Murder in the Manor (A Lacey Doyle Cozy Mystery—Book 1)

CHAPTER ONE

No-fault.

That’s what the divorce papers stated, in black ink and bold text, stark against the white of the paper.

No-fault.

Lacey sighed as she looked down at the documents. The innocuous-looking manila envelope had just been hand delivered to her door by a pimple-faced teenager with a blasé attitude, as if it were nothing more significant than a takeout pizza. And though Lacey had immediately known the reason she was receiving a couriered letter, she’d felt nothing in the moment. It was only after she’d flopped onto the living room couch—where the cappuccino she’d abandoned at the sound of the door buzzer was on the coffee table still spewing little coils of steam—and slid the documents from the envelope that it actually hit her.

Divorce papers.

Divorce.

Her reaction had been to scream and throw them to the ground, like she was an arachnophobic who’d just been mailed a live tarantula.

And there they now lay, spread across the fashionable and extremely expensive rug she’d been gifted by her boss, Saskia, at the interior design firm where she worked. The words

David Doyle vs Lacey Doyle

stared up at her. From the nonsensical mass of letters, words began to form before her eyes: dissolution of marriage, irreconcilable differences, no-fault…

She picked the papers up tentatively.

Of course, this wasn’t a surprise. David had ended their fourteen-year marriage with the exclamation, “You’ll be hearing from my lawyer!” after all. But that still hadn’t prepared Lacey for the emotional fallout of actually being in physical possession of the documents. Of feeling their weight, their solidness, and seeing that horrible, bold, black text declaring faultlessness.

It was how New York did things—

blameless divorces are less messy, right?

—but “no-fault” seemed a bit rich, as far as Lacey was concerned. The fault, according to David anyway, was all hers. Thirty-nine and no baby. Not even the slightest itch of broodiness. No hormonal surges at the sight of their friends’ newborns—of which there had been many, materializing into being in an endless stream of nice little squidgy things that made precisely nothing stir within her.

“You’re a ticking clock,” David had explained over a glass of merlot one night.

Of course, what he really meant was, “Our marriage is a ticking time bomb.”

Lacey let out a deep sigh. If only she’d known when she’d married him at twenty-five, in a blissful whirlwind of white confetti and champagne bubbles, that prioritizing her career over motherhood would come back to bite her so spectacularly in the ass.

No-fault. Ha!

She went to find a pen—her limbs suddenly made of steel—and found one in the pot of keys. At least things were

organized

now. No more David running around searching for lost shoes, lost keys, lost wallets, lost sunglasses. These days, everything was where she’d left it. But in this moment, that didn’t feel like much of a consolation prize.

She returned to the couch, pen in hand, and positioned it over the dotted line she was supposed to sign. But instead of touching it to paper, Lacey paused, the pen hovering, poised barely a millimeter above the line, as if there were some kind of invisible barrier between the ballpoint and the paper. The words “spousal support clause” had caught her attention.

Frowning, Lacey turned to the appropriate page and scanned the clause. As the highest earner of the pair, and the sole proprietor of the Upper Eastside apartment in which she was currently sitting, Lacey would have to pay David a “fixed sum” for “no more than two years,” in order for him to “set up” his new life in a “manner consistent with that of which he lived before.”

Lacey couldn’t help but let out a rueful laugh. How ironic that David was profiting from her career, the very thing that had ended their marriage in the first place! Of course, he wouldn’t see it that way. David would call it something like “recompense.” He was a stickler for balance, for fairness and equilibrium. But Lacey knew what that money really was. Retribution. Vengeance. Retaliation.

Way to get bit in the ass twice,

she thought.

Suddenly, Lacey’s vision blurred and a splotch appeared on her surname, making the ink distort and the paper crinkle. A rogue tear had fallen from her eye. She wiped the offending eye aggressively with the back of her hand.

I’ll have to change my name,

she thought as she stared at the now deformed word.

Return to my maiden name.

Lacey Fay Doyle was no more. Erased. That name belonged to David Doyle’s wife, and once she signed on the dotted line, she would no longer be that woman. She’d become Lacey Fay Bishop once again, a girl she hadn’t inhabited since her twenties and one she hardly even remembered.

But the Bishop name meant even less to Lacey than the one she’d had on loan from David for the last fourteen years. Her father had left when she was seven, immediately after an otherwise charming family holiday to the idyllic seaside town of Wilfordshire, England. She hadn’t seen him since. There one day—eating ice cream on a rugged, wild, windswept beach—gone the next.

And now she was as much of a failure as her parents! After all those childhood tears she had shed for her missing father, all those angry teenage insults she’d thrown at her mom, she’d only gone and repeated the very same mistakes! She’d failed at marriage, just as they had. The only difference, Lacey reasoned, was that her failure had no collateral damage. Her divorce wouldn’t leave two distraught, damaged daughters in its wake.

She stared down again at that blasted line. It was demanding to be signed. But still, Lacey dithered. Her mind seemed stuck on her new name.

Maybe I’ll just drop my surname altogether,

she thought, wryly.

I could

be Lacey Fay, like some kind of pop star.

She felt a bubbling sense of hysteria rising in her chest.

But then why stop there? I could change my name to anything I wanted for a few dollars. I could be—

she glanced around the room for inspiration, her eyes settling on the coffee mug still untouched on the table before her—

Lacey Fay Cappuccino. Why not? Princess Lacey Fay Cappuccino!

