X MARKS THE PLOT

  A Bookish Cafe Mystery Book 8

  HARPER LIN

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  X MARKS THE PLOT

  Copyright © 2026 by Harper Lin.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.

  www.harperlin.com

  Contents

  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

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  About the Author

  A Note From Harper

  Excerpt from “Inn for Murder”

  Chapter 1

  Maggie Bell looked up from the bottom of the stairs and felt the sting of tears in her eyes. Her throat tightened, but she managed to call out, “Well? Anything?”

  Her boss, Joshua Whitfield, peered down from the dark square of the attic opening with a smile on his face. “I think I found Jimmy Hoffa.”

  “Very funny,” Maggie replied, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “The dust is killing me down here. Is there asbestos in this building? I guess it's a little too late to ask about that.”

  She was looking down at the hardwood floor of what had been Alexander Whitfield’s apartment. Joshua, his son, was now claiming it as his bachelor pad, but in all the time he’d lived here, he had never noticed the small attic tucked away above until recently. It turned out to be filled with books and all manner of knick-knacks. As luck would have it, they needed things to participate in Fair Haven's town-wide garage sale.

  For the next week, every block in town would have signs, balloons, and flags attached to lure yard-salers to their addresses to peruse what some considered trash that would become others’ treasures.

  To Maggie Bell, it was usually a wonderful event, a chance to buy books for the shop and, most importantly, for her own personal library at home. Like some people canned and pickled in preparation for the colder months, Maggie hoarded books to make sure that on the frosty nights of winter, she’d have plenty to read.

  But today she had mixed feelings about it. Joshua had decided it was time to get rid of some of his father’s old things.

  “They're just collecting dust,” he had said to Maggie a week earlier.

  “I know, but…” Maggie started.

  Alexander had been more than her boss. He had been her closest friend, and his death still stung as sharply as the dust currently making her eyes red.

  “I know, Mags. I miss him, too. Look, I'll give you first dibs,” Joshua had said with a wink. “Anything you want for yourself, you just take it. He’d want you to have whatever you wanted anyway.”

  Maggie had felt heat rise to her cheeks when he winked at her.

  “I guess I’m just not ready to not see his stuff scattered in his office cubby or in the apartment. I know he’s gone, but part of me wishes he’d just come back for a quick cup of tea, you know?”

  “Yeah, me too,” Joshua had said.

  Now, here she was at the bottom of a rickety ladder that had slid down from the ceiling trap door. The cord normally seen hanging from one of these contraptions had long since come off, hence the reason no one had ever realized there was an attic up there all this time.

  Joshua reached his hand down from the black hole in the ceiling.

  “It's dusty. And dark. Watch your step and your head.”

  Maggie carefully started up the steps, and took Joshua’s hand. It was rough and calloused from turning wrenches, and hammering wood, whatever hard work he did routinely. Just as she reached the top, a sneeze overcame her, nearly sending her back down the stairs headfirst.

  “I’ve got you!” Joshua yelped as his grip on her hand tightened.

  She steadied herself and let out the breath that had caught in her throat.

  “That was close.” She exhaled.

  “Yeah. I’m sure I’ve got a couple more gray hairs now. Thanks, Mags.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said as she crawled up the last step into the attic and looked around, not daring to stand, since the ceiling was so low she was sure to bump her head. She felt uneasy in small spaces.

  Joshua was bent like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. In the half-light, Maggie spotted a small bookshelf and immediately crawled toward it. Just the sight of the old books, titles she’d never heard of on topics from the mundane to the downright strange, made her heart race.

  “I didn’t even see that over there,” Joshua said.

  “We’ll have to get all this downstairs for a better look. Some of these might be good for the sidewalk sale. Just like this,” she reached to the right of the bookshelf and held up a lamp in the shape of a mermaid.

  “Wait a second. I might like that for myself,” Joshua teased, making Maggie chuckle.

  They spent the next hour carrying down what really was a lot of junk: old magazines and newspapers, plain dishware, and old pots and pans. Although the mermaid lamp was tacky, it was pretty. The books were not so lucky; mold and bugs had gotten to the pages and covers, leaving them in no condition to be sold. But that didn’t stop Maggie, who had an idea for the window display that could give the books a new life, albeit as something completely different.

  Joshua turned to face Maggie while wiping his brow. “I’ll let you go through my dad’s office. You know more about what's important and what's not. We should keep all the bookkeeping records and lists for a while; you never know when you might need that kind of stuff. But everything else, it’s your call.”

  “Okay,” she muttered.

  “If you need me, I'll be setting up the tables in the café. Babs said she and her husband had a few goodies to unload that might draw some customers. Having the staff bring a few things to sell cheap was a good idea, Mags.”

