by Tegan Maher
Sweet Murder
Witches of Keyhole Lake - Book 1
Tegan Maher
© 2017 Tegan Maher
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form, by any means electronic or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system currently in use or yet to be devised.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or institutions is entirely coincidental.
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Contents
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Thank you!
Sneak Peek of Murder to the Max
About Teegan
Dedication
I may have written this book, but there’s an army of people responsible for helping me get there.
First, to John, for helping me find the courage to come out swinging.
To Tammi Labrecque, Heather Horrocks, and Danielle Garrett—for being exactly who you are, and for sharing your lives, your knowledge, and your friendship. Your generous spirits inspire me.
Finally, to Dustin, for always being there and always being you. I love you always!
Chapter 1
Using the hem of my apron, I pulled the last batch of blueberry turnovers out of the oven and slid them onto the counter to cool. They were an even, golden brown, and a quick poke with a fork assured me the crust was light and flaky.
Perfect. The customers at Brew4U, my best friend and cousin Raeann's coffee shop, were going to eat them up. And that was good, because right now every few bucks mattered.
Speaking of money—I glanced at the clock on the microwave, and that cold, I’m-gonna-be-late feeling swept over me. As always, time had gotten away from me while I was baking; I had about fifteen minutes to get to work. Panicked, I turned the oven off with a wave of my hand, then bolted into the laundry room and pulled my server's apron and work shirt out of the dryer. I changed into the tank top on my way through the living room, grabbed my purse, and bolted out the front door.
And nearly face-planted when I tripped over our miniature donkey, Max, who was napping at the bottom of the steps.
"Watch it, you big clod,” he snapped. “Maybe I shall kick you in the head the next time you’re napping." He yawned widely, taking most of the intimidation factor out of the threat.
"If I were sleeping at the bottom of the steps, I'd expect to get kicked in the head," I said over my shoulder as I recovered and headed toward Bessie, my faded blue, shabby-chic 1984 F-150. Yes, shabby-chic is code for "POS." Don't judge me; it's paid for.
And yes, the donkey talks, but we'll get to that a little later. Trust me,— after you meet him, you'll be glad for the delay.
I slid into the truck, yelping and lifting my hips when the backs of my thighs hit the searing-hot cracked leather seat. I pushed my apron under my legs and settled back gingerly, then, with an encouraging pat to the dashboard, I cranked the key. Bessie coughed and wheezed a little, but surprised me yet again when she caught and roared to life. Another check in the win column for the day. I backed out of the yard and headed down the driveway to the main road, admiring the late-morning view.
Even with my window down, the temperature inside the truck was just this side of hellfire, so I reached across the seat and cranked the passenger window down, too. Midsummer in southern Georgia was brutal. The AC in the truck had gone out a few months back and, unfortunately, fixing it didn't even make the top twenty on the laundry list of priorities that demanded a chunk of my check.
Still, as I rumbled out of the yard and drove past the horses grazing in the pasture, I figured I didn’t have a whole lot to complain about in the scheme of things. No matter how many times I traveled our mile-long driveway, I never got tired of it. Ancient oak trees draped with Spanish moss lined both sides, forming a canopy of leaves and limbs that speckled the shaded dirt road with bits of sunlight.
I breathed a sigh of relief as I entered the tunnel of shade and the interior of the truck finally dropped somewhere below the melting point of flesh.
Just as I turned onto the main road, I spotted a couple of deer out of the corner of my eye. When I tapped the brakes in case they decided to run out in front of me, the pedal felt spongy. Since my house sat on an overlook outside of town, much of my drive was a steady, winding descent; brakes weren't exactly optional, so I tested them again.
I was coming up on the first of several hairpin turns, so when the pedal went clear to the floor, so did my heart. Cold fingers of panic raced down my spine as I stomped on it again, then a third time, to no avail. The truck picked up speed, and as I bounced and rattled toward my demise over potholes that now felt like craters, I had only one thought: How on earth was Raeann going to finish raising my hellion of a little sister without strangling her or hexing her into a convent?
You heard right—I said "hex." We're witches, which you’d think would have come in handy right about then. You'd be right, except I was too freaked out—and busy trying not to die—to pull any magic together.
I managed to make it around the first curve, but there was another a quarter of a mile ahead. If I dropped off the road there, I would careen about three hundred yards down a steep slope and fly over a cliff into a granite quarry — assuming I didn't meet my maker by smashing headlong into a tree before then.
Adrenaline flooded my body, and I felt like I was wearing boxing gloves as I did my best to wrangle the truck into the turn. I was almost home-free, too, when the passenger-side tire dropped off the steep berm, blew with a tremendous bang, and jerked the truck off the road.
