by Неизвестный
“Um, excuse me,” Fiona interrupted. “Didn’t you forget someone? What about Lea’s supposed friend, Sapphire?”
“Nonsense, woman!” Kyle blurted out. Forgotten over to the side of the gathering until now. he couldn’t keep his mouth shut when he heard Fiona’s question. “You might as well accuse me of committing murder! Sapphire would never do such a thing.”
It warmed Miranda’s heart to see how Kyle rushed to Sapphire’s defense. No matter how much he might protest, she knew he liked their friend.
“I would never hurt her!” Sapphire protested. “Never in a million years! Lea and I were the best of friends.”
“We know, Sapphire,” Miranda assured her. “No one is suspecting you. There are other persons in this home who aren’t so circumspect, however. Isn’t that right, Jonah?”
The patriarch of this overstated home buzzed forward in his wheelchair.
“Don’t be absurd,” he muttered. “I had no time to poison Lea’s soup, and I surely had no reason to kill my own son!”
“Well,” Miranda said, wishing the trip here could have gone differently. “You sent both Morgan and Fiona to the front door to meet me. I think that was plenty long enough for you to make your way to the kitchen and set things up. Poor Morgan never knew what was coming, did he?”
He blustered at that for a moment, his hands gesturing wildly. “And why would I have killed her? After all, you claim that she and I were in a relationship.”
“You were,” Fiona insisted. “Don’t deny it now!”
“It’s not an unfounded claim,” Miranda agreed, holding Lea’s cell phone out so that Jonah might inspect the photo. “And I think I have a fairly good idea why it was you who killed her. And then, of course, there’s Algernon. Your own son, as you say.”
“Precisely, why would I kill my own son?” Algernon floated nearer to his father and leaned in close to his face. Jonah shivered as if he could feel his son there next to him.
“What did you do Father!” Algernon screamed and Jonah recoiled from his icy breath. Jonah looked all about, confusion creasing his face.
Miranda continued. “Because he knew what you’d done. He knew you’d killed Lea Maroney and he was going to blackmail you. Trying to seduce your lawyer Fiona into conning the money out of you wasn’t working, so he was going to find another way to get what he was due. And that way, Jonah, was blackmail.”
His cheeks flushed, and a hard light came into his eyes. At the same time, his hands began to shake. “And just how do you suppose a wheelchair-bound old man like me managed to push a fit and healthy thirty-year-old like Algernon off a balcony?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? You shoved him.”
“Do you really think I am strong enough to do that?” Jonah looked at her with wide eyes.
“Stationary, no. But with that wheelchair of yours you could get a running start so to speak and then shove him through the railing down onto the rocks in the garden below.” She let that sink in to the room around them. “You went up in the elevator and came down the same way. Of course, you would still have to get around several police officers but this is your house. You know all the secret passages, am I right? It was Morgan’s good luck to stumble onto one in that closet and make his escape, but I’m betting you have the entire layout of passages mapped in your brain.”
“Miranda is right,” Jack said into the ensuing silence. “Metallic residue was found in the scratches on the dresser in your son’s room. I’m betting if we look under that blanket of yours, we’ll see some fresh scratches on the side of your chair.”
Miranda couldn’t work up any sympathy for the man, wheelchair or not. What he had done was despicable. “You killed Lea Maroney, Jonah, and when your son discovered it and threatened to tell the police if you did not provide the inheritance he wanted, you killed him also.”
“I didn’t mean to kill him.” Jonah sighed and seemed to sag in his wheelchair, suddenly resigned in the face of overwhelming evidence. “Algernon had asked to see me in his room. He told me, again, that he wanted to be the sole heir to my estate, greedy little brat.” Jonah sighed. “The argument got heated and he went out onto the balcony, I guess to cool down. And that would have been fine but then he gave me an ultimatum. He said he knew what I’d done. He knew about Lea and if I didn’t give him what he wanted he would go to the cops.” Jonah bowed his head and fell silent.
