Spell Found (Blackmoore Sisters Cozy Mysteries Book 7)

by Leighann Dobbs

  “It sounded like it was right here on the fire escape,” Celeste said.

  “Merow!”

  Jolene pulled her head in and stood back to let her sister look out. “There’s nothing down there. Just an old broom. Maybe it was on the fire escape and fell down.”

  Morgan grimaced. “Maybe.”

  Jolene didn’t think her sister looked convinced.

  Fiona said dismissively, “I think you guys are being paranoid. Who would be spying on us? No one even knows we're here, besides Luke, Jake and Cal,” Fiona rattled off their boyfriends' names.

  “Well, there is one other person,” Morgan said.

  “Who?”

  “That woman from Eye of Newt. We asked where she got the crystals and stones from so maybe she put two and two together and figured we would come here.”

  “But why would she follow us? She could come here herself. She already knew the stone was from Amity Jones’ estate.”

  Morgan shrugged. “I have no idea why she would follow us, but if it’s not her then who else knows we're here and why would they be lurking outside our window?”

  4

  They ate breakfast in their kitchenette. They'd brought a few things from home, like coffee, milk, cereals, and Celeste's healthy flaxseed, cottage cheese and wheatgrass juice. They didn't linger over their coffees because they’d gotten up late and they had an appointment to keep.

  On the way to the SUV, they passed the hotel owner. He was using the broom they’d seen laying in the alley the night before to sweep dirt out of the lobby onto the street. “You girls have a nice day. I hope you’ve got that cat of yours crated up there.”

  “Yes, of course. We don’t leave her out.” Morgan crossed her fingers behind her back. They always instructed the hotel staff they didn't want housekeeping and left Belladonna out to do as she pleased. If they didn’t, she’d just escape anyway and besides, they knew she would never do any damage.

  The man glanced up towards their room. “I thought I saw her in the window.”

  “No, must’ve been just a shadow.”

  He nodded, watching them under hooded eyes as they walked to their SUV.

  Jolene got the GPS map working on her smartphone so she directed Morgan west, through the town, toward Amity Jones’ house. As they meandered through the streets, Jolene pointed out various museums, houses and restaurants, all seemingly set up to cater to the witch-seeking tourist trade. “Boy, this place really is into the witchcraft.”

  “Tourist trap. Every business is trying to capitalize on the history of the town.” Fiona’s head turned as they drove by something that caught her eye. “Though I wouldn’t mind trying out the Toil and Trouble Ice Cream Parlor.”

  “You do owe me an ice cream,” Jolene reminded her sister.

  Morgan followed the GPS map and turned onto a side street that headed away from the center of town. Fifteen minutes later they found themselves on an isolated road flanked by thick forest on either side. Giant oak trees lined the road, their leaves creating a canopy overhead which shaded the car from the heat of the day.

  The late Amity Jones’ house was actually a small cottage. Faded dark brown shakes decorated the exterior. The paint peeled and bubbled on the white trim. A shutter hung cockeyed from a front window. The lawn was overgrown.

  It might have given Celeste the creeps if it wasn’t for the sunlight filtering through the trees in happy dancing dots and the birds chirping cheerily. An old Volvo sat parked in the driveway. When they pulled up behind it, she said, “Looks like she’s here.”

  The sisters picked their way through the weeds up the path and onto the porch. The front door was open. A screen door, the mesh torn and drooping down in one corner, was the only thing barring entry.

  Morgan tapped her fist on the screen door's frame. “Nancy? It’s me, Morgan Blackmoore. We talked on the phone. I brought my three sisters.”

  Silence.

  Morgan knocked louder. “Nancy?”

  “Should we just go in?” Jolene nodded at the open door. “Maybe she's in the attic and left the door open so we could just come in.”

  The hinges squeaked as Morgan slowly open the screen door. They saw that the inside of the cottage wasn’t in much better shape than the outside. Wallpaper peeled down from the water-stained ceiling in a few spots. Squares of worn, wooden flooring peeked out from a layer of dust indicating where furniture once stood. “Nancy! We’re here!” Morgan yelled so as to alert Nancy that someone else was in the house.

