The Missing Party-Girl: A Rags-to-Riches Cozy Mystery Romance Read online

  THE MISSING PARTY-GIRL

  Minerva’s Mysteries 2

  Nhys Glover

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. With the exception of historical events and people used as background for the story, or those clearly in the public domain, the names, characters and incidents portrayed in this work come wholly from the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental

  Published by Belisama Press

  © Nhys Glover 2021

  The right of Nhys Glover to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This book is copyright. All rights reserved.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please delete it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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  OTHER BOOKS BY NHYS GLOVER

  ANCIENT ROMAN HISTORICAL ROMANCES:

  Liquid Fire

  The Barbarian's Mistress

  Lionslayer's Woman (Sequel to Liquid Fire)

  White Raven's Lover (Sequel to Barbarian's Mistress)

  The Gladiator's Bride (Sequel to White Raven's Lover)

  WEREWOLF KEEP TRILOGY:

  Guardian of Werewolf Keep

  Imprisoned at Werewolf Keep

  Defiance at Werewolf Keep

  Insane (A novella)

  NEW ATLANTIS TIME TRAVEL SERIES:

  Nine Lives (Cara/Jac)

  The Dreamer's Prince (Jane/Julio)

  Savage (Faith/ Luke)

  Shared Soul (Maggie/Travis)

  Bitter Oath (Liv/ Rene)

  The Titan Drowns (Eilish/Max, Karl/Lizzie, Pia/Marco)

  The Key (Kat/Bart)

  Pieces (Krista/Dirk)

  Second Chance (Bree/Hakon)

  Watcher (Jin/Rafe)

  Vision of You (Ellen/Duke)

  Osiris (Takhara/Dan)

  Causality (Willow/Jarvidh)

  Gods of Time (Teagan/Jason, Lucien/Alba)

  Book of Seeds (Shay/Cy)

  SCORPIO SONS SF/SHIFTER ROMANCE SERIES:

  1: Colton 2: Connor 3: Cooper 4: Chase

  5: Cameron 6: Caleb 7: Conrad 8: Charles

  GREYWORLD SWEET PARANORMAL ROMANCE

  Your World or Mine?

  Her World or Ours?

  Their Worlds Collide

  His World on Repeat

  REVERSE HAREM ADVENTURES:

  THE AIRLUDS TRILOGY:

  The Sacrifice

  The Chosen One

  Goddess Unbound

  THE AIRSHAN CHRONICLES

  The Five

  Daemon

  The Devourer

  GLADIATOR

  1. Typhon 2.Asterius 3. Talos 4.Orion 5.Marcus

  THE DANANS

  Captive

  Escape

  Reunion

  Outliers

  Gift

  Shattered

  Stolen

  ALFIE WIMPLE TRILOGY (Paranormal Romantic Comedy)

  Sticks and Standing Stones Can Break my Bones

  But Ferrets Can Never Hurt Me

  Dragons, On the Other Hand...

  OTHERS:

  The Way Home (Ghost Romance)

  Caught in a Dream (SF Sweet Romance)

  Labyrinth of Light (New Age Inspirational)

  For Love of Liam (A Sweet Romanic Comedy)

  Haunted (A sweetish Romantic Mystery)

  Find out more about Nhys and her books here:

  www.nhysglover.com

  Prologue

  DIGITAL FILE 6

  Well my dear, let's get down to it, hmm?

  You have solved my first Mystery and sorted at least some of my treasures. Hugo will send you another file in which you may find information to help with this next Mystery, as well as help find more treasures stored in that old farmhouse.

  So, if I could call the first Mystery the Mystery of the Lost Child, I would call this second one the Mystery of the Missing Party-Girl.

  In the sixties, the Swinging Sixties, as they're now called, I was having the time of my life in Swinging London. I wanted to be an actress, as I think you learned from my first journal. And I was of an age where I thought I was tougher and smarter than everyone else. It's amazing how stupid people are when they're young. I'd say youth is wasted on the young, but I'm fairly certain someone else said that already, and I hate to plagiarize or be unoriginal. (laugh)

  There I was, a young, very attractive woman, ready to take on the world, at a time when the world was changing at a phenomenal speed. Maybe not as fast as it's changing now, but certainly faster than it had done for centuries. We were all questioning the world we had inherited and finding it unsatisfactory. We were experimenting with our freedom. No generation before us had ever had the freedom we were given. You can't possibly understand. Or maybe you can, my darling Adeline, because you have now been given your freedom. I have given you your own version of the sixties. Huh, I do like that idea!

  Anyway, my parents were far too indulgent, and they were willing to support me as I made my way into the career I wanted for myself. I'd been obsessed from an early age with films. As I told you, my view of my father as a war hero was modeled on those war films. Watch a few some time. There is something... I don't know. Something that touches the core of a person. Something that is lacking in these modern day super hero films.

