by Willow Mason
Newborn Pixie Cozy Mystery Books 1-3
Willow Mason
Copyright © 2020 Willow Mason
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
Cover model photograph © Team Bradley
https://gumroad.com/teambradley
Contents
Pixie Me Up
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
A Bone to Pixie
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
Pixie-lated
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
About the Author
Also by Willow Mason
Chapter One
By the time my lunch order arrived, my stomach was about ready to eat itself. A low growl greeted the server, and he gave me a raised eyebrow along with the overfilled dish.
“Burger, fries, and aioli,” he announced. “Careful, the plate’s hot.”
“I’ll be careful,” I said back with a smile. Since six that morning, I’d been driving on winding South Island roads where any slip in concentration could spell doom. A warm plate wasn’t about to defeat me.
Ten minutes later, I came up for breath. Half the chicken burger had been demolished, and I’d made serious inroads on the fries. Dipping a long chip into the creamy aioli, I sat back and stared around the café with interest. It was my first time in Oakleaf Glade and a long way from home.
Old style furnishings screamed out a retro vibe but on closer inspection, I saw the bright orange linoleum curled at the corners and the dark purple curtains were threadbare. The stainless-steel chair legs were pock-marked with stains and the plasticky cushion had hardened and split.
No one had updated the place since the seventies or longer. Still, the burger was fresh off the grill, so my stomach was happy.
The table behind me had two occupants, both female, talking to each other in hard whispers. My ear cocked towards them, quite without thinking, hoping for a gossipy tale to keep my imagination stoked throughout the day.
Since childhood, I’d always had my eyes on my own work, but my ears peeled for everyone else’s. It was a trait my parents had labelled nosy, which made no sense to me. Ear-sy, if anything. Or an eavesdropper as my year six teacher put it. Said with a lip curl to let me know to feel ashamed.
Something about my manner must have alerted the couple, or they grew tired of arguing. Whichever the reason, they stopped talking and started taking out their repressed fury on their food.
What a pity. I shifted in my seat and eyed up the rest of my burger, checking my watch.
A letter had drawn me to this strange little town—or strange to me. The official note arrived on the same day I got fired from my last job. Perfect timing, I’d decided, not wanting to dwell on the bad times when I could look forward to something instead.
“Do you want a drink?” a passing server, female this time, stopped to ask. “Coffee? Tea? Something stronger?”
A beer would wash this fatty meal down a treat, but with a lawyer’s appointment starting in less than half an hour, I didn’t want to breathe hops all over them. Especially since I’d never visited a lawyer’s office before and had no idea what to expect.
I ploughed through the rest of the meal, cleaning the last of the sauce off the plate with a soggy French fry. Although it filled a gap, I stared with envy as another table received a large slice of cheesecake for dessert. My daily calorie intake had already taken a battering, but the drizzle of chocolate sauce was sorely tempting…
No. Besides my ever-widening rear, I had to worry about the upcoming meeting. Not just making it to the office on time but locating the address and finding a suitable park for my car in a strange town.
Oakleaf Glade might be small enough to dance on the head of a pin, but I could still get lost in it. My mother was fond of telling me I’d be born with a broken compass. When someone could point out an unfathomable mystery like where North was at any given time, it struck me as a type of magic. To tell right from left, I still held up my hands and looked for an L.
Speaking of Mum…
I pulled out my phone and dialled. “Hey, I just wanted to let you know I got here safely.”
“Thank goodness. I’ve been having visions of you splattered all over a highway since you left.”
“That’s a nice vote of confidence for my driving abilities!”
We chatted for a while and I hung up with a wide smile on my face. A gentle ribbing session with my mother always made me feel better. I hoped it would still hold true if worse came to worst and I had to move back into her place.
La-la-la-la-la. Nice thoughts. Think positive.
I wrenched my mind back to the appointment ahead, pulling out the letter to check the address details for the hundredth time that day.
“Gosh, you wolfed that down, didn’t you?” my original waiter said, creeping up behind me with such stealth I yelped in surprise. “Fancy dessert?”
“Yes,” I said, then shook my head with great reluctance. “But I don’t have time. I’m meeting someone in”—I checked my watch again and gulped—“fifteen minutes.”
The server smiled and I took notice of his twinkling blue eyes and dark hair. It was messed up but not enough to make him appear uncouth. My fingers twitched at the urge to stroke it back into place.
I put them under the table, just in case. Lately, when my thoughts wandered, unexpected things happened.
“Is your appointment with someone here in Oakleaf?”