  Celeste knew Morgan didn’t like just walking into someone’s home and neither did she. She looked around in the corners hoping Amity’s ghost would appear, but was left disappointed when she didn’t see even a hint of swirling mist. She pushed down feelings of inadequacy.

  Though she knew that the information she got from ghosts had been instrumental in helping them in other cases, she still felt like she didn’t pull her weight—especially when it came to altercations with opposing paranormals. Her karate expertise allowed her to kick butt with regular people, but she no matter how powerful or well placed, a karate kick was no match for a paranormal evildoer with an energy gun.

  She hated having to depend on her sisters to fight off the bad guys. The least she could do was make up for it by playing a bigger role in gathering information. But she couldn’t do that if ghosts refused to show up.

  Unlike Morgan, Jolene had no qualms about wandering around and opening the drawers of the few pieces of furniture that were left. She turned to Celeste. “What do you think? Will we see Amity’s ghost?”

  Celeste’s spirits sunk even lower. “I’ve dialed up my senses but I don’t think there are any ghosts here.”

  The girls normally shut down the senses that allowed them to make full use of their gifts. It was too much of a drain to be always ‘on’ when it came to energy sensitivity. They only dialed up their powers on certain occasions.

  “There are a lot of energy streams here,” Jolene said. “Maybe one of them will tell me something.”

  “Nancy!” Morgan’s voice was tinged with worry. “Nancy isn’t answering, but her car is here. I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

  Jolene stopped her snooping in the doorway to the next room. She said in a small voice, “I don’t think Nancy is going to answer.”

  Celeste, Fiona and Morgan ran to Jolene’s side. The doorway was to a kitchen that hadn’t been updated since the 1950s. The counters were white and gold speckled laminate edged with a strip of aluminum. The pine cupboard doors and drawers hung open. The utensils, plates, cups and saucers that had presumably occupied the cupboards and drawers sat piled on a rickety kitchen table.

  But Jolene wasn’t looking at any of that. Her eyes were trained on the green and black tiled floor where a lifeless woman was on her back with a letter opener stuck in her chest.

  5

  “No!” Fiona raced to the body, knelt down and felt for a pulse. Nothing. Fiona's hand went instinctively to the carnelian stones she kept in her pocket. The stones had proven to have immense powers of healing at other times. But it was too late. The woman was already gone and the healing stones weren’t powerful enough to bring someone back from the dead.

  “She’s dead?” Celeste’s eyes drifted sadly from Fiona to the body.

  Fiona nodded. She saw Celeste's eyes dart around the room as if looking for something. Fiona realized her sister was looking for the ghost of the woman on the floor. Sometimes ghosts appeared at the time of death, but usually Celeste didn’t see them until much later. “Any sign of her?”

  “No.” Celeste shook her head.

  “That’s too bad.” Morgan pointed at the wound that had to have happened face to face. “Her ghost could tell us who killed her.”

  “And why,” Jolene added.

  “Maybe this is why.” Morgan knelt down, gently opened the dead woman’s hand, and plucked something small out of it. She held it for the others to see.

  It was a torn scrap of paper with bla
ck markings on it.

  “She was holding something in her hand when she was killed.” Celeste stated the obvious.

  “Something that the killer grabbed.” Jolene looked over the piece of paper. “He must not have realized that he left this scrap behind. What do you think it’s from?”

  “I don’t know, but I think it's important enough for us to keep, and that we'd better call the police,” Morgan said.

  Jolene sighed. “Maybe we should look around a little bit first.” She glanced down at the body ruefully. “I mean, I know a woman is dead, but this will probably be our only chance to look for clues to the relic that might be inside this house.”

  “Seems like the killer probably took the clue.” Celeste pointed to the scrap of paper that Jolene was putting carefully into her front pocket.