A few moments passed before Jack asked, “And then what?”
Jonah lifted his head and with a deep breath continued his story, “I was more angry than I can ever remember being and rage must have blinded me because the next thing I knew he was gone.” Jonah sagged further into his chair as his head dropped to his chest. He looked like a broken man.
Algernon floated backwards and forwards in front of Jonah. “Why Father? Why? You’ve robbed me of my life. How could you?” He was very agitated. He was fading in and out. Suddenly he stopped and seemed to be looking off into the distance. Kyle noticed what was happening and went to him, whispering something and pointing. Algernon nodded his head and started to move toward whatever it was he could see. Then he was gone. He’d passed over to the spirit world.
“And Lea Maroney? What was her crime?” Jack was asking Jonah, in an attempt to antagonize the man into giving a full confession.
“Lea? The poor woman was absolutely beside herself with anxiety and depression. She was not the happiest of people in the first place, but she managed to find herself in the most dreadful trouble at work. She had been misreporting some of her investments and had taken a little money off the top. Again. She worked for me and eventually confessed to me what she’d done. That was my money she took. I was understandably angry. I will not tolerate theft. Once started she wouldn’t have been able to stop. It’s like a disease. You could say I was doing her a favor. Then there was that whole thing with Morgan. I knew it was only a matter of time before she left an aging man like myself for someone younger and stronger.”
“I’ve heard enough,” Jack said. “Jonah Keaton. You are under arrest for murder.”
“Just one more thing, Jonah,” Miranda said as the uniformed officers got ready to wheel him away.
“Oh? What’s that, Miss Wylder?”
“I’m afraid I won’t be able to write your autobiography after all.”
After a moment of stunned silence, Jonah burst out laughing. “That’s a pity, Miss Wylder. I think you would have been brilliant.”
As the officers took Jonah away, Miranda went over to where Sapphire was sitting and quietly crying. Kyle came with her. He kept uncharacteristically quiet as Miranda laid a hand on her friend’s shoulder.
“Thank you,” Sapphire said. “You and Jack both. Kyle too, I suppose? Yes, of course he was involved in this. Thank you for finding out what happened to my friend.”
Jack had already come back into the room again, after directing the officers in how to take care of Jonah. “I agree, Sapphire. Miranda is kind of clever, isn’t she? I’ve got to say, I’m getting more and more impressed with your detective abilities. There’s just one question that I have.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“Who is Kyle?”
Miranda cringed, because she hadn’t meant for Jack to hear that part of their conversation. It would lead to the whole conversation about her being able to see ghosts and of course there was the whole having a ghost attached to her as well that they would have to deal with. Were they ready for that?
Kyle looked at her, with a very patient expression. “I think we can trust him. It’s time you shared our secret with a few others, don’t you think?”
Being dead had certainly made her friend smarter. He was right of course. If she was going to ever be able to have a meaningful relationship with Jack she was going to have to tell him everything about her. Not to mention, he kept alluding to a secret he himself was hiding.
“Tell you what,” Miranda said to Jack. “Why don’t you and I have dinner tonight, and I’ll trade y
ou secret for secret. You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine.”
He smiled at her subtle innuendo, and she thought that was a pretty good start.
“I’d like that,” he said. “It might have to be tomorrow though? I have a feeling I’ll be a bit busy for the rest of the day. I have another double homicide to wrap up.”
“Oh, that’s right,” she said sarcastically. “The homicide rate has, what, gone up a hundred percent?”
“Two hundred,” he teased, “but who’s counting? Maybe you’re not the reason for it. Maybe you’re just in the right place at the right time. Either way, our dinner will have to wait until tomorrow, okay?”
She slipped a kiss on his cheek. “That sounds perfect.”
-End-
Death by Chocolate Cake
A Moonlight Bay Psychic Mystery Short Read 5
Description
An Old Love... A New Love... and Murder!
