Murder's a Witch: A Beechwood Harbor Magic Mystery (Beechwood Harbor Magic Mysteries Book 1)

by Danielle Garrett

  Nick flexed his jaw, his temples pulsing with the effort. “I’m just here to help, Holly. I’m not throwing anyone into the river. Where is this all coming from?”

  “You should have stayed in LA, Nick. There’s nothing for you here.”

  I pushed past him and didn’t stop walking until I got back to the front porch of the manor.

  “Holly!”

  I turned at the harsh whisper and found Adam’s head poking out from the shrubs that flanked each side of the porch. “Adam? What are you doing?”

  “I don’t have my keys…my clothes, wallet, and keyring, are back in the alley.”

  “Oh!” My eyebrows went up, realizing that Adam was hiding in the bushes because instead of wearing his beast form, he was wearing his birthday suit. “No one would let you in?”

  He sighed. “Well, Posy can’t and the Princess of Darkness is out tonight. Not that I’d give her the ammo of finding me stark naked on the porch. She’d never let me hear the end of it…”

  I curled my lips in to stifle a laugh. “Okay, okay. I have my key. I’ll be right back.”

  I hurried inside the house and went to the sitting room off the entry. I grabbed the first throw blanket my hand found in the dark. When I turned back to go to the door I tripped over a very large, solid tabby. “Boots!” I hissed.

  He howled and then launched into a series of increasingly irritated meows.

  “Yes, yes, I know. Stop lecturing me. I know it’s late. Believe me, I want to be in bed as much as you want me to be there, you little body heat leech.” I scooted him into action with the toe of my boot and he ambled down the hall. “I’ll be there in a minute. Go warm up the sheets. It’s truly the least you could do…”

  “Cats…” I muttered to myself, balling up the blanket into a tight basketball form. I stepped back on the porch and chucked the blanket in the direction of Adam’s voice. He growled as the blanket hit the target. “And dogs…”

  Another growl.

  I waited as Adam got situated and appeared in the stream of light from the porch lights. He was wearing the blanket around his waist and a scowl on his handsome face. I kept my eyes locked with his, refusing to let them drop lower and inspect his sinewy muscles and broad chest.

  Okay, so maybe I peeked a little while he was securing the knot at his waist.

  “I look like a Scotsman,” he said, glancing at the blanket. “This is the best thing you could find?”

  I rolled my eyes. “What are you now? Mr. GQ? Get in here…you have an entire closet of clothes!” He sauntered up the steps and waited for me to enter the manor before coming inside. I pushed the door closed and bolted it. “You’re starting to sound like Lacey.”

  “I’m just saying, plaid isn’t my thing.”

  I surrendered to a bubble of laughter. “How did I become the sane one in this house?”

  “Trust me, you’re not,” Adam retorted, sweeping past me to take to the foot of the grand staircase.

  “Hey! Where do you think you’re going? I need to know what happened back there.”

  “I was going to go put some clothes on first.” He spun around and my eyes flashed over his bare chest. “Or would you prefer me this way, gorgeous?”

  I scoffed, my smile quickly fading into a scowl. “Don’t flatter yourself. Go change. I’ll put on a kettle.”

  He stomped up the stairs and I went into the kitchen, carefully erasing the memory of his muscles from my mind. That was two close calls in one night. First the off handed comment about Nick’s cologne and now gawking at Adam half naked, wearing a blanket-slash-kilt.

  What was happening to me? Whatever it was, it wasn’t good. I was purposefully single and planning to keep it that way. My life was far too unpredictable to settle down and fall in love. And being casual had never been my style. As a witch, my magic was tied to my emotions and it took a while to rebalance once something disturbed my heart. Whether good or bad. It just wasn’t worth it. I’d learned that lesson a while ago.

  I shook the thoughts out of my mind and went to work on a kettle of tea. Something soothing. Chamomile? But with what…

  I was still weighing my options when the kitchen door opened. Adam, now fully dressed, strode across the room and plopped down at the head of the table. Two seconds later, before he could get comfortable, he sprang back up and went to his snack cabinet. He retrieved his trusty jar of peanut butter, a sleeve of crackers from a box, and a banana from the counter. He grabbed a butter knife and then carried the haul back to the table and went to work making little sandwiches.

