Read Raspberry Creme Murder: A Frosted Love Cozy Mystery - Book 14 (Frosted Love Cozy Mysteries) for Free Online

to
get the dogs home and in their own beds, and have a complete night’s sleep
herself before taking care of her favorite patient tomorrow.
    Pre-occupied
with thoughts of Chas, Missy was in her own little world as she pulled her car
into the garage. Apparently the garage light bulb had gone out again, and she
fumbled in the dark to open the door and let the dogs out. When she opened the
side door of the garage, that had a little sidewalk leading from it to the back
porch, the dogs took off for the front of the house rather than trotting
obediently to the porch as they normally would.
    “Hey!”
Missy called out, concerned at their odd behavior. They ran directly to the
front of the house, allaying her fears that they might accidentally dash out
into the street, but their behavior became even more strange when they got to
the front porch. Bitsy seemed to hide behind Toffee, who was standing at the
porch stairs sniffing the bottom step. The sweet-natured golden retriever put
her nose in the air and sniffed, then started growling and barking loudly.
Missy hurried over to see what all the commotion was about and stopped short
when she saw a dark liquid that had apparently flowed from the porch, down the
steps, pooling at the bottom.
    Pressing
the icon for the flashlight app on her phone, Missy illuminated the scene,
horrified to discover that the liquid was a deep red color. It looked as though
there had been a horrible accident of some sort on her porch, but when she
shone the light up onto the porch itself, she didn’t see anything resembling a
hurt person or animal. The light glinted off of something lying on the porch
and Missy peered into the darkness, trying to get a closer look. When she saw
what the object was, she shook with relief. It wasn’t blood on her stairs,
someone had broken a bottle of red wine, and its contents were what had
dribbled down her steps. She wanted to investigate further, but didn’t want her
furry girls to slice their paws on broken glass, so she snapped their leashes
onto their collars and led them to the back porch, putting them inside. She
turned on the porch light, and when she stepped out to survey the mess, her
breath caught in her throat. Whoever had broken the two bottles of wine on the
porch, had used the dark liquid to write on the butter-yellow siding of her
house.
    “Burgundies,
Books and B**ches,” the cryptic message read, making Missy’s
heart pound. Why on earth would Samantha have done this after Missy had been so
nice to her? She wondered if this had anything to do with the arrest of Sam’s
cousin, Pierre, and looked around warily. She didn’t want to disturb Chas’s
sleep by calling him. He wasn’t even close to getting back to work yet, but knowing
that she had to report the incident, she dialed 911 and looked to see if any
more damage had been done while she waited for the police to arrive.
    The
forensics team picked up the shards of glass and took samples from the
lettering on the house, discovering that there was indeed blood mixed in with
the cheap Merlot that was splashed all over the front of the normally tidy
yellow Victorian home. Apparently, the vandal had sliced into flesh with a
broken bottle piece and had helpfully left some DNA behind. The police were
underfoot for several hours, scouring the area for clues and collecting
evidence, but when they finally left, just as dawn was breaking in the east,
Missy couldn’t bear to leave the mess that had been made, and sacrificing
precious hours of sleep, she hooked up her hose and brought out a bucket of
warm, soapy water to clean off the house and porch.
    As
Missy hosed the wine off of the floorboards, she noticed a glimmer of something
right next to one of the rockers of her porch glider. Bending the hose over on
itself to stop the flow of water, she knelt down and brushed across the sparkle
with her finger, feeling something small and hard. Bracing her shoulder against
the side of the glider and pushing with