by Morgana Best
“You think you’re so smart, but you didn’t know it was me,” she said with smug satisfaction.
“No, we didn’t suspect you at all,” I admitted. “What was your motive? Didn’t you like your grandmother?”
“I liked her fine,” Hemlock said. “She was nicer than my mother, but my mother isn’t going to leave me anything in her will, and Grannie said she was going to leave me a lot. She was lying…” Her voice trailed away, but not before she called Gorgona some very fancy words. “And you didn’t even check my alibi! I flew in from Adelaide a few days before you thought I did.”
That surprised me. “So, you murdered your grandmother for her inheritance, nothing else?”
She looked surprised. “Why else would I murder her?”
“And how did you know about castor beans?”
A superior look crossed her face. “It was on one of my favourite TV shows. Someone had a castor oil plant growing in their garden and they took some beans off it and made poison to kill someone. I couldn’t figure out the instructions online, but I read that if someone chewed a lot of beans, they would die and you know how much Grannie liked coffee!” She chuckled. “Anyway, I replaced most of Grannie’s coffee in her grinder with castor beans. When they’re ground, they’re poisonous, you see.”
I nodded, keeping my eye on the knife.
She glared at me. “How did you know it was castor beans?”
“I stepped on one when I saw you in the cottage that night. It was you, wasn’t it?”
“Who else would it have been? Of course, it was me.”
“I thought it might have been your mother.”
“My mother? What would she be doing out after dark?
“Does your mother know you murdered Gorgona?”
“Honestly, you’re stupid. Of course, she doesn’t know. Why would she know? Sometimes you say stupid things.”
She advanced on me, holding the knife high. Where was Aunt Agnes? She sure was taking her sweet time. I had to keep Hemlock talking.
“So why did you try to burn me in the cottage that night?
“I don’t like you,” Hemlock said. “You’re stupid.”
“And you don’t have a very large vocabulary,” I countered.
“What you mean by that?” Hemlock looked confused.
I took the opportunity to look around the room once more for a weapon. Over the kitchen table was a freestanding lamp. Although I had an office in my cottage, I often sat at the kitchen table, and as the lighting there was poor, I used the freestanding lamp. It was metal. I jumped up and grabbed it.
Hemlock looked surprised. I don’t think it occurred to her that I’d fight back.
She ran at me, the knife held high. She struck at me. I think she had been imbibing too many illegal substances because her aim was bad.
I brought the freestanding lamp down hard on her arm, causing the knife to fly from her grasp. Just then, Aunt Agnes burst through the door. Breena was in human form and wearing a bathrobe.
“Hemlock is the murderer!” I exclaimed. I pushed Hemlock to the ground and pinned her arms behind her back. “Why did you take so long?”
“I couldn’t find USBs anywhere. While I was looking, Dorothy went to check on them and found Maude was fast asleep and Hemlock wasn’t there,” Aunt Agnes told me.
“Hemlock said Jezabeth didn’t know she was the one who murdered Gorgona,” I told them. “She did it for the inheritance.”
“And youse didn’t suspect me,” Hemlock said. “I fooled youse all.”
“Tell it to the Cleaner,” Aunt Agnes said, pulling Hemlock to her feet.
A look of pure fear passed across Hemlock’s face.
Chapter 21
“I just don’t see why he gets to pee in the garden and I don’t,” Breena said as she scratched behind her ear. She was looking at Cary, the Dachshund, as he did his business beneath a flower bush.
“He’s a puppy, Breena,” I said. It was the fifth time I was having this conversation with Breena. Not that I minded. I am sure many people had to explain to drunken uncles who hadn’t once been cats that peeing in the garden was unacceptable.
But Breena didn’t seem to hear. “He’s not even related to you and he gets all this special treatment.”
I exhaled sharply. “Fine. If you like, you can sneak out here after dark and tinkle on the roses then.”
“You absolutely cannot,” Aunt Agnes said stiffly. “They are my roses, and if anyone is going to tinkle on them, it will be me.”
“No one is tinkling on any roses,” Aunt Maude replied.
“Not unless you’re a puppy,” Breena muttered bitterly.
“Exactly. If you somehow get turned into a puppy by an evil vampire-witch next time, then you can pee in the garden,” Aunt Dorothy said.
Breena did not seem totally content with this, but she lapped her lemonade from her glass.
I reclined in the chair, rubbing my temples. It was a little cool in the garden, twilight gathering around us with the moths and mosquitoes. I hardly wanted to think about the case I had just solved, since it had given me a crashing headache, so I felt a warm rush of relief when Cary padded over and started to lick my ankles.
“Stop it,” I said, trying to shoo away the Dachshund when his licks turned to little nips, but that only seemed to make him more determined. “My ankles are not that interesting, Cary.”
“I beg to differ,” said a voice.
I whipped around. “Lucas!”
Laughing, I sprang from my chair and tossed myself into his arms, relaxing as I caught a familiar whiff of cinnamon and sandalwood, the cologne Lucas liked to wear. I felt the warmth of his hands through my thin cotton top, and I grinned.
