HELL'S HALF ACRE a gripping murder mystery full of twists (Coffin Cove Mysteries Book 2) by JACKIE ELLIOTT (classic literature books .txt) 📗

opponents and supporters when the results of the mayoral race were announced and Dennis Havers’ reign as mayor of Coffin Cove was finally over.

Jade Thompson was both the youngest and the first female mayor to serve Coffin Cove.

After election day and the celebration at Hephzibah’s café, the headquarters of the Thompson campaign, Jade was officially sworn in. But then it rained. As the euphoria of winning wore off and the enormity of the task ahead of her became apparent, the dark grey days reminded Jade of all the reasons she’d left Coffin Cove years ago.

Not that Jade doubted her ability as mayor. She was smart — not just academically, but street-smart too. She’d learned how to be cunning, how to be patient, how to gently talk people into doing things her way, even if they didn’t want to. No, Jade was a natural politician. It was abandoning her privacy that Jade feared most. Her ability to fade into the background. It had been an effective survival technique, and without it, Jade felt exposed.

On her first day, Jade made a brief speech to the staff at City Hall. The small crowd dutifully clapped, but Jade saw suspicion and scepticism on some faces, mostly from the staff who’d been employed there for years. She saw the raised eyebrows and exchanged glances as she laid out the way she would run the show from now on.

“The past is the past,” she’d said. “Nobody will be blamed or judged for what went on before. From this day—” she looked meaningfully at the silent staff — “we will have one mission only: to serve the people of Coffin Cove. They pay us. We work for them. Every project, every decision, every dollar spent will be in pursuit of that mission. Everyone who understands that and works towards that mission will continue to have a job. If there are people who have a different agenda — well, at some point, they’ll be looking for alternative employment.”

Jade saw the odd smirk. She knew it would be an uphill battle. But she smiled and told herself they would soon see she was serious and capable. Jade was used to being underestimated. People glanced at her forgettable face, obscured by large glasses, and mentally categorized her as a coffee girl or filing clerk, if they didn’t know better. Jade didn’t mind. She liked the look of shock on the faces of self-important corporate types when she arranged her files, her notebook and her tablet at the head of the table and called meetings to order. She laughed inwardly when men in suits shifted in their chairs and attempted to keep up with her rapid absorption of facts and figures and her quick-fire questions. She liked that she could be unobtrusive. She heard things. People told her things, things they shouldn’t, not realizing she internally filed every scrap of information. Jade had an amazing memory and a meticulous attention to detail.

Jade’s focus was born out of a disability she kept hidden. She was dyslexic.

She had hated school when she was little. She was plain, needed braces and wore large glasses. The kids mostly ignored her unless she was called upon to read out loud in class. Jade couldn’t understand why the words and letters seemed to swim around in front of her, swirling into a jumbled mess when she tried to read. The mean kids laughed at her. Time after time, she’d sink down into her chair, flushed with shame and humiliation. It was years before Jade was diagnosed. Until then, she’d trained herself to memorize pages and pages of textbooks and assignments, so she could stand and recite whole passages, keeping her eyes trained on the pages, so nobody knew she wasn’t reading. She learned to study in-depth, paying attention to detail. Jade was always prepared, her tasks well-researched, so when she looked around at her new staff, she already had a good idea of who would stay and who would look for a new job.

The run for mayor, uncharacteristically for Jade, was conceived in a flash of anger. More than just anger, Jade acknowledged. It was rage — rage at injustice, which had accumulated over decades.

Summer Thompson, Jade’s mother, moved to Coffin Cove in the eighties, a refugee from the freewheeling chaotic days of the previous heady decade.

She was a “blow-in”, as the locals called the drifters, artists and get-rich-quick schemers who materialized when Coffin Cove’s economy boomed. Summer was a talented artist, pretty and engaging, and Jade grew up surrounded by bohemian people who talked art, politics and philosophy late into the night. They mostly took no notice of the plain little girl with her nose in a book.

Although Jade didn’t know her father, she never wanted for love or fun. Summer took her on camping trips to the beach, where they’d collect driftwood and shells for art projects, and roast hotdogs over a fire. Jade had her best memories of Coffin Cove from those times, the sun slipping down behind the cliffs, Summer and Jade huddled under a blanket until it was pitch dark. For a while, the two of them had lived on Hope Island, a tiny community of women who created a commune of sorts.

Jade liked to think of them as a duo battling against the world. She’d arrange Summer’s finished pieces in the yard to attract sales from the trickle of tourists in the summer and make sure her mother ate when she was especially engrossed in her art. Summer encouraged Jade’s academic progress. “My little professor,” Summer used to say fondly to her daughter. And, “You’re smart. You can do anything, go anywhere. Get away from Coffin Cove and make something of your life.” She’d saved as much cash as possible for Jade to go to college.

Jade loved college. The last years at school in Coffin Cove, she’d suffered from panic attacks. She wasn’t popular. The popular girls