by Morgana Best
Lucas gently turned my wrists over and swore horribly.
“He said he was going to keep me as a hostage, not just for you, Lucas, but as insurance against my parents. Actually, he said he was going to use me to flush them out.” Lucas exchanged glances with the other man. “Lucas, do you think that means my parents are alive?”
“I think it means you were in danger from him, which is what I thought all along,” Lucas said. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.” He ever so gently helped me to the car, and then handed me a flask of Witches’ Brew. The other man had gone into the cottage, after handing Lucas a medical bag.
I gulped the Witches’ Brew greedily. “Lucas, I think Scorpius is in some sort of a group, a cult, even. I think he’s a fanatic. Okay, I’m not explaining this well, but he really hates Shifters, and he thinks vampires are kind of like the supreme beings. Am I making any sense?”
Lucas nodded. “Perfect sense. Now tell me what made you come to that conclusion, while I ice and wrap your ankle.”
The Witches’ Brew was flowing through me, filling my limbs with warmth. I was feeling better already, or I was, until I felt the ice against my ankle. I winced. “Ouch!”
“You were going to tell me what brought you to that conclusion,” Lucas said in an obvious attempt to distract me from the pain in my ankle. He was ever so gentle, but even the feeling of the cold against my ankle brought me pain. I took a deep breath and spoke. “I heard him speaking to someone in the other room.”
Lucas interrupted me. “Someone else was here?”
I nodded, and then winced when the movement jolted my shoulder. “Yes, but I only heard footsteps. I don’t know if it was a man or a woman. Scorpius mentioned his ‘cause,’ and he mentioned people who thought like he did. Plus before that, he told me straight out that Shifters are a mistake of nature.” I stopped speaking, and waited for Lucas to say something.
Lucas raised an eyebrow. “Is there more?”
I took another sip of Witches’ Brew before answering. “Yes. I think Scorpius is the serial killer. I know this might sound far-fetched, but I think he killed those people to make it look like Shifter wolves killed them, to cause trouble for Shifters.”
Lucas exhaled slowly. “Yes, I’m afraid I’ve come to the same conclusion.”
I felt my jaw drop open. “Scorpius Everyman is the serial killer?”
Lucas rubbed his forehead. “Please forgive me, Pepper.”
I was puzzled. “Whatever for?”
“Never in a million years would I have suspected that a Cleaner would do something like this.” He was going to say more; I was sure of that, but the other man came up to us and shot him what looked to me to be a warning look. Lucas introduced us. “Pepper, this is Gregory Fox. We work together at times. Gregory, this is Pepper Jasper, Tom and Maria’s daughter.”
I wondered why Lucas had introduced me this way, and I gave Gregory an appraising look. No doubt he was a Cleaner, too. Then something occurred to me. “How did you know I was here?”
Lucas handed me another flask of Witches’ Brew. “Drink up. Your aunts called me in a panic, saying Scorpius had snatched you.”
“Are they all okay?” I asked him. “Linda too?”
He nodded. “The trouble is, my phone was out of range for a while going over the mountains. When I came into range, a lot of texts from your aunts came through. I collected Gregory and we put our heads together to figure out where Scorpius was.”
I looked around me. “We’re miles from anywhere,” I said.
“When I heard he had taken you, I put two and two together rather rapidly. Pity I didn’t do so earlier,” he added ruefully. “There were rumours…” He broke off as Gregory cleared his throat. “When I suspected Scorpius was the one responsible for all the deaths in this area,” he continued, “I figured he would need a base of operations in an isolated place. We looked at all the sales in the past six months, and found this cottage that was bought in the name of a trust. We traced the trust back to Scorpius.”
“You did all that so fast?” I asked with a mixture of disbelief and admiration.
“One thing led to another,” Lucas said. “Once we realised what was going on, it wasn’t hard to connect the dots.”
“What happens now? Are you going to wait here to ambush him?” I asked Lucas.
Again Gregory shot Lucas a significant look. “He’s probably well gone by now,” Lucas said. “I’d like to take you to a doctor, but…”
“It’s not possible to take you to a doctor or a hospital,” Gregory Fox said firmly. “I’m sure you can understand why. We can’t risk explaining away your injuries, that type of thing.”
“No, it’s fine,” I said nonchalantly, with a wave of my hand. “The last time a murderer attacked me, I refused to go to a hospital, too.”
