Hijacked Honeymoon: A Cozy Witch Mystery (Teas and Temptations Book 10)

by Cindy Stark

  Peter pulled into the drive near the bungalow and shut off the car. He heaved a weighted sigh and turned to her. “Look, I know that we found some potentially good information, but I don’t like that you were in danger to get it.”

  She blinked at him. She’d been certain his anger was from almost being caught and not about her safety. “I’m fine, Peter. We’re both fine.”

  “But what if you weren’t?” he asked pointedly. “I’ve buried one wife. I won’t bury another.”

  Her heart opened to him then. She reached over and took his hand. “Thank you for caring about me. But I’m not Sarah. I’m stronger than her, and I’m not afraid to use my witchcraft to help me.”

  “Witchcraft isn’t going to help you if they put you in jail for trespassing.”

  She wasn’t sure how to explain her feelings to him. “True, but we’d find a way out, if I was arrested. Desperation to help your aunt or something. It wasn’t like we were breaking in to rob Vera. I’m sure I’d get some leniency.”

  He turned his gaze out the windshield ahead of them.

  Mr. Kitty’s purrs rumbled into her soul, giving her peace. He believed in her, and he’d been there to help. Maybe he could see things Peter couldn’t, and Hazel couldn’t regret what they’d done.

  This might be one point she and Peter would never agree on. But she wasn’t sorry for doing something risky that might put a killer in jail.

  She squeezed his hand once and released it. “How about we agree to disagree for now? Let’s go inside and get out of these wet clothes. Then we can what Olive’s journal has to tell us.”

  He nodded and opened his car door.

  A few moments later, they were in comfy clothes and sitting on their bed. She couldn’t miss the unease that still vibrated from him, but she scooted close anyway. He opened Olive’s journal to the last page that had writing.

  Hazel glanced at the date. “Her last entry was the day before her birthday.”

  They both silently read Olive’s words.

  Olive started by complaining about Spencer and how he really needed to stop his whining.

  Peter flipped a page. “She’s not happy with Spencer.”

  Hazel snorted. “Not at all. She says she hadn’t meant to make him cry. I don’t believe it. That’s a callous attitude toward a man she’s supposed to love.”

  “He needs to man up if he thinks I’d even consider marrying him,” Peter continued. “I couldn’t possibly take his name with the way he’s acting. It’s always something. Employees stealing. His brother late with jewelry deliveries. I really can’t stand him, sometimes.”

  “Oh, but look,” Hazel said, pointing to a section halfway down the second page. “Who cares about her problems with Spencer anyway, she says. She has the story of the year.”

  Peter tilted his head closer to the page and frowned. “Alberto?”

  “Poisoning in his previous restaurant in Los Angeles,” she whispered.

  She looked at Peter just as he turned to her. “Alberto isn’t Alberto at all. He’s Giovanni Marsciano.”

  Hazel pulled out her phone and quickly searched his name. “There was an incident at his previous restaurant. Someone accidentally put rat poison in a container instead of sugar. A woman was seriously injured, almost died. It looks like he did some time for that.”

  Peter leaned his head back against the headboard. “After jail, he changed his name and moved to the opposite side of the country to start over. Olive found out.”

  “Yep.”

  “Would that be a good enough motive to kill her?”

  Hazel stared into his green eyes, happy that they were back on the same wavelength again. “Depends. It would probably cost him his livelihood, and if he was guilty of the first poisoning, what would prevent him from doing it again to protect his new life?”

  Peter sighed and shook his head. “Yeah, but would he chance putting his own coffee in that mug? I mean, that’s already led the police to take a second look at him. Do you think they haven’t discovered his previous identity?”

  She wasn’t sure. “You tell me. If he’s only a person of interest, would they delve that deep into his background?”

  He nodded. “If they’re doing their job right, they would. But I guess it’s possible they might still be working on other leads first, and they are a small department.”

  She gave Peter a half smile. “Wanna go to Alberto’s?” she asked mischievously.