Many years ago, Jack Travis was madly in love with Anya Westfield who broke his heart when she cheated on him.
When she dies in suspicious circumstances Jack and Miranda (and Kyle) are drawn into the investigation. They discover that Anya had a secret which got her killed.
The more they uncover about Anya's life the less Jack realizes he knew about her.
The trio must keep their wits about them and use all of their deductive powers to get to the truth of this murder.
In this psychic mystery will they be able to evade the watchful eye of the killer long enough to solve the case?
Chapter 1
Miranda laughed as she reached for her wine glass. “I love how the view from your house is almost exactly the same as the view from mine. Our town is just that small, isn’t it?”
Jack Travis, tall and handsome detective of the Moonlight Bay Police Department, smiled at her with his fierce blue eyes. “Yup, we both get to see the lighthouse, just from different angles. Say, before you start swigging that wine back, Miranda, I was about to make a toast.”
Over the past few weeks she and Jack had been seeing a lot of each other. There had been a lot of walks on the beaches of Moonlight Bay, a lot of snuggling on his couch or hers, and a lot of talking.
Of course, they had a lot to talk about.
Miranda found that she felt almost as comfortable in Jack’s home as she did at her uncle’s huge manor house, nicknamed Ragged Rest. Through his open window she could see the green expanse of Jack’s back yard, and past that was the uninterrupted view of the deep waters of Moonlight Bay. She could see and hear the waves lapping heartily at the sand. A breeze came in to playfully stir the edges of her long, deep red hair. Here in this moment, Miranda felt truly content.
In truth, she had never thought that she would settle in Moonlight Bay. She had lived in Melbourne for years and considered herself a city girl. But, when her book writing career had taken off, the time had come to move on from there. There had been more to it, of course. People had begun to find out that she was psychic when her best friend had died and begun haunting her in spirit. It had brought her the wrong kind of attention.
So, when the opportunity had presented itself to move here to the tiny community of Moonlight Bay out on Australia’s coastline, she’d readily accepted. She’d tried to keep her psychic abilities a secret out here but that became increasingly difficult when she seemed to get mixed up in every murder that had happened in Moonlight Bay since she’d moved here. Her friends—her living friends—Sapphire Moon-Flower and Jean-Paul Devereux both knew her secret, but until now it had only been those two.
Now, Jack Travis knew her secret, too.
Well most of it. But perhaps the uncovering of her psychic abilities and the unwanted attention she had received in the city had not been such a bad thing after all. It had been the catalyst for her moving out to Moonlight Bay to the old family home. She guessed that was just how things work sometimes; something you thought was bad turned out to be the one thing that set you going in the right direction.
In the quiet of the gently cooling evening, the only other sounds besides the crashing of the waves were the gentle snores of Butter. Miranda’s golden retriever was happily chasing rabbits in his sleep again. When Miranda’s visits had become a regular thing, Jack had happily dedicated the exclusive use of a giant pillow to Butter, and the sleepy pooch always dug it out the moment he set paw in Jack’s home. Miranda was glad for that. She didn’t know if she could ever be with Jack Travis if he wasn’t a dog person.
“Oops,” Miranda said, just a second before the wine glass would have touched her lips. She’d nearly forgotten Jack’s toast. “Sorry. What were you going to say?”
He smiled, and lifted his glass. “I was just going to congratulate us both on our two-month anniversary.”
“Do people ordinarily celebrate their two-month anniversary?” Miranda asked playfully, cocking her head to one side.
“Does it matter what other people ordinarily do?” Jack asked in return. “You formally agreed to go out with me two months ago. I think that’s worth celebrating.”
Miranda laughed and held her arm out straight and high, the wine swirling dangerously close to the rim. “To two months together, then.”
Miranda twisted a little on the couch where they were sitting, bringing herself close enough to kiss him without any danger of spilling their drinks.
