INNCONVENIENT MURDER

  SIT, STAY, SLEEP COZY MYSTERIES

  BOOK 1

  PATTI BENNING

  SUMMER PRESCOTT BOOKS PUBLISHING

  Copyright 2025 Summer Prescott Books

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication nor any of the information herein may be quoted from, nor reproduced, in any form, including but not limited to: printing, scanning, photocopying, or any other printed, digital, or audio formats, without prior express written consent of the copyright holder.

  **This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to persons, living or dead, places of business, or situations past or present, is completely unintentional.

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  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

  Epilogue

  Also by Patti Benning

  Author’s Note

  Contact Summer Prescott Books Publishing

  CHAPTER ONE

  “It looks like we just passed the turn into town. See? I told you we wouldn’t be too far out in the middle of nowhere.”

  Sadie Barton watched the overgrown wooden sign with the faded words, Welcome to Greencreek! shrink in her rearview mirror. It was the first sign of civilization she had seen for at least half an hour. In the backseat, her foxhound, Jasper, had his nose pressed to the window, leaving a new smudge each time he readjusted. They had left Lexington eight and a half hours ago, and his enthusiasm hadn’t waned once. Even Penny, who was driving her little red crossover down the road in front of Sadie’s larger SUV, had gone quiet for a few hours somewhere between Knoxville and Chattanooga.

  Sadie’s own enthusiasm had waned at about the same time as she saw the reality of her empty bank account, but there was no turning back now.

  “We are in the middle of nowhere, Penny. The town’s just stuck out here with us. We’re a two-hour drive away from the closest city.”

  “Don’t be a downer. You sound like a spoiled city girl.”

  Sadie rolled her eyes at her friend’s voice, which floated clearly over her SUV’s speakers. They had been chatting for the past hour, more in an effort to make sure they didn’t get lost when they got off the freeway than out of any need to stay awake. Sadie hadn’t slept right since the day they closed. She was too hyped up on nerves and caffeine to worry about drifting off behind the wheel now.

  “I am a spoiled city girl. So are you. Jasper’s the only one who’s got a hint of country in him, and I think I’ve spoiled most of that out of him by now, too. He’s used to air conditioning and filtered water. The poor guy is going to wonder what he did wrong when he sees where we’re going to live.”

  “He’s going to love it, and the two of us will adapt,” Penny replied. “Come on, cheer up. This is the beginning of the greatest adventure of our lives. We’re almost there.”

  Ahead of her, the red crossover’s brake lights came on. This was concerning, because the road ahead of them didn’t look any different than the last fifteen miles had, with thick, green forest on both sides. The trees were heavy with kudzu, an invasive vine that seemed to take over more and more of the landscape the farther south they went. Penny’s left turn blinker came on. Sadie slowed further, finally spotting the turnoff, though what she didn’t see was the sign for the motel that had been in the listing photos.

  “Are you sure this is the right place?” she asked as she hit her own turn signal, cognizant of the rented trailer behind her as she slowed. They had stuffed as many of their possessions inside as would fit and put the rest in a shared storage unit up in Lexington, with vague plans to bring it down during their next visit home.

  She hoped against hope that Penny had typed the wrong address into her phone, but she had a sinking feeling that this was the right place. The property was more overgrown than it had looked in the photos, but there was the L-shaped building they had spent their combined life savings on: a run-down, ten room motel with eight indoor-outdoor dog kennels out back and a few outbuildings that were listed as Enter at your own risk online. Ten acres all told, and dirt cheap for what it was.

  The price was the first red flag they had chosen to ignore.

  The second red flag was the article their real estate agent had forwarded to them about a string of bloody murders that had taken place at the motel two years ago.

  In retrospect, the third was probably the fact that their agent had pushed them to buy the property sight-unseen, claiming it would get snatched up quickly if they dawdled.

  “This is it,” Penny said unnecessarily as she parked on the cracked remnants of what had once been a nice asphalt parking lot but was now almost as overgrown as the rest of the property. “I’m sure it’s not as bad as it looks. Let’s check things out, then head into town to grab some food before it gets dark.”

  Sadie grabbed Jasper’s leash as she got out of her SUV. His training had come along in leaps and strides since she adopted him a year ago, but the last thing she needed was for him to take off running in a moment of rebellion in a place they were both unfamiliar with. She was also more than a little concerned about what exactly they would find when they explored the building. Broken glass, rat poison… nothing seemed out of the realm of possibility.

  The heat and humidity were the first things that hit her when she got out of her SUV. She felt like she was trying to breathe in water. Kentucky in mid-August could get pretty brutal, but an eight-hour drive south to Georgia was enough to make her miss Kentucky’s weather instantly.

  The smell was the second thing: the air smelled green, of both growing things and dying things. Insects buzzed and hummed in the kudzu-draped trees all around them, but beneath the steady drone was a silence she had never experienced in the city.