  He snorted but smiled. “Aren’t you banned from there?”

  She grinned. “When have I ever let anything like that stop me from going where I want?”

  He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and crushed her against him. “I’m going to have to lock you up, to keep you safe.”

  She chuckled. “Good luck with that. As you well know, I’m an expert at opening locks.”

  He growled and released her. “Let’s get going. I’ll have to figure out how to keep you under control another day. Right now, we have a criminal to catch. Maybe if they haul Alberto off, we can still try the lobster rolls.”

  She sent him a consoling look. “You want to eat in a restaurant owned by a person who may use poison as a weapon?”

  Though Madeline and she had taken that exact chance. Sort of.

  Peter’s smile flatlined. “Thanks for the reminder.”

  Twenty-One

  Nervous excitement bubbled inside Hazel as she stepped from the cloudy, chilly day and past the massive wooden door that Peter held open for her. Scents of fried fish and burgers lingered, leftover from the lunch crowd. Only a few stragglers sat in the mostly empty dining room.

  The same waiter Madeline and she’d had for breakfast came toward them with a smile. Then Fang did a doubletake at Hazel and frowned. He waited until he was within a few feet before he spoke.

  “You can’t be in here. Boss said we’re not to serve you,” he said quietly. “Best to leave without any trouble.”

  Peter cleared his throat, drawing the waiter’s attention. “We’re not here to eat. We’d like to speak with Alberto, if he’s around.”

  Fang’s expression grew wary. “Uh, yeah, sure. Let me go get him.”

  Peter nudged Hazel as Fang walked away. “Troublemaker.”

  She grinned. “Getting kicked out was actually your aunt’s fault, so…”

  The doors from the kitchen pushed open, and Alberto stepped out. His shoulders were rigid and his jaw tight as he approached. “What do you want? If it’s about the other day, I have a right to refuse service.”

  Hazel recognized the same calm reserve Peter employed whenever he wore his police chief uniform. “No, this concerns a different matter. Do you have a minute we could talk in private?”

  Alberto stared at them for a long moment, and his gaze darkened. “I’m pretty busy right now, and I can’t think of anything important you’d have to say to me. So, no. You should go.”

  Hazel wasn’t about to be dissuaded by that lame excuse. “It’s about a certain journal, and the information it contains.”

  He blanched. “Did Vera send you?”

  “Vera?” Peter asked in surprise.

  Alberto ran a nervous hand through his dark, wavy hair, and he shot glances about the room, as though to make sure no one was within hearing distance. “We can talk on the deck.”

  They followed Alberto to the far side of the restaurant and outside where several empty tables waited for patrons. Alberto turned to them, his face now bright red with anger. “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, but I already paid Vera. She’s not getting another dime out of me. If she tries, I’ll tell the police that she hid evidence from them.”

  Hazel blinked in surprise. “Vera blackmailed you?”

  He focused on Hazel, and his anger flipped to fear. “Who are you? I know you’re connected to Madeline. Are you all in on this together, trying to frame me for Olive’s murder?”

  Peter exhaled. “We’re not here to blackmail you. All we want is answers to a few quest
ions. I’m Peter Parrish, police chief of Stonebridge, Massachusetts, and Madeline is my aunt. We’re looking to clear her name.”

  Alberto glanced between them, his eyes wide and serious. “Look, man. I didn’t kill Olive, and I don’t know who did.”

  Hazel had a firm sense that he told the truth. She looked to Peter who briefly met her gaze, and she wondered if he thought the same.

  She opted for a softer tactic. “We know about your history, Alberto. About the poisoning in California.”

  Alberto shook his head repeatedly as tears welled in his eyes. “I didn’t hurt that woman, either. Not directly. One of my employees, a single mom, made a huge mistake and filled a sugar container with a cleaner that we had stored in an unmarked bottle. The granules look the same, and she was new.”

  Peter nodded, indicating that he should continue.