After that, it was all over but the crashing.
The truck plowed through the brush at the edge of the road and kept rumbling right on over the edge. My skull thunked off the doorframe and the forward momentum shoved my knees into the dash—in the ’80s, seatbelts weren't quite what they are now. The sound of rocks and bushes scraping the undercarriage harmonized perfectly with the terror raking over my nerves.
My head whipped forward and cracked on the steering wheel, and my seatbelt finally caught. I came so close to a giant oak that it ripped my mirror off and flung it into the truck. I scrunched my eyes shut and threw my arms up to defend my face from the incoming debris.
Then, just when I'd resigned myself to a bone-crushing demise, the truck lurched to an abrupt stop.
For a few seconds, I was afraid to open my eyes, then I was afraid
not to. Metal groaned and I reached forward with shaking hands to shut the truck off. I poked my head out the window to see what had stopped my descent to certain death—or at least extreme agony and disfigurement—and saw that a little maple tree about eight inches thick was wedged between my rear bumper and the body of the truck.
Bessie slid a bit, so I didn't waste any more time. I opened the door and jumped from the cab, releasing a sigh of epic proportions as I landed relatively unscathed in the soft grass. I grabbed my purse from the floorboard and just left the door hanging open, scared the movement would send the truck the rest of the way over the hill. The last thing I needed was to completely lose my transportation, and there was no way I had enough magical mojo right then to pull it back up the hill. That trick would have been a stretch on my best day, and this definitely wasn’t that.
I bent over with my palms on my knees, waiting for my body to stop shaking enough to make the trek back toward the road. Once I had a modicum of control over my limbs, I walked up the hill a bit and collapsed onto a butt-sized rock, staring in disbelief at the sight of my beast of a truck dangling halfway down the hill from that one scrawny little maple tree. Something trickled down the side of my face and when I touched my eyebrow, my fingers came away sticky with blood. I hadn't even felt the pain until right then.
I put my head between my knees and thanked the universe for giving me a pass, and sent a grateful push of energy to the little tree. When my hands stopped shaking and my head cleared enough to allow me to think beyond surviving, I reached for my phone and scrolled through my contacts until I found the number for Skeeter's Garage and Appliances.
Don't let the name fool you; he meets all three of my gold-star requirements: he's good, he's honest, and he's cheap.
After three rings, Skeeter himself answered. I'd never been so happy to hear his cheerful twang. I gave him the 411 on what had just happened and told him where I was, grateful for once that I live in a small town where the only directions required were "the curve right above Old Man Bailey's quarry on the way to my place."
I ended the call and had turned to scramble the rest of the way up the hill when the feeling of being watched made the hairs on my nape stand up. I searched the trees and caught a glimpse of sunlight reflecting off something a hundred yards or so up the hill on the other side of the road. My gaze darted toward the glint and I scanned the spot for any other sign of movement, but all stayed still. I decided to stay right where I was, figuring it would be a whole lot harder for some ax-wielding serial killer to drag me up the hill than to just shove me in a van if I was standing conveniently by the road.
Yes, I'm a capable witch, and I live in BFE, Georgia; the odds of a random serial killer just happening by were about the same as going to Walmart without seeing at least one hairy butt crack. But I wasn't feeling particularly rational at that point.
Pulling as much defensive magic into my hands as I could manage in my frazzled state, just in case, I leaned on a pecan tree and hoped Skeeter would hold true to his promise to get there in "two shakes of a coon's tail" before my paranoia got the better of me.
Little did I know then that just because you're paranoid doesn't mean you're wrong.
Chapter 2
It only took Skeeter about ten minutes to get there, and when he looked over the hill, he gave a low whistle. "Holy sh—moly, Noelle. You must be doin' somethin' right cause there's no way that little ole tree shoulda stopped that truck like that. You sure you're okay? I can take you home or the hospital instead."
He looked me over head to toe, but in a non-creepy way. Skeet and I had grown up together and I was sort of the little sister he never had; just ask Billy Johnson, the guy who got handsy with me at my freshman homecoming.
I nodded as I wiped the blood off my face with the mostly clean bandana he offered. "Yeah, I'm all right. I just cracked my forehead on the steering wheel or something. I'm probably gonna be sore as all get-out tomorrow, but I think I can walk it off. I can't afford to miss my shift, especially now."
We both knew what "now" meant; I'd recently inherited my farm when my aunt Adelaide had passed, and thanks to our no-good crook of a sheriff, the county "inheritance" taxes had taken every dime I had and then some. I was barely scraping in enough cash to cover groceries and lights for my sister and the myriad of critters we had.
