by Beth Byers
“She’s not,” Katherine said, shaking her head and crying. “Not my Emmy. Not my Emmy. No. No no no no no no no.” Katherine’s sobbing had the vicar taking her hand while her children stared at each other in shock.
Slowly, Emmanuline stood and took a step towards Joseph, but Katherine grabbed her wrist as if to save her.
“You’re wrong,” Mitchell said hoarsely. “It wasn’t Emmanuline.”
“You and your family have stonewalled the investigation at every turn. I understand, Lynd, you were protecting your sister. But the game’s up.”
“Emmanuline?” Brent looked confused and then angry, so similar to Jedidiah that Joseph might have suspected him if he’d been anywhere near the area and without an alibi.
“You don’t understand anything,” Jedediah shouted. “You have no evidence.”
“I have a woman who attacked another woman. I have a dead body. I have opportunity and a history of violence.”
“It’s all right,” Emmanuline said quietly to Mitchell. “It’s all right.”
To Joseph’s utter shock, a voice said, “No, it isn’t.”
Joseph slowly turned to look at the man who had finally spoken. “I killed Zette.”
“No,” Emmanuline said to her brother. “No, this is my fault.”
“It’s mine,” John said, sounding exhausted. He unbuttoned the cuffs on his shirt as he spoke. “I should have heard what Zette was up to. I should have stopped it. It should have been me protecting Mum. Not you, Em.”
“Are you saying you murdered your wife?” Joseph asked John Lynd.
In answer, he rolled up his cuffs and showed his scratched wrists. “I told her to leave Mother alone. I told her that Mother would live in her home until the day she died. I told her to stop. She laughed at me and called me a fool and said she didn’t need me anymore. For the love of Emmanuline, the Lynd family would do anything.”
His jaw was trembling and tears were flowing down his face.
“She was right. For the love of Emmanuline, the kindest of us, I would silence my own Zette.”
Joseph nodded at Higgins who pulled John Lynd away. Joseph looked at the horrified family. “I’m sorry.”
They weren’t appeased but there was nothing else to say.
“Was it John Lynd?” she asked when Joseph returned to her house.
He poured himself a large drink and lit a cigarette, taking a chair near the fire. “How did you know?”
“The other brothers would have lied for Emmanuline and each other, so Lizette’s threat was meaningless. She was too self-absorbed to realize. So it seemed to me that only someone who hadn’t been paying attention and had been living in a dreamland would snap hard enough to kill.”
Charles lit his pipe, calm in the face of his wife’s preternatural ability.
“You’re a witch,” Joseph said.
“And friends with a demon,” his Marian answered from the doorway.
Joseph couldn’t believe she was there, in the house. He felt the first stirrings of hope. “Didn’t your mother call you home?”
“She did,” Marian replied. “I explained that she was ruining my life and my relationship with the man I love. I further added that she and Father had to understand that no matter how many cons they come up with regarding you, they‘ll never outweigh the pros that didn’t even need to be written down.”
“What pros are those?” Joseph asked, slowly rising to face her as the hope grew.
“That I don’t want to live without you. That I love you. That you’re my dream come true.”
He stepped forward and took her face between his hands and kissed her soundly.
“Brava!” Georgette said. Joseph was barely aware of Charles lifting Georgette and carrying her from the parlor. “This is our house,” Georgette laughed.
The last thing Joseph heard was the shout of Charles’s laughter and the click of the parlor door. He let Marian go but she stepped closer to him.
“I thought I’d lost this,” he told her.
“I love you, Joseph Aaron. Nothing will change that.”
“What did Georgette call it?” he asked.
“Our happily ever after.” She cupped his cheek and smiled up at him. “Will you build one with me?”
His answer was another fervent kiss.
If there was one thing the goddess Atë loved, it was a destruction caused by your own stupidity. Lizette Lynd had her downfall. What could be better? Her gaze turned to the village, seeing end after end approaching and she wondered just how they would go. Curiosity was the greatest gift to endless life, outside of surprise. Would Georgette surprise again? What about the far more prosaic Marian Parker? Young Lucy? That minx in progress, Janey? The possibilities were endless.