  Alberto sucked in a breath. “Look, I couldn’t let her take the rap for it, not with three kids counting on her. Wouldn’t be right. And ultimately, it’s my job to make sure everything is labeled the right way. If I’d have done that, she wouldn’t have screwed up and put that lady in the hospital.”

  Hazel’s heart softened. “So, you took the blame and did the time?”

  He nodded. “It cost me everything. Business, house, wife. Not that our marriage was any good anyway. But I willingly paid the price. Then I moved out here where people don’t know what happened. I built another business, a damn good one. Cooking is all I know.”

  “Somehow, Olive found out,” Peter added.

  Alberto glanced between them with fear etched on his face. “She wanted to ruin me. I offered to pay to keep her quiet, but she was having none of it. She wanted the glory.”

  In Hazel’s opinion, that information didn’t bode well for Alberto, at all. “And then she was murdered.”

  He nodded again, meeting each of their gazes with a serious one of his own. “I didn’t do it. I swear I didn’t. I’m not a killer, and even if I was, I’m not dumb enough to spike my own coffee. I would want to protect my business, not destroy it, too.”

  “Makes sense,” Peter said. “Do you think someone is trying to frame you?”

  He lifted his hands in despair. “Who, and why would they?”

  Hazel shrugged. “Someone from your past? Maybe the family of the woman who was poisoned?”

  Alberto shook his head. “No. I squared things with them. Apologized as best I could. They knew I wasn’t the one who gave their sister the poison, and I sold my business to pay for her care. They had a lot of sympathy for me, too.”

  Peter folded his arms and shifted his gaze to the river. Hazel knew he was processing, trying to make sense like she was, with the thoughts swirling around in her brain.

  She tilted her head and looked at Alberto. “What about Vera? Did she learn Olive’s secret about you and use it to get rid of her sister, for whatever reason, and blame you?”

  Alberto furrowed his brows. “I don’t know. Maybe. I would like to think she wasn’t that kind of person, but I also never thought she’d blackmail me, either.”

  “Do you know how she ended up with the journal?” Hazel asked.

  He shrugged. “Found it, I guess.”

  Alberto shifted his weight. “Look, I’ve got too much to lose to go to the police with this, and I paid her to keep quiet. All I want is to live a simple life, cook for people, and be left alone. I didn’t hurt Olive even though she wanted to hurt me. If you’re looking for a murderer, you should look somewhere else.”

  Peter studied Alberto for several moments, and Alberto met his gaze square on.

  “Fair enough,” Peter said. “I appreciate you answering our questions.”

  Alberto exhaled a relieved breath and nodded. “Good luck to you. I hope you find whoever did this because it will take the shadow off me, too.”

  The restaurateur paused to swallow. “And then I guess I’ll owe your aunt and this lady here a big apology.”

  Hazel smiled, knowing Madeline would relish the day.

  Alberto walked them to the exit, and they stepped outside into the gray, misty day. Peter held her hand as they strode parallel to the river.

  Hazel glanced up at him. “I don’t think he did it.”

  Peter’s eyes shone with disappointment. “I don’t, either. Which leads us back to square one.”

  She tilted her head from side to side as she weighed the evidence. “Not exactly. We have a lot of information on Vera that doesn’t put her in the best light. At the least, she’s guilty of blackmail.”

  He snorted. “Yeah, but in order for someone to prosecute her for that, the police will need info on how we came into possession of the journal.”

  Son of a crunchy biscuit. There was always something. “Can we plead the fifth on that because we don’t want to incriminate ourselves?”

  He rolled his eyes and chuckled. “Doesn’t that basically incriminate us anyway? The journal was in Vera’s closet, and we now have it. Doesn’t take long to put two and two together.”

  A beautiful sailboat with eye-catching blue and white sails cruised past, momentarily distracting her as it approached one of the footbridges. A bell rang out, and slowly the middle section of the bridge began to lift.

  Cyanide.

  The word popped into her brain and gave her an idea. “Maybe we should come at it from another angle. If Vera was the one who poisoned the coffee, she would need to get the cyanide from somewhere. I don’t think you can go into a store and purchase it off the shelf, so how did she get it?”

