A Fatal Romance. June Shaw

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      Cover Copy

      Fixing up homes can be tricky.

      Finding true love can be even trickier.

      But finding a killer can be plain old deadly . . .

      Twin sister divorcees Sunny Taylor and Eve Vaughn have had their fill of both heartaches and headaches. So when they settle down in the small Louisiana town of Sugar Ledge and open a remodeling and repair company, they think they’ve finally found some peace—even though Eve is still open for romance while Sunny considers her own heart out-of-business.

      Then their newest customer ends up face-down in a pond, and his widow is found dead soon after. Unfortunately, Sunny was witnessed having an unpleasant moment with the distraught woman, and suspicion falls on the twins. And when an attempt is made on Eve’s life, they find themselves pulled into a murder mystery neither knows how to navigate.

      With a town of prying eyes on them, and an unknown culprit out to stop them, Sunny and Eve will have to depend on each other like never before if they’re going to clip a killer in the bud.

      Visit us at www.kensingtonbooks.com

      Books by June Shaw

      Twin Sisters Mysteries

      A Fatal Romance

      Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

      A Fatal Romance

      A Twin Sisters Mystery

      June Shaw

      LYRICAL PRESS

      Kensington Publishing Corp.

      www.kensingtonbooks.com

      Copyright

      Lyrical Press books are published by

      Kensington Publishing Corp. 119 West 40th Street New York, NY 10018

      Copyright © 2016 by June Shaw

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

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      First Electronic Edition: January 2017

      eISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0092-7

      eISBN-10: 1-5161-0092-1

      First Print Edition: January 2017

      ISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0095-8

      ISBN-10: 1-5161-0095-6

      Printed in the United States of America

      Acknowledgements

      Thank you to my children, grandchildren, and Bob, for your generous belief and support through all of my writing endeavors.

      My writers’ groups Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, Guppies, and Romance Writers of America—especially SOLA, our South Louisiana chapter of RWA, you continue to give me tremendous inspiration and generously share the vast scope of your knowledge.

      I truly appreciate the many individuals who helped edit my work, especially Vicki Mchenry.

      Marci Clark, I can’t thank you enough for your help.

      To my readers—I adore you! Thanks for following my work and telling others about it. I love hearing from you at [email protected] and also seeing your reviews of my books!

      Chapter 1

      I stood in a rear pew as a petite woman in red stepped into the church carrying an urn and stumbled. She fell forward. Her urn bounced. Its top popped open, and ashes flew. A man’s remains were escaping.

      “Oh, no!” people cried.

      “Jingle bells,” I hummed and tried to control my disorder but could not. Words from the song spewed out of my mouth.

      “Not now,” my twin Eve said at my ear while ashes sprinkled around us like falling gray snow. She pointed to my jacket’s sleeve and open pocket. “Uh-oh. Parts of him fell in there.”

      I saw a few drops like dust on the sleeve and jerked my pocket wider open. Powdery bits lay across the tissue I’d blotted my beige lipstick with right before coming inside St. Gertrude’s. “I think that’s tissue residue,” I said, wanting to convince myself. I grabbed the pocket to turn it inside out.

      “Don’t dump that.” Eve shoved on my pocket. “It might be his leg. Or bits of his private parts.”

      “Here comes Santa Claus,” I sang.

      She slapped a hand over my mouth. “Hush, Sunny.”

      The dead man’s wife shoved up from her stomach to her knees, head spinning toward me so fast I feared she’d get whiplash.

      “Sorry,” Eve told her. “My sister can’t help it.”

      Beyond the wife a sixtyish priest, younger one, and other people appeared squeamish scooping coarse ashes off seats of the rough-hewn pews. An older version of the wife used a broom and dustpan to sweep ash from the floor. People dumped their findings back into the urn. Other mourners scooted from the church through side doors. A boiled crayfish scent teased my nostrils. Someone must have peeled a few crustaceans for a breakfast omelet and didn’t soap her hands well enough.

      Ashes scattered along the worn green carpet like a seed trail to entice birds.

      “Look, there’s more of him. I’ll go find a vacuum,” I said.

      The widow faced me. “No! Get out.”

      “But she’s my sister,” Eve said.

      “As if I can’t tell. You leave with her. Go away.” The petite woman wobbled on shiny stilettos, aiming a finger toward the front door.

      I sympathized with her before this minute. Now she was ticking me off. I’d been kicked out of places before, but never a funeral. “I didn’t really know your husband, but Eve did. I stopped to see if she wanted to go out for lunch, and she asked me to come here first. She said y’all were nice people.”

      “We are!” The roots of the wife’s pecan-brown hair were black, I saw, standing toe-to-toe with her, although my toes were much bigger inside my size ten pumps. I was five eight and a half. She was barely five feet. Five feisty feet. “But you’re not going to suck up parts of my husband’s body in a vacuum bag.” She whipped her pointed finger toward me like a weapon. “And you need to stop singing.”

      I