  “How can you be hungry?” I asked, marveling at him from my place at the stove. I laid a hand across my own stomach. Between McNally’s fish and chips and the triple scoop from Sprinkles and Splits, I was about to burst.

  Adam didn’t share that feeling. By the time the tea kettle sang, he’d crafted ten miniature sandwiches and stacked them on the table in front of him. “Snacking relaxes me.”

  I snorted. “All right, then.”

  “So what in the Otherworld was all that back at the coffee shop?” he asked, turning in his chair. One of his elbows dipped over the back and his other hand lifted the first cracker sandwich to his lips. He devoured it in one bite.

  “That was Nick Rivers. The PI—”

  “The paranormal investigator?” Adam snarled.

  I nodded. “Well, yes, and no. He does both. He’s a classic PI, you know cheating husbands, runaway kids, stolen jewelry, that kind of thing and then he does the paranormal tours on the side.”

  Adam rolled his eyes. “So, let me get this straight. Not only is he after our kind, but he knows what he’s doing too? Awesome.”

  I sighed miserably. Adam was right. Most paranormal tours were pure nonsense, led by self-proclaimed experts who wouldn’t recognize a sprite or troll if it kicked them in the shins and wore a name tag. I wasn’t sure how much accurate information Nick had about paranormal creatures and beings, but he had skills with tracking and investigating that could prove to be a real risk if he realized the nest of paranormals residing in Beechwood Harbor.

  The results could be staggering. Especially since I’d already run out of relocation options…

  I turned off the burner and moved the kettle away from the heat. I poured water into the two cups I had set off to the side of the stove on the small slice of counter between it and the fridge. Once filled, I brought the two cups to the table and slid one in front of Adam before taking the seat beside him. “He saw you,” I said softly.

  Adam nodded, his jaw going stiff. “I know. That’s why I abandoned my clothes and ran off. I circled back but still caught his scent so I came back here to wait for you. I didn’t think you’d take so long…” he flashed me a dark look. “What were you doing?”

  “I had to see what I could find, Adam! Nick said…” my voice carried off, remembering the cold words I’d thrown at him before storming out of the shop. “He said that the cops found a pair of Cassie’s shoes in a dumpster not far from the crime scene. They were covered in peppermint syrup. From the alley…”

  Adam drew in a breath and released it in a forceful puff. “That’s not good.”

  “Not at all. Peg was bludgeoned with a bottle of the vile stuff.”

  He made a distasteful face. “Crime of passion or heat of the moment?”

  “Wish I knew. Did you pick up any other scents?” I twisted my cup around in a small circle, the contents still too hot to drink. “Before you got run off, I mean.”

  “Nothing that helps. I smelled straw, the peppermint, and blood.”

  “Straw?”

  Adam nodded. “Yeah. Like hay. Not a lot but there was an undertone. Maybe someone tracked it in from their shoes?”

  “I guess.” Beechwood Harbor was a coastal town but the beach was a small slice of the landscape. Most people didn’t live by the ocean. Inland was more rural. A lot of green space with timberlines, wetlands, and small farms making up the majority of it. It wasn’t far-fetched that someone
could have tracked in hay or straw from their farm.

  I thought back to the legal papers and wondered if Phillip Tanner lived on a farm. Of everything I’d gathered so far, he had shot up heads and shoulders above the rest of the suspects on my list. Finding out more about him, including whether or not he lived on horse property, would be a good place to start.

  “Listen, thanks for coming with me tonight, Adam. I had fun. All things considered.”

  “Me too, Holly.” Adam held my gaze for a long moment before I cleared my throat and pushed up from the table. “You gonna finish your tea?”

  I glanced down, having forgot about it entirely. Something about the dark look in Adam’s eye had thrown me off track. “I’ll take it with me. Boots is waiting for his bedtime treat. If I make him wait much longer, I’ll have a tiny mutiny on my hands.”