  Jasper was thrilled when she clipped the leash to his collar, unclasped the seat belt attachment from his harness, and let him out of the vehicle. He had his nose to the ground in an instant, exploring a world of scent that she could only imagine.

  “It’s going to need some elbow grease, but I bet the interior looks better,” Penny said as she walked over to join Sadie and Jasper. She fished a key ring out of the packet their real estate’s proxy had given them at closing. It had a lot of keys on it. Apparently, each of the rooms was keyed separately. “Where do you want to start?”

  Sadie was tempted to suggest they start with the kennels, since that was the part she was the most excited for. The promise of finally having her own dog boarding and training business was what had kept her going on the long drive down from Lexington, and before that too.

  But the kennels were around back, and the kennels weren’t where they were planning on sleeping tonight. It made the most sense to check out the motel itself first, in case they needed to make other arrangements.

  “Let’s start with the lobby and work our way down the rooms,” she suggested.

  Penny nodded, and the three of them walked over to the lobby at the front corner of the building. The door was painted a dingy white, the paint peeling to reveal rusting metal beneath, and the windows had been covered with plywood panels that had already begun to rot away in the humidity. There was no overhang, so the sun beat down on them while Penny tried keys in the lock. By the time she found the right one, Sadie was sweating, and poor Jasper was panting.

  The door creaked open beneath Penny’s manicured hand. She walked inside fearlessly. Sadie followed, telling herself the musty smell that wafted out of the dark building was just mildew, not mold.

  “Where’s the light switch? It’s got to be somewhere…” Penny murmured. Sadie heard her slapping the wall, though she was temporarily blinded as her eyes adjusted to going from brutal sunlight to darkness in the space of a single step.

  She heard a click, and the lobby filled with dim yellow light. Jasper was already sniffing the stained Berber carpet. She pulled him back and kept his leash short as she stepped further into the room.

  The lobby was small, with about two-thirds of the wall to their right taken up by a long, heavy desk. There was a plexiglass partition to keep guests away from whoever was working behind the service desk, and a very solid looking door that blocked the space behind the desk off from the rest of the room completely. A small window would give the person behind the desk some fresh air, and there was a hatch that led to a drop box Sadie had seen outside for key returns.

  At the far end of the desk, there was a door set into the wall that supposedly led to the stairs up to the small apartment that the listing had boasted. In the corner, an ancient tube TV hung above a long-deceased potted plant. A row of uncomfortable looking chairs was set up along the other wall, along with a full garbage can and an empty water cooler. The wall at the far end of the room held another door. This one led to the back half of the L-shaped building, which held the laundry room and kennels. A few of the panels on the drop ceiling were stained. Sadie saw some matching stains on the carpet beneath those spots. She just hoped the le
aks weren’t too bad, because they didn’t have a full roof replacement in the budget right now.

  “It’s got promise,” Penny said with the same good cheer that had kept them both going since she sent Sadie the listing three months ago. “It’ll look a lot better once we take that plywood down and let some sunlight in here. We’ll have to take that plexiglass down too, or I’m going to feel like a goldfish in a bowl while I’m checking our guests in.”

  “I think we should wait on the plexiglass,” Sadie said. “The previous owner might have installed it for a reason. We should tear the carpet out first thing. I think that’s where most of the smell is coming from.”

  They would want an easy to clean hard floor for her canine clients. She just had to focus on what they were working towards; a motel for Penny to run, where she could put all of her experience as manager of a chain hotel to good use, and Sadie’s boarding and training kennel, which would cater to guests who wanted a safe place to leave their pets during the day while they enjoyed their vacation. She hoped they would get a lot of local clients, too. They had done their research, and there weren’t many other boarding kennels in the area.

  “Right, we tear down the plywood first, then start on the carpet.” Penny turned around to face Sadie, her grin undaunted. “We’ll tear a corner up tomorrow and see what’s underneath and what we have to work wi…”

  She broke off with a shriek and jumped backwards, her gaze fixed on something behind Sadie. Sadie spun around to find a man with untrimmed hair that fell past his ears and scruffy facial hair standing in the doorway. Her eyes only lingered on his features for a second before they fixed on the bright red fireman’s axe in his hands.

  That was when she started to scream, too.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Sadie stumbled backwards until she felt Penny grab her elbow. In the space of a few moments, her friend yanked both of them, and Jasper too, through the heavy door that led to the plexiglass-encased room behind the desk. As soon as Jasper’s tail was through, Sadie slammed the door shut and engaged the lock. Her dog, whom she could lovingly describe as dumb as a box of rocks, placed his front paws on the desk and wagged his tail as he looked out at the axe-murderer, his pink tongue lolling happily out of his mouth.

  The axe-murderer walked over to them, each step slow and measured as if he enjoyed their terror.

