Toxic Apple Turnovers: MURDER IN THE MIX 13 Read online

  Toxic Apple Turnovers

  MURDER IN THE MIX 13

  Addison Moore

  Contents

  Books by Addison Moore

  Book Description

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  A Note from the Author

  Books by Addison Moore

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2019 by Addison Moore

  Hollis Thatcher Press, LTD.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to peoples either living or deceased is purely coincidental. Names, places, and characters are figments of the author’s imagination. The author holds all rights to this work. It is illegal to reproduce this novel without written expressed consent from the author herself.

  All Rights Reserved.

  This eBook is for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this eBook with another person, please purchase any additional copies for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Copyright © 2019 by Addison Moore

  Created with Vellum

  Books by Addison Moore

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  Mystery

  Little Girl Lost

  A Sublime Casualty

  The First Wife’s Secret

  Cutie Pies and Deadly Lies (Murder in the Mix 1)

  Bobbing for Bodies (Murder in the Mix 2)

  Pumpkin Spice Sacrifice (Murder in the Mix 3)

  Gingerbread & Deadly Dread (Murder in the Mix 4)

  Seven-Layer Slayer (Murder in the Mix 5)

  Red Velvet Vengeance (Murder in the Mix 6)

  Bloodbaths and Banana Cake (Murder in the Mix 7)

  New York Cheesecake Chaos (Murder in the Mix 8)

  Lethal Lemon Bars (Murder in the Mix 9)

  Macaron Massacre (Murder in the Mix 10)

  Wedding Cake Carnage (Murder in the Mix 11)

  Donut Disaster (Murder in the Mix 12)

  Toxic Apple Turnovers (Murder in the Mix 13)

  Killer Cupcakes (Murder in the Mix 14)

  Pumpkin Pie Parting (Murder in the Mix 15)

  Romance

  Just Add Mistletoe

  3:AM Kisses (3:AM Kisses 1)

  Winter Kisses (3:AM Kisses 2)

  Sugar Kisses (3:AM Kisses 3)

  Whiskey Kisses (3:AM Kisses 4)

  Rock Candy Kisses (3:AM Kisses 5)

  Velvet Kisses (3:AM Kisses 6)

  Wild Kisses (3:AM Kisses 7)

  Country Kisses (3:AM Kisses 8)

  Forbidden Kisses (3:AM Kisses 9)

  Dirty Kisses (3:AM Kisses 10)

  Stolen Kisses (3:AM Kisses 11)

  Lucky Kisses (3:AM Kisses 12)

  Tender Kisses (3:AM Kisses 13)

  Revenge Kisses (3:AM Kisses 14)

  Red Hot Kisses (3:AM Kisses 15)

  Reckless Kisses (3:AM Kisses 16)

  Hot Honey Kisses (3:AM Kisses 17)

  Shameless Kisses (3:AM Kisses 18)

  Value 3:AM Kisses Boxed Sets

  3:AM Kisses Boxed Set 1-3

  3:AM Kisses Boxed Set 4-6

  3:AM Kisses Boxed Set 7-9

  3:AM Kisses Boxed Set 10-12

  3:AM Kisses Boxed Set 13-15

  3:AM Kisses Boxed Set 16-17 (+Bonus)

  The Social Experiment (The Social Experiment 1)

  Bitter Exes (The Social Experiment 2)

  Chemical Attraction (The Social Experiment 3)

  Low Down & Dirty (3:AM Kisses, Hollow Brook1)

  Dirty Disaster (3:AM Kisses, Hollow Brook 2)

  Dirty Deeds (3:AM Kisses, Hollow Brook 3)

  Naughty By Nature

  Heartless (Breakers Canyon Billionaires 1)

  Wicked Heart (Breakers Canyon Billionaires 2)

  Stone Cold Heart (Breakers Canyon Billionaires 3)

  Beautiful Oblivion (Lake Loveless 1)

  Beautiful Illusions (Lake Loveless 2)

  Beautiful Elixir (Lake Loveless 3)

  Beautiful Deception (Lake Loveless 4)

  The Solitude of Passion

  Someone to Love (Someone to Love 1)

  Someone Like You (Someone to Love 2)

  Someone For Me (Someone to Love 3)

  BOXED SETS

  Spitfire Kisses Boxed Set

  Breakers Canyon Boxed Set (Books 1-3)

  Lake Loveless Boxed Set (Books 1-3)

  A Totally ‘80s Romance (Books 1-3)

  3:AM Kisses, Hollow Brook (Books 1-3)

  3:AM KISSES (Books 1-3)

  Young Adult Romance

  Melt With You (A Totally ’80s Romance 1)

  Tainted Love (A Totally ’80s Romance 2)

  Hold Me Now (A Totally ’80s Romance 3)

  Paranormal Romance

  (Celestra Book World in Order)

  Ethereal (Celestra Series Book 1)

  Tremble (Celestra Series Book 2)

