In the latest from the nationally bestselling author of The Candy Cane Cupcake Killer, Phyllis Newsom returns with a blackberry and blueberry pie recipe that’s to die for…
It’s late summer in Weatherford, Texas and Mike Newsom’s childhood friend is sweltering in prison for a crime he claims he didn’t commit, murdering his wife. So instead of asking his mother to please stop investigating a murder, as he usually does, he asks her and Sam to please help his friend.
Danny Jackson, found guilty of beating his wife Roxanne to death at the ritzy hair salon where she works, was sentenced to prison for 30 years. His pleas of innocence fell on deaf ears, so it’s up to Phyllis to find what actually happened. She finds there are a lot of secrets and lies being told, and Roxanne was in the middle of them all.
Though Phyllis doesn’t want to get mixed up in another murder investigation, her son rarely asks for favors, and certainly not favors like this. She has to untangle the lies and comb out the facts to find what happened that dark night.
Includes recipes!
EXCERPT
Mike nodded. “Final game of the season my senior year. We were playing Stephenville, and whoever won would be district champs. The score was tied late in the game, and we had the ball on our own nineteen yard line. It was third and eleven, and we couldn’t try to throw for a first down because our quarterback had a rubber band for an arm. So he hands the ball to me on a sweep, and Danny, who’s playing right tackle, makes the best block you’ll ever see in your life. Takes out their defensive end and two linebackers. I got outside, juked the defensive back who came up, and realized that not only was I going to get the first down, if I could get past the safety I had a clear shot down the sideline.” Mike shrugged. “So I ran over him and was off to the races.”
“I remember that game,” Phyllis said. “It was one of the most exciting things I ever saw.”
“But you were on your nineteen, you said...” Sam commented.
“Yeah, the DB I put a move on finally caught up to me and brought me down at the Stephenville one. Our quarterback snuck in on the next play, and that was the game. But I never would have gone for eighty and basically won the game if it hadn’t been for Danny’s block.”
“I understood a little of that,” Carolyn said. “You’re saying you owed this man a debt.”
“A big one. Because that was the night I finally got up the courage to ask Sarah to go out with me, and...well...”
“And now you’re married and have a beautiful son and of course you feel grateful to Danny for whatever small part he might have played in you and Sarah getting together,” Phyllis said. “But still, he killed his wife.”
“That’s just it, Mom,” Mike said. “I’m not convinced he did.”
Do you have that moment when someone did something that changed your life? Mine would probably be my brother Bruce sleeping late on a day he was supposed to ride to college with James Reasoner. If Bruce had been timely, I never would have gotten to know James, who became my husband 40 years ago. Leave a comment for a change to win a free ebook of Black and Blueberry Die.
