Snow Cold Case: A Mystic Snow Globe Romantic Mystery (The Mystic Snow Globe Mystery Series Book 1) Read online

  SNOW COLD CASE

  THE MYSTIC SNOW GLOBE MYSTERY SERIES: BOOK 1

  M.Z. ANDREWS

  Snow Cold Case

  The Mystic Snow Globe Mystery Series: Book 1

  by

  M.Z. Andrews

  Copyright © 2017 by M.Z. Andrews

  VS. 112117.01

  Print ISBN-13: 978-1979953344

  Print ISBN-10: 1979953341

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Editing by Clio Editing Services

  Cover Art by Robert Brown

  To my husband.

  Thank you for your continued encouragement, your sage advice, and most of all for your love.

  CONTENTS

  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

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Also by M.Z. Andrews

  About the Author

  1

  “Ewan’s hands trembled as his fingers unfastened the small ivory buttons on Jacquelyn’s blouse. Pushing the flimsy piece of silk to the floor, he caressed the smooth curves of her shoulders while goose bumps rippled across the swell of her heaving breasts. Ewan desperately craved the taste of her skin, his loins pulsing with desire.” Johanna Hughes spoke the words aloud as she typed them into her dinosaur of a computer.

  With pursed lips, she blinked behind her oversized black-rimmed glasses, staring at the small black letters on the glowing white screen. In front of her, a single strand of Christmas lights flickered, illuminating her frosty window. “His loins pulsing with desire,” she repeated, tipping her head sideways and wrinkling her nose. “Is that real?”

  Pulling off her glasses, she looked down at Rocky, the pony-sized English mastiff lying in the shadows at her feet. “Can loins really pulse with desire, Rocky?”

  Hearing his name, he lifted his head and looked up at her curiously.

  “Have your loins ever pulsed with desire?”

  He grunted and laid his head back down on his front paws.

  “Right,” she agreed. “Mine either.”

  Johanna tossed the glasses down onto her overflowing desk. The slight motion sent a poof of air across the desk, and a wad of crumpled tissues blew to the floor. She ground the heels of her hands into her eyes and sat back in her chair. Her arms fell to her sides, her head lolled back on her neck, and her feet splayed out in front of her.

  “Gah! Rocky! I can’t do this! I’m a fraud! I’m a fake! I’m not qualified to be writing about loins pulsing and breasts heaving. My breasts haven’t heaved in… in… ugh! I’m not sure that my breasts have ever heaved!” she cried, grabbing a half-handful of breast in each hand.

  He looked up at her again and tilted his head sideways, as if to say, “What about that one time?”

  She swatted at his meaty rump playfully with the palm of her hand. “Oh, that guy didn’t count. I faked the heaving breasts, just like I faked the noises.” Then she dropped her eyebrows. “And I thought we promised never to bring that up again. It was years ago, and I was in a bad place. Cut me some slack.”

  Rocky’s retort was to stand up and trot into the kitchen, where he buried his head in an empty stainless steel bowl.

  “It’s not like you’ve never had a random hookup either,” she hollered after him. “Neither one of us will forget that day in the park. That little dame with the bow in her hair. You know, it’s lucky you didn’t get that one knocked up. There’s no way you could have afforded the child support on your salary.”

  She turned her attention back to her computer screen and put her glasses back on her face. “Blah, blah, blah, loins pulsing with desire.” She stared at the screen as she debated what perfectly selected eloquent words should come next. “Umm…” she mused aloud. Her brain rolled through all the possible scenarios until finally, it was like a lightbulb turned on inside her head.

  “Then Jacquelyn came to her senses. She decided to say screw sex, no pun intended. Screw love. Screw happy endings. Screw finding your soul mate,” Johanna typed, smiling to herself all the while. “The end.” She punctuated the finale with a perfunctory nod. She flipped the lid of her boxy laptop closed and then stood up and let out a deep sigh.

  “I quit, Rocky. What made me think I could try my hand at romances? I have no business straying away from the day job.” She ripped off her glasses once again and tossed them down onto a stack of books. The title of the top book read Mrs. Plum in the Ballroom, by Hanna Hughes.

  Rocky pulled his heavy jowls from his bowl and looked up at Johanna. Wordlessly, he bore the brunt of his weight on his left leg, and with his right, he shoved the bowl halfway across the wooden floor, where it landed at Johanna’s feet.

  She gave him a lopsided grin. “Hint much?”

  “Woof!” he agreed, his head jerking upwards.

  Carrying his bowl, she walked towards him, taking in his sizable girth. “But you just ate!”

  “Woof!”

  “I realize that, but, buddy, you’re looking heavier than usual.” She tossed his bowl down next to the lit sugar cookie candle on her antique drop-leaf table and flipped on the kitchen light.

  That was when she caught sight of herself in the mirror on the other side of her small Manhattan apartment. She groaned and turned to face it head-on. Who was she to talk about appearances? She hadn’t changed out of her sweatpants in two days. Her partially bleached grey-and-red Seawolves crewneck was covered in bits of last night’s boxed mac ’n’ cheese, and only the upper two-thirds of her stringy brown hair was still tied back in a crooked ponytail. She wore no makeup, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d brushed her teeth, and she was pretty sure she felt a zit coming in just above her lip.

