The Azalea Assault
Read The Azalea Assault Online
Authors: Alyse Carlson
PARADISE LOST
Her chest knotted painfully. There was a body sprawled facedown across the azaleas. Her brain kept arguing that one didn’t die jumping out a second-story window but, by all accounts, it looked like that was what had happened.
She looked more carefully at the sprawled body, noting the slightly rumpled clothes. They seemed so familiar.
Jean-Jacques Georges.
Rob moved in closer. “When the medical examiner flipped the body over, it had a set of pruning shears through the abdomen.”
“Murder?” Cam whispered to Rob once the deadweight she was helping with had found a home and Neil had knelt to attend to his wife.
Rob nodded like the cat that ate the canary, or at least the catnip.
BERKLEY PRIME CRIME, NEW YORK
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
THE AZALEA ASSAULT
A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / June 2012
Copyright © 2012 by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Excerpt from
The Begonia Bribe
by Alyse Carlson copyright © 2012
by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Cover illustration by Catherine Deeter.
Cover design by Lesley Worrell.
Interior text design by Tiffany Estreicher.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ISBN: 978-1-101-58092-9
BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME
Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
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If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
ALWAYS LEARNING
PEARSON
For Elizabeth Spann Craig:
Thank you for holding the door.
Writing a book always requires a ton of eyes and a lot of help, but a first book is especially challenging. There was a steep learning curve—crossing all the Ts, dotting the Is, and learning the ropes. So I have a list of people I’d like to thank for their help at various stages of this project. I will surely miss somebody who helped me out, and for that I apologize. But for feedback at various stages of this manuscript, I want to thank: Stacy Gail, Shaharizan Perez, Leanne Rabesa, Natasha Ramarathnam, Mari Salberg, and Stefanie Winter.
And I especially want to thank the trio I think of as the three Es. Ellen, Emily, and Elizabeth. Ellen Pepus is my fabulous agent who connected me with this opportunity and has been wonderfully patient with this newbie. Emily Rapoport is my amazing editor who has taught me so much and has been so kind through a variety of challenges, all of my making. And in particular, Elizabeth Spann Craig, my friend who first recognized in me the “Cozy Voice” and pointed me at all the resources I needed to make this journey.
TO
:
Roanoke Tribune
, Living Section
FROM
: Roanoke Garden Society
RE
: PRESS RELEASE: National Media Event in Roanoke
This Thursday afternoon, the Roanoke Garden Society welcomes
Garden Delights
, America’s premiere magazine for gardening enthusiasts. The magazine’s staff will be in Roanoke to prepare an eight-page feature on the city’s most spectacular garden, for the June issue. Central to the feature will be the photography of world-renowned photographer Jean-Jacques Georges, who has won several international awards and captured noteworthy spreads ranging from international swimsuit models to African wildlife.
Mr. Georges is scheduled to conduct a three-day photography shoot at the historically registered gardens of La Fontaine off of Blue Ridge Parkway. He and the
Garden Delights
staff will be hosted by Samantha Hollister, Roanoke Garden Society president, and Neil Patrick, RGS founder and owner of La Fontaine.
The magazine release is slated for June 3.
CONTACT
: Camellia Harris
CHAPTER 1
“I
ncoming!”
Cam Harris pushed off her kitchen floor, propelling the wheeled kitchen chair she was sitting in to the sliding panel that hid the dumbwaiter. She opened it a hair and yelled to the kitchen upstairs, “Ready!” and shut it again, knocking off the “Over the hill” magnet her sister had recently given her. She heard her neighbor and best friend, Annie Schulz, lowering her treasure, which was how Annie referred to anything she lowered via dumbwaiter, then tramping down the back stairs to Cam’s apartment.
The turn-of-the-century house, gifted to Annie when her grandmother had moved to a retirement home, was split into two apartments, upper and lower. The living arrangement was a perfect compromise for the yin-yang best friends. The two had tried to live together before, but Annie’s free-form approach to order drove Cam crazy; she’d grown tired of photos drying over the bathtub and finding every bowl in the house dirty because Annie had a wild hair and tried out four new cupcake recipes at once. In the current living
situation, they got all the bonding time they wanted, but with absolute boundaries about whose space was whose.
Annie let herself in, as was her habit, and plopped into a chair opposite Cam.
“Caffeine?” she asked, blowing a stray curl out of her face.
Cam rolled her eyes, stood, and poured coffee into a travel cup for Annie, then walked over and opened the dumbwaiter to inspect the goods. “Frazzled morning?”
“Just a little wrestling with the juicer Petunia left. First batch was too pulpy, and I had to take apart the stupid thing to clean it.”
“I thought all you had to do was bake and deliver,” Cam said.
“Yes, but juice squeezed yesterday would not be fresh-squeezed, would it? No cream?”
“Do I ever have cream? I’ve got that nonfat hazelnut stuff.”
Annie made a face. “You, my friend, are missing the point of cream. It’s about texture.” They had an ongoing disagreement about coffee supplements. “Are you ready?”
“I am. Just one more load?”
Annie nodded and stood. “But let’s get this to the car first.” She went to the dumbwaiter and grabbed the first of the food.
Annie was helping Cam, albeit indirectly. Cam’s sister, Petunia, was catering a several-day event Cam was coordinating for her employer, the Roanoke Garden Society. Petunia’s restaurant, Spoons, bought sweets from Annie’s cupcake store, Sweet Surprise, and Petunia had convinced Annie to trade delivery assignments. Petunia would transport the desserts that went with lunches and suppers if Annie would deliver breakfast, since a baker needed to begin work early anyway.
Cam would have done it, but she needed delivering herself. She was saving for a new Mustang, but purchase was at least six months away. Normally she rode her bicycle,
except when she needed to look professional, which was the case with this painstakingly orchestrated feature for
Garden Delights
magazine. For the next several days, she’d be begging rides from Annie, Petunia, and her boyfriend, Rob.
Cam helped Annie load the breakfast goods into Annie’s Volkswagen. The car was not really suited to catering, since all Annie normally delivered were cupcakes, cookies, and special fancy desserts. After Annie’s return upstairs for the rest of the food, they finally accommodated the juice, coffee, fruit, and bagels, but the only spot for the tray of spreads was Cam’s lap. She wasn’t sure if she was more concerned about the garlic and green onion or the salmon, but she was fairly sure she’d be wearing one of them, given Annie’s driving.
As Annie pulled out of their neighborhood, Cam spotted the giant neon star atop Mill Mountain, just visible through a sea of blooming dogwoods. She breathed in the scent of honeysuckle, laid her head against the headrest, and smiled. The dogwoods always made her happy. There was nothing better than pink trees.
She had never been sorry to return to Roanoke, “America’s Most Livable City,” according to her PR peers at the chamber of commerce. Cam couldn’t have agreed more. She’d lived here twenty-seven of her thirty-two years, leaving only to attend graduate school at Northwestern and then work at a public relations firm in Chicago for a couple of years. When her mother died, Cam returned because she worried about her father. She was glad she had.
Cam had to use a towelette to dab a spot of cream cheese from her gray linen slacks when they arrived. The Ann Taylor silk blouse, though, would have been far less salvageable, and it had survived unscathed. Cam felt it was a victory.