Sweet Taffy and Murder: Sweet Taffy Cozy Mysteries Book #1 Read Online Free PDF Page A

fair chance.
    “Oh, I’m supposed to give you this.”
    Davenport dug around in a drawer and pulled out another manila envelope. Taffy wished, but doubted, that it was full of hundred dollar bills. She picked at the sealed edge until Mr. Davenport handed her a filigreed letter opener.
    Slicing open one end of the envelope she tipped out several pages. Forms. Employment forms. Most of the lines had been filled in for her. Even her social security number. Only a date and signature were required. She looked more closely at the top half of the first page.
    “The Sweet Abandon Candy Factory? Is this another joke?”
    Mr. Davenport broke into a wide smile. “It’s our town’s pride and joy. We make all kinds of delicious confections, but we’re best known for our saltwater taffy. We supply all the best shops and tourist locales up and down the West Coast.”
    Saltwater taffy? This had to be the punch line of Nana’s joke. Send Taffy to work in a taffy factory. If her Nana had wanted to put her in her place, she’d done a fine job of it. Taffy started to laugh loudly, almost hysterically. Mr. Davenport’s eyes widened at the shocking sound, and he started fidgeting in his chair.
    Her snorting giggles subsided when she read the third page in the envelope. It listed an address as well as a time and date. She was due to start work at nine on Tuesday morning. That was tomorrow! In Manhattan, her Tuesday mornings usually consisted of a yoga class, a spirulina smoothie, and a blowout at Lorenzo’s Salon. She’d never had a real job before.
    Maybe Mr. Davenport picked up on her chagrin. He said, “It’s a great place to work. A friendly staff. A friend of mine’s the manager. They give all their employees a great discount.”
    “Are you sure you can’t talk my Nana out of this silly setup?”
    He shook his head. “Mrs. Belair was quite explicit in her instructions, I’m afraid.”
    Then he sniffed, replaced his glasses, and stood up.
    “I think we’ve covered everything. Do you have any other questions?”
    She had a million, but none for him.

CHAPTER TWELVE
    Standing on the sidewalk outside Davenport and Sons, Taffy fleetingly wished she’d been named after a pair of shoes instead of a piece of candy. A discount on shoes would have been far more practical.
    She glanced up and down the street to make sure the police cruiser was not in sight. She really could use a second cup of coffee right about now, and so she went looking for the local coffee shop.
    She drove past a hardware store, pharmacy, grocery store, garden center, and an optometrist along one side of the street. On the other side she saw a swanky dentist office, a dry cleaner’s, a couple of boarded-up storefronts, and a secondhand bookstore-slash-tea-slash-curio shop, but no coffee shop.
    Frustrated, she drove up and down the main street, but when her sleuthing yielded no results, she headed back to the house.
    Her house. She shivered, even though the sun had warmed the air and the fresh ocean breeze was now balmy. She shivered because she now owned a dead woman’s house.
    What was her Nana thinking? Why had she set Taffy up like this? It was maddening.
    She pulled into the driveway. Ethan’s pickup truck was still parked off to the side. As she turned off the ignition, he stepped out onto the porch and tossed a bucket full of water over the railing and into the bushes. There was a wild yowl as a streak of black fur tore across the grass.
    Ethan yelled, “Dang it, Midnight!” But the black streak was long gone.
    As Taffy got out of the car, he said, “That’s Janet’s cat, Midnight. I was afraid he’d been eaten by a coyote.”
    “That yowling creature freaked me out the other night.”
    “You should feed him. I bet there’s canned food in the pantry.”
    “Maybe you should adopt him? I’m not very good with pets.” A few of her friends back home had Chihuahuas and Pomeranians, tiny things that could fit in their Louis Vuitton handbags, but