I nodded, then unfolded the paper I’d just tucked back into my pocket. “In fact, you can probably help me. I need to find this address, in the Lancaster building. Do you know where that is?”
He leaned over the page, his name tag dangling near my face: Brody Newhart. I started to mix and match my name, Elisa Hamilton, with his: Elisa Newhart, Mrs Brody Newhart, Brody Hamilton-Newhart. A bad habit from high school, though back then it was accompanied by scrawled love hearts.
“What business do you have with the lawyers?” he asked, having to wait a minute for my wandering brain to catch up.
“I’ve been named the executor on a will,” I said before it occurred to me it was none of his business. Oh, well. In for a penny… “My Great Aunt Esmerelda died and left me in charge of distributing her estate.”
“Sorry?” Brody jerked back, a frown marring his features before he shook himself and his cheeks went bright red. “I mean, I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Did
you know my auntie?”
“No!” The server backed up a step. “I mean, yes, but just in the way everyone in Oakleaf Glade knows everybody else.” He forced a laugh. “It’s not like we travelled in the same circles. She must’ve had eighty years on me.”
His body language was now all over the place, setting alarm bells off in the back of my head. Not that I had time to answer them. “So, do you know where the office is?”
“Yeah.” Brody rubbed the back of his neck, his expression strained. “You’re the youngest daughter, are you?”
I shook my head. “No, I told you, she was my aunt.”
“Not of Esmerelda,” he snapped, staring at me like I was a few sandwiches short of a picnic. “Of your family.”
“I’m the only daughter,” I said, reaching for my handbag. My nice lunch had taken a weird turn, and it was time to move on. “Do I pay at the counter?”
Brody stood in front of me for a second, hands on hips, blocking my way. Just as I thought I’d need to walk around the table, he shifted to one side. “Yeah, sure. I’ll get your bill together.”
As he rang up the amount on the till, he stared at me until I turned away, uneasy. “It’s a fair walk away. Maybe a five-minute drive. Straight along this street to Pebbleton Square, then it’s tucked into the corner near Sapphire Avenue.”
I handed across the last twenty from my wallet with a twinge of unease. Only credit cards from now on. “Will there be parking?”
He snorted with amusement. “There’s always parking in Oakleaf Glade. No matter what time of day or how close to the centre of town you are. If you’re staying, pick up a bicycle. We tend to use those rather than cars.”
“Oh,” I said, taking the small pile of change. “I’m not staying.”
With ten minutes-ish to go, I heaved my full belly into the front seat of my Nissan Pulsar. The vehicle was seventeen years old, but I hoped it would hold together for a while longer.
“Come on, sweetheart,” I whispered in encouragement as I turned the key in the ignition. “Be a good girl.”
Words of pleading, begging, haranguing, and finally disgust turned out to be useless and no matter how hard I banged the steering wheel in despair, the wretched engine wouldn’t start.
Chapter Two
Minutes ticked away as I kept trying to get the car to start, pursuing the fruitless endeavour due to a lack of options.
With a final, “Humph,” I sat back with my hands over my eyes. It was no use popping the hood to check inside. My brain didn’t come with a mechanical engineering degree.
In a town this small, there weren’t any boldly coloured scooters propped on the footpath, waiting to save my tail. Getting out of the driver’s seat, I locked the door and took a deep breath.
I’d have to run.
By the first intersection, I remembered why the twelve-hundred metre had been a dreaded event in my school phys-ed classes. My lungs burned and my calf muscles twanged like mistuned guitar strings.
As I drew up to the Lancaster Building, glad Brody hadn’t misled me with his directions, I no longer felt human at all. Just a series of shrieking muscles and organs united only by searing pain.
If I’d needed a lesson in why missing my morning exercise classes for—oh, I don’t know, my entire life—was a bad idea, I now had it in living colour. When I peeked at my watch, hoping for a miracle, I also saw I’d missed my appointment time by seven minutes.
Still, I’d been later for things before and survived. All I needed was to straighten my T-shirt, adjust my mousy frizz of hair, and walk straight in.
“Are you okay, dear?” a plump middle-aged woman called out in a friendly tone that suddenly veered into alarm. “Oh, my goodness. Rosie! We need you out here.”
I slid onto a chair in the reception area, holding a hand up to show I was fine.
“Get me a glass of water,” Rosie said, charging into the room. “And a towel.”
“I… ran… here…” I forced out before my lungs told me off for exerting energy on anything but breathing. When the water came, I sculled half a glass, then had to pull another few deep lungfuls of air. “It’s… been… a… long… time…”
“We can both see that. You look like you’re about to collapse. Should I call the ambulance?”
