The first date disaster, p.1
The First Date Disaster, page 1
The First Date Disaster
A Very Merry Murder Mystery, Volume 2
Rachel Beattie
Published by Rachel Beattie, 2024.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
THE FIRST DATE DISASTER
First edition. May 3, 2024.
Copyright © 2024 Rachel Beattie.
Written by Rachel Beattie.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Epilogue
About the Author
Chapter One
“Honestly, Snuffy. Anyone would think your life was in danger.”
I try to whisper, but my voice carries further than I mean it to, and over the constant yowling from inside my cat-carrier I lock eyes with another pet owner who laughs.
“Not a fan of veterinary practice waiting rooms?”
“Me or the cat?” I joke, before another perfectly-timed howl.
My neighbor’s pet - a chocolate labrador snoring contentedly at her feet - is much better behaved. I smile.
“Whoever told me cats were quieter than dogs lied.”
“Oh, this one can make plenty of noise when she wants to.” She leans down and scratches the dog behind her ear and she obediently rolls over, demanding belly rubs. “She used to be a nightmare to bring to her vet appointments, but ever since Dr. Castle started here she’s been so much better behaved.” Her eyes sparkle with amusement. “We all behave ourselves when Dr. Castle’s around.”
My cheeks flood with heat and I drop my gaze. My reasons for being here are purely professional. I’ve owned Snuffy the cat long enough that he’s come due for his next round of vaccinations, and being the responsible new-pet-owner I now am, I booked him in for a check-up. So what if I asked for Dr. Rob Castle by name and willingly took an awkward, middle-of-the-morning slot to specifically see him?
A door opens and a handsome blond head appears, attached to a body that has no right to be as tall and broad-shouldered as it is.
“Good morning, Merry! And I assume that -” He winces as Snuffy hits a particularly high note. “Is my eleven o’clock?”
“Certainly is,” I say, jumping to my feet and reaching for the cat carrier. Motion seems to only make Snuffy even more vocal, and as my waiting-room neighbor waves to me, I swear her dog lets out a sigh of relief that the source of the noise will soon be safely locked away behind a very thick door.
“Alright, let’s see what we have here...” Rob squints into a tablet and then looks up at me. “Shots?
I nod, then fumble with the catch on the cat-carrier.
“Oh, wait a second -”
The plastic door is open before I have time to react, and Snuffy suddenly becomes part-ninja, diving through the gap between my hands and Rob’s as he makes for the door. It’s closed, but that only seems to faze him for half a second. He darts through my legs and scrambles into a corner, hissing and crying like he’s trapped in a room with a sadist. I glance at Rob, who scoops him up like this is nothing out of the ordinary.
“Here.” He passes him to me. “Go to Mommy.”
Mommy? I’ve never completely understood those people who dote on their fur-babies more than their actual babies, but somehow I end up rocking Snuffy like he’s a newborn and wouldn’t you know it, it works. He stops crying and apart from digging his claws into my forearm she seems much more at ease.
“Can you keep hold of him? It’s probably easier to do it this way.” Rob lifts a syringe filled with a clear liquid and leans over me, pinching Snuffy on the back of his neck and swiftly administering the shot. His head is bent so close to mine that I can smell his cologne and my eyes flutter closed. “There, all done.” I blink and he’s looking at me, his eyes crinkling at the corners in amusement. “This is your first time bringing him in, isn’t it?”
I nod and try to ease two sets of very sharp claws out of the flesh of my forearm.
“Don’t worry. It gets easier.” Rob pats me gently on the shoulder, then offers Snuffy a treat he’s pulled out of thin air.
“Maybe for you,” I say, taking advantage of my cat’s interest in the treat to manhandle him back into the carrier. I turn the latch, making sure he’s safely trapped in there, and examine the damage, poking at the claw marks in my arm, several of which have drawn blood.