The END
Hullo friends! I am so grateful you dove in and read the latest Vi book. If you wouldn’t mind, I would be so grateful for a review.
The sequel to this book is available for preorder now.
December 1925
Violet Wakefield is determined to dive into the holiday and enjoy every occasion. She's going to see the live nativity, listen to Handel's Messiah, and attend the Nutcracker ballet. She'll cover her house in all the holly and lights. In fact, Vi wants nothing more than to put up the largest Christmas tree she can locate and stuff it with gifts.
She little expects, however, to stumble across a crime in action. When she gets pulled into the madness, her biggest concern isn't the crime, it's keeping Jack from committing a holiday homicide.
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My newest series is now available. Keep on flipping for a sneak peak.
April 1922
When the Ku Klux Klan appears at the door of the Wode sisters, they decide it’s time to visit the ancestral home in England.
With squabbling between the sisters, it takes them too long to realize that their new friend is being haunted. Now they’ll have to set aside their fight, discover just why their friend is being haunted, and what they’re going to do about it. Will they rid their friend of the ghost and out themselves as witches? Or will they look away?
Join the Wodes as they rise up and embrace just who and what they are in this newest historical mystery adventure.
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Sneak Peek of Bright Young Witches & the Restless Dead
CHAPTER ONE
APRIL 1922. WASHINGTON D.C. USA
ARIADNE EUDORA WISTERIA WODE
“Give me some of the good stuff,” the man said, nudging a waiting girl aside. He was wearing a pinstriped evening suit with his hair pomaded back. Given the large ring on his pinky and the gold on his watch chain, Ariadne assumed he was quite wealthy or quite powerful or both. The large cigar hanging from his mouth suggested both.
Ariadne had been just behind him when he went shoving people about and she caught the girl he’d sent stumbling off her bar stool. The height of the girl’s heels didn’t help, but the man hadn’t even noticed he’d knocked the woman down. The girl shot him a nasty, unnoticed look and then turned to Ariadne with a glance that said, Can you believe this dirty bloke?
“We’re out,” the barman said. “Want a Coke?”
The shelves behind him were nearly empty of bottles, unlike the bar itself, which was full. Ariadne sighed. The speakeasy never ordered enough, always ran low, and then the boss took it out on her. He needed either more suppliers, to quit under-ordering, or to open a little less often. Some of the fellows in the bar were reeling drunk and could have been cut off before they’d reached that state. Sloppy drunks put everyone at risk of getting pinched.
“Give me what the management is drinking,” the man growled. “I know you got the good stuff, and I don’t want any of this second-rate swill that’ll leave me blind or dead.”
“Our delivery of the good stuff is late,” the barman said flatly. Whoever this shove-y man was, the barman was unimpressed. “No one’s drinking much until that comes along. Not ev
en the boss man.”
Ariadne met the barman’s gaze, and he jerked his head to the back. There was a triggerman guarding the door, and the man didn’t move when Ariadne approached. His dark eyes fixed on hers, and there was threat in his stony expression.
Here we go again, Ariadne thought, ignoring his look and sliding past him without a flicker of a lash. Posturing was such a gent’s move. She had too much to do for this nonsense. When she felt someone watching her, she glanced back and caught the gaze of a bloke with dark, sharp eyes and slicked back hair, with a hefty drink in front of him. He was, she thought, almost certainly a copper. Hopefully he was dirty. Otherwise, they’d all be hauled away with time in the slammer. The goons anyway. The shadows liked Ariadne.
Either way, she wished she was a little less memorable in the drop-waisted, shimmery dress that showed off far more of her chest than she’d prefer. She dressed with the intent to blend in with the other dames. Better to be seen as an easy moll than what she was—a lady-legger. Or, more accurately, a booze-making witch.
