Ghostly Paws (Mystic Notch Cozy Mystery Series)

by Leighann Dobbs

  “Not recipes, Willa,” Lavinia bent down, her mouth close to my ear. “Spells.”

  “Spells?” I squinted at the book. “I guess spells could look like recipes. But that’s ridiculous. Who would use these spells? Witches?”

  Lavinia nodded solemnly.

  “But, there’s no such thing.”

  “Don’t I wish it,” Lavinia said. “Anyway, I cannot tell you how important this book is. There are forces of good and evil … you don’t want the evil forces to get a hold of it.”

  “But, how do I know who is good and who is evil?” I squinted up at her. I still wasn’t even sure I believed the malarkey about spells and witches, but since I wasn’t doing so well with my own theory, the least I could do was to hear her out.

  “Oh, you’ll know,” she said.

  “And you must be very, very careful,” Robert Frost piped in from the purple couch where he was sitting with Franklin Pierce.

  “Yes, Willa,” Franklin added. “This is dangerous and important business and we don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  Robert nodded. “We’ve gotten quite attached to you here in the bookshop. It just wouldn’t be the same without you.”

  I was starting to feel like I was in a dream. Spells? Witches? Ghosts getting attached to me?

  The three of them jerked their heads toward the door. Robert and Franklin swung back to look at me, their mouths forming round ‘o’s.

  “Oh-oh,” they said in unison before disappearing.

  I turned to Lavinia who had a look of panic on her face. “Look out, Willa—my killer is coming. Remember, above all, you must protect the book!”

  I looked back down at the book in my lap.

  “I still don’t understand what, exactly, is the big deal.” I looked back up at Lavinia, but she was gone.

  “Hey …” I let my voice trail off. Leave it to a ghost to disappear with some vague warning and only half the answers I needed.

  “Are you talking to someone?”

  I whirled around at the sound of the voice, fingers of dread squeezing my heart when I saw who stood there …

  Bing Thorndike.

  ***

  How did he get in? I hadn’t heard the door jangle.

  My eyes slid to his forearms, but he still had long sleeves, so I couldn’t see the scratches Pandora had inflicted on him when he’d broken into my house. The break-in hadn’t made sense last night, but now I knew the reason. I was holding it in my hands.

  “Give me the book, Willa. I’ll keep it safe.” Bing reached out toward the book, the clunky gold Magician’s Guild ring gleaming on his finger.

  My mind whirled in confusion as Bing advanced on me, his face wore a smile that might have appeared friendly any other time, but looked menacing to me now.

  I sat frozen on the stool. I couldn’t give Bing the book—he was the killer! Handing the book over was the last thing I was going to do. Not just because I instinctively felt protective of the book, but I also feared he’d kill me once I handed it over.

  Movement at the end of the inspirational books aisle caught my eye and I looked over to see Robert Frost pulling a book from the shelf.

  Bang!

  The sound of the book slamming to the floor distracted Bing and I ran toward the door.

  “Willa! Wait! I’m trying to help you!” I heard Bing yell as I ran across the shop, the old book clutched to my chest.

  My leg was burning, slowing me down. It seemed like I was running in chest-high water and my gut twisted as I realized it wasn’t just because of my bum leg. Something strange was happening, as if time was slowing down.

  I fought my way toward the door, a glance back over my shoulder showed Bing gaining ground. I closed my eyes, the sinking sensation in my chest overwhelming me … I couldn’t let Bing get me.

  The memory of a book I once read surfaced. In the book, the hero could speed up time by turning the hands of their watch forward. Too bad I don’t wear a watch, I thought, wishing with all my heart I had put one on that morning.

  I looked down at my wrist. I had put one on! Not caring why I didn’t necessarily remember putting it on that morning, I reached down and turned the small knob, the minute hand moving forward just as I felt Bing’s heavy hand clutch my shoulder.

  ***

  I was catapulted out the door onto the street, my face crushed into someone’s chest.