“Ouch!” Rob turns away from me for a moment, rummaging in a drawer before emerging with a disinfectant wipe he holds out to me. “Here. Allow me.” Tearing open the top, he unfolds the thin tissue and wipes it carefully over the scratches on my arm making me flinch. Holy hell, that hurts. “Very good. You’re the second-best patient I’ve treated in the last five minutes.” He winks at me. “No treat for you, though, I’m afraid.”
Damnit. I never can tell if Rob’s just being friendly or actually flirting. It’s thanks to him I even have this ridiculous cat to begin with, after he helped me accidentally solve a murder and left me the only viable option of a forever home for my furry new best buddy. It was perfect timing, too, as I was just about getting used to living on my own after finalizing my divorce. Since then, Snuffy and I have been mostly inseparable. I press my free hand against the stinging scratches on my forearm and wish that today we hadn’t been quite so inseparable.
“How’s Snuffy getting along otherwise? Eating ok? Sleeping? Exercising?”
“Fine.” I count off my answers to his questions on my fingers. “Yes, everything he can find. All day, every day, and only when he has to. Or the middle of the night, when I’m trying to sleep.”
“Excellent. He’s a textbook cat, then,” he says, as the chorus of complaining starts up again, lower in volume but no less miserable than before. “And you’re enjoying being a pet owner?”
“Beats having a houseplant for company.” I grimace. That makes me sound like some sort of antisocial loon. “I mean, yeah. It’s great. He’s great.”
“Great.”
We’re standing there staring at each other for a moment, and I’m just thinking there’s nothing that can make this moment better when he says my name.
“Meredith?”
“Rob.” I look up at him through soft lashes and think - this is it. This is the moment all our maybe-might-be flirting is going to lead to him asking me out on an actual date.
“Is there anything else I can help you with today?”
My non-romantical dreams come crashing down around me and Snuffy finds another pitch to wail in stereo about my stupidity. I can feel my cheeks flash hot and red and I force myself to smile.
“No,” I say, faintly willing more lightness into my voice than I feel. “No, that’s everything. Thank you.”
“Thank you.” He pours hand sanitizer into his palm and works it over both hands. “You can pay at reception and book Snuffy’s next checkup for twelve months. They’ll probably want to give you a course of flea and worm treatment too. And if there’s anything before that, you know where to find me.”
“I certainly do!” I turn away, rolling my eyes at my fake cheerfulness. Grabbing Snuffy’s cat carrier by its handle I reach for the door and ease my way around it and into the waiting room, right into the middle of an argument.
“There! See! He’s not busy now. Dr. Castle! Dr. Castle! Please! You have to help me! It’s an emergency!”
The word emergency isn’t so much a sob as it is a shriek, and it’s enough to make Rob follow me out of the examination room and into the waiting room where a woman is tugging on the collar of a very excitable-looking spaniel. The woman might be panicking but the dog is showing no signs of distress at all. He seems to think this is a fun game, and every time the woman tries to tug on his collar to make him move, he inches lower to the ground until he’s lying flat, his tail wagging furiously against the linoleum.
“Ms. Davis, you’ll have to wait your turn. I’m afraid Dr. Castle has other patients to see...”
“It’s fine, Jenny.” I feel a warm hand on my back as Rob steps around me and makes his way towards the dog, squatting down and reaching out to pet him. “What seems to be the problem, huh?”
“He swallowed them.”
“Hmm?” Rob looks up from his quick examination of the dog’s eyes, ears, and teeth and I can see the concern flicker in a shadow across his face. “What did he swallow? When?”
“This morning! About thirty minutes ago! My boyfriend’s priceless diamond cufflinks!”
I’m barely conscious of moving as I watch this little soap opera play out, but my knee nudges against a chair and it squeaks against the linoleum. I look away just long enough to rest Snuffy’s cat carrier on the empty seat and keep watching, wondering just what’s going to happen next.
“Cufflinks.”
“Cufflinks!” The woman nods. “They’re very expensive!”
“Ok, let’s see.” Rob opens the dog’s mouth gently, angling the poor thing’s head this way and that to see if there’s any trace of the cufflinks but evidently not. “And he definitely swallowed them?”
