The Secret of Seaside Read online

  The Secret of Seaside

  by Agatha Ball

  A Paige Comber Mystery

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  SUMMARY

  DEDICATION

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Books by Agatha Ball

  Acknowledgments

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Legal Stuff

  SUMMARY

  Welcome to Seaside! A sleepy, island village filled with sandy beaches, colorful characters... AND MURDER!

  Paige Comber dreams of running off to Paris to train at the Cordon Bleu, but fresh out of college, she is stuck running her granny's coffee shop in the small town of Seaside. It looks like a lousy summer until a handsome stranger named Nate arrives.

  He's here to help his Uncle Byron with his affairs, but when his uncle's body washes up on the beach and Nate is thrown into prison, it is up to Paige to find out who might have been crazy enough to do it.

  BOOK ONE in the PAIGE COMBER MYSTERY series

  DEDICATION

  To Cori and Leslie and our lifetime of summers

  Chapter One

  The bell over the door tinkled to let me know I had a customer. I slammed shut the France on a Shoestring guidebook I had been reading and shoved it under the counter.

  “Ooo! It is so cute in here!” the woman squealed to her friend.

  She was in her early fifties and had perfectly bobbed and highlighted hair. From her clothes, I could tell she wasn’t from around here. Everything she wore screamed high end, the kind of casual elegance you only get shopping at boutiques where a pair of flip-flops will set you back a few hundred bucks. The locals of Seaside bought things from catalogs and then, to save money on shipping, waited six weeks to get it so by the time it arrived, it was already out of fashion. Not that it was fashionable in the first place.

  My name is Paige Comber. I'm not local, either. Well, sort of. My granny owns the Bitter Beans Coffee & Bookshop. It is a sweet little place housed inside of an historic wooden building with a western-y looking false-front. It has the vibe of an old-timey general store—wooden floors, wooden walls, wooden shelves, wooden tables, and wooden chairs. The shop smelled of coffee and cinnamon and new books.

  Bitter Beans is located in beautiful, sunny Seaside, a small town on an abandoned stretch of coast on an all but abandoned island. You could only get here by ferry and, truth be told, aside from the mean espresso I knew how to brew, I'm not exactly sure why anyone would bother.

  Back in the day, Seaside was an old fishing village. There was a cannery that closed, and then the rest of the industry moved on, too. There was some rugged backwoods, if you were into camping; a couple of places to moor your boat, if you were sailing around the world or something; and then just the little village where I was doomed to spend an unending summer. I had already been here two weeks and was about to lose my mind.

  But as I looked at the two women, I knew these were bona fide tourists. The days of opening the shop and seeing no one except the other shopkeepers were at an end. It was like spotting the first crocus of spring! Tourist season was beginning!

  “This is just the cutest little shop! And look at this!” said the first woman, picking up a pewter fountain pen-and-ink set.

  Granny handpicked all of the knickknacks in the shop. She said she liked to "inspire dreamers." All I cared about was if I could inspire them to buy a cup of coffee so I wouldn't have to face Granny with an empty till.

  “May I help you ladies with anything?” I asked.

  “Ooo! This is just the CUTEST shop!” she gushed again, putting the ink set down. "I have ALWAYS wanted to have a bookshop. With a coffee bar! And in such a CUTE little town!”

  “They say we make the best cinnamon buns on the island. Can I tempt you?” I pressed, going in for the hard sell with a hopeful smile.

  “Oh no. We’re just browsing,” she replied. She picked up a book about the history of Seaside and bent the cover so far back, there was no way we were ever going to be able to offload it.

  It took everything in me not to snatch that poor book out of her hands and whisper to its broken little spine that it was going to be okay. Instead, I just gritted my teeth and plastered a grin across my face. “Let me know if I can help you with anything.”

  She set the book back on the shelf, not even bothering to put it where it belonged, and turned to me as if the thought JUST occurred to her. “Oh! I'm TOTALLY going to buy something, but do you have a restroom?”

  I pointed to the back where there was a huge sign that said restroom. She handed her purse to her friend and strolled back, touching everything on every table between her and the lavatory. Her friend stood awkwardly.

  “Can I help you with anything?” I asked.

  I could see her looking for something to say. “Um... no chance you sell sunscreen? The sun in these coastal towns is so brutal." She looked me up and down and sighed. "Although, you’re so lucky. You’ve got such pretty olive skin. I bet you just tan. Never burn.”

  I tried to pretend I was commiserating. "Oh, when I have a chance to get outside, it’s rough, even on me.”

  “Oh.”

  “They sell sunscreen at the general store at the end of the block,” I offered, pointing off to the left.

  “Oh. Well. You should carry some here,” she said and then sank back into silence, shifting back and forth and staring at the ceiling.

  I tried to busy myself with tidying up behind the counter. There was nothing to tidy. I had already tidied everything and tidied it again. My most recent How-To-Pass-The-Time game was to try to guess how many coffee cups I could stack on top of each other before they started to sway. I was losing.