“Oh,” Kyle said from the far side of the room, “how I wish I had a party horn to blow for the occasion.”
Still enjoying Jack’s wonderful lips on hers, Miranda allowed her eyes to flick harshly over his shoulder just long enough to give Kyle a good dark look. Just because he was a ghost did not give him the right to ruin moments like this for her.
“Ooh, sor-ry!” Kyle said with a comical snarkiness that Miranda chose to ignore entirely.
Butter lifted his head off the pillow long enough to whuff at Kyle. Doggie-speak for ‘shut up.’
“You too?” Kyle moaned.
Kyle Hunter didn’t have to be here. Tall and lanky with a hazy blue aura surrounding his spiritual form, he was invisible to anyone but Miranda. He was a ghost and he could go wherever he wanted to. In fact, after tonight, she was going to have to lay down some ground rules for her dead friend. It was all well and good that other than the few stray ghosts they encountered here in Moonlight Bay it was only Miranda who could see and hear Kyle. Fine. She completely understood not wanting to be all alone. For some reason his spirit had not moved on after death, and he needed a friend.
At the same time, she was not going to have him interrupting her more… private moments with Jack.
When the kiss ended, Jack settled back on the couch, oblivious to the other person in the room “I’ve got to tell you,” he said, “I really think two months with you is worth celebrating. I really like being with you, Miranda.”
“I feel the same, Jack. It means a lot that I could open up to you about… you know, my abilities. I always worry that people will run for the hills when they find out about all of that.”
“Oh?” he teased. “Do you tell all your dates about what you can do?”
She chuckled and sipped at her wine. “Only the ones I plan on spending the night with.”
That brought a goofy smile to his lips. Good. A girl needed to know that she could, um, get a rise out of the man she was dating.
As Miranda smiled back at him she tried her very hardest to ignore Kyle, who was ridiculously humming the Wedding March. Yes. After today, ground rules.
“How is it that someone like you has never gotten married before?” Jack asked.
“Erm…” The question took her by surprise as it came from out of the blue. She felt herself blushing, and hoped she could blame it on the wine.
“Oh, hey,” he laughed. “I didn’t mean to pry. I figured after telling me you can communicate with ghosts and sometimes you get messages from the great beyond, the topic of being single would be easy for you.”
She flicked her eyes over at Kyle again. She hadn’t t
old Jack about him yet, and now the omission seemed like a big fat lie. She’d been meaning to but just couldn’t bring herself to do it. Jack had overheard a partial conversation between herself and Sapphire a few weeks ago when Kyle’s name had been mentioned. Miranda had fully intended to tell Jack all about him when they’d gone to dinner the next night but she found herself chickening out. She wasn’t sure why. When he had asked once again who Kyle was she’d made up a story to cover it but she didn’t feel good about it and the more time that went by without her telling Jack about him the harder it got.
Then again, he had yet to tell her everything about his own past, either. There was something that had happened to him in the past, and she sensed that its scar ran deep. As if that justified her silence.
He’d told her that he used to work at a police department in the Northern Territory, and that he wasn’t exactly welcome back there, but that was where his tale had ended. She was burning with curiosity to know the rest of it but it was his story to tell, and he would do it in his own time.
Just like she would, one day, introduce Jack to Kyle.
“It’s fine,” she said to Jack at last. “Um, to answer your question, I guess I’ve never found the right man for marriage. Someone who would accept me for who I am.”
“Hmm. Interesting. And who are you, Miranda Wylder?”
She laughed softly. “Well. I am a crime novelist. A psychic/medium. A woman who wants to find the love of her life.”
“Are you still looking?” he asked.
With stars in her eyes, she leaned in closer to him again. “Maybe.”
She liked it that he didn’t flinch or turn away from her whenever she mentioned her psychic abilities. She wasn’t used to being accepted for what she was. It let her know that maybe, yes maybe, she had found exactly what she was waiting for in this man, Jack Travis.