Fiona Grace - Crime in the Café

As soon as she was gone, Suzy turned to Lacey with an eager look on her face, the manila envelope containing her business license now clutched in her hands.

“So?” she asked. “What do you say? Want in?”

“Can I have a bit of time to make up my mind?”

“Sure.” Suzy chuckled. “We open in a week. Take up as much of that time deciding as you want.”

Lacey opened the door to the antiques store. Boudica and Chester came bounding over to greet her. She ruffled their heads in turn.

“You’re back,” Gina said, looking up from the gardening magazine she’d been perusing. “How did it go with wunderkind?”

“It was interesting,” Lacey said. She came over and took a stool at the desk beside her. “It’s an amazing place, with a lot of potential. And the councilwoman seems to think so as well.”

Gina folded her gardening magazine closed. “Councilwoman?”

“Yes, Councilor Muir,” Lacey told her. “She’s Suzy’s aunt. This whole B&B thing seems to be part of Mayor Fletcher’s plans to regenerate east Wilfordshire. Not that that’s Suzy’s fault, per se, but it does make her seem even more out of her depth. Who knows what her actual business plan looks like, or if it was just approved because of her aunt.”

Gina tapped her chin. “Hmm. So Carol was onto something after all.”

“In a way.”

“But putting all that political stuff aside,” Gina added, swiveling in her stool so she was directly facing Lacey. “What would it mean for you to get involved?”

Lacey paused. A small flicker of excitement ignited in her stomach. If she put all the nagging doubts to one side, it really was an amazing opportunity.

“It means I’d have responsibility for furnishing a four-hundred-square-meter property with period pieces. For an antique lover, that’s basically heaven.”

“And the money?” Gina asked.

“Oh, it’d bring in a lot of dollars. We’re talking thousands of pounds of inventory. A whole dining room. A foyer. A bar. Six bedrooms and a bridal suite. It’s a massive undertaking. Add to that the potential for more work in the future by getting my name out there, and the fact that having a B&B for special occasions like the air show will have a positive knock-on effect for the rest of the town…”

Gina was starting to smile. “It sounds to me like you’ve talked yourself into it.”

Lacey gave a noncommittal nod. “Maybe I have. But wouldn’t it be crazy? I mean, she wants it done in time for the air show. Which is on Saturday!”

“And since when did working hard scare you?” Gina asked sassily. She gestured with her arms to the antiques store. “Look at everything you’ve already achieved from working hard.”

Lacey was too modest to take the compliment, but the sentiment she could get behind. She’d become a risk taker. If she’d not quit her job in New York City and gotten the first flight to England, she’d never have built this wonderful life for herself. She’d be a miserable divorcee, still fetching coffee for Saskia like an intern rather than an assistant with fourteen years’ experience. Taking on this work with Suzy was the sort of thing Saskia would fight tooth and manicured nail for. That alone was reason to do it.

“I think you know what to do,” Gina said. She picked up the telephone and plonked it in front of Lacey. “Give Suzy a call and tell her you’re on board.”

Lacey stared at the phone, biting her bottom lip. “But what about all the costs?” she said. “That much inventory in such a short space of time will be a massive outgoing all at once. Way more than I’d ever usually spend on stock.”

“You’ll get paid for it, though?” Gina said.

“Only after the B&B starts making money.”

“Which is a given, isn’t it? So you’re set to profit in time.” Gina nudged the telephone toward Lacey. “I think you’re looking for excuses.”

She was right, but that didn’t stop Lacey from finding another.

“What about you?” she said. “You’d have to mind the shop for a whole week? I won’t have time to do anything else.”

“I can run the store perfectly fine on my own,” Gina assured her.

“And Chester? He’d have to stay with you while I worked. Suzy doesn’t like dogs.”

“I think I can handle Chester, don’t you?”

Lacey looked from Gina to the phone and back again. Then, in one quick movement, she reached out, snatched up the receiver, and punched Suzy’s number in.

“Suzy?” she said the second the call was answered. “I’ve made my decision. I’m in.”

“Oh, Percy, they’re wonderful!” Lacey gushed down the phone, looking at the opened box filled with silver forks she’d just received from her favorite Mayfair antiques dealer. She was in the cramped back office at the store, surrounded by binders full of checklists, sketches, mood boards, detail drawings, and a whole bunch of coffee-stained mugs.

“They’re all bundled into complete sets,” Percy explained. “Salad, soup, fish, dinner, dessert, and oyster.”

Lacey smiled broadly. “I don’t know if Suzy’s even planning to serve oysters, but if the Victorians had oyster forks on their tables, then we’d better have them on ours.”

She heard Percy’s grandfatherly chuckle through the speaker. “It does sound ever so exciting,” he said. “I must say it’s not often I receive an order for anything you own that’s Victorian. ”

“Yes, well,” Lacey said. “I’m sure it’s not often that one of your buyers is tasked with turning a retirement home into a Victorian-themed B&B in a week!”

“Tell me, are you getting any sleep?”

“A solid four hours a night,” Lacey quipped.

Despite how hard she’d been working, she’d found the whole project thrilling so far. Exhilarating, even. It was like a mystery only she could solve, with a clock ticking away in the corner.

“Don’t run yourself into the ground,” Percy said, ever the gentle soul.

She ended the call, grabbed a marker pen, and put a large tick beside “utensils.” She was halfway through her list now, having pulled about a hundred favors, driven cross-country to Bristol and Bath to collect some particularly exceptional pieces, then out of country to Cardiff just for a gorgeous stone water feature that would look perfect in the foyer.

The foyer had proved the most difficult to design of all the rooms. Its architecture was basically a conservatory. Lacey had taken her inspiration from Victorian structures like Alexandra Palace in London and the greenhouses of Kew Gardens. Suzy had the decorators in there right now, ripping up that lino flooring, chucking out the dentist’s waiting-room blinds, and coating the white plastic frame with thin sheets of pliable metal, painted black to look like iron.

So far, the work had been fun, even with the sleep deprivation and long drives. But the dent to her bank balance was a little alarming. Lacey had collected thousands upon thousands of pounds’ worth of furniture, all perfect to fit with Suzy’s hunting lodge theme. And while she knew Suzy would settle the bill as soon as she’d made the money back, it still made her very uncomfortable to see the massive dip in her account. Especially considering the deal she’d made with Ivan over the mortgage at Crag Cottage. She’d hate to default on any payments to the sweet man who’d sold her her dream home, but if Suzy’s bill wasn’t settled by the end of June, she’d be forced to do just that.

The rifle alone was worth £5,000! Lacey had almost choked on her cappuccino when she’d researched its value in order to add it to Suzy’s bill, and had immediately messaged Xavier suggesting she wire him some money. But he responded with, it is a gift, which made her feel bad for having immediately sold it. But not too bad. Because what man innocently sends a valuable antique to a woman without having certain thoughts on his mind? Lacey was starting to accept that Gina might have been correct about Xavier’s intentions, and decided it was best to minimize her contact with him. Besides, she had a whole new lead to pursue in the search for her father now, with Penrose Manor’s former shooting club, so Xavier wasn’t the lifeline he’d once been.