  While staring in the mirror, Johanna curled her lips around her front teeth and touched the little mound, pressing on it hard enough to feel the familiar sensation of an under-the-surface pimple. Yup. It was a pimple alright. She looked at her dog. “I really thought by thirty-five I’d be done with zits. If not, what are the perks of aging?”

  He tilted his head to the side.

  She closed her eyes, lifted her brows, and shrugged. “Yeah. I don’t know either.” She gave a glance towards the window and felt a sudden pang of guilt that she hadn’t taken Rocky out since breakfast. Of course the dog walker had given him a nice midday stroll, but Johanna knew it was her turn. The drizzle of rain coming down from the mottled grey sky d
idn’t look tantalizing. “You wanna go outside?” The inflection in her voice and the tilt of her head hinted that she hoped like mad he’d turn her down.

  But the minute he heard the words, Rocky’s butt was off the ground, and he was on the hunt for his leash. He returned to her seconds later with the nylon strap in his mouth.

  “Oh, fine,” she agreed. She was at a stopping point anyway. A stopping point in her new book and a stopping point in her romance writing career. She was going to stick to what she knew best. Mysteries.

  Johanna sat down on the small padded antique bench that she’d ordered off eBay and pulled her midcalf neoprene Bogs on over her sweatpants. She wondered why she’d ever thought of writing a romance novel anyway.

  Because you thought, if you can’t have love, why not write about it? she answered herself matter-of-factly.

  Annoyed by her own snottiness, she opened her small coat closet, pulled out her decades-old pink winter coat and tugged it on over her sweatshirt. One final look in the mirror made her brown eyes bulge.

  “My God. I’m a hot mess!” she cried.

  Rocky sat by her side, staring at his reflection in the mirror as she reconsidered her words.

  “I know what you’re thinking. Don’t say it. You have to be hot to be a hot mess, I know. Fine. I’m just a mess,” she sighed. She pulled the ponytail holder from her hair and tossed it on the entryway table. Combing her fingers through her thick tresses, she carefully smoothed the flyaways before pulling the pink puppy hat her grandmother had crocheted for her on over her crazy hair. She tugged on the long earflaps that ended in little pink balls of pink yarn and tucked her hair in all around.

  “Better?” she asked him.

  Rocky groaned.

  She frowned at him. “Like I care? It’s not like I have to worry about any friends seeing me out and about. You’re my only friend, and you like me just the way I am, right?”

  He whined at her, causing her shoulders to stoop. “Oh, fine. I’ll brush my teeth, and then we’ll go. Okay?”

  “Woof!” he agreed cheerfully.

  She leaned over and gave him a thankful scratch around his ears, fastening his leash to his collar. “Thanks, Rock. I love you, too.”

  With her posture straight and her elbows bent at precise ninety-degree angles, Johanna and Rocky power-walked their usual path through the twinkling lights of Central Park. The brisk air both numbed and pinkened Johanna’s cheeks and caused her breath to puff out in front of her like a little cloud against the darkened sky.

  Johanna was thankful that the sleety-rain crap they’d gotten all day had slowed to a drizzle, though she wondered why it couldn’t just get it over with and snow already. Christmas was only a little over a week away. The tree in Rockefeller Center was up. The shops on Fifth Avenue all had their windows properly dressed. The ever-charming Winter Village at Bryant Park was fully stocked, and every street corner in her neighborhood had the blended aromatic woody scents of fir trees mixed with the clean, fresh scents of pine. The seasonal magic of New York City at Christmastime could only be made more magical by adding snow.

  Catching sight of a squirrel on a bench, Rocky halted his steady trot along the path. “Woof!” he barked, letting out a white puff of air. His upper torso lunged forward onto his front paws, his head lowered, and his rear end wagged in the air.

  Johanna patted Rocky’s back end. “Show-off.”

  “Woof woof!” Rocky’s front end bounced excitedly, but the squirrel, used to the multitude of dogs in the park, didn’t even contemplate moving and continued nibbling on the nut he held.

  Johanna sighed but took the momentary break in their walk to squint up into the darkness. The lights of the park illuminated the drizzle in the black sky, giving the slow-falling rain a hyperspeed appearance. It reminded her of when she was a kid and used to lie on the grass in front of her house when it rained and look up into the sky. “All systems are a go,” James would say before grabbing her hand. “Warp speed ahead!”

  Johanna had to swallow down the lump in her throat that seemed to come out of nowhere. James. This time of year always made thoughts of him more frequent than usual. But she didn’t have time to dwell on the thought as, without warning, Rocky launched himself after the squirrel and jerked her forward, pulling her straight into the bench.

  Johanna howled, doubling over as the lip of the seat caught both of her legs just below the knees. Unwittingly, she let go of the leash, giving Rocky the opportunity to jump the low fence, following the squirrel across a strip of water-logged grass.