  Off I went to London, to start beating the pavement in search of acting roles. Of course, I expected that all it would take was for some influential person in the industry to see me and my potential, and I’d be turned into a famous actress. It had happened that way before.

  I found a flat with a couple of girls who were trying to get into films just like me. Not only did we take part in cattle calls and worked hard to get ourselves auditions, but we fought to attract the interest of an agent—because everyone knew you had to have an agent. And we attended every industry party we could get an invitation to, in the hopes of meeting someone useful to us.

  You have my permission to read my journal for 1965. I was very lucky that year to get a one-liner in the James Bond film ‘Thunderball’. My part was filmed at the Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, even though it looked like I was at some exotic overseas location. I think the role made me hunger to really see the sights in that film. Particularly the Bahamas.

  Anyway, I was still only eighteen, and I was sure the world was my oyster, as they say. One of my flat mates, a woman I became friends with, was older than the rest of us. She had a ten-year-old son who was away at boarding school most of the time. Her ex-husband was a controlling bastard who insisted his son, Rory, go to Eton. Really, it was to keep him away from Georgie. To punish her for having the audacity to leave him. If ever there was a moneyed and entitled bastard it was Michael Fredrickson.

  Georgina Wyatt— she went back to her maiden name after she divorced that worm—was her name, and she was beautiful. I mean gorgeously beautiful. She'd been a model and done well in a beauty pageant some years before. That was how she met her husband.

  Anyway, she was ten years or so older than me, having had her son young, but she didn't look that old. She didn't look more than twenty-five, if I had to guess. Even so, she was a very sophisticated and worldly woman compared to me. And so I idolized her.r />
  We partied hard. For her, it was to break free of the chains her husband had kept her in for years. For me, it was my chance to experience life. I drank and danced and met influential people. And yes, I took men to my bed. All beautiful men attempting to break into the industry like me. It was a heady time. I might go so far as to say it was the best time of my life.

  Somewhere in there, my journal may help you with the timings and such, Georgina disappeared. I don't mean she disappeared from my life by going home to her family or back to her husband. I mean she literally vanished. One night we were supposed to go to a party at one of the producer’s places. One of the producers of ‘Thunderball’. Sean was going to be there. I rather liked the Scot. For an older man, he was very sexy.

  Georgie had been keen to attend. She’d made a connection with someone who said he could arrange for her to meet the producer. I can't remember his name. It's in my journal. And my memory is not as good as it used to be. Age or cancer, you can blame it on either.

  Georgie didn't go to that party. No one saw her again. She was my flat mate, and all I thought at the time she went missing was that she was an ungrateful cow for leaving me short for the rent that month. I expected her to turn up. I thought she'd found a cute chap who’d whisked her off to a tropical island and showered her with jewels. I envied her. That's what I wanted. When I wasn't wanting that film career.

  But Georgie didn't turn up. Georgie never turned up. And instead of looking for my friend— my mentor, if you like—my big sister, I blithely moved on, renting her room out to another girl. I promptly forgot about her, until a few months later when the police started asking questions. And when the film ‘Georgy Girl’ came out the following year, it only served to rub salt into the wound every time I heard mention of it.

  I need you to find out what happened to her. I assume she's what is now called a Cold Case. But she needs closure. Whatever happened to her needs to be discovered. I doubt the criminal who killed her—because that has to be what happened, even though no body was ever found— is likely long dead by now. That’s not important. What matters is that Georgie is finally found.

  Somewhere in that world of the Swinging Sixties in London you will find what happened to Georgie. When you do, you get another million pounds, to donate to charity or do with what you will. If you fail, as the police did at the time, the million goes to Robert.

  Good luck and God speed.

  Adie felt slick wetness sliding up her neck to her cheek. Her fantasy of what that slide might mean evaporated the moment doggy breath hit her nose. Arghh!

  “Jig,” she whined.

  In the next instant, she remembered how she’d almost lost her dog to poisoned bait only two weeks before. If she had to put up with a hundred doggy licks waking her up, she’d consider herself lucky. For a while there it had been touch and go whether he’d survive.

  It amazed her how fast she’d come to love the mutt. Maybe it was because she had no one else. Although that wasn’t totally true. She did have her body-guard/PI, Cage Donovan, in her life. But her explanation for fast-developing feelings held true in a big way with him as well. Of course she loved Cage. He was her companion, her hero and, she’d discovered only recently, her adopted second cousin. Not exactly a close bond, but when added to the others, it meant she was more than a little attached.

  Not that he felt anything for her beyond friendship. He’d told her he thought she was beautiful. But in the next breath he’d informed her that the comment wasn’t about her physical appearance. Rather, he thought her inner-self beautiful. He might call an old lady beautiful for the same reason.

  Not that she minded being valued for her inner beauty. It was better than being loathed and disrespected. But, oh, how she wished that huge, handsome man saw her as something more than a pseudo little sister.

