Hook, Line, and Murder

by Tegan Maher

  "She was beyond mad," Michael said, taking over. "Said she was leaving and never coming back. She had no money, no clothes, nothing. She had a little backpack that she'd shoved a pair of jeans and a couple T-shirts into, and that was it besides the clothes she was wearing."

  "We tried to talk her into coming back," Lucy said, "but she wouldn't. We were yelling at each other. I grabbed her by the arm, but she jerked away. When she did, the boat lurched, throwing her backward against the railing, It broke, and she went overboard."

  "They're lying," Kasey sneered. "He pushed her."

  "I didn't—I swear to God I didn't,” Michael said. “I tried to save her. There was no donut or anything to throw to her, and she wasn't a strong swimmer. I jumped overboard, but she was already running out of steam. I managed to get her almost to the boat when something bumped me from underneath. It scared me, and I let loose of her. She slipped under, and we couldn't find her."

  Lucy was crying again. "We searched for hours."

  I knew what he was talking about—there were some decent-sized fish in the lake, and I'd been bumped a time or two in daylight, and it had freaked me out. I couldn't imagine having it happen at night.

  "The next day," Michael said, staring over my shoulder in disgust, “there was an envelope taped to my car with a picture of me. It was from the night before and even though it was dark, my face was visible. They must have shot the video from their boat then frozen it to get just the right moment. It looked like I was pushing her overboard."

  "You were," Jerkface said. "Then you tried to blackmail us. We were just out fishin’ and happened to catch you murdering somebody."

  Lucy growled. "You were blackmailing us!” She turned to me. "Michael's family has money, but he's been in a few legal scrapes. Fights mostly. They said they wanted five thousand dollars or they were sending the picture to the cops. We paid it, but then she came back for more. I tried to get him to just come talk to you with me, but he had enough experience with Hank that he was scared."

  I looked at him. “Do you happen to be related to Jim and Mel Schrader?” Maybe that’s how they fit in.

  “Who?” he asked, and the confusion on his face was real. It looked like I was going to have to eat some crow and admit that sometimes—sometimes—coincidences happened. It still didn’t explain why his name was in Hank’s book, but apparently it didn’t have anything to do with this.

  That made me happy, because I liked Mel.

  "Okay," I said, bringing myself back to the present. "So how did we end up here tonight?"

  "She'd told me to meet her at the dock a few nights ago, and I didn't have the money. She told me to be there the next night with all of it. We could only get half, and I told her I'd get the rest of it to her tonight."

  She looked at her feet. "Instead, we decided to get her onto the boat and trade her for the picture and video."

  Michael stepped forward. "I grabbed her when she was leaving Pig’s and brought her here."

  He motioned toward Jerkface. "She called him and told him where to meet us with the pictures."

  "So how did I end up getting the crap beat out of me?" I asked.

  Jerkface and Kasey had nothing to say, so I turned to Lucy.

  She shrugged. "I don't know, but my best guess is if the sheriff found out what really happened, their meal ticket went away, one way or another."

  "He said he was gonna kill me if I didn't call Barney here and tell him to bring the phone," Kasey burst out in an attempt to change the subject. "That's attempted murder, right there."

  "No," I snapped at her. "Even what your douchebag boyfriend did to me wasn't attempted murder, you idiot."

  She waved the gun at me and narrowed her eyes. "Call me an idiot one more time," she said.

  The flash of blue lights on the sheriff’s office boat flickered in the distance, and I knew it was time to put an end to this.

  I cocked a brow at her. "Idiot," I repeated, loud and clear as I swept the gun from her hand with a flick of my wrist. The rig lines were lying behind them, and I used one hand to jerk it forward, then twirled my finger, wrapping them up tight. It was so simple, it was almost anticlimatic.

  Striding over to them, I thought for a minute. There stood the guy who'd attacked me and beat me in my own alley. "You know what?" I said to him. "I'm gonna be the bigger person here and not strike when you're weak. You’re not worth it."

  "Um, honey," Hunter said from behind me. "I didn't tell you this because I knew it would upset you, but he knocked your bike over and scratched the paint on your fairing."

  That did it. I drew back my left fist and belted him as hard as I could right in the nose.

  Kasey's eyes grew wide and she flinched, fearing she was next. "Oh, I'm not gonna hit you, wart girl. My little sister already took care of you."

  Three more warts had popped out on her face. I supposed I was gonna have to tell Shelby to lift the hex before anybody in the jail started wondering why she was randomly breaking out in warts, but I was okay with it for another couple days.

  Skeet and Smitty pulled up behind the sailboat and had everybody cuffed, but before they led them to the back of the boat, something occurred to me. I called to them to stop, and remembering my mistake with the cloth, suggested it might be a good idea for him to take their phones. The video was bound to be on one of them.

  Kasey's glare was like ice as she stared at me, then spat in my direction. I laughed as one huge wart popped up right on the end of her nose. She musta been able to see it, because her eyes crossed and she howled.