  “Tiny? The only thing tiny about that cat is his brains.”

  “Hey!” I narrowed my eyes at him as I gathered up my tea cup.

  Adam laughed and popped another cracker sandwich into his mouth. “Night, Holly. Send my love to the furball.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE FOLLOWING morning, I woke up to the sound of my cell phone ringing, a twinkly little song breaking through my twisted and confusing dreams. I opened my heavy lids to find an orange tail swishing across my face. I spat out as the tail swooped back around and brushed my face free of the dusting of cat fur. “Boots!” I shoved his chunky rear end off of my chest and rolled over just as the phone started ringing again.

  My heart jolted into a frantic pace at the name on the Caller ID.

  “Cassie?” I answered, pushing the phone up against my tangled hair.

  “Hi, Holly,” she started, her voice tiny and thin. “I’m really sorry to call so early.”

  The bedroom was dark except for the light from the screen of the phone in my hand. I flicked with my other hand and sent a small orb of light into the air. I rolled over to check the time on the small, old-fashioned alarm clock beside my bed. It was a little after five thirty. I blinked a few times, clearing the sleep from my eyes. “It’s okay, Cass. What’s going on? Are you okay?”

  Cassie started to speak but the words fell apart and dissolved into sobs before I could figure out what she was talking about.

  I bolted upright in bed and Boots gave me a disgruntled look, having just resituated himself beside me. He stuck his tail straight up in the air and waddled off to the other side of the queen size bed. “Cassie? Where are you?”

  “I’m at home,” she said, around another miserable wail. “I can’t sleep and I thought you might be awake since normally you’d be on your way to the shop by now.”

  She sniffled and a surge of pity and anger ran through me, crashing together in my chest. “I’m awake, Cassie. Do you want me to come over?”

  “No, you don’t have to do that. I just needed to talk to someone. All these horrible thoughts are going around inside my head and I think I’m going to go crazy.”

  I swung my legs over the side of the bed, sending the covers flying over the top of Boots. The floor was cool under my bare feet and I hurried to swap out my cotton shorts for a pair of jeans while I kept the phone pinched between my cheek and my shoulder. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes, Cass. I’ll bring some breakfast. Okay?”

  A pitiful sniffle tugged on my heart. “Thanks, Holly. You’re the best.”

  We hung up and I scrambled to get ready. As I was walking out the front door, I realized that with Siren’s Song closed, there were limited options for getting hot coffee and something that would work for a quick breakfast on the fly. I hurried through town and made a quick stop at Thistle, the small all-natural market, almost surprised to find them open so early. They had hot coffee available in their deli department. Nothing fancy, but it would do the trick. I also grabbed a few rolls, hot and fresh, and a container of jam, before paying and heading over to Cassie’s.

  As I approached her family’s home, I saw her under the porch light, sitting on the wooden porch swing. She told me once that her father built it for her mother before his accident. It was probably the nicest thing they owned. I waved as I made my way up the small walkway of bricks that were mostly dominated by the unkempt grass that sprouted up in between them. She had a thick blanket tucked around her legs and was bundled in a thick hooded sweatshirt. The sky was only starting to brighten.

  Cassie lifted a corner of the blanket for me and patted the seat beside her as I approached. “Hi, Holly.”

  “Hey.” I sat down and handed her one of the two cardboard cups before reaching for the paper bag tucked under my arm. I opened the bag for her to look inside. “I got some rolls too, and they smell amazing.”

  She smiled as I rummaged through the small paper bag and laid out our simple breakfast. “Thanks. That was really sweet of you.”

  “No problem.” I took a deep sip from my own cup of coffee. It was bold and strong and perked me up. “So, tell me what’s going on.”

  She dropped her gaze to the roll in her lap and tore off a chunk. “Chief Lincoln and his officers think I killed Peg.”

  “I thought we went over this, Cass. He’s just following the clues right now. He has to ask questions of anyone who might know something. He doesn’t think you did it.” I gulped, hoping my words sounded more convincing than they felt.

  Cassie shook her head. “He came back over yesterday. He had his deputy with him and they asked to go through my room.”