  “Thanks. I can only imagine what Babs might be bringing,” Maggie chuckled as she made her way down to Alexander Whitfield's office cubby.

  Babs, the rockabilly babe who ran the café side of the bookstore, was one hundred and fifty pounds of full-figured feistiness. She wore her hair in a peroxided-blonde ponytail, her lips were bright red, and she looked like she had just stepped out of a movie starring Fabian or maybe Frankie Valli. Her husband Roy wore a greased-back pompadour and usually a bowling shirt under the baby front pack that held their son, little Roy, the accessory he was never without. They were quite a trio.

  Maggie took a deep breath and looked around. The small cubby made her smile, and surprisingly, she was not the blubbering mess of nostalgia she had thought she was going to be. There were some bookends, half a dozen paperweights, a couple of cigar boxes, and mugs stuffed with pens that had long ago dried up and pencils with broken tips. Maggie put everything in a box and carried it outside to the tables Joshua had set up for the garage sale.

  “Well, we won’t get rich, but some of these things might find nice homes,” Maggie chirped as she arranged the items in a charming display.

  “You really do have a knack for that,” Joshua said.

  “Oh, not really. Thank you, but it’s easy. I just like to make things look pretty,” Maggie managed, her face going warm. Taking a compliment from her handsome, single boss was a task she had not yet mastered. She made a mental note to work on that.

  She looked at her watch, then at Joshua, and tapped the face.

  “Is it time to open already? Boy, time flies when we’re having fun,” he smiled, and Maggie went inside the Bookish Café and turned the closed sign over to read OPEN, propping the door wide to make it easy for people to come in and browse the store too.

  It didn’t take long for the first couple of customers to stop by the table.

  “They’re having a sidewalk sale?” asked the young woman in an orange yoga outfit and green fanny pack.

  “It looks more like a garage sale. Would you look at this junk?” said the other, also in yoga pants and a matching bra top.

  Maggie suppressed a snide remark and went out to help them anyway.

  Joshua came out shortly after and immediately caught the attention of the yoga twins. “Mags, if you have any hard-to-move books, put them on the tables too. Just a couple here and there, so it still looks like we're a bookshop and not a thrift store.”

  Maggie nodded and, out of the corner of her eye, watched the yoga twins start circling like sharks around Joshua. She rolled her eyes as she went back inside and walked over to the gardening section to pull a few vintage books that had been collecting dust. A couple of tomes on horticulture were added to the pile.
Finally, two coffee table books on flowers found their way to the tables outside and completed the display.

  The bookstore and café quickly filled as people from the neighboring towns came to Fair Haven to shop the neighborhood garage sales. Poe, the shop cat, stretched out on the bookstore windowsill, basking in a square of sunshine and lazily judging the patrons as they made their purchases.

  Suddenly, a woman who couldn't be missed stopped right in front of Maggie.

  “A book sale.” She smiled wide, her bright red lips parting to show straight white teeth, as she flipped her black wavy hair over her shoulder. Her nails matched her lipstick. Her blouse was one size too tight.

  “Welcome,” Maggie said, feeling an instant connection with the woman. Despite her flashy style, her gaudy jewelry, and her twinkling eyes, Maggie sensed they had something unseen in common.

  “I have more books than I know what to do with, but I just can’t resist,” she said with a giggle. Then her eyes found the complimentary bookmarks advertising the store. They lit up, and she grabbed a couple and stuffed them in her purse.

  Maggie smiled. There it was, the something unseen they had in common. The bookmarks had cute designs on them; a black cat resembling Poe sleeping on an open book, and a bulldog with his wrinkled face resting on a stack of classic novels.

  “Can I stow these with you while I look around the shop? I’ll need them in case I’m stranded on a desert island.” She held up a couple of tote bags heavy with books from the other garage sales.

  “Of course,” Maggie smiled, and took the bags while the woman browsed.

  Maggie took a quick peek inside and saw the woman wasn’t lying. Each bag was filled with a variety of books. They were kindred spirits.

  Just then a man walked in. He gave Maggie a polite nod, then proceeded to slowly drift toward the front row of books, fiction of the worst kind, at least in Maggie’s opinion. New York Times Best Sellers, Oprah’s Book Club, the blandest of the bland. Still, if this man was interested in the latest Nicholas Sparks novel, at least he was reading. But it didn't take Maggie long to notice he wasn't as interested in the books on the shelves as he was in the woman in the tight blouse.

  “Hmmm,” Maggie muttered, stroking Poe, who was still holding court on the windowsill. “Looks like a game of cat and mouse,” she whispered as Poe butted his head against her.