  I did love my little sister.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  HUNTER WAS AT THE STATION almost all night sorting out the mess. He didn't want to charge Lucy and Michael with anything because as far as he was concerned, they did the best they could in what they thought to be an impossible situation. Hank had spoiled them on going to the cops, and her dad was no pillar of forgiveness and light, either.

  The video confirmed their story. It had been a horrible accident.

  He ended up charging them both with assault, and the rest of the charges fell to Kasey and Barney. There were a lot of them, too. Nobody seemed to remember how he got the bloody nose, except they knew for sure it wasn't me.

  We decided to have a cookout the next evening. Anna Mae came over for the day as I'd promised Hunter so that he and Matt and a crew from Wheeler Construction could finish up the koi pond. We spent the day doing various forms of nothing and making food for the cookout.

  Matt did come get her an hour or so before folks were due to arrive and took her to see it. We all went, and even though I knew how talented Matt was, I was bowled over. He'd built a gorgeous fountain with three swans facing different directions, water flowing out of their mouths. He'd made an intricate cascade from river rock so that the water spouted out and then trickled down the paths before swirling into the pool below.

  "I decided we could go pick out fish together," he said when she just stood there with her hands over her mouth. “I hope that's okay.”

  She squealed and jumped into his arms, laying a huge lip-smacker on him. Suffice it to say, she loved it.

  She took a ton of pics, then we headed back to the farm, where folks had already started arriving.

  Bobbie Sue had even closed for the evening so they could come too. She said they'd all made enough from the tournament that everybody could do without barbecue for a day while they all took a well-deserved break.

  I smiled when I saw an old horse plodding up the driveway carrying an even older man. Harry Steward, a retired horse trainer, had moved up the road a while back with his wife, Stella. The horse he was riding, Ranger, had been a rescue that I'd taken in. In a twist of fate, Ranger wandered off and ended up at Harry's.

  Harry needed a horse and Ranger needed a home. Win-win.

  I waved when he made it into the yard and stopped at a hitching post in front of the barn. Ambling over, I smiled while he pulled off the saddle and bridle and turned Ran
ger into a stall.

  "Where's Stella?" I asked.

  "She'll be along in a bit," he said. "She was puttin' the finishin' touches on her praline cake."

  I had no idea what that was, but my mouth watered just hearing those two words put together.

  He'd no sooner said it than their old truck rumbled up the drive.

  "Let's head up to the house. I think y'all are the last ones coming."

  Hunter got him a beer, and Stella accepted the glass of wine I handed her in exchange for the bottle she'd brought with her.

  The cake she'd brought looked amazing, and I was considering sneaking a piece of it before supper.

  My whole crew was there—Bobbie Sue and her family, Harry and Stella, Addy, Cheri Lynn, Sarah and her family, the Wheeler family; the list went on. I was in the process of finally beating Max at porch chess when an older car rumbled up the driveway.

  Lizzy, who'd been cooing over the baby, turned. Her hand fluttered to her chest when a young man stepped out and took a couple unsure steps toward the porch. It was then I remembered Lizzy’s grandson was supposed to come that day.

  "Hi." I smiled. "Can I help you?"

  "Yeah," he said. "Or maybe. I think so."

  He stopped and cleared his throat, then caught sight of Lizzy. She floated to him, and tears ran down his cheeks.

  "Grandma." His voice cracked with emotion. "I'm so sorry!"

  "Honey," she said, "you have to stop. I fell into the pool because I had a heart attack. I remember seeing you reaching in for me, trying to pull me out by my shirt, but I was gone the next instant. Even if you'd gotten me out right then, there's nothing you could have done."

  She reached out and ran her shimmering fingers along his cheek. "It's the natural order of things, sugarplum. The house is yours—I want you to be happy in it, and let this go."

  He nodded, still crying. "I miss you so much!"

  "And I miss you," she said. She looked over her shoulder where a golden light was shining. "I'll be waiting for you, but it's not gonna be for a long while yet. I had a long, happy life, and you will, too."

  The smile on her face was so full of joy that a lone tear slipped down my cheek.

  She turned to us. "Addy, Belle, Janey, everybody. Thank you so much for making me feel welcome and for trying to help me, even when you had no idea who I was."

  She turned and walked toward the light. Once she was through, it flickered out, leaving us all standing there, emotional and stunned.

  "Excuse me," Max said, clearing his throat and bumping my leg with his head, "but if you're just going to stand there, be a doll and remove your pawn, then check."

  The spell was broken, and I turned to him. "You sure you have a heart in that chest?"

  He looked at me through his long, fuzzy eyelashes. "Of course I do, but she's crossed over, and we're still in the land of the living. It doesn't do to dwell."

  He motioned with his head toward the grandson. I hadn't even gotten his name. "There's a man who could probably use a drink of good scotch. You should be a doll and get it for him. And while you're at it—"

  I flicked the tip of his ear. "All right. Hint taken—I'll be right back." I made my final move on the chessboard as I headed toward the door, grinning from ear to ear. "And checkmate."

