Deadly Start by Clark Nefri (summer beach reads .txt) 📕

Charlotte got to her feet. “I might have once told Trev I’m not a runner, but I can certainly out move a certain unfit police officer.”

“Unfit in more than one way.”

“We should make an anonymous call that there’s a carton of cigarettes waiting on his doorstep.”

“I’m shocked, Charlie!” Rosie couldn’t keep a straight face. “Only a carton?”

Both women burst into laughter.

Sid crossed his arms and stepped closer.

“Does he think we’re laughing at him?” Charlotte almost choked as she struggled to control her giggles.

“I hope so.”

He was now at the window, peering in.

“We’re going to be arrested for laughing without a permit.” Rosie waved to him. “Or whatever nonsense he comes up with.”

For an instant it did look as though Sid would storm in. Instead, he turned around and packed up the witches’ hats, throwing them into the boot and slamming it down. A moment later he drove off, almost hitting another car coming from behind him.

“Oh my.” Rosie’s hand went to her mouth.

“Yes. And this is local law enforcement.”

“Thank goodness he’s moved on.”

Charlotte agreed, but her gut told her this was far from the end of the interference from Sid and the book club ladies.

There was a sudden thunderstorm not long after Rosie left for the day. Charlotte hoped she’d made it home before the rain came. The day’s takings were disappointing, only boosted by the busy couple of hours in the morning and a last-minute customer who purchased two series and then donated three autobiographies to the giving box.

As much as Rosie had brushed off Sid’s attempt to hurt the business today, and Marguerite’s odd visit, Charlotte had seen the distress in her eyes, the forced smiles as the day went on.

This kind and gentle woman didn’t deserve such appalling treatment. That Sid was a police officer made it more offensive to Charlotte. He was supposed to protect people from the bad guys, not be one himself.

Laptop open to distract herself from the storm, Charlotte visited the bookshop’s Facebook page. A few new page likes. But there were more reviews. Bad ones.

Tried to make me donate to their cause. Refused to serve me when I wouldn’t.

Asked for books to be ordered and was told to go elsewhere.

Not friendly.

Owner laughed at person with a disability.

“What the hell?” Charlotte couldn’t believe what she was reading. Unless it was Sid and he thought he had one, but who on earth would say this of a wheelchair-bound woman? The first three statements were from Annoyed Customer, Shocked Customer, Sad Customer.

“Make that Marguerite Browne, Octavia Morris, and possibly Glenys Lane.” Charlotte murmured.

The fourth name was Disenworb the Greatest. “Not just great?”

She flicked to first bad review from the other day—Disenworb the Great.

None of the names were clickable, so either they’d set their privacy setting to stop her seeing their pages or were fake accounts. Or both.

Something made her take screenshots of the comments. She saved these in a file she named Christmas Tree Thief. Next, Charlotte searched Facebook for the names attributed to the reviews. The two Disenworb pages existed. Both set up in the last week and neither with any other information. She reported the pages to Facebook as fake accounts.

Thunder rattled the windows and Charlotte glanced out of the window. It was almost dark from the cloud cover as rain bucketed down. She shivered even though it was warm enough and focused on the laptop, typing in Sid’s name.

His face came up as the profile image. Charlotte scrolled through some of his posts, wishing she hadn’t when she came across racist memes and support for certain political parties with dreadful human rights policies. Tired of it, she clicked on his friends list. There weren’t many. No names she recognised from her limited knowledge of the locals. All this told her was stuff she could guess.

There was a bio. Sid Browne—the Greatest.

She grabbed a pen and wrote out Disenworb. “Hah! Sid and Browne spelt backwards.” Charlotte took a screenshot of the top of his page, then reported it. Might as well put him under some scrutiny. She saved that screenshot in her new file.

This was getting somewhere, although she had no idea quite where. Presumably the police department had rules about social media and their staff. It felt important she kept records of anything she discovered about Sid.

Before closing Facebook, Charlotte searched for the book club ladies. None of them kept accounts from what she could find.

Finally, the Christmas Tree farm. To her surprise there was a business page for it, although an old one. There were no new posts for some months and those were from Darcy introducing himself and asking customers to watch out for updates on opening times.

The cover photo was beautiful. Taken at sunrise, light filtered through the pine trees to the house. It was inviting and showed a home once well maintained and loved. How sad it had fallen into disrepair. The star rating of the business was two out of five. More of the nasty lies from the bookshop page and over a period of weeks. If this was the work of Sid Browne, one had to ask why. And if he hated the Forests so much, was he behind the thefts? And if so, exactly how was Charlotte going to prove it?

Chapter Thirty-One

Overnight the storm passed, leaving a clear sky and the coolest air since Charlotte arrived in Kingfisher Falls. She stood at the pool beneath the falls as the sun rose, casting the first rays through the forest around her.

The falls almost thundered, swollen from the rain and filling the pool until it was level with the ground around it. Water flowed faster in the narrow river, which was also much higher than her last visit.

She breathed deeply, inhaling a mixture of scents, from eucalypts and ferns to the water itself. A small mob of kangaroos hopped to the edge of the pond, not the least worried by Charlotte’s presence. She stayed still, not wishing to startle them, nor be turned