Gregory Fox’s jaw fell open.
Chapter 21
“All’s well that ends well,” Harry Friar said cheerfully.
“Not for the victim, who happened to be your cousin,” Aunt Agnes pointed out.
Harry’s face flushed red. “Apart from that. At least we now know it was a shark, and that he wasn’t murdered. That’s some consolation.”
I caught Lucas’s eye. He had done a good job of covering up Scorpius Everyman’s murdering spree.
We were sitting in the garden behind Mugwort Manor, sipping Witches’ Brew and eating chocolate. By we, I mean my aunts, Lucas, Linda, and Gregory Fox. Harry Friar had wandered past and invited himself over, which meant we all had to be careful what we said. I hadn’t seen Sam Innis since that night at dinner, but I wasn’t complaining.
“And what do you do, Greg?” Harry asked him.
Gregory narrowed his eyes. “It’s Gregory, and I have a cleaning company.”
Aunt Maude clutched her sides and did her best not to laugh, and succeeded after Agnes elbowed her hard in her ribs. “I don’t usually look like this,” Aunt Agnes said to Gregory for the umpteenth time.
Gregory shifted uncomfortably in his seat, no doubt realising Aunt Agnes was hitting on him. And while she looked old enough to be his grandmother, for all I knew he was the same age as Aunt Agnes, maybe even older, given that he, too, was a vampire. I knew the aunts disguised themselves as elderly ladies, specifically elderly ladies who had let themselves go, but this was the first time I had seen Aunt Agnes regret it. Still, she could hardly reveal herself in her true form, not with Harry there.
Lucas was still downcast, as he had been ever since he had collected me from Scorpius’s beach cottage. He blamed himself for not realising that Scorpius was the perpetrator all along. Of course, I didn’t blame Lucas, but I did think there was something he wasn’t telling me about my parents. As soon as Gregory left, I intended to press Lucas for information.
Word had come that Scorpius Everyman had fled the country. Sure, I was happy that his plan to implicate Shifter wolves as the murderers had been well and truly thwarted, but I was upset that he had escaped. Still, he was now a wanted man. I doubted he would be able to use that ploy anywhere else in the world, and that made me feel better.
The sun was setting, casting a golden glow upon our little group. The scent of the ocean was delightful, but the gentle sea breeze brought with it biting midges, those minuscule flying insects that caused severe itching. And wasn’t that like life? Daily small torments, such as certain internet provider representatives and the like, could cast a blight upon an otherwise happy day.
“But only if we let them,” I said aloud.
“What was that, Valkyrie?” Aunt Agnes said.
I smiled. “I was being philosophical, in an entirely non-philosophical way.”
“Well, you’re making as much sense as a philosopher,” Aunt Dorothy said with feeling.
Aunt Agnes laughed, whether with Dorothy or at Dorothy, I had no idea.
“You know, this reminds me of the end of episodes of Murder She Wrote,” Aunt Maude piped up.
Agnes frowned. “How so, Maude?”
“We were all laughing, just like they all laugh at the end of every episode, after they solve the murder.”
Everyone but Agnes laughed heartily. Lucas caught my eye and smiled, a smile heavy with the promise of things to come. I laughed, too, as I swatted away some midges. This world would never be perfect, and sometimes was downright scary, but I figured that with friends and loved ones around us to care for and support us, things would always turn out okay, after all.
* * *
Connect with Morgana
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Next Book In This Series
Witches’ Magic (Vampires and Wine Book 4)
Witches’ Magic
Since her arrival in Lighthouse Bay, Pepper has faced one adversary after another and come out winning. Yet what happens now will test her faith in everything she thought she knew and everyone she trusted.
Also by Morgana Best
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, a telecommunications centre, 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 aunt’s store and beautiful Victorian house.
Yet has Amelia jumped out of the frying pan into the fire? The store is a cake store, and her aunt was a witch. To add to the mix, the house has secrets all 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?
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?
Note: This book is humorously irreverent in places, so please read only if you won’t be offended.
Christmas Spirit (The Middle-aged Ghost Whisper 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.
SERIES BY MORGANA BEST
Vampires and Wine
1) Witches’ Brew - Now on Audio!
2) Witches’ Secrets - Now on Audio!
3) Witches’ Charms
4) Witches Spells
The Kitchen Witch
1) Miss Spelled - Now on Audio!