  A small "mew" came from a plaid pillow on the window ledge. The woman looked over and her face lit up. "Is that Captain?" she exclaimed. "THE Captain? Really?" She looked at me for confirmation. "I follow him on Instagram!"

  Captain was the bookshop cat. He was a sweet, orange tabby and, I have to say, quite the celebrity. He showed up on Granny's doorstep one day and decided she was his people. What can you do?

  He was the cutest little thing. When he was wee, something stunted his growth. We called him Granny's perma-kitten, and he had the personality to match. He took it upon himself to be the town's unofficial welcoming committee and had a habit of commandeering any empty lap in Bitter Beans. I'm pretty sure everyone with a cell phone who has ever visited the island has hashtagged a selfie with Granny's cat.

  "That's him!" I chirped.

  The woman pulled out her phone and snapped a couple pictures. That cat knew exactly how to play to the camera. He batted his paws at her lens, which elicited coos and awes, and kept her busy until her friend finally came out and walked over to the counter.

  She grabbed an obligatory tin of mints to purchase and I rang her up.

  "That’ll be $1.99," I said. As she dug through her purse, I asked, "Where are you visiting from?”

  “Newport Beach,” she said, not finding her wallet. She began unloading wadded up tissues and lipstick tubes. "That’s in California.”

  “I’ve always wanted to visit,” I replied, tryin
g desperately to find some friendly, homespun connection we could chat about.

  “Oh! You should! You should!" she stated. "It’s not as quaint as this place, but we get by.”

  She finally found her wallet, but despite a wad of cash I could see, she pulled out her credit card. As I rang her up, she scooped the mints into her hand, unwrapped them, leaving the cellophane on the counter, and popped two into her mouth. Judging by her waist size, it was probably her version of a hearty lunch.

  “Well, come back again soon!” I said as they walked out the door, giving them a friendly wave. As soon as the door closed, I collapsed against the counter. Our first customers of the day and all they bought was a package of mints. And any profit from the mints had been eaten up by card fees and toilet paper.

  I walked around the counter and picked up the discarded book the woman had abused. I ran my hand along the spine, as if somehow I could smooth away the damage. But there are some things that you can never put back to the way they were. I placed it softly on the shelf, but this time face out. I patted it reassuringly. "Don't you worry. Though you might not go home with anyone, I'm going to make sure you get all the attention."

  I rested my hands on my hips, looking around for something to do. It was the beginning of the day, but I had been up since the crack of dawn making our pastries to beat the rush from the ferry boat. I'm pretty sure those two ladies were it.

  This summer wasn't exactly what I had hoped for. Since I could remember, my mom and I spent summers in Seaside, visiting my granny. Having your own business was ingrained in me. It had taken four years to finish my associate's business degree, but only because I split my time between the community college and a local vocational school, learning how to bake. Sure, I could have gone to the state school with my friends, but the reality was it would have cost more than I could afford. So, I graduated with a nice little nest egg, even if I didn't have a fancy diploma to hang on the wall. I told everyone my dream was to own my own shop like my granny someday. Except... well... there were some dreams I didn't mention, too.

  I went around to the back of the counter and pulled out the guidebook to France. I rested my cheek in the palm of my hand as I flipped through the pages, looking at the pictures of the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower. Someday, I was going to train at the Cordon Bleu, I was going to become one of the best pastry chefs in the world. I'd own a high class tea shop in Paris or New York or London. I'd make sculptures out of spun sugar and three-story cakes that movie stars bought for their red carpet galas.

  I tried to talk to my mom about these ideas a few weeks ago, and she decided I needed a dose of reality. She informed me a summer working in my granny's shop was the best education a person could get in running a business. And thus, I was shuttled off to Seaside. I let out a huge sigh. So far, all I'd learned was to keep your books behind glass and only let real customers use the restrooms.

  The bell above the door tinkled again and I looked up, ready to put on my cheeriest face.

  Instead, I had to remember how to breathe.

  Standing in the doorway was one of the most beautiful men I’d ever seen. He was tall with broad shoulders and wore a blue plaid shirt tucked into his jeans. The sleeves were rolled up to show off his muscular forearms. His light brown hair almost matched the color of his sun-kissed skin. His nose was flat, like maybe at some point it had gotten broken. But what struck me the most were his kind eyes. They were deep and dark, but had a twinkle. There was a mischievous turn to his smile, like he was just on the verge of telling you a joke.

  I smoothed back my hair nervously, not that it helped anything. It was already pulled back into a ponytail, and any wisps that had escaped were not magically going back into place. I smiled and tried to remember how to form words.

  “Can I help you?” I asked, my voice cracking slightly.

  It seemed to be amusing to him. When he spoke, it was like there was laughter under his words. “I’m looking for some coffee. I heard you were the person to see.”

  Coffee! I could do coffee. Suddenly given a task, I felt like I could handle this situation. “I might have a cup or two I could spare you,” I replied, suavely reaching for a cup... and then I dropped it. I grabbed another off the top like nothing happened. "How do you like it?”

