Dae’s Christmas Past
By Joyce and Jim Lavene
Cozy Mystery
Synopsis
Missing Pieces Mysteries #6
When wild horse rescue director Tom Watts is found dead on Duck Road, newly re-elected mayor Dae O’Donnell is determined to find out who killed him. Her friend Jake Burleson is accused of killing Tom even though the two men have been good friends for years.
The problem is the excavation of the horse cult that’s been happening on Jake’s property. Tom and several archaeologists working on the project think that Jake should give up his land to widen the search for artifacts. Jake won’t do that.
It’s not that Jake hasn’t been acting strangely. He shoved one of the ancient stone horses into Dae’s hands when he knew she was afraid to touch it. He’s obsessed with stopping the excavation—maybe to the point of killing Tom.
But Dae thinks there may be more to the story. Jake’s determination has shown her what the horse cult was used for thousands of years ago, the destruction the demon horses brought before they were stopped. She’s afraid something of the past may have already returned to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and there may be more deaths to come.
Featuring Pet Psychic Mary Catherine Roberts!
What would you do?
By Dae O’Donnell
From Dae’s Christmas Past
By Joyce and Jim Lavene
Have you ever had something happen to you that was so
unexpected - you just had to stand there with your mouth open?
Being someone who finds lost things and people, it’s
happened to me a few times. I’m also the mayor of my small town, Duck, North
Carolina. That can be a whole other case of surprises. But I’m the kind of
person who takes it all in stride. If I wasn’t, I couldn’t do my job as mayor
or run my thrift shop, Missing Pieces.
I definitely couldn’t help people find watches or car keys
by holding their hands. There is always something more there that you didn’t
expect. Maybe you find the car keys – but the car doesn’t belong to that person
who asked you to find it. I found a watch for a woman once. Her sister had
borrowed it and forgotten to return it. Her sister was wearing the watch, but
she was dead – murdered.
So you can see why I have to be calm.
I’ve talked to pirate ghost, and been followed by the
restless spirit of a man who wanted me to find his daughter. I’ve found a witch
in the past and brought her to Duck with me for a decent burial.
All of these things might be the sort of happening that
would be considered unexpected. In Duck, the most unexpected thing to me is the
one I should know about through the local grapevine or my grandfather dying to
tell me, but somehow people have managed to keep it a secret. Now that’s
unexpected!
You can imagine how surprised I was when everyone managed to
keep it a secret that my boyfriend was going to propose marriage to me! I was
astonished, and stood with my mouth open for a few seconds. I really wasn’t
sure what to say. We were surrounded by our friends, and I didn’t want to make
him look stupid.
On the other hand, I
didn’t want to make a mistake either. What would you do?
About These Authors
Joyce and Jim Lavene write award-winning, bestselling mystery fiction as themselves, J.J. Cook, and Ellie Grant. They have written and published more than 70 novels for Harlequin, Berkley, Amazon, and Gallery Books along with hundreds of non-fiction articles for national and regional publications. They live in rural North Carolina with their family.
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