Checked Out (A Ricki Rydell Mystery Book 1) Read online

  Checked Out

  A Ricki Rydell Mystery

  Abby Matthews

  Table of Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  WAKE UP TO MURDER

  Copyright

  About

  One

  Ricki had run out of creative ways to write about love and sex. She had done it so many times in so many different ways that the words had grown stale. Her career as a romance writer would have made any aspiring author envious. She lived a comfortable life and had wonderful fans who she loved more than anything, but if they knew how burnt out she was, they’d be disappointed in her. She was disappointed in herself and felt like an ingrate when she had what so many others would die for.

  “The well is dry,” she said to her agent, Tracy Dyer, during one of their monthly phone calls. “I’m tapped out.” She tried not to complain during their conversations. Tracy was busy and had a lot of business things to talk about, leaving little time to discuss personal matters with Ricki. And when her agent was always telling her how great she was, it just made her feel worse, but she had reached maximum burnout and couldn’t hold it in any longer.

  “Ricki, you’re fabulous. The fans love you. Doesn’t knowing that fuel your fire to write more great books?”

  “Not like it used to.” Frankly, it filled her with a lot of anxiety. Unfortunately, Tracy wasn’t getting it or purposely ignoring the issue altogether. Coming across as a whiner wasn’t what Ricki wanted, but she needed her agent to understand how she felt. She needed someone on her side. She needed someone to say that it was okay to hate writing the same thing over and over again. “I want to do something else. Can I write in a new genre, like mystery or something?”

  “Have you ever written a mystery?”

  “Does the one I wrote when I was ten years old count?”

  “Unfortunately not. You’re right in the middle of your most popular series, and you still have three more books on your contract with this publisher. My hands are tied and so are yours. After you fulfill your contractual obligation, we’ll talk. Until then, there’s nothing either one of us can do, unless you want to be sued. I know I don’t want that. If you want to try something else, like mystery, get familiar with the genre. Do you even read mysteries?”

  When did she have the time to read anything but romance? “Well, no, not really.”

  “You know I don’t want to hold you back, and I’ll support anything you want, so if you want to write mysteries in the future, start reading and watching them now.”

  “Any recommendations?”

  “You can’t go wrong with the mother of all mystery writers, Agatha Christie.”

  “Okay, cool. I’ll pick up some books at the library today.”

  “And when was the last time you took a vacation?”

  She didn’t have the heart to tell her she hadn’t been on vacation in years. “It’s on my calendar.” Right after editing this book, plotting the next one, and the next one.

  “After you finish the finals edits on this project, maybe you should take a break to recharge your batteries. Just remember, three more books. In the meantime, read as much as you can.”

  Complaining about her writing career when it had been so good to her made her feel like a grumpy, old slug. Her fans were wonderful, and she loved them, had so much respect for them, but they deserved a writer who could give them their heart and soul, their passion. She wasn’t that writer anymore.

  “You can write three more books. I know you can.” Tracy was always Ricki’s cheerleader. Her faith in her always boosted her confidence, and now was no different.

  With a new sense of excitement and a feeling of validation, Ricki said, “Absolutely.”

  “That’s my girl. Talk to you next month.”

  Even if she knew how the conversation was going to unfold—contracts being what they are—it felt good to get her feelings out in the open. Tracy now knew how Ricki felt and understood. She had three books left on the contract with her current publisher. Three wasn’t a bad number. She could psych herself up to write three more books. And with writing mysteries in the future dangling like the clichéd carrot before her, she had something exciting to look forward to. Although it didn’t solve the problem completely, it eased some of the pressure.

  She looked to her dog, Rumpus, for an encouraging tail wag and tilt of the head, but his face was buried deep in his backside, licking himself. At least one of them was having a good time.

  Before heading out the door, she leafed through her calendar to see when she had time to take a vacation. Her best friend, Becca, had her hands full with a newborn and couldn’t go anywhere until she was done breast feeding. Her brother, Chris, was busy writing speeding tickets and didn’t believe in taking vacations. Mom and Dad were retired and doing their own thing, so that left them out. It looked like taking a vacation would have to wait a little longer, unless she wanted to go off by herself, but she didn’t see much fun in that. But there was always Rumpus.

  “Would you like to go on a cruise with me, boy?”

  He tilted his head and whimpered.

  “I didn’t think so. Would you like to go for a ride instead?” That got his attention. He wiggled and shook and ran for his leash sitting on a chair by the side door.

  With Rumpus in the backseat, she headed across town to her parent’s house. As she drove, she thought of other ways to deal with her burnout. The thought of taking a job when she didn’t need one didn’t sit right with her. There were a lot of people in Unionville looking for work, and she couldn’t reconcile taking a job from someone who needed it more than she did. She didn’t need the money; she just needed something to do besides writing romance.

  Rumpus barked and barked until she finally lowered the window so he could stick his head out and feel the wind in his face. “Happy now?” He sneezed approvingly, blowing slobber all over the back window.