  “Maybe there are more clues.” Fiona glanced around. The house was nearly empty with just a few sticks of furniture. What could possibly be still here?

  Morgan narrowed her eyes. “Maybe.” She gnawed on her bottom lip.

  Fiona knew her sister was dialing up her senses, heightening the power of her gift of intuition. Maybe she would be able to get a sense of what happened. Fiona could see Jolene doing the same, probably searching the house for energy patterns. Fiona looked at Celeste and shrugged. Neither of them had the types of gifts that would give them insight into what had happened here or what Amity Jones knew about the relic.

  Jolene’s eyes raked over the body, following a path from the body to the front door. “There’s some kind of unusual energy trail. It has a distinctive marker. A yellow and red pattern.”

  “From the killer. Was she killed by a paranormal?” Fiona asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Jolene said.

  They looked at the body. The poor woman didn’t appear to have been killed using paranormal methods. In fact, the letter opener sticking out of her chest seemed to indicate she’d been killed in a very old-fashioned way.

  The sisters quickly poked around the house, opening drawers, looking in all the rooms. Jolene even went up to the attic where she found two boxes, but neither one contained anything helpful. There was nothing in the house that gave them even the slightest clue as to what kind of relic they were looking for.

  “We'd better call the cops now,” Celeste said. “Someone might have seen us drive out here, and we don’t want someone telling the cops we were here for hours before calling them.”

  Morgan made the 911 call then they went out to wait on the front steps.

  It didn’t take long for three police cars to pull up. A tall, thin man got out of one of them. His tired eyes in his haggard face regarded them with suspicion. “I’m Detective Peterson. Who's the person who called this in?”

  “I am,” Morgan answered.

  “And you say there’s a body in there? How do you know?” He eyed warily the cottage's open front door.

  “We had an appointment with a Nancy Bauman.” Morgan nodded at the door. “The door was open, just as you see it now, and we thought we were meant to go in. We found a woman's body in the kitchen, and we're guessing it's her.”

  Detective Peterson gestured for the cops and crime scene crew to go in. As they streamed past the girls, Peterson asked, “And just how do you know she was murdered?”

  Morgan winced. “It’s pretty obvious when you see the body.”

  “And since you were in there, I suppose your fingerprints will be all over the place." His eyes narrowed. "You young ladies don’t seem too upset at finding a dead body. Just what is your business here?”

  Fiona answered, trying not to sound defensive, “We had an appointment to look at some of Nancy’s late aunt’s things. We bought some crystals that belonged to her estate, earlier this week.”

  Jolene added helpfully, “The woman who lived here was a famous crystal and gemstone collector, Amity Jones. Her niece, who we assume is the one in there, was handling the estate.”

  Peterson waved a hand impatiently. “Yes, yes, I know all about that. You girls stay out here." His eyes narrowed again. And don’t leave.” He pushed past them up the steps muttering, “I hope you didn’t mess up the crime scene.”

  “Well, we might as well look around out here while they’re doing their thing inside,” Jolene announced as she jumped up eagerly.

  “Look for what?” Fiona asked in surprise.

  Jolene shrugged. “Evidence? I don’t know why Nancy was killed, but if it had something to do with our gemstone then the killer might be a person of interest to us. Best we know as much as we can.”

  They spread out over the front yard.

  Fiona looked for physical evidence since her gifts didn’t run toward having any kind of insight into the paranormal. Celeste looked for signs of an otherworldly presence. Morgan used her intuition to try to get a line on the killer. Jolene checked out energy patterns.

  Jolene pointed toward the front path. “The same paranormal trail is here. The killer came in through the front door.”

  “Does that mean Nancy knew the killer?” Morgan wondered aloud.

  “Maybe the killer had an appointment like we did,” Celeste offered.

  Fiona raised a brow. “Someone else looking for whatever information Amity had on the relic?”

  “Possibly.” Morgan’s eyes drifted to the house. “I do sense a lot of disturbance, but nothing that tells me anything definitive.”