  “What?” My heart kicked out a frantic rhythm, like a kid jamming on a drum set.

  Cassie nodded. “They found a pair of shoes in the dumpster. They had peppermint syrup all over them. Frankie told them they were my shoes and that I was wearing them that night, before the murder.”

  I grimaced. “Were you?”

  Cassie flicked a glance at me and then nodded slowly. Her expression twisted, pained. “Yeah. They were my blue high tops.”

  “Why did you throw them out at work?” It was a question I’d wrestled with since Nick told me about the shoes the night before.

  Cassie groaned. “It was stupid. After the argument with Peg, I went outside, and took the trash with me. That’s what I’d been doing when she called me into her office to accuse me of stealing.” Cassie paused and flexed her jaw. “Anyways, the trash bag busted right as I went to throw it away. Old milk, coffee grounds, syrup, leftover drinks. All of it. All down my front and of course, all over my shoes.”

  I pulled a face. “Ick.”

  “I was so angry. About Peg and the trash and everything else. I had a pair of flip flops in my car, so I tore off those old shoes and chucked them right in the dumpster closest to where I’d parked.”

  I nodded, it all made sense. But talk about bad timing for a bargain trash bag to go kersplat.

  “I told Jeffery what happened and he looked around and didn’t find anything. I think he believed me. At least, I thought he did.”

  “What do you mean? Did something else happen?”

  Cassie nodded and popped another bite in her mouth. “Last night, I went into town to get groceries and I noticed one of his deputies on my tail. He has someone following me.”

  My eyes snapped open wide. “What?”

  “Yeah. He didn’t even bother with an unmarked car.” She shook her head, her delicate nostrils flaring. “I can’t believe he’s doing any of this. What’s next? He hauls me down to the station to interrogate me like someone on a cop show?”

  I was at a loss for words. I didn’t know how it all worked, mostly because in the supernatural world, things were different. If you were suspected of a crime, a SPA agent would drag you in and use magic to make you talk.

  “Besides, where am I going to go? Even if it was me, I couldn’t just up and leave town. I have to take care of my pops and Kirra.” Cassie dragged in a long breath. “Anyways, that’s where things stand.”

  “I’m sorry, Cass.”

  She nodded sadly. “Me too. I don’t even know what to tell Kir
ra and my pops. I mean, they know it wasn’t me, but I just can’t bring myself to even tell them about the argument with Peg, or the five hundred dollars she thought I stole, or any of it. It’s all like a nightmare that I can’t wake up from.”

  “It will be over soon. It has to be.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  We finished our coffees and nibbled at the rolls.

  After a long while, Cassie turned to me. “What about you? Are you all right?”

  I glanced up from my empty cup of coffee and forced a smile for Cassie’s sake. “I’m all right. I just didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”

  “I’ll bet.” Cassie shuddered. “I can’t imagine it was easy being the one to find her…like that.”

  “I don’t even want to think about it.”

  “I don’t blame you.”

  Before I could think of a way to navigate us to a cheerier topic, a car pulled down the street that made both of us sit up straighter.

  “No way,” I breathed, my heart hammering away.

  Cassie stiffened beside me and cursed under her breath. I couldn’t remember her ever swearing before. I glanced over at her. Her eyes narrowed in the direction of the black sedan cruising down the street.

  The car rolled to a stop in front of the house, and Chief Lincoln appeared as the window lowered. He glanced at each of us. “Morning, ladies.”

  “What are you doing here, Jeffery?” Cassie demanded, folding her arms over her chest.

  Her sass surprised me. Chief Lincoln certainly had an effect on her. I had a feeling that was true even before this unfortunate investigation had begun.

  “I’m just on my way to the station.”

  Cassie rolled her eyes. “And decided to cruise through my neighborhood? What is this? The scenic route?”

  Chief Lincoln frowned. “I’m just doing my job, Cassie. Can you please understand that.”

  “No. I can’t. Now, go away!”

  Chief Lincoln gave each of us a hard stare but did as she asked. He rolled the window back up, pulled away from the curb, and drove off into the hazy morning.