  So taking a job was out of the question. Where did that leave her? Unionville was a quirky place that was too big for a small town and too small for a city. Main Street was full of antique shops, coffee shops, art studios, a couple of microbreweries, and even a few upscale boutiques that seemed out of place for a working-class town. Those shops didn’t last long. Most people came to Unionville for the wine. About ten miles outside of town, a string of wineries sat along Lake Somerset which brought tourists to the area in droves during the summer. In winter, things died down a bit, and that didn’t leave much for restless people like her to do.

  As she pulled into the gravel driveway, with its strip of grass growing in the middle looking like a close-shaved Mohawk haircut, she beeped the horn to let her parents know she was there. Rumpus stood on the armrest of the door and barked in long bellows until Ricki opened the door to set him free. He took off in a run, nose to the ground, sniffing for something to get into. She only hoped it wasn’t something stinky so she wouldn’t have to give him a bath later.

  “Hey, Ricki,” her dad said, folding the newspaper. Stuck in his ways, retired bus driver, Andy Rydell, still had the daily newspaper delivered to his front porch where he read it every morning while drinking coffee. “What’s shakin’, bacon?”

&nb
sp; “Not much. I was bored so I came over to see how everyone was doing.” She plopped down on one of those old-fashioned metal chairs her parents had since as long as she could remember. The layers of spray paint were older than she was, but there was no rust and it still had a good bounce. “So, how is everyone doing?”

  “Nice to know you only think of us when you’re bored.”

  “Where’s Mom?” She caught a whiff of something sweet and fruity coming from inside the house. “She’s making pie again, isn’t she?” Ricki’s mom, Thea, had a thing for pies. She believed pies cured everything in personal and social situations. A death in the family? Thea would give them an apple pie. Someone in the hospital? She’d bake them a cherry pie. Somebody had good news? She’d make blueberry. Whatever the reason, it smelled good. “What’s the occasion?”

  “Lois had her gallbladder removed.” Her father looked at her and rolled his eyes. She knew what he was thinking before he even said it. “I tried to tell her that since Lois had her gallbladder out, she couldn’t eat anything with a lot of grease in it. And you know how your mother loves butter.”

  “It’s a nice gesture, though. I’m sure someone will eat it if Lois can’t.”

  “It seems to me the only way I’m going to get pie around here is if something happens to me. You think I could get coconut cream if I break my hip?”

  “Dad, don’t break your hip for pie. I’ll make you one if it’s all that.”

  “Honey, you fail to realize how much I love coconut cream pie. I’d take one for the team for coconut cream pie.” Rumpus bounded up on the porch and jumped in her father’s lap. Sometimes she wondered if Rumpus was more his dog than hers. About three years ago, there was a segment on the local news about a husband and wife getting busted for backyard breeding. There were over thirty Beagle puppies stuffed into two small crates in need of a good home. Her heart broke for them, and she drove herself down to the Humane Society where she found this overactive, overeager puppy trying to climb over the fence just to get to her. She had to have him, but when she brought him over to show her parents, he clung to her father like Velcro.

  “While you two do a little male bonding, I’m going to speak with my mother.” She peeled herself off the chair, the back of her leg slimy from sweat.

  “I guess I’m not good enough for you.”

  She kissed him on the forehead. “You’re more than good enough, but I need Mom right now.” The smell of cherry pie baking in the oven got sweeter as she stepped inside the old farmhouse that still had the same throw rugs on the floor from when she lived there. Her stomach growled in response to the glorious smells coming from the kitchen. It was almost time for lunch. What she wouldn’t give for a slice of warm pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top, but she still had her gallbladder and didn’t qualify for a piece. “Mom?”

  “In here.” Thea’s apron was covered in flour. She had touches of it on her face and in her hair. Ricki’s mother wasn’t the greatest of cooks, but what she lacked in skill, she more than made up for in enthusiasm. “I thought you’d be writing right now.” She smiled warmly at her daughter.

  “I’m supposed to be checking my proofs, but I needed a break.”

  Ricki’s motive for coming to visit her parents was more than boredom. Her mother would sense something was wrong without Ricki saying a word. She was a retired nurse and had a sixth sense about her when it came to people. She always knew when someone was lying about how they were feeling, physically or emotionally. So, with a tilt of her head to the right, her brows raised in concern, her mother studied her.

  “Out with it. What’s on your mind? And don’t try to tell me there’s nothing on your mind because I can see right through you, always could.”

  Ricki poured herself a glass of milk and nibbled at remnants of cinnamon and sugar coated pie crust cooling on a cookie sheet in the middle of the table. Since she liked the pie crust more than the pie itself, she gobbled it up as she eased into what had been bothering her. “Am I ungrateful for complaining about my job?”

  “Everyone complains about their job. I’m sure the President of the United States complains about his job to his wife. It’s normal. But what is it you want to complain about?”