  “Straight up, the stronger the better,” he said, leaning his elbows on the counter. "I want it so strong, it’ll punch me in the mouth.”

  “One tooth smasher, coming right up.” I measured out and packed the grounds into the portafilter. Sure, I could have just poured him some pre-brewed coffee from the pump pots, but I wanted him to have to hang out as long as possible. He was going to get a full-on Americano straight from the espresso machine. There's no way I was letting him out of this shop without him thinking that he had just tasted the best cup of coffee he had ever had in his entire life and that he would need to come back for more. "So, are you just in town visiting?”

  “Sort of.” He ran his hand along his forearm. Dare I say I detected a little bit of nervousness. "My uncle lives here. Just... well, I'm here to give him a helping hand.”

  "Me, too!" I said, smiling and then realizing that made no sense. "I mean, I'm not here to help your uncle. I'm here helping my granny. She owns this shop and I'm just here for the summer... helping... because I want to have a shop... a bakery... someday... and it seemed like a good place... to learn how to run a shop..." I wished that the pressure from the espresso machine would cause it to explode, instantly killing me in a fiery death.

  He just laughed as if random women rambling at him about the minutia of their lives was the most delightful thing a person could ever hear. "Well, it's good to know there'll be a friendly face whenever I need a cup of coffee."

  I wiped my hand on my apron as I waited for the steam to drip through. "How long will you be here to get coffee? I mean... to help your uncle?"

  "Oh, at least two weeks," he replied. "He's getting older and... well... just coming to see if there's anything I can do to help."

  "Is there anything I can do to help?" I asked and then realized that probably sounded crazy. "I mean, we're a small community and if you need help, don't hesitate to ask." I poured the espresso shot into the cup and filled the rest with hot water. "Who is your uncle?"

  "Byron Edward."

  "Oh," I said, not recognizing the name.

  "He lives up on the hill," Nate said.

  "OH! THAT Byron!" I replied.

  So, there is this mansion a little way out of town. It sits at the top of the hill. My granny had always just told me it was the Founder's House. I'm sure she mentioned who owned it at some point, but who remembers those sorts of things? It belonged to the families who settled Seaside. I never really paid any attention beyond that. I mean, it was just a bunch of dead people I didn't know, right? But now I had a FOUNDERS family member standing in our coffee shop.

  "Your family has lived here for a while," I lamely offered like I was in the know.

  He shrugged. "We're not really close. I haven't been here in years," he confessed.

  “Well, welcome,” I replied, determined to make him feel like this was a great place to spend the summer. "I’m Paige.”

  "Nate," he said, sticking out his hand for a shake.

  As I placed my palm in his, his hand was strong. Not crush your-hand-in-his-I-don't-know-how-to-shake strong, but... reserved strong. As if he could smash things, but he knew it, and so he held back and all you got was gentleness. His hand had the muscles of a potter or a man who knew how to knead bread.

  "It's lovely to meet you," I replied as our eyes locked. Once again, all of the oxygen seemed to whoosh straight out of the room, and we held each other for just a little bit longer than polite society would dictate.

  He pulled away first, as if maybe he was a little surprised by whatever it was that was happening, too. He looked around as if needing to ground himself, too. “Really lovely place,” he commented. His eyes fell upon the history book about Seaside the tourist woman h
ad bent. He took it off the shelf carefully and read the back. "Is this any good?" he asked.

  I nodded as I put his coffee on the counter for him. "All the information a person could want. Although, to be fair, even if someone wanted more, they'd be out of luck. Rumor has it, the historians had a tough time finding enough stuff to write about for one book."

  He stroked the cover gently where it had been damaged and then nodded, placing it next to the register. "I'll take it."

  "Really?" I asked. "We have editions that are in better shape..."

  "No," he replied, taking out his wallet. "I want this one."

  And I knew at that moment that I really, really liked this guy.

  I opened up the pastry case, profits be darned to heck. I got out the tongs and a bag. "We're having a special offer," I explained. "Buy a beat-up book, get a homemade cinnamon roll for free.”

  "What a bargain!" He inhaled deeply. "Those smell really good."

  "I make them myself," I informed him. I got out a box and a bag and put the book and the pastry and some napkins inside, taking the time to arrange them nicely. He wouldn't notice, but I wanted to make sure that if for some reason he did, he'd know that he wasn't just another random customer to me. "You'll have to come back later and tell me what you think."

  He laughed, and it wasn’t one of those forced or restrained laughs. Here was a guy who wasn’t afraid to just find joy in things. "You have yourself a deal. Put me down for coffee and pastries tomorrow.”

  “I'll look forward to it,” I replied, a delighted tickle dancing across my heart at the prospect.

  "Tomorrow!" he repeated as he took his things and backed toward the door. He suddenly stopped. "Say... what do people do for fun here?”

  My brain raced, trying to come up with something. “Well... they go to the beach?” I offered.

  He nodded as if agreeing with my sound suggestion. “You’ll have to show me sometime.”

  "I'd really like that," I answered and realized I actually meant it. "I'd be happy to. Anytime."