“He must have done! They aren’t anywhere else!”
“Ok, boy.” Rob runs a hand down the dog
“I don’t know.” The woman frowns. “I’m only watching him for a couple of days. No, I don’t think so.”
“Ok, good.” Rob takes a breath. “So you think he swallowed a pair of cufflinks. How big were they?”
“What?”
“The cufflinks. How big? Any sharp edges? Anything that might break or come loose?” Rob’s speaking patiently but I get the feeling his concern is more for the dog than his owner, who seems more worried about her boyfriend’s lost property than the damage they might cause the poor pooch.
“I just want them back. Can’t you make him throw up or something?”
“We could try an emetic,” Rob says, still stroking the dog. “We should probably do a scan to find out where they are. Can you get me a picture of these cufflinks? And tell me roughly how big they are. Come on, boy. Let’s take you through and have a proper look at you....” He lifts his head expectantly, but the woman is furiously tapping away at her phone and misses the gesture.
“We’ll need to take some details.” The secretary, Jenny, is sharp, but not unkind. “Your dog’s name is...?”
“Here.” Ignoring the question, the woman turns her phone around, pointing the screen at Rob. “You see? They’re very expensive.”
“I see.” Rob scoops up the dog, who wriggles as he’s lifted, and together they stroll swiftly into the empty examination room. I hear the whisper of Rob’s voice as the door swings closed behind them. “Come on, boy. Let’s get you sorted out...”
The woman doesn’t follow them. She doesn’t even seem to notice they’ve gone. She’s tapping away on her phone again until Rob’s secretary clears her throat noisily.
“Can I take some details for our records, Ms. Davis?”
“Charlotte.” The woman is still typing. “You can call me Charlotte.”
“Charlotte. And what’s your dog’s name?”
“Oh, he isn’t my dog! He’s my sister’s.” She scowls. “She asked me to look after him while she’s getting some work done at her house and it’s just been one disaster after another. He gets into everything. This isn’t the first time he’s tried to eat something that belongs to me, you know. I think he must have worms. It’s not like I don’t feed him. And - ”
“The dog’s name, Ms. Davis.”
“Oh, Brick. As in dumb-as-a.” She sniffs. I get the feeling she was trying to make a joke, but there is nothing at all amusing about her tone of voice and the comment lands like a lead weight. I glance at the woman who’s sharing the waiting area with me and notice her arms are protectively wrapped around her own dog as if this woman’s disdain might be catching. I hug Snuffy’s carrier a little closer to me and think what might have happened to the obnoxious little furball if I hadn’t been willing to give him a home.
“Look, is this going to take long?” Charlotte Davis says, answering a relentless string of noisy notifications on her phone. “I need to get back to work. Can’t you just give him something to make him sick and then we can get going?”
“Dr. Castle will want to do a thorough investigation.” The secretary taps a few keys on her keyboard. “You’re welcome to go on back into the examination room and be with Brick if you want. I can print out a copy of this form for you to take with you.”
Charlotte looks over her shoulder at the doorway as if she’s contemplating making a run for it, but in the end, she lets out a long breath and slides her phone into the side pocket of an expensive-looking purse she clutches daintily with one hand. She holds the other out for the form that buzzes hot out of the printer, and stalks after Rob in a cloud of perfumed annoyance. A second of pure silence passes where none of us move or even breathe before the secretary beckons me with a bright, welcoming smile.
“I’m sorry about that, Meredith. Just Snuffy’s regular vaccinations, wasn’t it? And would you like to book him in for the same again next year?”
Chapter Two
I’m already late when I get out of the clinic, but I still have to take Snuffy home. As soon as the front door closes behind me and I unlatch his carrier he bolts upstairs in a noisy, cat-shaped blur and I don’t have time to worry over what sort of chaos-revenge he’ll wreak on my house while I’m at work.
Work. I plaster a smile on my face as I hurry back towards Silver Brook’s high street and ask myself why I volunteered to take on running the Jitterbug Junction for my friend, Maggie, this week of all weeks.