“It’s about time,” Blind Bobby growled as Ariadne appeared. “Do you have it? I don’t pay full price for late goods. You’re costing me a pile of lettuce, girl.”
“They had checkpoints on the way in. I had to think quick and step even more quickly. You’re lucky I’m here at all, and you’ll be paying me the full amount or I’ll take a walk down to the next juice joint. Easy peasy.” She snapped her fingers. It was always better not to be too challenging, but sometimes she couldn’t help herself.
Blind Bobby put his gun on the table and leaned back. “Maybe I’ll just take the booze and pay you nothing, little girl.”
“Did you find someone else who makes gin that won’t blind you and can age wine and whisky with magic—because I don’t think you have found anyone like me.”
“I’ll pay you eighty percent.” He sniffed and growled, “From here on.”
His dark, beady eyes fixed on her, and he leaned in, strong jaw gritted. He intended to scare her, but Ariadne was only irritated. She felt as though every time she interacted with this grunting beast, he thought he could just tower over her face and she’d crumple. Ariadne laughed, a trilling thing that didn’t sound amused but conveyed her message.
Blind Bobby nudged his gun once again, and Ariadne scowled at him, dropping all pretense of amusement. She crossed her arms over her chest and lifted a challenging brow instead. “Do you really want to put a bean shooter up against magic?”
“Do you really want to put you and your little sister against my boys? There’s even smaller witch brats in that town of yours. What’s it called? Nighton? Bring her in.” The last was said to one of the apes standing about grasping their guns trying to look intimidating.
There was a sound at the tunnel door and several men poured through with Ariadne’s sister, Echo. She struggled in the grasp of…Ariadne’s head cocked and gaze narrowed.
Lindsey Noel. She scowled at him. He was the shining son of Nighton and the fellow intent on finding his way into Ariadne’s sister Circe’s knickers.
“Well, if it isn’t Lindsey Noel. Are you joining in on threatening my sisters? All of my sisters?”
Lindsey blushed, but his voice was mean. “I know where you live.” His fingers dug into Echo’s bicep.
“And I know where you live.” Ariadne glanced at Echo, who seemed fine despite the white circles under Lindsey’s pressing fingers. “Why’d you let them take you?”
“I wanted to see what Lindsey was up to. Sooner or later, Circe will see he’s milquetoast playing at being a leading man. She believes that front he puts up, but the mannered handsome puppy will fade into what he really is—another arrogant rube with a rich daddy. It’ll go easier if it’s me telling her what he did, and after all—he put his hands on me.”
Easier, Ariadne translated, than if Ari were the one who told Circe her lover put them all at risk with his playing at being a bad boy.
The idiot Lindsey let go of Echo, but it was too late. The smirk she shot him was enough to have him wondering, would he lose Circe over this? The unfortunate answer was that Ariadne could only wish.
The other men glanced at each other, smirking, when Blind Bobby grunted, “No one cares about your hick problems.” He gestured and the goons lining the wall leveled their guns at Ariadne.
She sighed. “Until I get paid, you won’t be able to open the bottles at the delivery point. Try as you might.”
Blind Bobby laughed meanly and Ariadne yawned. He shoved the table back, grabbing his gun as he did, and shoved it into Ariadne’s face, pressing it hard against her forehead.
“Careful,” she said quietly, “guns do malfunction so easily.”
“Open the whiskey, Petey,” Blind Bobby ordered.
Ariadne rolled her eyes and telepathically told her sister, Draw your magic. Ariadne opened her mind and senses to her own magic. She’d originally approached Blind Bobby once prohibition went into effect because the church basement where the speakeasy was housed was a place of power. Her magic, always strong, thrummed through her with a vengeance here. Echo’s must be a tsunami of power given the dead that even Ariadne could sense.
The ghosts are restless, Echo sent.
Of course they are, it’s a desecrated church. How did Noel know about us?
Echo’s mental snort seemed to ricochet about Ariadne’s head and they both knew the answer: Circe. Soft, trusting, blind-with-love Circe. Lindsey Noel wasn’t surprised in the least by their magic. Their sister hated keeping what they were from her ‘sweet’ Lindsey. She must have talked, and he’d gathered a full confession, given his presence.