  Maggie watched the man glance at a couple of books, then peek up to see where the woman was. After a couple of steps he'd look at another title he wasn't interested in, then zero in on her again. A few more steps and Maggie was sure he was going to make an introduction, until a ringtone went off. A speed bump, a glitch in the matrix. The woman answered her phone, and just like that, the dance was over.

  “Hey, Pauline. What’s going on?” the woman said into the phone as she set down a book from the U.S. History shelves. She suddenly stopped in her tracks. Maggie didn’t want to stare, but she watched as the woman's expression changed from relaxed to annoyed to angry.

  “I want you to tell him there is nothing we can do,” she said as she reshelved the book. The man was also watching her now. By the sound of it, the woman had a crisis brewing. Maggie pretended to be engrossed in some organizational project involving bags, flyers, and rolls of register tape while she kept an eye on the woman.

  “I can’t believe this! I take one day off…okay, I'll be there in fifteen minutes. You tell him that if he doesn't leave, you are calling the police. I mean it.” The woman ended the call and hurried out of the bookstore.

  “Ma’am?” Maggie called after her.

  But whatever was happening on the other end of that phone had the woman completely distracted. She’d forgotten her bags of books.

  “No reason to worry,” Maggie muttered to herself. “Anyone who bought this many books will be back for them. I know I would be.”

  Seconds later, the man who had been pursuing the red-lipped woman was also out the door. Maggie wondered if he was going to catch up with her to ask her out.

  She sighed and tucked the totes of books further underneath the counter for safekeeping. They’d turn up before the end of the day.

  But when Maggie locked the doors to go home, she shrugged.

  “Tomorrow. She’ll be back tomorrow,” Maggie said.

  However, Maggie was wrong. The next day was busy with all sorts of characters shopping for deals and oddities. But there was no sign of the woman from the day before. Fate, apparently, was not listening.

  Chapter 2

  Along with the excitement of the neighborhood garage sales was the reopening of the Fair Haven Farmers’ Market. Maggie was sure there wasn’t a farmers’ market across the country that locals didn’t look forward to. She was no exception. After a lingering winter, there was nothing like the beauty of the days getting longer and warmer. The farmers’ market was proof of that.

  Like a dedicated groupie, Maggie had money set aside to buy some homemade lavender and lemon soap, a bushel of tomatoes and fresh basil, and perhaps some peaches. She was counting the minutes until lunchtime to take her break and stroll over to Ponder’s Park to purchase these things.

  It would be a welcome distraction from the fact that the woman from the day before had not come back to retrieve her books. Maggie expressed her concern to Joshua when he came to relieve Maggie for her lunch break.

  “Well, just keep them under the counter. They aren’t in the way. She’ll show up,” he said.

  “But who would just leave their books like this?” Maggie said.

  “Not everyone sees them the way you do. If this is how you care about books, I can’t wait to see you as a mother someday.” Joshua chuckled.

  “Well, I don’t know how good I’ll be, but they’ll all have a book in their hands, that’s for sure.” Maggie pushed her glasses up and heard Joshua chuckle again as she slipped out the door. It made her smile to herself.

  As she walked to Ponder’s Park, following a steady stream of pedestrians heading in the same direction, she distracted herself by looking for inspiration for the Bookish Café’s next window display.

  Word had gotten back to her that the other businesses along Main Street were tired of her displays always winning the town beautification award each month. She admitted that she didn’t win every month. The bank had pulled a fast one by using kindergarteners from the school to decorate their windows recently. Maggie couldn’t compete with that. Who wouldn’t give the prize to a group of kindergarteners?

  However, now Spotlight Boutique and Old Cedar Bank were turning up the heat. Spotlight had hired a professional window dresser. Maggie had met him when he came into the bookstore to try and intimidate her. He had introduced himself as Antonio Jones.

  “Oh, I’ve heard you are the main competition for the window dressing award,” he’d smirked, his plump lips stretching as he tilted his head and shifted on his feet.

  Maggie squinted at him as she pushed up her glasses. “I guess.” Maggie wouldn’t have called a photocopied certificate from City Hall a true window dressing award, but this guy did.

  “Oh, well, sis, I’m making room on my mantel to display quite a few awards. You might want to wait this one out,” he’d said before turning on his heel and leaving the store.

  It was Joshua who told Maggie he was a professional. A professional pain in the neck, perhaps, Maggie thought, because that was not how a professional behaved.

  Maggie was sure the stakes were higher because both the bank and the boutique were filled to the brim with bachelorettes who wanted to impress Joshua Whitfield. The hardware store and the optometrist didn’t seem to care who won. Either way, Maggie had developed a slight ego about her displays. After so much time feeling like a wallflower, she enjoyed the attention the bookstore window received. It was like everyone was admiring her without her having to talk to them.