I shook my head, appalled that my physical condition was so poor a stranger would think I needed to go to the hospital after a short run. Soon that regret was taken over by another as I felt a line of sweat trickling along my back. I bounced up from the chair, afraid to leave a stain.
“Don’t stand up,” Rosie said. “Posey, would you grab that tin of biscuits from under your desk? We need to give her sustenance to recover her energy.”
“I’ve just eaten.” Sitting back down, I put my head between my knees as a wave of dizziness overtook me. “Really, there’s no need. I’m fine.”
“Fine.” Posey tittered. “You’re the farthest from fine I’ve seen anyone look for quite a while.”
“Running isn’t my specialty,” I agreed, beginning to feel slightly better.
“That’s an understatement,” Rosie said, wagging a finger in my face. “Why on earth did you sprint all the way here from the Tavern Café?”
“I was late.”
Posey exploded in another set of giggles. “You know there are phones now. Some are small enough to carry in your purse.”
With a flush of embarrassment adding to my overheated face, I nodded. “I’ve never had an appointment with a lawyer before. It didn’t occur to me.”
“Well, you’ll be relieved to know we’re not so scary that you need to kill yourself to get here on time.” Posey glanced over at her sister. “How many other appointments do we have on the books for today?”
“Oh, I’d have to double check, but I’m fairly certain the answer will be none.”
Despite my lack of air, I couldn’t help but laugh. The two women were a classic double-act, bouncing phrases off each other. As I stared harder, I realised they were also identical.
Posey nodded. “We’re twins.”
“Just a moment,” I frowned as another weird thought struck me. “How did you know I ran from the cafe?”
The pair exchanged an amused glance. “We got a call from the waitress when you left,” Rosie said.
“Not to mention, three progress reports along the way,” Posey added.
“Small towns have a grapevine you won’t believe,” they chorused together, then both chuckled.
“I suppose that’s a good thing,” I ventured. “Anyway, I’m sufficiently recovered now to talk business. What’s the deal with being executor?”
“First things first,” Rosie said, switching to full business mode. “Do you have proof of identity?”
After fumbling with my handbag catch, I handed over my passport. Despite being nine years into the ten-year validity, it hadn’t been used. My travel plans, conceived in my first job, had fallen by the wayside. A disconcerting trait kept getting me fired, through no real fault of my own.
“Lovely, dovely.” Rosie handed the ID back to me, then waved me towards her office. “Come into my room and we’ll go over all the official stuff. It won’t take too long.”
“One more thing,” Posey said, holding up a warning finger. “We also need to verify you’re the youngest daughter in the family.”
I gasped—the same question Brody had asked me. “I’m an only child, so I guess that means yes, but I’m also the oldest.”
“No worries, and your mother?”
By now I was frowning. “She’s the youngest of four. What does this have to—”
“Come on through,” Rosie said, cutting me off. “We’ll explain everything once you’re seated in a more comfortable chair.” She shot her sister a stern glance. “It’s uncouth to discuss the terms and conditions of a will out here in the reception area, where anybody could wander in at any time.”
Judging by the zero other scheduled appointments, someone walking in mid-talk appeared u
nlikely, but I was happy to follow along. My thighs were burning as the muscles relaxed after the run, trying to remember how they’d fit together before the unnecessary exertion.
The office was gorgeous with cherry-stained wood panelling on all sides and cornices carved in intricate patterns. The carpet underfoot was a warm maroon, unlike the utilitarian grey of reception.
A large window facing the centre of Pebbleton Square showcased a small park, blooming with early spring flowers and enclosed by a wrought-iron fence.
“This is lovely,” I said, sitting down and revelling in the sense of comfort. “I could happily work in a place like this, every day.”
“No openings,” Rosie said at the same time Posey said, “We’ll let you know if anything comes up.”
“Oh, sorry,” I said, blushing. “Once I have this matter sorted, I’ll be leaving town. I didn’t mean to indicate I needed a job.”
I did, but back in Nelson, the city I called home.
“Let’s see.” Rosie spread out a sheaf of papers on the oak desk and patted them with affection. “Esmerelda left very strict instructions on the handling of her will, but I’m pleased to say you meet the criteria. You’re the sole beneficiary, so the status as executor is just a formality.”
“But that can’t be right,” I burst out, remembering Christmas’s stuffed full of cousins. I might be an only child, but it wasn’t true of the other branches of my clan. “Great Aunt Esmerelda had many, many great nieces and nephews.” I stared with concern from one twin to the other. “Did she really not leave instructions on how to share out her estate?”