Butchered After Bark

Butchered After BarkCountry Cottage Mysteries 10


Addison Moore Bellamy Bloom


Contents
Book Description
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Recipe
Books by Addison Moore
Acknowledgments
About the Authors


Copyright © 2020 by Addison Moore, Bellamy Bloom
Edited by Paige Maroney Smith
Cover by Lou Harper, Cover Affairs
This novel is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to peoples either living or deceased is purely coincidental. Names, places, and characters are figments of the author’s imagination. The author holds all rights to this work. It is illegal to reproduce this novel without written expressed consent from the author herself.
All Rights Reserved.
This eBook is 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 eBook with another person, please purchase any additional copies for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Copyright © 2020 by Addison Moore, Bellamy Bloom


Book Description
The Country Cottage Inn is known for its hospitality. Leaving can be murder.
My name is Bizzy Baker, and I can read minds. Not every mind, not every time, but most of the time, and believe me when I say, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
It’s October, and Jasper and I just returned from our honeymoon to find the Country Cottage Inn playing host to the Fall-oween Festival, complete with a pumpkin patch, scare nights, a midway with games, and enough candy to rot your teeth. But a secretive group of women called the Midnight Maidens decide to host a little private party of their own on the grounds, and the night ends in murder. Throw in the haunted doll collection Georgie had shipped to the inn, and you have the recipe for the spookiest Halloween season that Cider Cove has ever seen. Hold onto your pointed hat. Things are about to get terrifying.
Bizzy Baker runs the Country Cottage Inn, has the ability to pry into the darkest recesses of both the human and animal mind, and has just stumbled upon a body. With the help of her kitten, Fish, a mutt named Sherlock Bones, and an ornery yet dangerously good-looking homicide detective, Bizzy is determined to find the killer.
Cider Cove, Maine is the premier destination for fun and relaxation. But when a body turns up, it’s the premier destination for murder.


Chapter 1
“Do you ever get the feeling the inmates are running the asylum?” Jasper, my shiny new husband, muses as we both stare out the windshield at the grounds of the inn.
“Not funny,” I say without taking my eyes off the malfeasance before us. “Although at present, a very real reality.”
My name is Bizzy Baker, and I can read minds. Wait—let’s do that again. My name is Bizzy Baker Wilder, and I can read minds. Not every mind, not every time—but it happens, and believe me when I say, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Like now for instance.
Why do I get the feeling someone’s head is going to roll for this? Jasper groans as he looks out at the scene with his eyes set wide.
“Because you’re right,” I tell him.
Only a handful of people know about my strange quirk to pry into the human mind, and Jasper is one of them.
It’s October, the scariest month of the year, and Jasper and I have no sooner arrived back at the Country Cottage Inn from our honeymoon than we’re met with the biggest fright of them all. We just spent the last several hours driving from Vermont all the way back to our cottage nestled here in coastal Maine, only to find that the grounds of the inn I manage have been transformed into a virtual Halloween fantasyland. While we were away, I put the inn into the very capable hands of my best friend, Emmie Crosby, who assured me not a thing would go wrong. And now I’m beginning to question her definition of the word.
The inn itself is a stately two-story structure with blue cobblestones covered in ivy and an occupancy of over two hundred guests at any given time. It’s set on vast acreages that also house over thirty cottages for nightly or long-term rental. Jasper and I happen to live in one—or we will now that we’re officially married, my old cottage to be exact. It’s just a short walk to the inn, but seeing the throngs of people here, it looks as if it would take me twenty minutes to do what I can normally achieve in three.
“Drop me off at the entrance,” I say as I take in the carnival atmosphere with shock. It’s evening, and there are enough twinkle lights strung up over every inch of the grounds to illuminate this place like a football field. There’s a sign on my right that reads, This way to the pumpkin patch by the cove! “Pumpkin patch?” And to the left there’s a huge wooden sign with the words Welcome to the Cider Cove Fall-oween Festival! “Fall-oween Festival?” And as we draw closer to the inn, there’s yet a third sign that reads, Purchase tickets to your worst frightmare inside at the front desk. “Oh my goodness. What in the world is a frightmare?”
“I think we’re living it.”
I shoot a quick look to my newly minted husband.
Jasper Wilder is a tall, shockingly gorgeous, shockingly mine, homicide detective I met last year. It’s safe to say things have gone exceptionally well for us—especially the last two weeks we spent holed up in the honeymoon suite at the Maple Meadows Lodge in Vermont.
A warm heat runs through me just thinking about our time there, and for the briefest of moments, I’m transported from this frightmare right back to our