2) Dizzy Spells - Now on Audio!
3) Sit for a Spell - Now on Audio!
4) Spelling Mistake - Now on Audio!
5) Ex-Spelled
6) The Halloween Spell
7) Spellcheck
8) The Halloween Love Spell
9) Spell It Out
The Middle-aged Ghost Whisperer
1) Christmas Spirit - Now on Audio!
2) Ghost Hunter
3) There Must be a Happy Medium
Witch Woods Funeral Home
1) A Ghost of a Chance- Now on Audio!
2) Nothing to Ghost About - Now on Audio!
3) Make the Ghost of It
4) Ghost Stories
5) Ghost Blusters
And Morgana’s non-Witch Cosy mysteries:
Cocoa Narel Chocolate Shop Mysteries
1) Sweet Revenge
2) The Sugar Hit
3) Murder Sweetly Served
4) Chocolate to Die For
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
AUDIO. All Morgana’s books are currently being narrated for Audio.
Glossary
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
I have used Australian spelling in this series, so for example, Mum instead of the US spelling Mom, neighbour instead of the US spelling neighbor, realise instead of the US spelling realise. It is Ms, Mr and Mrs in Australia, not Ms., Mr. and Mrs.; cosy and not cozy; 1930s not 1930’s; offence not offense; centre not center; towards not toward; jewellery not jewelry; favour not favor; mould not mold; two storey house not two story house; practise (verb) not practice (verb); odour not odor; smelt not smelled; travelling not traveling; liquorice not licorice; lent not leaned; have concussion not have a concussion; anti clockwise not counterclockwise; go to hospital not go to the hospital; sceptic not skeptic; aluminium not aluminum; learnt not learned. These are just some of the differences.
Please note that these are not mistakes or typos, but correct Aussie spelling and terms.
AUSTRALIAN SLANG AND TERMS
Big Smoke - a city
Blighter - infuriating or good-for-nothing person
Blimey - an expression of surprise
Blue - an argument
Bluestone - copper sulphate (copper sulfate in US spelling)
Bluo - a blue laundry additive, an optical brightener
Boot (car) - trunk (car)
Bonnet (car) - hood (car)
Bunging it on - faking something, pretending
Cark it - die
Come good - turn out okay
Copper, cop - police officer
Coot - silly or annoying person
Drongo - an idiot
Fair crack of the whip - a request to be fair, reasonable, just
Flat out like a lizard drinking water - very busy
Galah - an idiot
(A right galah - a complete idiot)
Garbage - trash
G’day - Hello
Give a lift (to someone) - give a ride (to someone)
Goosebumps - goose pimples
Laundry (referring to the room) - laundry room
Like a stunned mullet - very surprised
Mad as a cut snake - either insane or very angry
Miles - while Australians have kilometres these days, it is common to use expressions such as, “The road stretched for miles,” “It was miles away.”
Mow (grass / lawn) - cut (grass / lawn)
Rousie (Roustabout) - a shed hand at sheep shearing time
Stone the crows! - an expression of surprise
Takeaway (food) - Take Out (food)
Torch - flashlight
Tuck in (to food) - to eat food hungrily
Uni - university. Aussies refer to colleges as residential accommodation at universities.
Ute /Utility - pickup truck
Vegemite - Australian food spread, thick, dark brown
Wardrobe - closet
Indigenous References
Bush tucker - food that occurs in the Australian bush
Koori - the original inhabitants/traditional custodians of the land of Australia in the part of NSW in which this book is set. Murri are the people
just to the north. White European culture often uses the term, Aboriginal people.
About Morgana Best
Best selling Aussie author, Morgana Best, grew up leaving Tim Tams for the fairies at the bottom of her garden. Now she lives with a half-blind Chocolate Labrador who happily walks into doors, a rescue Dingo who steals zucchinis from the veggie patch, and a cat with no time for nonsense. A former college professor, Morgana enjoys big bowls of pasta, not working out, and visiting the local lighthouse, where she tries to spot the white humpback whale.
* * *
Connect with Morgana
Would you like to be a VIP Reader and receive an email when Morgana Best releases a new book? Morgana sometimes gives away free books to her VIP Readers and also runs frequent giveaways. Click here to enter your email! (You will at once be sent a verification email—please click it. It might be in your Spam folder. If you have Gmail, it might be in your Gmail Promotions folder. Please check there. Happy reading!)