  Burn (Celestra Series Book 3)

  Wicked (Celestra Series Book 4)

  Vex (Celestra Series Book 5)

  Expel (Celestra Series Book 6)

  Toxic Part One (Celestra Series Book 7)

  Toxic Part Two (Celestra Series Book 8)

  Elysian (Celestra Series Book 9)

  Perfect Love (A Celestra Novella)

  Ephemeral (The Countenance Trilogy 1)

  Evanescent (The Countenance Trilogy 2)

  Entropy (The Countenance Trilogy 3)

  Ethereal Knights (Celestra Knights)

  Season of the Witch (A Celestra Companion)

  Celestra Forever After (Celestra Forever After 1)

  The Dragon and the Rose (Celestra Forever After 2)

  The Serpentine Butterfly (Celestra Forever After 3)

  Crown of Ashes (Celestra Forever After 4)

  Throne of Fire (Celestra Forever After 5)

  All Hail the King (Celestra Forever After 6)

  Book Description

  My name is Lottie Lemon, and I see dead pets. On occasion I see a once upon a human, too, but mostly it’s just cute little furry beasts who have come back from the other side to warn me of their previous owner’s impending doom.

  Fall is in the air, the weather is crisp, the leaves are golden, and the atmosphere is ripe for murder. It’s the first catering event of the season and I’m blindsided by what transpires at the outlandish party. Not only that, but I stumble upon the one person I would never want to see facedown in a flowerbed. And to top it all off, something wicked has rolled into Honey Hollow, and every dead spirit I have ever encountered is back to help me fight it.

  Lottie L
emon has a brand new bakery to tend to, a budding romance with perhaps one too many suitors, and she has the supernatural ability to see dead pets—which are always harbingers for ominous things to come. Throw in the occasional ghost of the human variety, a string of murders, and her insatiable thirst for justice, and you’ll have more chaos than you know what to do with.

  Living in the small town of Honey Hollow can be murder.

  Chapter 1

  My name is Lottie Lemon, and I see dead people. Mostly I see dead pets, but on the rare occasion I do see a dearly departed of the human variety, but right now I’m being hand-fed one of my scrumptious light and crunchy mini apple turnovers, and it just so happens that its sweet, yummy goodness has blinded me to the world.

  “Mmm,” I moan right at Noah who happens to be the one helping me indulge in this little bit of heaven.

  “Have another,” he says with his lids hooded low, his voice dropping down one seductive octave.

  Noah and I used to date pretty hot and heavy, but about six months back, I discovered he had a wife stashed away in another state. Technically, it was his wife hunting him down at my bakery, the Cutie Pie Bakery and Cakery, that tipped me off.

  Noah is tall, has impossibly dark hair that turns red at the tips in the sun, and is hostilely handsome. He also happens to be one of the lead homicide detectives down at the Ashford County Sheriff’s Department.

  “Is this a party anyone can join?” a gruff and rough voice booms from behind, and both Noah and I turn to find Judge Essex Everett Baxter, my official plus one—sort of.

  “Get over here, Everett.” I’m quick to motion this way as I hand him one of my crispy apple turnovers.

  We’re standing in the kitchen of my mother’s spectacularly haunted bed and breakfast. She bought the place when my father died a little over a decade ago and renovated it to perfection.

  The B&B is booked into the foreseeable future—but that has very little to do with my mother’s hospitality skills and far more to do with the ghosts. You see, last January it was highly rumored that this place was haunted and, truth be told, it is. First, there was the ghost of a bear that started the boo-ha-ha, but eventually, I found a couple of willing spooks to fill the position permanently—Greer Giles, a girl in her mid-twenties who was murdered last winter, and her two-hundred-year-old boy toy, Winslow Decker, a farmer from yesteryear who is as adorable as he is frightening.

  Greer couldn’t be happier with her shiny new specter of a beau. And a few months back, they adopted a little girl named Azalea, Lea for short.

  Lea is a mean axe-wielding six-year-old with a penchant for vengeance due to the fact her family was slain right over these grounds generations ago. But she’s since toned down her scare tactics a bit and helps out with the rattling of bookcases and the misplacing of objects here and there.

  Suffice it to say, my mother has profited nicely off the dead. She runs excursions right here at the B&B on the regular, which she’s dubbed the Haunted Honey Hollow Tours, at eighty bucks a pop. And once her victims are through here, she sends them my way to the bakery for what she’s dubbed as The Last Thing They Ate Tour.

  Yes, the rumors are true. There has been a murder in Honey Hollow every month for the last solid year, and each and every time, one of my baked goods has been loosely connected. That thought alone makes me shudder.

  I hand-feed Everett one of my delectable apple turnovers, with the light and crispy pastry dough, a gentle rubbing of turbinado sugar on top, and only the freshest apples from the local orchard.

  “Lemon,” he moans hard.