  From the path, Johanna nursed her sore shin bones and watched as Rocky frolicked in the sloppy patch of mud just beyond the fence. “Rocky! Get back here! Look at you. Now you’re all filthy!”

  “Woof, woof!” His tail whipped the frigid air as he stared up into the tree where the squirrel now taunted him.

  “He’s not going to come down. Now get over here, or we’re going home.”

  Rocky lowered his head. Her tone told him that she wasn’t playing. She waved her hand at him, and Rocky looked up at the squirrel again. “Woof, woof!”

  “Alright, then I’m going home, Rocky. I mean it!” Johanna threatened as she limped ahead on the path, her shin bones throbbing.

  She knew the second she began to get too far away from him, he’d follow. Rocky was a good companion. Steady, loyal, protective, and he listened most of the time. She also knew that he was scared of losing sight of his caretaker and food provider, and she was right. She hadn’t gotten more than fifteen feet away from him before she found Rocky trotting by her side again.

  She looked down at him disdainfully. “You pulled me into a bench, Rocky.”

  Panting happily after his little excursion, he glanced up at her as they walked. Her scowl caused him to look away.

  She tipped her head to the side. “Really? You don’t have anything to say? That hurt, you know!”

  “Ow-ow-wow!” he barked.

  “Yeah, I know. You didn’t mean it. You just wanted to make a new friend. I can understand that,” she sighed. “I wouldn’t mind making a new friend myself.”

  Rocky looked up at her again, his big brown eyes full of nothing but love, and barked.

  She patted the top of his head. “I know you’re my friend, buddy. I was thinking less fur friend and more real friend.” She sighed. It had been so long since she’d actually spoken to someone besides Rocky or her family or the bagel-and-coffee guy that she didn’t even know if she’d know how to have a human friend anymore. Johanna looked down at Rocky’s now muddied body and sighed. “We’re cutting this walk short, Rocky. You’re filthy, and my shins are killing me.”

  He hung his head.

  “Oh, darn it!” she cried, stopping on the path. “I just remembered. I have to stop and pick Mook up her Christmas present. Dad said her mixer went out.”

  At the first available spot, they veered off the path to head towards home. The same squirrel that had taunted Rocky earlier now darted ahead of them, catching Rocky’s attention yet again. He barked excitedly.

  “Oh no, you’re staying with me,” she warned, keeping a firm hold of his leash. But Rocky’s behemoth size was no match for Johanna’s small frame. He took off on a dead sprint, pulling Johanna along for the ride.

  “Rocky! Stop!” she hollered at him, barely able to keep up with him due to the stinging pain just below her knees. The cold air burned her lungs as she inhaled. “Rocky!”

  They’d gone quite a distance when finally, Rocky was able to pull his leash loose from Johanna’s hands and he took off, dragging it down the pathway. Johanna chased after him, shouting his name. “Rocky!”

  That was when she saw him coming towards them. The man she passed at least three nights a week on their nightly walks. He was medium-height. Average build. His hair looked like a soft patch of curly yellow silk. Johanna assumed he was a businessman of some sort as every day he wore a tailored suit and tie and carried a messenger bag slung over one shoulder. He always wal
ked with his eyes glued to the cell phone out in front of him, affording Johanna plenty of time to drink in his handsomeness. He didn’t have supermodel good looks or anything like that, but he had kind eyes that crinkled in the corners every time he noticed Rocky, and he had perfect posture, which Johanna thought gave him an air of confidence and made him that much more attractive.

  But today, the scene that unfolded in front of her didn’t give her the time to gawk at the handsome stranger. Today, Rocky’s one-track mind set him on a collision course, headed straight for the well-dressed man.

  “Rocky! No!” Johanna yelled from too far away to stop him. Her heart beat wildly in her chest. Whether it was from the physical exertion of her run or the anticipation of what was about to happen, she couldn’t be sure.

  Johanna’s two-word scream made the man in the suit glance up from his phone—just not in time to make a difference. The pony-sized animal crashed headfirst into the man, catapulting him backwards onto the wet trail. Rocky’s momentum carried him right over the top of the man, soaking his beautiful suit from stem to stern with a disgusting layer of doggy sludge.

  2

  J ohanna’s jaw dropped as she caught up to Rocky and the man. Though it was dark in the park, she could clearly see the layer of grey sludge coating the man’s expensive-looking suit.

  “Rocky!” she breathed with her hand covering her gaping mouth. “Oh my goodness, sir…I—I’m so, so sorry!”

  Rocky apologized too by covering the man’s face with a thick film of doggy slobber. The man tried to cover his face with his arms, but he was no match for Rocky when he wanted to lick something.

  “Get off, Rocky!” Johanna hollered.

  Sure that the man was playing with him and enjoying the impromptu bath, Rocky continued the licking.

  Johanna had to heave all of her weight against her dog to force him off the stranger, and as she did, she accidentally dropped a knee onto the man’s stomach. He reflexively curled up and let out a “Doh!” sound.