“I’m gone for two seconds and you find yourself in mortal danger. I can never leave again.”
“To be fair,” I replied as Lucas released me from his strong grip, “I often find myself in mortal danger when you are around, too.”
“Err, why is Breena squatting over there by the rose bushes?” Lucas replied, scratching his head.
“No!” Aunt Maude cried. She jumped to her feet, knocking over the garden table and scaring Cary.
“She has decided that if the puppy gets to pee in the bushes then so does she,” I explained, slightly embarrassed. But if Lucas didn’t realise my family was a bit kooky by now, then there really was no hope for our relationship.
“Seems reasonable,” Lucas replied. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “Want to go for a walk along the beach?”
“Yes,” I cried a little too loudly.
“Take Cary,” Aunt Maude said, handing Lucas the puppy’s leash. “I think Breena is a little jealous of him.”
Ten minutes later, Lucas and I found ourselves walking barefoot along the sand, the slight evening breeze occasionally whipping the hair out of my eyes. Now that Lucas was home, I felt as though I could breathe again, truly breathe, like I did when I was a child, riding a bike down the lane. It wasn’t the calm sort of breathing celebrities talked about on late night talk shows, the type of breathing that quietened all the questions running through their heads. It was the kind of breathing that was accompanied by a swoop in the stomach and the prickle of nervous anticipation on the skin. The type of breathing suggesting that something big was coming and you better hold on for the ride, kid.
I wiped the sand out of my eyes, taking great pains to avoid my carefully applied eyeliner. When I got home, I would have a cat woman who wanted to pee on the roses, an aunt who refused to wear her glasses, and another two aunts who were bigger handfuls than a couple of toddlers. But for now, I had the beach and the twilight and the man I loved walking by my side.
It was stressful being a modern woman. On top of worrying about gut health, celery juice, probiotics, crystal infused water, organic produce, and climate change, I also had to worry about murder. I bet Gwyneth Paltrow never had a distant relative turned into a cat in order to spy on the family. Or maybe she did. Hollywood was, after all,
a weird place.
“What are you thinking about?” Lucas said as he held me close.
“I’m glad you’re back,” I said, and my stomach twisted. I hadn’t experienced butterflies like this since I was a teenager.
“I’m glad I’m back too,” Lucas replied, as our lips met.
Connect with Morgana
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Also by Morgana Best
ALL MORGANA BEST BOOKS ARE COZY MYSTERIES
Sea Witch Cozy Mysteries: Four Book Box Set
USA Today Best-selling series
Goldie Bloom has four problems: her boss, her boyfriend, the fact they are the same person, and the fact that person is cheating on her.
After discovering she has inherited an old home on the Gold Coast waterfront, this murder solving Aussie sea witch packs up her collection of 5 inch stilettos and moves.
She's not expecting to move in with a room mate named Persnickle, just as she was not expecting to trip over a dead body on her first day.
Is she the intended victim, and can she really be arrested for drinking coffee?
This Box Set has 4 books:
1) Broom Mates (novella)
2) Broom With A View (full length novel)
3) Broom For One More (full length novel)
4) Broomed for Success (full length novel)
Available individually: Book 5) Broom Service.
Miss Spelled (The Kitchen Witch Book 1)
Amelia Spelled has had a bad week. Her boyfriend dumps her when she inadvertently gives him food poisoning. Her workplace fires all their staff as they are outsourcing offshore, and she is evicted due to smoke damage resulting from her failed attempts at baking. Amelia thinks her luck has changed when she inherits her estranged aunt’s store, two mysterious cats, and beautiful Victorian house.
Yet has Amelia jumped out of the frying pan into the fire? To Amelia's dismay, the store is a cake store, and she discovers that her aunt was a witch. To add to the mix, the house has secrets of its own.
When a man is murdered in the cake store, will Amelia be able to cook up a way to solve the crime? Or will her spells prove as bad as her baking?
Australian Witch Box Set: Prequels to Miss Spelled: Two Witch Cozy Mysteries
Set in 1936-7, these 2 witch cozy mystery novellas feature Amelia Spelled's aunt.
1: Witch Christmas (20,000 words) (Formerly appeared in an anthology as A Chemistree of Witches)
It's Christmas Day, 1936. Newlyweds, Thelma and Wolff Spelled, are enjoying their gifts to one another, two cute kittens, when a neighbour comes to seek their help. Mavis’s husband has been missing for a year, and police have just now found his body.
When Thelma attempts to solve the case with magic, all she brews up is trouble.
With rival witch, Jasmine Walters, making eyes at Wolff, can Thelma keep Jasmine at bay, solve the murder, and be home in time for Christmas dinner?
2: A Witch in Time (10,000 words)
Thelma Spelled finds a body in her garden. The detective who attends the scene asks her to make a statement at the police station. When she arrives, the desk sergeant informs her the crime happened many years earlier. Thelma soon finds herself in the midst of Indigenous Australian magic.
Can Thelma solve the crime while holding onto her sanity, and her husband?