  I’ve heard that guttural evocation of my surname before, but it’s been in far more intimate settings. Everett and I have been together ever since Noah and I abruptly broke things off. And now that Noah’s divorce is official, it was Everett who suggested that Noah and I date once again just to see if it’s still a direction my heart wants to pursue or if, in fact, it’s time to give that old relationship its proper closure.

  Closure is something Noah and I didn’t get around to. As soon as his wife, Britney Fox, sauntered her blonde bombshell self into Honey Hollow, I pretty much gave Noah the boot.

  Everett nods. “This is perfection, and so are you.” He lands a simple kiss to my lips. “In fact, you taste sweeter.”

  I bite down hard on the inside of my cheek to keep from giggling like a schoolgirl.

  Essex Everett Baxter goes by his middle name, Everett, to the masses, and Essex to the hordes of women he’s bedded. I’m not sure why, but Everett isn’t all too thrilled with his formal moniker, and yet it’s been reserved as sort of a door prize for the women he’s done the mattress mambo with—his mother and sister withstanding, seeing that they’ve called him that since birth.

  Everett, too, is tall, dark, and alarmingly handsome, but he’s a bit more stoic than Noah, slow to smile, and those Caribbean blue eyes are as sexy as is his demeanor. No matter where he is, females within the vicinity crane their necks just to get a better look at him. I’ve witnessed entire herds of women gasping at the mere sight of him, fanning themselves as he walks by. He’s a lean, mean, well-oiled, mouthwatering machine that has the capability to pop ovaries at a single glance.

  We met in his courtroom last fall where I was a defendant and he wisely sided with me for the judicial win.

  Noah gently spins me around until I’m once again facing him. “You are perfection. And that’s exactly why I’m so thrilled to be heading out on an official date with you this evening.”

  I glance to Everett and give a wry smile. “It is a date.” I nod into the admission. “I asked Noah what he wanted for his birthday and this was all he came up with.” Noah’s birthday was last month, but things officially went sideways, so I thought we should have a do-over. And when I asked what he wanted most, his answer was me. Noah has been trying to diligently win me back ever since the marital mishap.

  “Lottie?” My mother bounces into the kitchen of the B&B. The kitchen itself was recently renovated with an enormous gorgeous marble island and a plethora of white cabinetry dotted with brushed gold fixtures. As of right now, every inch of this island is covered with platters of my sweet treats ready to be delivered to the next room over where someone has rented out the conservatory for a ritzy engagement party.

  My mother rolls her eyes at the sight of the three of us. “Lottie, please, stop playing with these boys—handsome as they might be.” She gives a husky laugh as she bats her lashes at them. Miranda Lemon, the sweet angel that adopted me twenty-seven years ago, is a gorgeous woman who looks far younger than her biological age allows. She wears her blonde hair in curls to her shoulders, has high-cut cheeks that would make any model envious, and a smile that never leaves her lips. “Your sisters are here. They can help deliver all these goodies to the dessert table. The guests have all arrived at the very same time. It’s a mob out there. Good thing the music is playing and the decorations are all in place. That Amanda Wellington sure knows how to throw a party.”

  “Did I hear my name?” A saucy little redhead in a hot pink dress and matching heels saunters in. Amanda is just as successful as she is beautiful. Not only is she a realtor at Redwood Realty, but she has a burgeoning party planning business, Make it Happen, that’s taken off like a rocket. “I hope you’re saying good things.” She winks my way as she pops a mini apple turnover into her mouth and moans. “Oh, Lottie, you’ve outdone yourself. I just know the future bride and groom will love this. But we need to get these to the table.”

  My sisters, Lainey and Meg, zip into the room. Lainey is the head librarian at the Honey Hollow Library and recently married her longtime love, Forest Donovan, in July. We share the same caramel-colored long wavy hair and hazel eyes.

  When I was young, I used to think since we looked so much alike that my parents were mistaken about my adoption.

  And Meg is a blonde beauty who dyes her luscious locks a deep onyx, and when contrasted to her ice blue eyes, it’s quite a striking look. She teaches stripp
ers how to shake their stuff down in Leeds. For years, she used to be a female wrestler in Las Vegas, but she’s been home since last spring.

  She’s officially in l-o-v-e with Hook Redwood (Amanda’s boss) who happens to run his father’s realty empire, Redwood Realty.

  Lainey giggles as she glides on over. Lainey has essentially been walking on air ever since she came back from her honeymoon. “Did you get the invite, too?”

  “What invite?”

  She inches back as if affronted. “To the engagement. Meg and I both got one. Everyone did. It’s some secret party that nobody knows the details to.”

  Mom nods as she does her best to quickly swallow the turnover in her mouth. “Hey? Maybe this is one of those murder mystery parties?” She waggles her brows like this would be a good thing—lest she forgets where she is and who I am.

  Meg gags on a laugh. “It’s always a murder mystery party with Lottie around.”

  The room breaks out into a warm laugh on behalf of both the dead and me.