I am so excited to have Kim Davis here at Mystery Thrillers and Romantic Suspense Reviews with a Spotlight and Giveaway.
Thanks Kim and Great Escapes Virtual Book Tours for allowing me to join your Sprinkles Of Suspicion Blog Tour!
Please take it away, Kim!
CHAPTER ONE – EXCERPT – SPRINKLES OF SUSPICION
One glass of cheap California chardonnay cost me my husband, my job,
and my best friend. Unfortunately, that was only the beginning of my
troubles.
I slowly regained consciousness when a cold nose
nuzzled my ear and then a warm, wet tongue licked my cheek. I squinted
against the sunlight streaming through the small window as I tried to
open my eyes, but they stopped at the halfway mark. My head pounded even
more from the bright light. My face was pressed into my guest
bathroom’s chilly white subway-tile flooring, and my entire body ached. I
shivered when I realized I was still dressed in a sheer blouse and
teeny-weeny leopard-print skirt. The ensemble had been an unwanted early
birthday gift from my best friend, Tori. I groaned with the effort of
trying to remember what had happened the night before but was rewarded
only with brief, fleeting flashes of memory.
Piper, my golden
Labradoodle, nudged my face again and whined. I couldn’t remember how
I’d gotten home and had no idea how I’d ended up sleeping on the
bathroom floor. I hoped my husband, Philip, hadn’t come home from his
graveyard shift yet. I raised my left arm and squinted at the blurry
numbers on the watch sitting on my wrist. Seven thirty. Philip would
have come home an hour ago, and I prayed he’d gone straight to bed and
hadn’t seen me.
Piper whined again and walked into the hallway,
trying to tell me she wanted her breakfast and time outside. A moan
escaped my lips when my head and stomach started feeling like they were
on a Tilt-a-Whirl ride. I crawled to the sink, pulled myself up, and
washed my face and mouth. Looking in the mirror, I decided my wild red
hair needed a stiff brush to calm the frizzies. Piper nudged my foot
with her nose and whined again, but I ignored her. Red, puffy eyes
peered back at me, but what made me want to lunge for the commode was
the purple, almond-shaped bruise on the side of my neck. A love bite?
How in the heck did I get that?
Uh-oh. I suddenly remembered
sapphire-blue eyes that made me feel warm and fuzzy. Randall. Tori’s
mysterious cousin who I hadn’t even known existed until last night. How
would I explain Randall to my husband when I couldn’t explain him even
to myself? It would be worse if he saw me in these party clothes.
After
I removed the sheer black blouse and hid it between the extra towels in
the vanity cabinet, I yanked a fluffy pink bath towel off the bar and
wrapped the towel around me. I hoped I could sneak into the laundry room
and get dressed, preferably in something that went with a scarf wrapped
around my neck, before Philip noticed me. Nope, that wouldn’t work. A
scarf in August would make him even more suspicious.
The
carpeted hallway muffled my tippy-toe walk while my dog practically
danced beside me. When the sliding glass door that led to our condo’s
patio and the postage-sized patch of grass that was part of the unit
opened, Piper raced past me. The fringe on my towel caught on her
collar, and suddenly, my dog became Piper the Super Dog, complete with a
pink cape. I, on the other hand, was left standing in broad daylight,
wearing nothing but a small lacy black bra and miniskirt that had inched
up over my ample derrière. I didn’t need one of my neighbors seeing my
lack of clothing over the half walls that surrounded our small piece of
land. Why did Tori think she should give me this outfit? And how had she
managed to talk me into wearing it to meet Randall? The image of his
face pinballed around my head as I slunk back down the hallway. Why had
Tori invited him to go out for drinks with us?
I eased the
accordion laundry room doors open. I paused when one of them squeaked,
then rummaged through the laundry basket sitting on top of the washer.
Dirty clothes would be better than these party clothes when it came time
to face Philip, my husband of seven years. After getting dressed in
capri-length yoga pants and a very wrinkled, slightly stained T-shirt, I
tiptoed to the kitchen and opened the cupboard, looking for antacids
and pain relievers.
My head screamed, and my stomach threatened
to send me running back to the bathroom. Once I popped the pills, I
hunted for my purse and my emergency stash of concealer. Maybe Philip’s
drowsy state and the dim lighting in the bedroom would cause him to
overlook my new bruise, especially if I had enough makeup on it.
