Sweat Tea Revenge (29 page)

Authors: Laura Childs

Realizing she shouldn’t be in here, feeling guilty and a little discombobulated, Carmela ducked back out and pulled the door closed behind her. She paused for a moment, then took another few steps down the hallway. Placing her hand on a second doorknob, she was about to pull it open when she heard a muffled thump on the other side of the door.

Oh no, what now?

A woman’s voice, low and urgent, murmured, “Just one more, please? Just one eensy little line?”

A man’s voice, husky and slightly taunting, said, “You sure about that, baby?”

Oh great.
Carmela moved away quickly. She had a pretty good idea what the woman was asking for. She also had a fairly good idea what her boyfriend Edgar Babcock would say about that. And just to be clear, he was
Detective
Edgar Babcock of the New Orleans Police Department. Her own personal Dudley Do-Right snuggle bunny.

“He’d tell me to hustle my sweet patootie out of here,” Carmela muttered to herself. “Before I got involved in some kind of drug incident.”

And just as she was about to do exactly that, she heard another thump. Only this was the tell-tale thump thump thump of a clothes dryer tossing its contents to and fro.

Breathing a sigh of relief, for her errand had somehow turned into a mission, Carmela hurried to the end of the hallway and pushed open a louvered door.

A sizzle of bright fluorescents revealed a tidy, compact laundry room. It was warm, steamy, and noisy, as laundry rooms generally are when there’s a load in the washer and one in the dryer.

Probably a bunch of bar towels, Carmela surmised. Or the caterer had thrown in a load of dish towels. But that wasn’t quite right, was it? Because the top-loading washing machine was standing open and silent. Casting a quick glance at the loudly thumping dryer, Carmela casually wondered what they’d tossed in that was making such an awful racket.

Her eyes had almost pulled away, ready to grab a clean white towel, when she saw what looked like a leather shoe momentarily flash past the dryer’s window.

What. On. Earth? Who would toss shoes in a dryer?

Feeling slightly apprehensive, Carmela took two robotic steps forward. And then, like a warning shot fired across the bow of a ship, something deep in the limbic portion of her brain spit out a cautionary note.

Something’s wrong here.
Something’s really wrong.

Don’t be silly, she told herself. There’s nothing to be nervous about.

Except . . . there was that shoe.

Carmela’s nose tickled. Her temples throbbed. She was suddenly aware that the air around her was redolent with a strange scent. A sweet, sickening, unnerving scent that was definitely not Downy or Febreze.

Mesmerized, moving as if she were in a trance, Carmela stepped forward, curled her fingers around the handle of the dryer, and yanked open the door.

As the dryer groaned to a sudden halt, Carmela jumped back just in time to see a limp hand flop out. And then watched in horror as the bloody, battered body of Jerry Earl Leland spilled out onto the tiled white floor.

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Eggs in a Casket

When Suzanne and Toni deliver flowers to a local cemetery, they discover an open grave and the crumpled body of one of Kindred’s most prominent citizens. There wasn’t a funeral, there aren’t any mourners—so it must be murder!

This is a cozy café series everyone will enjoy—three crazy ladies on the high side of forty who serve eggs in the morning, tea in the afternoon, and murder on the side!

F
IND OUT MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND HER MYSTERIES AT WWW.LAURACHILDS.COM.
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Living a Tea Shop Life

Drinking Tea, Finding Balance, and Reclaiming Your Creative Spirit.

A nonfiction book that applies life lessons learned from tea shops and tea masters to everyday life. Learn how to de-stress, amp up your creativity, tap your inner entrepreneur, and develop your own personal “you” brand. Also included are more than a hundred recipes and tea time tips.

* * *

Click here for more books by this author.

Berkley Prime Crime titles by Laura Childs

Tea Shop Mysteries

DEATH BY DARJEELING

GUNPOWDER GREEN

SHADES OF EARL GREY

THE ENGLISH BREAKFAST MURDER

THE JASMINE MOON MURDER

CHAMOMILE MOURNING

BLOOD ORANGE BREWING

DRAGONWELL DEAD