  I pulled away, the taste of wool in my mouth and my heart racing as I looked up into the surprised face of Carson Bates. His car sat idling behind him at the curb, the back door still open.

  Relief flooded through me.

  “Carson, thank goodness.” I glanced behind me to see if Bing was catching up. “You gotta help me! We need to get out of here.”

  His eyes flew up and he stepped aside, gesturing toward the open door. I launched myself into the car and he slid in beside me, closing the door behind him.

  “Go!” I yelled at the driver, who raised his brow at Carson in the rear view mirror. Carson nodded and the car shot forward.

  I twisted in the seat, looking out the rear window, past the long length of the trunk to see Bing shoot out the door of my shop onto the street.

  I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket. I needed to call Augusta, although I wasn’t sure what I was going to say. Somehow I didn’t think telling her Bing had slowed down time to take a recipe book from me was going to impress her.

  “Not so fast,” Carson said as I started to punch the numbers.

  “Huh?” I looked over at him.

  The phone turned molten hot in my hand and I dropped it with a squeal, pulling my hand back. As I watched it melt on the floor mat, I held my already blistering fingers against my chest.

  I looked from the puddle of my phone to Carson, my brows mashed together. My brain felt a little slow on the uptake. My heart thudded against my ribcage.

  What was going on?

  “Thanks, Willa.” Carson reached across the seat toward the book in my lap. A glimmer of gold on his finger caught my eye—the Bates family crest ring. “I was coming for this, but you saved me the trouble. How convenient.”

  I pulled the book away, instinctively trying to hide it behind my back on the other side of him. He stretched around me to grab the book, the sleeves of his navy blue coat pulled back, exposing his forearms.

  My breath caught in my throat—his arms were raked with scratches.

  Chapter Thirty

  The hard, musty floor pressing on my shoulder blades alerted me to the fact that I was laying down. Dampness seeped through my sweatshirt. A dank, earthy smell tickled my nose. I opened one eye, the dim flicker of light from the single bulb in the ceiling seared into my eyeball with a stabbing pain.

  Closing my eye, I rolled on my side, blinking my eyes open again as I fought the wave of nausea that rolled over me. Once it passed, I stared at my surroundings in disbelief.

  I’d heard rumors that the Bates mansion had a real dungeon, but I didn’t believe them. Until now. Now I had to believe it … because I was in it.

  The stone walls in the cavernous room were void of windows, the only source of light coming from the one dim bulb sticking out of the screw-in socket in the ceiling directly above me. It was clear the addition of electricity had been an afterthought down here in the basement.

  To tell the truth, the depressing atmosphere would have been more appropriately illuminated by the ancient torches that sat unlit in their iron holders in the wall. Given the dim lighting, I could see only about twenty feet in front of me, after which the rest of the basement was shrouded in foreboding dark shadow.

  Seeing twenty feet in front of me was enough, though. Enough to see that I was in some sort of iron cage, the bars going from floor to ceiling, the door held shut by an old iron lock. The cage was empty except for me and a thin layer of straw in the corner, which I hoped wasn’t supposed to be my bed.

  How did I get here?

  I pushed myself up from the ground. The stinging pain in my han
d as it touched the floor jolted my memory of the car ride with Carson.

  My stomach twisted. It was Carson Bates who had broken into my house and likely him who killed Lavinia. He wore a big ring. He rode in the dark black car. He had the same gray streak in his hair as Derek.

  And, when I’d run into him on the street, he was wearing one of the coats I’d seen in the Bates garage. A navy blue coat with oversized storm flaps on the shoulders and back. Those storm flaps could easily have been mistaken for a cape in the shadowy figure Lavinia had seen as she fell down the steps.

  My head started to ache along with my hand and my leg as I tried to remember what had happened. The last thing I remembered was Carson trying to take the book from me in the car. Seeing as how I didn’t have the book now, he must have succeeded. Everything after that was a blank.