  “Oh my God, oh my God, we’re going to die,” Penny shrieked, clinging to Sadie’s arm. Sadie was frozen. Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t have forced her fingers to uncurl from where they were clinging to Jasper’s leather leash. In some quiet corner of her mind, she was aware that they should be calling the police, but she had left her phone in her car, and she was pretty sure Penny had, too.

  The axe-murderer stopped in front of the desk and shifted his grip on the axe to one hand so he could rap on the glass with the knuckles of his other hand. Penny went silent, but her grip on Sadie’s arm only tightened. Once he knew he had their attention, he jerked his head toward the door and gestured pointedly to indicate they should open it.

  Sadie shook her head frantically. Penny let out a high-pitched sound of pure terror. The man, who looked like he lived in the woods and probably used his axe to murder people on the regular, gave them a scowl filled with such sheer exasperation that Sadie was surprised they didn’t drop dead from the look alone.

  Then he turned on his heel and strode out of the building without saying a word. Sadie and Penny stood frozen for long seconds after he had gone.

  “Did… did he give up?” her friend whispered at last.

  “I don’t know,” Sadie whispered back. “I thought you said they caught the killer from those murders a couple years ago.”

  “They did!” Penny hissed. “The guy’s behind bars. Thirty-five to life.”

  “Well, they obviously got the wrong guy!”

  “Maybe he’s just a local who decided to prank us. I mean, he could have killed us, but he didn’t. That’s a good sign, right?”

  The squabbling was grounding. She and Penny had been best friends since middle school. They were more like sisters sometimes, really. Talking to her was as familiar as breathing, and it made it easier for Sadie to think.

  “I’m not about to bet my life on it being a prank,” she said. “He might be waiting for us outside. We could go out through the kennels and try to sneak around the building to one of our cars.”

  “Shoot, what if he steals all of our stuff? Did you bring your keys in?”

  She hadn’t, but it didn’t matter, because at that moment, the man returned. Except this time, he was carrying a yellow legal pad and a pen instead of his axe. When he saw that they were still huddled behind the desk, he gave them an annoyed look and scribbled something on the pad of paper, which he then slapped face-first against the plexiglass.

  What are you doing here?

  “What are we doing here?” Penny said, her voice high-pitched. “We aren’t the ones threatening people with an axe!”

  “We’re the new owners,” Sadie said, a little calmer. She figured the axe being gone was probably a good sign.

  The man raised an eyebrow, clearly skeptical. She wondered why he wouldn’t talk to them. Was it an intimidation tactic? If so, it was working.

  Proof, or I call the cops, was his next scribbled message.

  Penny was the one who froze this time, so Sadie nudged her with her elbow until her friend jumped and opened the packet they had gotten at the title company when they closed; the packet she was still carrying.

  “I don’t know what counts as proof, but here. Look. We signed for the title, and we have keys. Here’s the printout of the listing. Oh, and a receipt for the wire transfer…” Penny was babbling. The man’s eyes were a light hazel, she noticed. It made him look a little like a werewolf when paired with the scruffy hair and general mountain man vibes. He skimmed over the papers as Penny held them up one after another. Finally, he gestured for her to stop and bent to scribble on his pad again. Sadie inched closer to the plexiglass, curious.

  I believe you. Sorry for startling you. Thought you had broken in.

  Sadie snorted. Startled? More like terrified them half to death. Penny let out a laugh that rang out a little too high-pitched. The man glanced at the door again, waiting.

  Sadie exchanged a look with her friend, a lifetime of experience getting into trouble together in that single, wordless exchange. There was no way either one of them was opening that door, not yet.

  “Who are you?” Sadie asked instead of reaching for the lock.

  He wrote something on his notepad, paused briefly, added something else, then held it up. Sam Walker. Your tenant.

  She exchanged another look with Penny, this one confused. Her friend looked just as clueless as her. After a second, she began thumbing through the packet again. While Penny tried to find verification, Sadie turned back to Sam. He was a little less intimidating now that he wasn’t carrying an axe and she knew his name, but she didn’t remember hearing anything about a tenant.

  “You live in the motel?” she asked.

  He shook his head and wrote, House on the property.

  “There’s a house on the property?”

  “Here it is,” Penny said before he could answer. She withdrew a paper and read it quickly, her eyes flicking across the photocopy. “It’s a lease with his name on it, all right. A five-year lease. Signed a year ago.”

  She gave Sadie a meaningful look, one she tried hard not to grimace at. Four years left with a tenant who liked to surprise people with an axe didn’t sound ideal. She didn’t know much about the laws surrounding tenants and landlords, but she was pretty sure they couldn’t evict someone just because they bought the property. Rental agreements carried over with sales like this, didn’t they?

  “What does this mean? We can’t use the motel?” she asked, a different sort of panic beginning to set in.

  “No, I don’t think that’ll be an issue,” Penny said, her brow furrowing as she scrutinized the lease agreement. “It looks like whatever building he’s renting has its own address. It’s Mailbox A and we’re Mailbox B. I guess we’re, like, landlords now?”