I
finally found my purse hidden behind the sofa. My mind struggled to
remember how it got there, but the only thing I remembered from the
night before was drinking a glass of chardonnay with Tori. Oh yeah, and
Randall. I would dearly love to forget he was there. My hand went to the
love bite. Tori would know what happened. I needed to call her.
While
I tried to cake on the concealer, Piper came back in, without her Super
Dog cape, and nudged my hand with her slightly muddy nose. Breakfast
time. I cut open a package of lamb-and-brown-rice dog food and dumped it
into her ceramic dish. The sloppily painted dish made me smile. I
remembered taking my towheaded, preschool-aged nieces to the ceramic
painting store and their efforts to make Piper’s food and water bowls as
colorful as possible.
After refreshing her water dish, I
tiptoed back down the hallway to the half-closed master bedroom door. I
slid my head into the crack and waited for my eyes to adjust to the dim
light, since the blackout roman shades had been pulled down. My stomach
flip-flopped when I saw our bed hadn’t been slept in. In fact, my
husband, with his short wavy-black hair, was nowhere to be found. I
rushed back to my purse and pulled my phone out. Had Philip left a
message for me? Nothing.
Perhaps he had to work overtime and
couldn’t call me. It happened once in a while, so I didn’t worry too
much. Actually, I was a bit relieved, if I were honest with myself,
since I needed to figure out what I’d done last night before I felt
ready to face Philip. The niggling doubt that, instead of working, my
husband and his partner, Officer Amy Doyle, were having an affair
swirled around my brain. I had no proof, just suspicions that something
or someone was tearing our marriage apart. Randall was someone I didn’t
need to think about right now.
I quickly called Tori’s cell
number, hoping she’d be able to tell me how I got so drunk that I
blacked out. I rarely drank more than a glass of wine and had two at the
most, since more than that gave me the world’s worst hangover. One
party during my senior year of high school cured me of binge drinking. I
had a very low tolerance for pain and suffering.
Her sultry
voice, an imitation of Marilyn Monroe, announced I had reached her voice
mail. “This is Tori, and you know what to do. Ciao, baby.”
I hung up without leaving a message.
Tori
never, ever missed answering her phone and slept with it even when she
had a boyfriend in her bed. I found it annoying when we were together
and I was trying to carry on a conversation, but several times in the
recent past, I was grateful she answered my call when I needed to
dissect Philip’s inattention or his more frequent hurtful remarks. I
wouldn’t take her advice, though. She had told me repeatedly to move on
and find someone new. Perhaps that was why she had introduced me to
Randall.
I waited a few minutes and called Tori again, this time leaving a message. “Tori, it’s Em. Call me as soon as you can.”
I
started to get worried, letting my imagination run away from me. What
if Randall had drugged us or tried to poison us? I shouldn’t let my mind
wander like that, but then again, I couldn’t explain my blackout. What
happened last night? After a cup of hot herbal tea and a slice of dry
toast, I called Tori. Again, I reached her voice mail. Something was
definitely wrong.
After giving Piper a new chew toy and telling
her to be a good girl, I grabbed my purse and headed to the garage. I
needed to make sure Tori was safe. When I walked into the garage, the
empty space where my car should have been gave me pause. What had I done
with my Honda Accord? Oh, yeah, I had left it in the parking lot where I
worked as an accountant when Tori picked me up for drinks.
I
eyed my rusty beach cruiser and sighed. Five miles from Huntington Beach
to Tori’s house in Costa Mesa on a bike wasn’t that far unless you were
already in agony. But that was what friends did for each other, and I
was becoming certain Tori needed my help.
As I pedaled, I huffed
and puffed while sweat dripped down my cheeks, and I cursed myself for
not thinking to bring a bottle of water. When I climbed off my bike, I
stood with wobbly legs at the end of Tori’s block. Her four-plex
building was located six houses down from the corner where I had
stopped, and I saw her red Mini Cooper parked in her driveway. My
husband’s white Tahoe SUV was parked right behind it.
I wasn’t a
Peeping Tom, or a Peeping Jane, if that was what they called women who
peered into other people’s windows, but I knew I would have to resort to
that if I wanted to find out the truth. I really wanted to think Philip
was there because something bad had happened to Tori. But wouldn’t he
have called me if that were the case?
