Knot the Deputy, Not the Crime

Birdie Larkin runs the only scent shop in Cattail Creek, which means she gets asked about everyone's business whether she wants to or not. She found the mayor dead in the community garden with a heat suppressant still sealed in his hand. Deputy Colt Mercer is the only alpha in the department and the only one who believes she didn't do it. He's up for sheriff in the spring. He can't afford a scandal, and Birdie is one long town-wide scandal with good handwriting. Then she finds her own name on a list the mayor was keeping — a revision to the town's bonded-omega charter that would let alphas walk away, and reassign whoever was left. The Bloom Festival is in three weeks. The killer is using Birdie's own suppliers to cover the trail. A small-town omegaverse cozy mystery with a deputy who's slow on purpose, an omega who reads soil analysis for fun, and a bite that happens after the vote.