She burst into laughter, throwing back her head of glossy dark curls and barking at the ceiling. But the moment was short-lived, the laughter stopping as soon as it had started. Silence fell in the otherwise empty apartment.

Quickly, Lacey scribbled her signature on the divorce papers. It was done.

She took a sip of coffee. It was cold.

Business as usual, Lacey boarded the busy subway, heading to the office where she worked as an interior designer’s assistant. Heels, handbag, no eye contact, Lacey was just like any other commuter. Except, of course, she wasn’t. Because out of the half million people currently riding the New York subway during morning rush hour, she was the only one who’d been served with divorce papers that morning—or at least that’s how she felt. She was the newest member of the Sad Divorcées Club.

Lacey could feel the tears coming. She shook her head and forced her mind to think of happy things. It went straight to Wilfordshire, to that peaceful, wild beach. In a sudden, vivid memory, Lacey recalled the ocean and the salty air. She remembered the ice cream truck with its creepy, chiming jingle, and the hot fries—

chips, Dad said they were called over there—

that came in a little Styrofoam tub with a small wooden fork, and all the seagulls that tried to steal them the second her attention wandered. She thought of her parents, of their smiling faces that holiday.

Had it all been a lie? She’d only been seven, Naomi four, neither old enough to really pick up on the nuances of adult emotion. Her parents had evidently been good at hiding things, because everything was perfectly fine until, overnight, it was devastating.

They really had seemed happy back then, Lacey thought, but to the outside world, she and David probably looked like they had it all, too. And they had. A nice apartment. Well-paying, satisfying jobs. Good health. Just not those blasted babies that had abruptly become so important to David. In fact, it had almost been as abrupt as her father leaving. Maybe it was a male thing. A sudden eureka moment in which there could be no coming back once the decision had been made, and so everything that stood in its way was burned to the ground because why leave anything intact?

Lacey exited the subway and joined the throngs of people jostling through the streets of New York City. She’d called New York home her whole life. But now it seemed stifling. She’d always loved the busyness, not to mention the businesses. New York was her all over. But now she felt overwhelmed with a desire for a radical change. For a fresh start.

As she walked the last couple of blocks to her office, she took her cell from her purse and called Naomi. Her sister answered on the first ring.

“Everything okay, hon?”

Naomi had been anxiously waiting for the divorce papers, hence the immediate pickup despite the early hour. But Lacey didn’t want to discuss the divorce.

“Do you remember Wilfordshire?”

“Huh?”

Naomi sounded sleepy. As a single mother to Frankie, the world’s most rambunctious seven-year-old boy, that was to be expected.

“Wilfordshire. The last vacation we had with Mom and Dad together.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Why are you asking me that?”

Like their mother, Naomi had taken a vow of silence in regards to all things Dad. She’d been younger when he left, and proclaimed that she had no memories of him whatsoever so why waste the energy on caring about his absence? But after one too many shots on a Friday night, she’d confessed to remembering him vividly, dreaming of him often, and devoting three whole years of weekly therapy sessions furiously blaming his abandonment on the failure of every one of her adult relationships. Naomi had jumped onto the carousel of passionate, tumultuous relationships at the age of fourteen and never gotten off. Naomi’s love life made Lacey dizzy.

“They came. The papers.”

“Oh, hon. I’m so sorry. Are you—FRANKIE PUT THAT DOWN OR SO HELP ME GOD!”

Lacey winced, moving the cell phone from her ear while Naomi barked a threat of death at Frankie if he continued doing whatever activity it was he wasn’t supposed to.

“Sorry, hon,” Naomi said, her voice back to indoor volume. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Lacey paused. “No, actually I’m not. I’m feeling impulsive. On a scale of one to ten, how crazy would it be to skip work and catch the next flight to England?”

“Er, how about eleven? They’ll fire you.”

“I’ll ask for some personal time.”

Lacey could practically hear Naomi roll her eyes.

“From Saskia? Really? You think she’ll give you a personal day? The woman who made you work Christmas last year?”

Lacey twisted her lips in consternation, a gesture she’d inherited from her father, according to her mom. “I need to do something, Naomi. I feel stifled.” She tugged the collar of her turtleneck, which suddenly felt like a noose.

“Of course you do. No one blames you for that. Just, don’t do anything rash. I mean, you chose your career over David. Don’t risk it.”

Lacey paused, confusion forcing her eyebrows together. Was that how Naomi interpreted the situation?

“I didn’t

choose

my career over him. He gave me an ultimatum.”

“Spin it how you want, Lace, just… FRANKIE! FRANKIE I SWEAR—”

Lacey had reached her office. She sighed. “Bye, Naomi.”

She ended the call and stared up at the tall brick building she’d given fifteen years of her life to. Fifteen to the job. Fourteen to David. Surely it was time she gave herself something? Just one little vacation. A trip down memory lane. A week. A fortnight. A month at the most.

With a sudden sense of resolve, Lacey marched inside the building. She found Saskia standing over a computer, barking orders at one of the terrified-looking interns. Before her boss even had a chance to say a word to Lacey, Lacey held a hand up to stop her in her tracks.

“I’m taking some personal time off,” she said.

She just had time to see Saskia frown before spinning on her heel and marching out the way she’d come.

Five minutes later, Lacey was on the phone booking a flight to England.