Foolish girl.
The grunting of his man trying to open the bottle caught her attention. The goon was yanking at the stopper in the whiskey bottle, desperate to open it. He finally brought out a large knife, but it bounded off of the glass as though it were stone instead of a little bit of cork and glass. Finally he looked up at Blind Bobby and shook his head.
Blind Bobby pulled the gun back enough just to shove it back against her head again. “That’s gonna leave a bruise.” His laugh was ugly and he glanced at his men until they were snorting with unbelievable laughter as well.
“Balm of Gilead is an easy enough potion to make for someone like me,” Ariadne told him, drawing her magic so deeply that her bobbed hair was slowly starting to rise around her face. “The bruise will be gone in minutes. I carry it in my handbag.”
“What about the hole my bullet leaves?” He cocked his gun and then, to her horror, swung his arm wide, aiming at Echo. “Will it cure that?”
“Fool,” Ariadne said, finished with this nonsense. She dropped to her knees, covering her head when the gun misfired, and magic rushed into Ariadne as the place of power energized her and she sent the rest of the guns into either misfiring or not firing at all.
With Echo there, ghosts were caught in the energy in the church and within the sisters. The ghosts went mad, merging into a tornado of shadows that sent Blind Bobby’s goons into shrieking like little girls. Point of fact, Ariadne thought as she started to crawl away from Blind Bobby, her little sisters wouldn’t have whined like these boys.
A moment later, the copper from earlier rushed the door. Ariadne dropped her magic immediately so it seemed that the screaming goons had gone crazy. On her knees, with forced tears, she looked like a victim as she reached for the copper. She screamed to draw his attention to her from Echo. “Help! Help me, please!”
Police swarmed the room, and Ariadne was yanked to her feet by the first copper to reach her. He glanced her over, muttered, “Fool doll,” and shoved her behind him.
She shivered and whimpered and thanked the whole of the group repetitively with big crocodile tears, backing towards the wall. Her dress, her mussed makeup, and her tears were enough for the blokes to not realize she was one of the criminals. Just another doll caught up with the wrong man. She waited until they were all looking the other way, wrestling the goons down, and sh
e slid into the shadows, pulling them around her.
The coppers didn’t know about the escape tunnel where Echo had already disappeared, followed by Lindsey Noel. Echo had sealed it against any but Ariadne, so the fuzz were gathering up the men who couldn’t use their tunnel while she slipped through, cloaked in darkness and magic.
Using the athamé in her handbag, Ariadne carved a rune of the door to keep it locked. She ignored the skittering of rats and the cool touch of the dead as she hurried down the tunnel.
“Go back to sleep,” she murmured to the dead, hoping they’d comply. Otherwise the boys who worked for Blind Bobby would find themselves chilled in body and spirit.
The old church had a crypt underneath, so it was better not to look into the dark entrances of side rooms if you wanted to avoid looking at the remnants of the living. The tunnels went from the crypt to beyond the graveyard behind the church, following beneath the road. Blind Bobby’s men had extended the tunnels even farther. With that kind of work ethic, what might those goons have been capable of if they bothered working for good?
Ariadne mocked herself—knowing she was a criminal too—and moved quickly through the tunnels. There were exits for a good mile down the tunnel road if you knew where to look and what to look for.
The vast majority of Ariadne’s booze delivery was still in the auto garage where one of the exits from the tunnels led. The bottles were loaded on the back of her truck. Echo already had their truck running and was just loading the last of the whiskey bottles that had been previously unloaded. Any speakeasy could make gin in their bathtub. Magically aged liqueurs, wines, and whiskey required a witch, a different country, or a very expensive operation that risked prison time. Ariadne sealed the tunnel behind her with the same rune she’d used before. Someone would have to find the runes she’d used and destroy them before the exit would open. Otherwise it would take hours for the spell to fade.