  Did he knock me out, somehow? How had I gotten here? And where was I? I assumed it was the Bates’ basement, but since I didn’t remember getting here, I supposed it could be anywhere.

  But what did it matter? No matter where I was, I needed to get out. Fast.

  I walked over to the door and pushed. Naturally, it didn’t budge—I couldn’t be that lucky. I pulled on it with as much force as I could muster, but it was solid … and locked tight.

  I paced the perimeter of my ten by ten cell, studying the floor and ceiling to see if there were any cracks or openings I could wriggle out through. There were none. I tested every bar with my good hand until it stung from pulling on the chipped, rusty iron. None of them budged.

  A sigh of frustration escaped my lips as I leaned against the wall. The hard, cold stones chilled my back as I sunk down to the floor.

  My heart plummeted as I realized I was now trapped by the person who had killed Lavinia. I hugged my knees to my chest, put my head down and cried.

  ***

  “Meow.”

  I lifted my head from the crook of my elbow, and brushed away hot tears. Did I just hear a cat? I thought about Pandora and my heart twisted.

  Looking out at the edge of the darkness, I saw something slinking about. It was a cat. Not Pandora, though. This cat was white, with mocha colored markings.

  “Here, Kitty,” I put out my hand and made clucking noises.

  The cat turned to face me, her pale blue eyes studying me intently as she crept closer.

  She snaked her way throughout the bars and came to me, rubbing her cheek against my hand.

  “Hi, there. Who are you?” I wondered. Was it Derek’s cat? Now that I knew Carson was the killer, maybe Derek had been telling the truth. I wondered if Derek had been involved, too.

  “Oh, well, what does it matter now?” I asked the cat as I found comfort in stroking the silky fur behind her ears.

  As the cat’s purring relaxed me, I worried what would happen to Pandora if I didn’t make it out of there. I was glad she was safe at the animal hospital. If not for the break-in, she would have been at the bookstore with me and who knows what might have happened to her.

  This brought my thoughts to what had happened in the store. It had all been about that old book. The book Lavinia had told me to protect.

  I remembered how Bing had wanted the book, but I thought he was the enemy and ran from him. My stomach twisted … I’d practically delivered the book right into Carson’s hands, and now if something bad happened because of it, it was all on me.

  I couldn’t just sit here and let that happen. I had to do something.

  I stood suddenly, causing the cat to let out a startled mew. I rushed to the door of my cell, the cat trotting in front of me, seeming to know where I was going before I even got there. I pressed my face against the bars, above the lock and looked down, trying to get a look at the lock opening.

  The Bates mansion was over three hundred and fifty years old and the cell had probably been here for that long. The lock was original—a simple device that could be opened with a skeleton key. My years as a crime reporter had garnered me a lot of skills, not the least of which was basic lock picking.

  I knew how to pick one of these. I just needed something long and straight. I searched my pockets, coming up empty.

  “Damn!” My arms fell against my sides in frustration.

  “Meow!” The cat had left the confines of the cage and was playing with what looked like a big dust ball. I watched as she batted it with her paw, sending it rolling and then pounced on it over and over again.

  That gave me an idea.

  Scanning the floor, I saw a long flat piece of metal that would make a perfect lock pick. It was too far for me to reach, but I might be able to use one of the tricks I’d learned from Bing to get the cat to do my work for me.

  One of Bing’s favorite tricks was to make things look like they floated in air. He used a fishing line for that, the line seeming invisible. I didn’t have fishing line, but I had something Bing always said would work just as well—my hair.

  The strands were thick, and the corkscrew curls made it look shorter than it actually was. I plucked a few strands out, pleased that I got two of the white ones, and tied them together. Then I picked a few pieces of straw from the corner and tied that to one end.

  The dangling straw caught the cat’s eye and she left her dust ball and trotted into the cell. Standing up on her hind legs, she batted at it.

  “You like?” I squatted down and threw the straw end out. The cat skittered after it, pouncing on it. I jerked it out from under her and she skittered again.