Other images sprang to
mind of Philip and Tori not making eye contact when all three of us
spent time together, acting like they were ignoring each other. And the
bottle of perfume he had given me for Valentine’s Day this year was
Tori’s fragrance. A wife knew when another woman was on her husband’s
mind, but how could I have been so blind thinking it could be Officer
Amy Doyle? Why did Tori do this to me?
I looked up and down the
street to make sure no one saw me, then tiptoed across the dying grass
bordering a cracked cement walkway. I ducked under a withered ficus tree
that barely provided any shelter from the hot morning sun. The tree
grew next to her unit’s front window. Even though it wasn’t a good
hiding spot, it was the best I could find.
I looked up and down
the street again and observed no one. It was very quiet for a Saturday. I
turned, stood slowly, and pressed my nose against the dusty screen and
held in the sneeze that tried to erupt. I quickly ducked back down and
almost cracked my head on the windowsill. My husband reclined on Tori’s
sofa, which faced the window I had peeked into.
Worried he might
have seen me, I waited a moment before cautiously peeking back in.
Philip had his eyes closed. I stretched up onto my tiptoes and saw
perfectly proportioned, size-two, platinum-blonde Tori in an intimate
pose with my husband that would, unfortunately, be forever burned into
my brain. I wished I could unsee it. But it was too late for that…
A
sudden puff of wind swirled and caused one of the branches from the
tree to hit the window with a loud clunk. I squatted down, but the wind
had pushed my frizzy hair into the screen and caused it to get entangled
on some of the protruding broken wires. When some of the hairs were
yanked from my head, I yelped, although the pain from my scalp was
nothing compared to my heartbreak. I rubbed the sore spot and then crept
to the front door, ready to tell them to go to you-know-where — but in a
polite way because, after all, my mother raised me to have manners.
By
the time I reached the glass front door and saw them together, all
thoughts of etiquette fled from my brain. Instead of knocking or ringing
the bell, I twisted the door handle and burst into Tori’s unlocked
house. Later, I concluded that I had experienced a red-mist moment
because my actions weren’t those I would have thought myself capable of.
The details were still kind of fuzzy, but somehow, after Tori fell
through the screen door and stumbled down the steps, pulling me along
for the fall, we ended up on the front lawn.
Sprinkles of Suspicion (Cupcake Catering Mystery Series)
Cozy Mystery
1st in Series
Publisher: Cinnamon & Sugar Press (June 2, 2020)
Print Length: 269 pages
Digital ASIN: B086XKRCJH
One glass of cheap California chardonnay cost Emory Gosser Martinez her
husband, her job, and her best friend. Unfortunately, that was only the
beginning of her troubles.
Distraught after discovering the betrayal by her husband and best
friend, Tori, cupcake caterer Emory Martinez allows her temper to flare.
Several people witness her very public altercation with her ex-friend.
To make matters worse, Tori exacts her revenge by posting a fake photo
of Emory in a compromising situation, which goes viral on social media.
When Tori is found murdered, all signs point to Emory being the prime
suspect.
With the police investigation focused on gathering evidence to convict
her, Emory must prove her innocence while whipping up batches of
cupcakes and buttercream. Delving into the past of her murdered
ex-friend, she finds other people had reasons to want Tori dead,
including Emory’s own husband. Can she find the killer, or will the
clues sprinkled around the investigation point the police back to her?
Includes recipes!
About Kim Davis
Kim Davis lives in Southern California with her husband. When she’s not
spending time with her granddaughters she can be found either writing
stories or working on her blog, Cinnamon, Sugar, and a Little Bit of
Murder or in the kitchen baking up yummy treats. She has published the
suspense novel, A GAME OF DECEIT, and has had several children’s
articles published in Cricket, Nature Friend, Skipping Stones, and the
Seed of Truth magazines. Kim Davis is a member of Mystery Writers of
America and Sisters in Crime.
Author Links
Website: http://kimdavisauthor.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Kim-Davis-Author-1532277473479031/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Kookiesandbooks
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14713259.K_A_Davis
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/kimdavishb/
Purchase Links: Amazon
Giveaway
http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/028877921059
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