  “I just wish I could help out by talking to one of the women's ghosts but nobody’s coming through,” Celeste said.

  “Hey, what’s that?” Jolene’s eyes were focused on the overgrown woods that sat just at the edge of the front yard.

  Fiona looked over to see … a flapping, black cape?

  In a flash, Jolene was off and running. Fiona followed, reaching into her pocket to assure herself that the stones she used as energy-infused weapons were there at the ready.

  “Over there!” Morgan pointed to the left and the girls spun in that direction.

  Meow!

  They skidded to a stop in front of a large black cat with glowing amber eyes. It was a fluffy cat almost exactly like the one that had been in the Eye of Newt shop.

  Fiona scanned the horizon. There was no other sign of movement. “I guess it was just this cat.”

  “I only saw a flash of black but I thought it looked like a cape. Must’ve been mistaken.” Jolene scratched the cat behind his ears and was rewarded with a loud purr and a rub against her leg.

  Morgan and Celeste joined them. “I hope she isn’t a stray.” Celeste rubbed her hands along the cat’s ribs. “She’s well fed and her fur looks well groomed, so it looks like she’s well taken care of.”

  The cat shot out her front paw, whacking at a pair of orange fire newts nestled in the damp leaves. The newts scurried away and the cat followed, pouncing on them and then letting them escape again.

  "I guess she's just out here playing in the woods," Fiona said. She turned back towards the house. They hadn’t gone far, but she couldn’t see much of the house because there were so many trees in the woods. “We'd better go back. Detective Peterson might be looking for us.”

  “Yeah. I don’t want to give him any reason to be suspicious of us, especially if he guesses that Nancy had something in her hand. He’s going to wonder where that is.” Jolene patted her pocket.

  Fiona grimaced. “They’ll assume the killer took whatever was in her hand.”

  They cleared the woods to find Peterson standing before the house, his mouth pursed in a hard line. “I thought I told you young ladies not to leave.”

  “Sorry,” Morgan said. “We saw someone in the woods and we thought maybe it was the killer so we gave chase.”

  Peterson’s eyes darted over the woods. “That’s funny. I don’t remember deputizing you. I hope you don’t think you’re going to be working this case. In fact, the four of you are persons of interest in the murder of Nancy Bauman, so I suggest you refrain from doing any amateur sleuthing.”

  The screen door opene
d and two men with 'Coroner's Department' written on the backs of their jackets brought the body out on a gurney. Everyone watched silently as it was wheeled down the front path. A policeman on the porch unrolled yellow crime scene tape.

  Peterson turned back to the sisters. “I’m going to need statements from you. We need a few more minutes to go through the house but after that, I’ll see you over by my car … and this time, don’t leave the yard.” He ambled off toward the house.

  The girls looked at each other, all fellow persons of interest.

  “Well, at least he didn’t mention her hand,” Jolene whispered.

  “Right, and it makes sense that he would be suspicious of us. I don’t think he knows that we took anything,” Celeste added softly.

  “That’s good, but unfortunately we’re no better off than we were this morning,” Morgan said. “In fact we’re worse off, because now we don’t even have Nancy to talk to and we didn’t learn anything new.”

  “You’re wrong about that,” Fiona said. “We did learn one thing new. Whoever killed Nancy is quite likely after the same thing we are and they won’t hesitate to kill in order to get it.”

  6

  After leaving Amity Jones’ house, the girls headed back to the hotel. They sat around the small table in the kitchenette sipping freshly made French Press coffees while discussing their next move.

  “Meerow. Hiss.”

  “What’s the matter, Belladonna?” Morgan asked.

  “She’s probably mad that we didn’t bring her with us,” Fiona said.

  “Sorry. We can’t very well bring you visiting to a stranger's house,” Morgan explained.

  Belladonna ignored Morgan, deciding instead to take an interest in sniffing Celeste’s hand. After a few sniffs, she glared up at her and hissed. Then she turned her back and trotted into Celeste’s bedroom.