  I reeled in my new cat toy and went to the edge of the cell. Sticking my hand out through the bars, I tossed the toy out toward the metal piece. It landed just beyond it. Perfect.

  The cat pounced on the toy, her front paw hitting the metal piece and sending it sliding toward the cell. Not far enough, though. I jerked the piece toward me and she hit the metal again, inching it closer. A few more well-placed tosses and the metal piece was within reach.

  “Thanks, Kitty.” I stretched my fingers through the bars, ignoring the throbbing pain of my burned fingertips, and grabbed the metal piece.

  Standing, I poked my hand out so I could put the metal into the lock. The cat sat on the other side of the door, staring at me intently.

  I dug the metal piece around. Turns out it’s a lot harder picking a lock from the inside. After about five minutes of fiddling, I heard a satisfying click.

  I pushed the door and it swung open.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  I stepped out of the cell, my heart thumping as my eyes darted around the room, or at least the part of the room I could see.

  Which way should I go?

  My senses told me I was in a basement because the air had that dank, damp underground feeling. But there were no windows like a regular basement.

  My stomach tightened as I looked into the dark. I had no idea what I would find there, but there certainly wasn’t any way out from where I was standing.

  I forged ahead.

  The cat stayed with me, following by my side. I had no idea what I was looking for, but maybe I could find a door that led outside. Or upstairs. Although, if I was in the Bates mansion as I suspected, going upstairs could be fatal.

  “Mew.” I heard the soft sound behind me and realized the cat had stopped. I turned, barely able to make her white form out in the dark. She was standing next to the wall … no, not next to it—half-way inside it!

  I bent down to find a crack in the wall. It was about five inches, big enough for the cat to wriggle through. She disappeared behind it, the reappeared a few seconds later.

  “Meow!” She jerked her tail at me.

  “Sure, I’d love to follow you, but it’s too small. Guess I shouldn’t have had dessert last night.” I stuck my arm through and tried to wedge my shoulder in. It just wasn’t big enough.

  I pulled my arm out … or tried to. It was stuck.

  “Meow.” The cat weaved around my ankles.

  “Yeah, thanks. This is just great.” I jerked my arm and it came free, but not before I felt the
stones shift slightly.

  Was it my imagination … or had the opening widened?

  I put my arm in again and this time more of my shoulder fit through. I wriggled and pushed. Pain shot through my bad leg as I used it for leverage, but it worked. The crack opened up enough for me to fit and I slid in.

  I was in a narrow passageway. The cat flicked her tail impatiently before me as I stifled a sneeze from the dust tickling my nose. I could barely make out a set of stairs in front of me. At the top, thin slats of light that I assumed were coming from between the boards that made the passage allowed for minimum visibility.

  Where was the light coming from?

  The cat started up the steps and I followed.

  We got to the top and there was an intersection. I peered through one of the lighted gaps into a large kitchen. It was empty, but the stainless steel appliances gleamed on top of black and white checked tile.

  I limped a few more feet and peeked through another gap. This one revealed a sitting room decorated in pale blue. I realized I must have been in a secret passageway somewhere inside the house. All I needed to do was find a way out, hopefully in an unoccupied room with a door to the outside so I could make a clean get-away.

  “Mew.” The cat sat up ahead. Looking at me, then at the wall. At me, and then the wall. Clearly, she was trying to tell me something.

  As I tiptoed up to her, I could hear voices. My blood chilled when I recognized one of them as Carson Bates.

  The gap in the boards in front of the cat looked different from the others. It was a door. A secret doorway that led into the room. Pressing my face against one of the slats, I looked into an ornate library.

  Bookshelves lined the walls. Two tufted leather sofas sat facing each other in the middle of the room. A large stone fireplace filled the opposite wall.

  Idris Bates stood at the end of one of the sofas. Hadn’t Derek said he was sick? He looked fine to me. Felicity sat on the sofa, her white, flowing dress spread out on the seat on either side of her. Carson stood at the fireplace.