  “I don’t think I can do it anymore.”

  “Is this the writer’s block they always talk about?” Thea sat at the table and started picking at the pie crust Ricki hadn’t eaten yet. “What are you afraid of?”

  “I don’t think I’m afraid of anything, at least nothing to do with writing. It’s just not fresh anymore, and it’s beginning to show on the page. I see it. My editor sees it. The last manuscript I got back from my editor was filled with comments like, this is boring, flesh this scene out more, I don’t believe the hero and heroine even like each other.” She licked the tip of her finger to pick up the sugar crystals which had accumulated on the table in front of her. “It was a halfhearted effort, Mom, and I knew it when I turned it in. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m starting to hate what I’m writing.”

  “Shake things up a bit. Go to a nudist camp.”

  “That doesn’t even make sense.”

  “What better way to bring excitement into your life than to get naked.”

  Now, Ricki had no idea if her mother went to Woodstock or if she was a hippie or if she was a streaker or whatever, so where that remark came from, not only puzzled her but grossed her out a bit. Like she needed the image of her mother running through a field of wildflowers, naked as all get out, lady parts flapping in the breeze, stuck in her head.

  “That might be a metaphor for something.”

  “I hope so because I don’t need to know what you did in your younger days.”

  “Everything. Life is meant to be lived.” The oven timer went off. Thea stopped the series of beeps with a push of a button and opened the oven door a crack to check on the pie. Heat gushed out into the already hot room. She waved a dish towel in the air before fanning her face with it. “Do you know what you need?”

  “If you say a man so help me I’m going to walk out of this house and never come back.”

  “I would never say that to you. It’s not my style. What I was going to say is, you need something to challenge that brain of yours. As a kid you were always getting into something, exploring, looking for adventure, looking for the next big thing. You’re the wrong kind of bored.”

  “Is there a right kind?”

  “There’s the kind that can be fixed by getting out of the house and hanging out with friends for the night. And then there’s the kind that can’t be fixed so easily because you’re stuck in your head. Get out of your head.”

  “Occupational hazard. I’m thinking about switching over to writing mysteries.”

  “I thought you said you were starting to hate writing.”

  “But this is different. It’s something new.”

  “I don’t know where you get all these ideas, anyway. You’ve been making stuff up ever since you were—”

  As her mother rambled on about this and that, Ricki’s phone vibrated in her pocket, startling her.

  Her mother noticed and stopped talking. “It’s nothing serious, I hope.”

  “No, it’s just an email letting me know my holds are in at the library. I was going there anyway to pick up a few mysteries to read. Is it all right if I leave Rumpus here?”

  “I’m sure your father would hate it if you did.”

  “I’m sure he would. Anyway, I won’t be long. I’ll pick up lunch. Do you need anything while I’m out?”

  “Butter.”

  Ricki raised an eyebrow, taking note of the empty boxes of butter littered about the kitchen counter like debris left behind from an explosion.

  “Don’t you judge me. Now, get moving.”

  Out on the porch, Ricki found her twin brother, Chris, leaning against the porch railing, talking with their father. Rumpus was all over him, sniffing every inch of his police uniform. “She lives,” he said, joking. “I didn’t
think you were allowed out of the house during the day. What’s going on?”

  This was one of the side effects of being a reclusive writer. Because she always tried to maintain some consistency in her work schedule, she never went out of the house during the day except to walk her dog. Being outside at this time of day was unusual. In fact, it felt strange. From about eight o’clock in the morning until four o’clock in the afternoon, she had no idea what the outside world looked like. Or her family. Or the town. Or anything, really. Sunlight? What was that?

  “No special occasion. I’m on my way to the library.” She gave her brother a hug. His uniform always smelled official. She hated the smell. It was a combination of antiseptic and law enforcement. “What’s up with you?”

  “Oh, you know, hiding on the highway to catch the lawbreakers. Exciting stuff.”

  “Are you going to stick around? Lunch is on me.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  “Phil’s hoagies, everyone?”

  “Extra hot pepper rings on mine,” her dad said.

  “Same,” Chris said.

  She nodded and jumped in the car. Although it wasn’t much, just being out of the house and visiting with her family, changing her routine, was actually starting to make her feel better. Her mother was right. She was a kid who was easily bored—the wrong kind of boredom, and now that she was an adult, it was no different. She needed a challenge, something more than writing another book no matter what kind it was. She needed to shake things up a bit. Maybe instead of writing during the day, she could write at night, or write in bed instead of writing at her desk, or go to her favorite coffee shop, The Bean, more often. Anything but the same old routine.

  Since Ricki rarely went out of the house during the day, her presence at the Unionville Public Library stirred up a lot of curiosity. As soon as she walked through the double-doors, shouts of her name caught her ear. She waved, shyly. Being an introvert had one particular setback: people sometimes scared her. This much attention from strangers unnerved her a little. But she was always pleasant. Her mother taught her never to be rude, unless someone deserved it.