  A slow smile crept across Peter’s lips. “Smart thinking.”

  He pulled out his phone and typed potassium cyanide into the search bar. “It’s used in gold mining, organic synthesis, and electroplating. Smaller applications include jewelry for chemical gilding and buffing. Photography…”

  She narrowed her gaze as an interesting bit of information took hold. “You said it’s used in jewelry-making. Did you know that Spencer’s brother makes lots of jewelry for him? The crystal necklaces he has in his shop are his best-selling items.”

  Peter nodded thoughtfully. “Good thinking, detective. Now, we have two more leads.”

  She grinned. “We should stop by Spencer’s Gifts and see if he’s in, since we’re right here, and then pay a visit to Vera.”

  He took her hand. “Let’s do it before all the shops close for the day.”

  Twenty-Two

  Sandpiper Souvenirs appeared empty when Hazel and Peter stepped inside. No shoppers, and the friendly clerk was nowhere to be seen. The massive, colorful array of items kept her eyes busy while she listened for signs of life.

  Hazel glanced back to ensure the open sign was still showing. “I guess we look around until someone comes out,” she said under her breath.

  Peter agreed with a lift of his chin.

  They were there for a good five minutes before noises from the backroom stole Hazel’s attention. She looked around to find Spencer emerging.

  He seemed startled to see them but quickly pasted on a friendly smile that dimmed just as quickly into a sorrowful expression. The whole process took place in an instant, but it awoke her suspicions.

  Spencer headed toward the counter. “Hello again. I’m sorry. I don’t remember your name, but you’re Peter’s wife.”

  He nodded to Peter in acknowledgement, and Peter did the same in return.

  She stepped forward. “Yes. I’m Hazel.”

  Spencer placed his hands, palms down, on the counter. “That’s right. Hazel. Thanks for stopping by my store. It’s been a quiet afternoon. The rain is keeping people away.”

  Hazel offered a warm smile, hoping to put him at ease. “We actually stopped by the other day, too. I purchased one of your gemstone necklaces for a friend back home.”

  Peter stepped up beside her. “Your clerk, a nice older lady was very helpful.”

  “Yes,” Hazel agreed. “She said the necklaces are one of your bestselling items, and I think I may need to purchase another.�
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  “Oh, that’s great,” Spencer said. “They are bestsellers. People love them.”

  Hazel sensed his nerves were frazzled, but she couldn’t tell if that was from grief or guilt. “Doris talked about when she’d been able to tour the factory your brother owns, who makes the chains. Sounds like an interesting process. She said they use cyanide.”

  Spencer stilled. “Really? Cyanide? I didn’t know that.”

  He glanced to the side, and Hazel was certain she’d caught the tell-tale signs of a liar.

  Peter glanced about. “Yeah, I’d heard that was the same thing that killed Olive Beauregard.”

  Spencer’s features remained expressionless, but a whiff of agitation infused the air around them. “I actually had to let Doris go after I discovered she was taking money from the till.”

  Hazel blinked and shifted a quick glance to her husband, hoping to alert him that something was amiss. “That’s interesting. Doris said she started working here because you’d fired someone else for the same reason. Maybe it’s one of your other employees instead?”

  Spencer’s features turned to granite. “Thank you for your concern, but I can manage my business. Was there something I can help you with? You mentioned another necklace.”

  Peter placed a firm hand on Hazel’s back, letting her know he was onboard with whatever might happen. “Yeah, actually,” Peter said. “I didn’t see a citrine crystal. Do you have any in stock?”

  Her new hubby had remembered the name of one of her favorite stones, causing Hazel to beam with pleasure

  Spencer seemed to relax somewhat. “I’m sure I do. Let me check in the back.”

  Peter waited until Spencer had disappeared into the backroom and turned away from the counter. “Seems awfully suspicious,” he said in a low voice.

  A shiver raced through her. “No kidding.”

  “Wish I’d brought my weapon.”