Because you’re a sucker, I tell myself, wincing at what looks like a queue growing ever longer as I dash towards the entrance to the most popular café in town. Because you can’t say no. Because you have nothing close to a career of your own and might as well use your free time for someone else’s benefit.
“Good morning, everyone!” I say, in as cheerful a tone as I can muster. I jangle the keys in a fit of enthusiasm and only manage to elicit a few half-hearted, bad-tempered grumbles in reply. “Thank you for your patience. We’ll be up and running again in a snap!” The first key I try won’t even fit the lock. The second one fits, but won’t turn. I jiggle the handle, but nothing. I resort to going back through the keys one at a time, slowly, and try to ignore the mounting tide of annoyance from my queue of customers.
“It’s the big brass one,” a nonchalant voice calls from behind me. I turn my head and see an impossibly tall, impossibly young man leaning against the wall. He salutes and then repeats himself. “The key. The brass one.” He jerks his thumb at the empty coffee shop. “To open the door?”
“Oh! Right.” I turn back to the keys and find what must be the big brass one and, wouldn’t you know, it fits the lock and turns and everything. The door swings open and I usher my helpful assistant through ahead of me. “You’re Gabriel, right?”
“Gabe.” His mask of cool slips for half a second as he glances around to check nobody’s heard me use his actual Christian name. “Gabe Matthews.”
“Glad to meet you, Gabe.” I toss him the keys and head straight for the kitchen. “Why don’t you open up everything else that needs opening? I’m going to get a jump on the coffee.” I’m halfway through pulling on an apron when the front door opens again and I hear the swell and fall of the assembled queue of eager customers. “We aren’t open yet - oh.” My friendly voice drops as I see one of my oldest friends standing there with his phone out. “What do you want?”
“Photographic proof.” Jeremy grins at me and snaps a photo while I’m scrambling to get my apron strings tied. I’m scowling and probably look like some kind of hunchback, but I’m too stressed and tired to tell him off. Instead, I turn around.
“Excellent, well now you have my new dating profile pic sorted can you help me out?”
I can still hear him laughing as he pulls my apron strings tight around my middle, fastening them firmly in a bow.
“So remind me, how long have you been working here?”
“I haven’t. Yet.” I glance at my watch and yelp, dashing around the Jitterbug’s counter and hitting every kind of switch I can find to get things up and running. “Coffee. Where does Maggie keep the coffee?”
“Why are you asking me?” Jeremy slides onto a stool, leaning his elbows on the countertop and watching me lazily.
“Because you’re my friend and if you’re here right now that means you’re going to help me out, right?”
“I’ll help you eat one of these peanut butter cookies,” he says, glancing down at the glass-covered display of cookies, cakes, and pastries, and even though he isn’t looking at me my glare must still hit him because his head shoots up and he smiles. “When you have a minute.”
“Alright, Ms. Gray, everything’s opened up.” Gabe comes back, swinging the keys around his finger. “You want me to let ’em in?”
“Not until you show me where Maggie keeps the coffee!” I say, deciding to let the Ms. Gray go for now. Gabe’s only a teenager. To him, I probably look as ancient as that title makes me feel.
“What kind?” He grins, and I decide then and there that wrangling teenage boys might be even worse than teenage girls. I’m still recovering from playing Mama Elf during this year’s Christmas grotto disaster, but it was the aftermath of that - a dead body and a murder investigation - that left Maggie worse off than me and so desperate for a vacation she left me to run her cafe. I glare at Gabe and find it almost as effective on him as it was on Jeremy. “The regular stuff is right here.” Placing a palm on the counter he levers himself over and taps a cannister that quite obviously contains coffee beans. I blush, annoyed I didn’t spot that. “You grab a measure and grind as required.” He makes finger guns towards a medieval torture device that I figure must be the grinder. I shudder. It even sounds torturous. “Then there are the specialty blends but...maybe you should let me deal with those, if anyone orders them.”