Shaking his head in disgust, he motioned to his tow truck. "I know how you feel. I just had to pay taxes on the shop and barely came away with my scalp. Hop in. I'll give you a ride to town then swing by and pick up one of the guys to come back and help me haul your truck up."
Taking one last glance over the hill, I pulled out my cell and took a picture; this was gonna be one for the records. I also scanned the woods one more time, even though the feeling of being watched was gone.
By the time we made it back to town, my nerves had settled and I'd convinced myself it had been the trauma and my imagination, enhanced by the psycho-slasher flick Rae and I had watched on Lifetime the night before.
I didn't want to admit it, but I was already getting sore. I dug through my bag for Advil as I called my boss, Bobbie Sue, and told her what had happened and that I was on my way.
After several rapid-fire, mother-hen questions, she informed me in no uncertain terms I wasn't working that night. "You just dang near died, and you're gonna feel like somebody took a baseball bat to you in another couple of hours. Go home, take a hot bath, and call me if you need anything. You sure your head don't need stitches? Maybe you should go to the ER, make sure you ain’t got a concussion."
Though I appreciated her concern, I assured her that I was fine and tried to convince her I could work. She wouldn't budge. Since my afternoon had just opened up, I asked Skeeter to drop me at Brew4U. Keyhole Lake's gossip circle worked better than any public PA system, and the coffee shop was one of the two hot spots, so Raeann would hear about my wreck within the hour if she hadn’t already. I needed to stop and let her see for herself that I was okay before she heard about it second-hand.
When Skeeter rolled to a stop in front of Rae’s, I reached across and gave him a hug.
"Thanks a ton, Skeet. I don't know what I'd do without you."
He hugged me back and I smiled at the scent of Old Spice and motor oil that was uniquely him. "Don't you give it no nevermind, Noe. You know I've got your back. I'll drag that ole workhorse of yours up that hill and set her to rights in no time. Don't you worry."
My smile turned to a cringe as I slid out of his truck and tried to straighten up. I felt like my muscles had locked into place while I'd been sitting there.
Skeet waited for me to make it to the door of Brew4U before he rolled away. With a final wave, I pulled the door open. The happy jingle of the bell above the door and the whoosh of cold air against my skin almost made me cry with relief as I made my way to the black faux-marble counter and leaned against it.
I must have looked worse than I thought because when Raeann saw me, the color drained from her face. Her mama and my mama were sisters, and we'd been best friends our entire lives. We were more sisters than, well, most sisters. We'd learned magic together and were so inseparable growing up that she had her own room at the farm. She had an incredible knack for herbology, which was why her coffees were so good. She seemed to know exactly what blend was right for every circumstance and was quickly making a name for herself and her little coffee shop, in both magical and mundane circles.
She rushed toward me and pulled out two seats at the coffee bar, then reached out and pushed my hair back from my forehead to look at my brow.
"What on earth happened to you? You look like you got hit by a truck."
I gave her a wry half-smile as I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror behind the bar. She wasn't wrong. The cut on my forehead was crusted with blood, and my cheek was streaked with it too, along with dirt and mud. My hair had mostly escaped its ponytail and was a frizzy mess. My jeans were dirty from where I'd fallen a couple of times walking up the hill,
and my fingernails were caked with dirt. No wonder the few patrons in the shop were staring at me. I looked like a deranged zombie.
Instead of sitting down, I hobbled toward the bathroom, motioning to Raeann. "Funny you should put it that way—because a truck is exactly what did this to me. Come with me. I'll explain while I try to make myself look like something that didn't crawl straight out of a grave."
She reached for a clean bar towel and the first aid kit, then followed me. "Roy, keep an eye on the front for me, will ya?"
Roy, a spry, eternally happy little old farmer, had become a regular since his sons had taken over most of the day-to-day work of his farm. He and my mom and Aunt Addy had grown up together. Back when we were kids, we use to swim in his pond and eat peaches from the trees that surrounded it for lunch. Now, more often than not, you'd find him and Jimi—another old timer—playing chess and arguing politics at Brew4U in the early afternoon.
"Sure thing, sweetheart,” he said. “You take care of our girl."
In the bathroom, she pushed me onto the toilet so she could reach my forehead better, then pulled her sable hair into a ponytail so she could see to work. At five-one, she was still barely taller than me, even though I was sitting. She wet the rag and slapped my hand away when I tried to take it from her, then started carefully dabbing at the cut.