georgia informed me that the couple did suspect foul play and then explained why. “I spoke to Cass when he made the reservation, and he shared that their granddaughter had been going through some stuff since her father died two years ago, but he also said that she’d know how worried they’d be about her and would never put them through that unless she was physically unable to check in.”

I had to admit that the situation didn’t sound good. “Do you know if the couple has contacted the police?”

“They filed a report with the police in their hometown in Nevada, but since she left Nevada months ago, it’s not likely that the local PD will be able to track her down.”

“What about the friends she was with? Has anyone been able to reach any of them?”

“No, although one of the friends, Fantasia, did show up in Colorado. She told the police who questioned her that she’d split from the group after meeting a guy she wanted to get to know better. She said that when Shawna left Colorado, she was with Colleen and Jivanica, two of the three friends she left home with.” 

I felt so bad for Shawna’s grandparents. I couldn’t imagine anything worse than having someone you loved simply disappear. “Did Fantasia know where they were heading?”

“All she said was east. I’m afraid that isn’t enough to track the girl down.”

No, I supposed it wasn’t. 

“I’ll email you a full list of all the check-ins and check-outs for the week,” Georgia offered. “Suites four through six aren’t due to turn over until Friday.”

“Okay. Thanks, Georgia. I do like to at least try to keep up with it.”

“It’s a good idea to know who we have on the property and a little about the background of each guest.”

“Are Haven and Bailey going to handle breakfast tomorrow? If I remember correctly, you mentioned that you needed to go to the TV station for a meeting with your producer.”

Georgia assured me that the girls were planning to handle breakfast but that she’d be back from Bangor in plenty of time to help Jeremy with dinner.

“I saw Jeremy, Mylie, and Danny leave to take Annabelle into town for camp but noticed that they never returned.”

Georgia responded. “They wanted to drive into Portland to use some of the baby shower money they got. I think Danny is already outgrowing his newborn outfits, and Mylie wanted to go to the big baby store in the mall.”

“They do grow fast.”

“They do. I feel like Danny has grown a lot already. He’s a good eater and such a happy baby.”

“He is a cutie pie,” I agreed.

Georgia went into her room to pack a few more boxes to take back to Tanner’s, and I headed back to the table to pick up the manuscripts I’d been sorting through. After Haven and Bailey had returned from Bailey’s doctor’s appointment, they’d stopped by to pick up Georgia’s dog, Ramos, and my dog, Molly. They’d decided to take all the dogs for a walk, so I’d have to wait to ask Bailey about moving into Georgia’s room and creating a parenting partnership when they returned. Meanwhile, I decided to grab my cat, Rufus, and head out to the deck and enjoy the sunshine. Colt’s niece and nephew, who had moved in with him full-time over the summer, were visiting their grandparents until the Saturday before Labor Day. The local schools would start back up the day after Labor Day, and I knew that Colt would be busy being a full-time cop and a full-time dad once they returned, so I was trying to spend as much time with him as I could until things really got crazy. Colt had been staying at my place since his niece and nephew left with their grandparents, but he hadn’t made it by last evening, so I decided to call him to see if he wanted to meet for lunch.  ...