  It was Jig’s turn to whine. With a heavy sigh, she threw her legs over the side of her far-too-comfortable bed and slid her feet into her soft slippers. She still hadn’t grown used to the warmth and comfort of her new life. It was so shockingly different from the way she’d lived up until six weeks ago that it still stunned her when she thought about it.

  Not that she had much time for thinking about her past. Her present was busy and engrossing. Every day gave her an opportunity to discover something new about her Aunt Minerva’s life. And few people had ever lived lives as fascinating as Minerva’s.

  Padding to the door, she let the big, half-grown Rottweiler-cross out her bedroom door. She heard Cage clattering around in the kitchen below and knew he’d let the dog out, so she continued her trek to the bathroom next door.

  For a moment she stared into the mirror above the sink. With days as busy as she had, she often fell into unconsciousness the moment her head hit the pillow. And exhaustion made getting her head off that pillow again harder and harder to do each morning. Looking at herself in this moment she could see the lines of exhaustion on her face.

  Yet her exhaustion was nothing like what she’d experienced all the years she’d taken care of her dying mother. The mindless, empty routine tinged with panic over their dwindling funds was totally different to the fun and exploration—as frustrating as it could be—that awaited her every morning here at Beckside Farm.

  Looking past the tiredness, she examined her face more closely. In the past, she avoided looking at herself in mirrors, horrified by the fat slob she saw there. But now… well, now, after weeks of better eating and plenty of exercise, those extra pounds were melting away. She could see it in her face and her neck. Her cheeks were less rounded and she no longer sported a double chin. Even her upper arms and breasts looked less full. Added to the fashionably streaked brown hair, she appeared less like a middle-aged drab and more like what she was, a passingly attractive woman in her twenties.

  It amazed her how every aspect of her life had changed so quickly, even her appearance. It was like she was a completely different person.

  After a quick shower, Adie headed downstairs to the kitchen. She could hear Cage talking to Jig as if he were a real person. Sometimes it felt as if he was. The animal was extremely intelligent; if you ignored the fact he’d eaten poisoned bait. Of course, changing the habits of a lifetime wasn’t easy, she should know. For the half-starved pup, whose sole source of food had been what was left in a bowl at the back door, it had been an understandable choice to eat anything left out for him, even poisoned meat.

  But Cage had been working hard to break that habit ever since Jig came home from the vets. The silly man blamed himself for Jig’s near death. He was sure that if he’d just worked harder to train the dog to refuse food from unknown hands he wouldn’t have been poisoned.

  Cage was a fascinating and gorgeous man. During the short time they’d known each other he’d also had his share of shocking revelations. Like the fact his adopted father was also adopted, and the subject of Minerva’s first Mystery. And what he’d believed was simply a case of watching over a downtrodden woman had turned out to be so much more. Jonathan Donovan, whose PI firm Cage worked for since leaving the marines, had been watching over his biological niece, Adie, for the bulk of her life. Without her knowledge. It had been a lot for Cage and Adie to come to terms with.

  “Oatmeal?” Cage asked, looking over his shoulder as she walked into the room.

  His dark eyes lit up just a little at the sight of her, although his expression remained neutral. His short cropped, tightly curled hair was the only real indication of his African American heritage. The dark olive skin and hawkish nose gave him a Middle Eastern or Latino appearance. And maybe there was a little of those in him, too. His breeding was as mixed as Jig’s.

  Not that his ethnicity worried her. Just as the fact his biological mother had been a drug addict didn’t worry her. All she cared about was that Cage was as beautiful on the outside—in an utterly masculine way— as he was on the inside.

  “Sounds good. Will I mash the bananas?” she asked, coming to stand at his side to take bananas from th
e overflowing fruit bowl in the center of the counter.

  “Thanks. Weather’s warming up a bit. And the rain seems to have passed,” he said companionably.

  March was often cold and wet here in the northern parts of England, winter taking longer to release its stranglehold on the moors than it did in the southern climes.

  “I think I’ll take Jig for a walk into the village. It’s about time I got to know a few of the locals,” she told him, feeling tension building inside her at the very idea of going off alone to intentionally meet new people.

  But part of her new life resolution involved making friends. She was no longer the fat freak everybody in town avoided and ridiculed. She was now a slightly overweight rich woman people in the village were curious to get to know. Though they’d never met her aunt in person, the villagers of Stratherby had considered Minerva Reynolds one of their own, and therefore, by extension, she was one of their own as well. Dave, the electrician, had informed them of this fact on more than one occasion over the last weeks. And the steady flow of inquiries about Jig’s condition had warmed Adie’s heart more than anything else. It was as if they’d known how quickly the dog had gained a place in her heart.

  She remembered reading somewhere that there were almost as many pets in the UK as there were Brits. In her opinion, that put a big tick in the ‘For’ column for them.

  “You want company?” he asked carefully.

  Cage had loosened his protective grip on her in the last weeks, even after the baiting incident. As long as she had Jig with her, he’d been okay about letting her go for walks around the fields, following well-marked walking trails.