  While I was inside, Coralee pulled up and brought her plate of brownies in. Nobody—repeat nobody—made a brownie that could touch hers, and I knew Shelby and I would be fighting over them later.

  She opened her purse. "I can't believe I'm doing this, but Erol's coming later, and he asked if I'd bring Norman. I agreed, not realizing he'd have a plus one.”

  Norm poked his little black and white head out of the purse, then reached down and encouraged a bashful-looking tan and white rat to surface. She poked her head out and gave me an unsure look. Norm, on the other hand, was smiling up at me and presented her with a flourish.

  "Is this where you've been running off to?" I asked, and he nodded.

  "You've been worrying poor Erol to death," I said, frowning at him. "Don't do that again, you hear me?"

  Coralee looked at me as Norm gave me a look with just the right amount of shame in it before smiling again.

  "And to think we thought our lives were normal this time a year ago," she said, shaking her head. "Yet here we stand, talkin' to a rat that's bringin' his girlfriend home to meet the family. If that don't beat all."

  It did, but I wouldn't change a thing even if I could.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  I WOKE UP THE NEXT morning to a commotion outside. Hunter, Matt, and Anna Mae were out there, and Cody was coming up the driveway on his bike. Gabi was yelling my name from the yard, and Shelby pounded up the stairs and shoved a to-go cup of coffee into my hand.

  "You ain't gonna believe what they've done!" she said, her eyes shining with excitement. “Come on. They won't let me see 'til you're awake."

  Slipping on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, I went outside bedhead and all. They led me through the back pasture and through the gate. I paused, narrowing my eyes at them.

  "What did you all do? I know you've been up to something, but what?"

  "You'll see when you get there," Hunter said. "Anna Mae isn't the only one with a summer birthday. Yours is coming up soon, too. We just finished your present a little early so you—well, everybody—could use it the whole season."

  Where there'd been brambles and high grass before, now there was a nice shale path. We meandered through the woods in the direction of an old cabin we had back there that sat on the edge of the lake. Shelby and I used to play in it as kids, but it had about fallen in until Matt had hidden there for a few months before Addy found him and brought him into the family.

  "Matt and I actually kind of came up with the idea together, and both of us—well, all three of us counting Max—have been working on it for the last month. Oh, and Beth put the hex on the gate to keep y'all away from it."

  Matt was grinning ear to ear, and Max was trotting along with his fuzzy little nose in the air, lookin' pleased as punch with himself. “I ate almost all the grass, weeds, and brambles by myself, just so you know.”

  When we came around the final bend in the path before the cabin, my mouth fell open. The cabin looked practically brand new, and all the weeds had been cleared away from the lake. They'd hauled in sand so that there was a nice little stretch of beach, and they'd rebuilt the fishing dock. A rope hung from a tree on the bank.

  They’d built a perfect, private little beach getaway, complete with hammock. Shelby hit me with the back of her hand.

  "I call dibs on the hammock," she said.

  "We're not staying here right now. We have chores and stuff to do," I said.

  "No, I mean forever," she replied, climbing into it. I climbed the steps of the cabin and wandered through the doorway. The furniture was all new, and the stonework around the fireplace had been redone. And I couldn't help but notice that the top of the table came off to reveal a poker table underneath.

  I cocked a brow. "My birthday present, huh?"

  He grinned and shrugged. "Okay, maybe mostly yours, but partly for everybody else, too.”

  We went back outside, and I took a seat in one of the new rocking chairs sitting on the porch. Anna Mae was just as stunned as I was.

  "You boys have been busy over the last couple months, she said. “This, the koi pond on steroids at my place ..."

  I breathed in a deep sigh of contentment as they sat down in the remaining chairs. Sailboats dotted the lake, and Shelby was stretched out in the hammock, one leg hanging over the edge, while she read something on her phone. Cody'd grabbed a fishin' pole and was making a few casts off the dock, and the tip of his rod jerked with a nibble.

  Mysterious death solved, ghostly business finished, and my family was happy. What more could I ask for?

  <<<<>>>>

  Thank You!

  I KNOW MY STYLE ISN’T for everybody. Know that I appreciate your time and kind words via email and revie
ws. Also, if you’ve followed me through the series, thanks for allowing me a little latitude when I take a few sentences here and there to introduce our people and explain references to happenings in other books for anybody who may be starting here instead of with Sweet Murder. I want everybody to enjoy each book, and that helps. If you’d take a minute to leave a review so others can decide whether this series is for them, I would be grateful.

  Hopefully, we’ll meet up again in Book 7, Murder of the Month! ’Til then, happy reading!

  I have a new series, the Cori Sloane Witchy Werewolf series, that just debuted. If you’d like to read the first chapter of it, I’ve attached it at the end.

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  Other Books by Tegan Maher

  Witches of Keyhole Lake Series

  Book 1: Sweet Murder

  Book 2: Murder to the Max

  Book 3: Murder so Magical

  Book 4: Mayhem and Murder

  Book 5: Murder and Marinade

  Book 6: Hook, Line, and Murder

  Book 7: Murder of the Month