Can she thwart the evil intentions of rival witch Jasmine, or will she remain a witch in time?
A Ghost of a Chance (Witch Woods Funeral Home Book 1)
Nobody knows that Laurel Bay can see and talk to ghosts. When she inherits a funeral home, she is forced to return from the city to the small town of Witch Woods to breathe life into the business. It is a grave responsibility, but Laurel is determined that this will be no dead-end job.
There she has to contend with her manipulative and overly religious mother, more than one ghost, and a secretive but handsome accountant.
When the murder of a local woman in the funeral home strangles the finances, can Laurel solve the murder?
Or will this be the death of her business?
Christmas Spirit (The Middle-aged Ghost Whisperer, Book 1)
Prudence Wallflower tours the country, making live appearances. She connects people with loved ones who have passed on. However, her reputation as a clairvoyant medium is failing, and even Prudence has begun to doubt herself. She has never seen a ghost, but receives impressions from the dead. This all changes when the ghost of a detective appears to her and demands her help to solve a murder. Prudence finds herself out of her depth, and to make matters worse, she is more attracted to this ghost than any man she has ever met.
A Tale of Mer-der (His Ghoul Friday, Book 1)
Aussie journalist Misty Friday has several problems, not the least of which is her name.
Misty's mean boss sends her to an island resort in the Great Barrier Reef to investigate a paranormal event, but mermaids and murder throw her off the track.
When Misty makes waves, she attracts the attention of the murderer and one mysterious stranger. Will Misty get to the bottom of this, or are there too many red herrings?
Live and Let Diet (The Australian Amateur Sleuth, Book 1)
NON paranormal cozy mystery
Sybil Potts moves to Little Tatterford, a small town in the middle of nowhere in Australia, seeking to find peace and quiet after the upheaval of her divorce.
Although the town is sleepy and nothing has ever happened, her arrival coincides with a murder in the property adjacent to her cottage. Sybil soon finds she is at odds with the attractive Blake Wessley, the exasperated police officer who is trying to solve the murder.
After Sibyl narrowly misses becoming the next victim, she turns her attention to the suspects. Is it the English gentleman, Mr Buttons, who serves everyone tea and cucumber sandwiches, or her landlord, Cressida Upthorpe, who is convinced that her fat cat, Lord Farringdon, speaks to her? Or is it someone else entirely?
Sweet Revenge (Cocoa Narel Chocolate Shop Mysteries, Book 1)
NON paranormal cozy mystery
Narel Myers was given the ironic name Cocoa Narel by the cruel popular kids in high school, as she was far from elegant and was obsessed with chocolate. The truth of the matter was that her love of eating chocolate had caused her to become excessively overweight. Some years later, a car wreck leads to her undergoing extensive plastic surgery on her face and body. Now that she is medically unable to gain weight, she decides to indulge her love for chocolate by opening a designer chocolate shop.
When people who bullied her at high school are murdered one by one, she becomes the prime suspect. Will she be able to prove her innocence when the police think she’s out for revenge?
Will Carl, her best friend, stop flirting with the police long enough to help her find the real killer?
SERIES BY MORGANA BEST
The Kitchen Witch
1) Miss Spelled
2) Dizzy Spells
3) Sit for a Spell
4) Spelling Mistake
5) ExSpelled
6) The Halloween Spell
7) Spellcheck
8) The Halloween Love Spell
9) Spell It Out
10) Wedding Spells
11) The Halloween Pumpkin Spell
12) Sweet Spell of Success
13) The Halloween Onesie Spell
14) Christmas Spells
Witches and Wine
1) Witches’ Brew
2) Witches’ Secrets
3) Witches’ Charms
4) Witches Magic
5) Witches’ Spells
6) Witches’ Craft
7) Witches’ Cat
First 3 Books available in Box Set:
Witches and Wine: Box Set: Books 1-3
The Middle-aged Ghost Whisperer
1) Christmas Spirit
2) Ghost Hunter
3) The
re Must be a Happy Medium
4) Coming Soon!
Witch Woods Funeral Home
1) A Ghost of a Chance
2) Nothing to Ghost About
3) Make the Ghost of It
4) Ghost Stories
5) Ghost Blusters
6) Give up the Ghost
First 4 Books available in Box Set:
Witch Woods Funeral Home: Box Set: Books 1 - 4
His Ghoul Friday
1) A Tale of Mer-der
2) The Witching Hour
3) Arts and Witchcrafts
4) Make Some Magic
5) Witch Hunt
And Morgana’s non-magic Cozy mysteries:
Cocoa Narel Chocolate Shop Mysteries
1) Sweet Revenge
2) The Sugar Hit
3) Murder Sweetly Served
4) Chocolate to Die For
First 3 Books available in Box Set:
Cocoa Narel Chocolate Shop Mysteries: Box Set: Books 1-3
The Australian Amateur Sleuth
1) Live and Let Diet
2) Natural-Born Grillers
3) Dye Hard
4) The Prawn Identity
5) Any Given Sundae
6) The Last Mango in Paris
First 3 Books available in Box Set: