COZY MYSTERY: Trail Mix Murder: A Cozy Mystery in the Mountains (Book 2) by Liz Turner Page B

said. “What was the marinade, Vic?”
    “Oh, it was red chilies, honey, garlic, ginger and a tiny bit of vinegar,” Victoria said. “You won’t remember this, Amanda, but you had some too on my thirteenth birthday.”
    “I will never forget any aspect of that amazing birthday,” Amanda said. “So yes, I remember the chicken. We had our first sleepover that night, didn’t we? I also remember a certain mischief monger keeping me up until three am at night telling me ghost stories about scarecrows.”
    Randolf laughed. “Did it scare you silly?”
    “Scare me? I think I’ve grown white hair ever since that incident.” Amanda laughed. “Anyway, at 3:00 a.m., when she’s concluded this ridiculously scary story about a straw man with orange lips and yellow eyes, she dares me to take a loop through the fields, alone. I was terrified and told her I wouldn’t do it. So she did it instead.”
    “Why!” Randolf exclaimed. “That sounds terrifying. I probably wouldn’t do it even now, to be honest, especially if I’d just heard a ghost story.”
    “Oh… I’d made up the story, but once I had, I wondered if it could be true. I was scared, but in the end, the curiosity won out.” Victoria laughed.
    “Curiosity.” Randolf nodded. “That should be your middle name.”
    “Middle name? It should be her actual name.” Karen laughed. “She was always so curious. I had a diary in seventh grade, and I had a little padlock with numbers to keep it locked up. The little spy somehow figured out my combination and read my diary! I was outraged.”
    “It was absolutely criminal of me,” Victoria said. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m really sorry, Karen, even all these years later.”
    “Oh, but I got you back.” Karen laughed. “I was the one who figured out how to pour cement into your locker later that year!”
    There was a roar of laughter around the table.
    “Randolf, tell us about you,” Amanda said. “Growing up, were you as bratty as our sweet little Victoria?”
    “Oh, I should think not,” Randolf said. “I was more energetic. I used to like things being orderly, actually. I still do. So I loved running races on the track, everyone was equal, everything was neatly organized and then, you just ran. As fast as you could. It made no difference if your father drove a Ferrari or a Ford. You ran, and if you were fast, you came first. It was thrilling for me to achieve something that didn’t have my father’s name tied to it.”
    “You were a provincial champion too, weren’t you?” Victoria asked. “I remember you with a medal, and the cheerleaders all swooning.”
    Randolf laughed. “I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.”
    “So you deny dating the hottest girl in school, Mindy Lakemeyer?” Karen elbowed him. “I heard you stole her right from her football player boyfriend one Friday night and that he beat you up good the next day.”
    Randolf rubbed the side of his nose. “Well, I’ll just say that I was lucky he didn’t beat me harder and that I don’t go around stealing girlfriends anymore.”
    “But why did you end up in the RCMP anyway?” Steve asked. “Isn’t that normally… well, for someone from your family, shouldn’t you have gone into business?”
    “I’d seen too much of business to ever want to go into it,” Randolf said. “From sixteen to twenty, I worked part-time in our family business in some form or the other. I discovered that I hated it. Any business where you take money from someone requires that you be extra nice to them. The richer they are the nicer you have to be. This doesn't change anything no matter how much money you make. I decided it wasn’t for me. Besides, I’d seen two stock market crashes happen and I knew how quickly the money can dry out. It seemed too risky.”
    “Business seemed risky so you became a policeman?” Victoria asked, incredulously.
    “Funny as it sounds, yes,” Randolf said. “I decided that a) a