by Morgana Best
That spurred the sergeant into action, and only moments later I heard sirens. That was one of the benefits of living in a small country town; I was only a few blocks from the police station.
After I called the police, I opened the front door to wait for them. Willow and Hawthorn, full from their second meal of the day, walked over to the treadmill and watched Paul with interest. He was calling out for help and sprinting so hard that sweat was pouring from his forehead. The house had turned up the volume on The Biggest Loser, and fast-forwarded it to a section where a hapless contestant was running on the treadmill.
The police ran up the pathway to my house. Detective Morrison grabbed me by my arms. “Are you all right, Miss Spelled?”
I nodded. “He’s in there!” I said, pointing to the living room. “He confessed to killing Celia and he confessed to murdering his old friend, Joe Collins, years ago. Then he saw that The Biggest Loser was on TV, and he jumped on my treadmill and started running fast. The strain must have affected him.”
Detectives Morrison and Scott hurried past me into the living room. Their jaws dropped open when they saw Paul sprinting on the treadmill, gasping for breath. “Help me! Help me!” he said. “I did it! I killed both of them! But I work out already! I don’t need to be on The Biggest Loser!”
Detective Scott turned off the treadmill and Detective Morrison grabbed Paul. He handcuffed him in double quick time.
“Get me out of this house!” Paul said, doubled over and trying to catch his breath. “It’s haunted! It wants me to be on The Biggest Loser!”
Morrison and Scott exchanged glances.
Chapter 20
“And so here we are again,” Ruprecht said from my sofa, which Willow and Hawthorn were kindly sharing with him, “after solving another murder.” He handed me a slice of pizza.
“I didn’t really solve it,” I said. “In fact, the murder might have remained unsolved if it hadn’t been for that spellcheck app on my phone.”
“All’s well that ends well, at any rate,” Ruprecht said. “Your investigations did lead directly to the murderer being revealed.”
I was afraid he would start speaking in Latin, or quoting a Greek philosopher, so I poured him a glass of wine. My efforts were in vain, because Ruprecht took one sip, and then said, “Voltaire said that taste invites reflection, and indeed that is true, because taste is subjective. Wine tastes different to different people, so can we ever really share the pleasure of this bottle?”
I wondered if it was a rhetorical question, but Ruprecht hurried to answer his own question, “No. But we can, however, share the pleasure of our friendship.”
There was a murmur of agreement. “And so, as I have just said,” he continued, “here we find ourselves again, sharing friendship. The ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle, said that friends hold a mirror up to each other, and through that mirror they see each other in ways that would not otherwise be accessible to them. This in turn helps friends improve themselves as persons. Amelia, have you read Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics on the three types of friendship?”
I smiled. “No.” I was happy. Whatever Aristotle or anyone else said about friends, I was grateful that I had them, and that they were here with me now. I was not so grateful that we were all wearing onesies. Camino had insisted that we all do so. She had informed us that she had sewn them in great haste, and I hoped that the stitching would hold this time. The theme was the 1980s because, as Camino explained, the 1980s happened before the internet came along, and we had discovered the microfiche machine in the library. No, it didn’t make any sense to me, but it seemed to make sense to Camino.
And that was how I found myself, drinking champagne with my friends, and wearing a Boy George onesie, complete with a Karma Chameleon hat from which hung multi-coloured plaits. In fact, all of us were Boy George, just with different coloured onesies.
“Amelia, could I bother you for a cup of coffee?” Camino said.
“It’s no trouble at all,” I said, as I headed for the kitchen. I was glad that the treadmill had vanished, along with the set of bathroom scales. I wasn’t fond of exercise. Alder followed me down the corridor.
Alder pressed himself against the back of the kitchen table, folded his arms, and smirked. I quickly glanced at my reflection in the window, making sure that I was not wearing another of Camino’s bottom-exposing onesies. With a sigh I realised all was good, and so I offered to make Alder a cup of coffee.
“Oh no,” he said. In two steps he had crossed the kitchen and wrestled the coffee cup from my hands. “That’s not what I came here for.”
“What did you come here for?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady. He smelt so good, like soap and cinnamon, and his eyes flashed with devilish charm.
Alder placed a hand on the small of my back and drew me into him. The cotton of his shirt felt so rough underneath my fingers as I wrapped my arms around his muscular frame. He dipped his head and pressed his lips to mine, and then I was not sure of anything at all, not gravity or cupcake recipes, not even of my own name. The only thing I was sure of was that the room was spinning when rooms are not meant to spin at all.
“So,” I mumbled when he finally released me, “That’s a no to the coffee?”
Connect with Morgana
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Next Book In This Series
Spell It Out (The Kitchen Witch Book 8)
Also by Morgana Best
Witches’ Brew (Vampires and Wine Book 1)
Romantic cozy mystery - with witches, vampires, and Shifters!
Pepper Jasper, an Australian witch who has long practiced traditional witchcraft, does not believe in the supernatural - such as Werewolves and Shifters, or Vampires.
Pepper moves from Sydney to the cozy town of Lighthouse Bay, answering a desperate plea from her aunts to help with their failing Bed and Breakfast business.
She discovers her aunts are more eccentric than she remembered, the Bed and Breakfast does not serve breakfast, and the cottages for lease have strange themes. And what’s more, within minutes of her arrival, she stumbles across a dead body.
Pepper soon has her hands full, contending with a murder mystery, irritating guests including the enigmatic Lucas O’Callaghan who is convinced every woman wants to fall into his arms, and her aunts, who are hiding more than one dark secret.
Who or what lurks in the forbidden room at the end of the dark corridor?
Why do the aunts insist she drink copious quantities of special label wine?
Find out what awaits Pepper Jasper at Mugwort Manor.
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, b
ut 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
3) Witches’ Charms - coming soon!
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
5) Ex-Spelled
6) The Halloween Spell
7) Spellcheck
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 Busters - coming soon!
And Morgana’s non-Witch Cosy mysteries:
Cocoa Narel Chocolate Shop Mysteries
1) Sweet Revenge
2) The Sugar Hit
3) Chocolate to Die For - coming soon!
The Australian Amateur Sleuth
1) Live and Let Diet
2) Natural-Born Grillers
3) Dye Hard
4) The Prawn Identity
5) Any Given Sundae
AUDIO. All Morgana’s books are currently being narrated for Audio.
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!)