by Sam Short
The Complete Spellbinder Bay Cozy Mystery Boxset
Books One, Two, and Three
Sam Short
www.samshortauthor.com
Copyright © 2019 by Sam
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
For Katie. My very own magical lady.
Also by Sam Short
The Pepper Grinder Series
A Dash Of Pepper - Book One
Don’t forget to read the complete Water Witch Cozy Paranormal Series! The first series by Sam Short.
Book one — Under Lock and Key
Book Two — Four and Twenty Blackbirds
Book Three — An Eye For an Eye
Book Four — A Meeting of Minds
Contents
Witch Way To Spellbinder Bay
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Broomsticks and Bones
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Spells and Cells
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Also by Sam Short
About the Author
Witch Way To Spellbinder Bay
A Spellbinder Bay Cozy Paranormal Mystery - Book One
Chapter 1
Millie peered through the grimy window at the old brick wall beyond. She pressed the phone closer to her ear as her lips formed the lie. “It’s a wonderful view,” she said. “The river is sparkling below me, and I can see right across London.”
“It sounds lovely, Millie,” said her surrogate aunt, her voice remarkably clear for somebody who was on the other side of the world. “We’re so proud of you! Who’d have thought that our Millie would be a successful model, living in a London penthouse! Your mum would be grinning from ear to ear if she could see you now!”
If her Mum could have seen her now, Millie was certain that pride would have been the last thing she’d feel. Disappointment maybe. Pity definitely.
Chipped crockery rattled on the dirty sink in the corner of the room, and the light-shade swayed a little on the dirty white cord which attached it to the ceiling. She’d concluded that not only was her apartment a hovel, but that it was also situated directly above one of the underground tube-train lines which criss-crossed the bowels of the city.
Millie craned her neck to watch the polished shoes of people trudging along the pavement above her — the owners no doubt on their way to a successful city job, and not condemned to another long day in a damp subterranean apartment, watching daytime TV and worrying about how the rent would be paid next week.
“It’s not all glitz and glamour, Aunty Hannah,” said Millie, cringing as the long fleshy tail of a city rat slithered behind the plant pot outside the window. The plant in the pot had been long dead when she’d been forced to take residency in the apartment — probably a victim of engine fumes and a lack of sunlight. She supposed the plant was better off dead. Living below street level with hardly a beam of natural light, and traffic passing by all day and most of the night, was not a pleasant set of circumstances to live in. Not at all. Even for a plant.
Aunty Hannah continued. “You know you could have come with us, sweetheart. Australia is such a beautiful place, and I promised your mother I’d treat you like my own daughter. I promised her I’d look after you for as long as you wanted and needed me to.” She paused and cleared her throat. “I know you know, but I just want to hear you say it one more time… you do know you could have come with us, don’t you, Millie?”
“Of course I know,” said Millie. She also knew that not going to Australia was turning out to be one of the worse decisions she’d ever made.
“And you know you’re always welcome to come over if things don’t work out for you? As long as I own a roof, there will always be a bed available beneath it for you, sweetie.”
“Thank you,” said Millie, wiping a finger through the dust on the once white windowsill. “Thank you for everything you’ve ever done for me.”
Aunty Hannah coughed, and Millie guessed she was crying. She’d always been a woman who wore her heart on her sleeve, and for a moment Millie thought about telling her the truth. She thought about telling her mother’s best friend that her move to London had been based on a con. A con that had seen her spend most of her savings on expensive headshots which would never get her a modelling job, and a con that had seen the promise of sharing a penthouse with two other girls, turn into the soul-destroying reality of living like a hermit in a damp and dingy flat. She swallowed. “I love you, Aunty Hannah.”
“And I love you, Millie Thorn. I’m so glad you’re happy, and I can’t wait to see your photograph on the cover of Cosmo! I always said you were pretty. From day one, when I visited your mother in hospital when you were born. I said, ’she’s going to be a stunner, that one. You mark my words!’ It’s those big brown eyes of yours… they’r
e beautiful.”
It wasn’t her slightly crooked nose then, or the cleft in her chin that could sometimes resemble the buttocks of an overweight builder, if the light caught it just right, that made her beautiful. No — it was just her eyes. Her best feature. The only feature people ever mentioned.
She’d been a fool. She knew as much. She was pretty, yes… but model material? Arguably not. She could admit that to herself. How she’d ever fallen for the lies of a woman who’d approached her on a social media site, offering her a contract purely on the basis of a few photographs, was beyond her.
Being a model had never been an ambition of hers, and she put the fact that she’d jumped at the chance down to the turmoil which was going on in her life at the time. She had been taken off guard. She had been taken for a fool.
However she looked at it, she’d fallen for the woman’s lies — and instead of jet setting across the world with her surrogate family, Millie had moved to London and become the victim of a sleazy scam.
Millie frowned. “Forget Cosmo and things like that,” she said, conjuring up a feasible way to prevent her aunt from scouring the pages of fashion magazines in the hope of seeing pictures of her. “I’m just doing small stuff for now. Adverts for local companies and things like that. Who knows where that will take me.”
“It’ll take you far, my darling,” said Aunt Hannah. “I’m certain of that.” She paused. “Listen, sweetheart… I feel so rude… it’s lovely to hear your voice, but we’re in different time zones. I really must get off the phone now. I know you probably haven’t had lunch yet, but it’s time for me to go to bed.”
“Of course,” said Millie, the sound of crockery rattling from behind her once more. “Goodnight, Aunty Hannah, and pass on my love to Uncle James and Peter.”
“Peter is fast asleep, but I’ll tell him in the morning when I’m struggling to dress him for school. I’ll tell James you send your love when I go to bed. Goodnight, Millie the model!”
Millie held the phone to her ear even after the call had ended. Wishing there were still another human on the other end. Wishing that she had somebody to talk to.
Lying on a lumpy mattress and watching TV at three o’clock in the afternoon was an activity Millie had never anticipated herself taking part in. She sighed. She’d look for work again tomorrow. Surely there must be one job in the whole of London which would pay a semi-unskilled person, as she liked to think of herself, enough money to pay the rent on a hovel.
In the small Welsh valley village she’d lived in with Aunt Hannah, she could have rented a three-bedroom house for the same amount she was paying to live in a slum. That bird had flown, though. Aunt Hannah had sold her home in the valleys, and Millie had no reason to return to Wales.
She’d need a plan. And she’d need it quickly. Her bank account was running on fumes, and she had nobody she could call on to borrow their sofa to sleep on for one night, let alone until she managed to get on her feet again.
She knew Aunt Hannah would pay for a plane ticket to Australia if she discovered Millie was struggling, but that was not an option. Not yet. Not while a sliver of pride remained within her dying soul.
She reached for her phone and grimaced as a static shock sparked from her fingertip. She’d been suffering a lot of static shocks recently, and had put it down to the build-up of energy in the cheap nylon carpet which ran out of worn thread an inch away from each of the paint peeling walls.
Her phone felt good in her hand. A lifeline to the outside world, and the only luxury she reluctantly paid for. She opened Google and searched for jobs within five miles of her postcode. That seemed like a reasonable distance to walk each day until she’d earned enough to pay the rent and afford a bus trip twice a day.
Movement caught her eye, and Millie glanced to the left as a shadow passed the window. The sharp knock on the front door startled her. The landlord had explained that the tall iron gate set in the fence on the pavement, which opened onto steps leading down to the flat, had rusted shut years before. Millie had been forced to use the door at the rear of the building, which led off the narrow corridor outside the tiny bathroom. The door which opened onto the rat-infested rubbish strewn alleyway beyond. She’d attempted to open the gate, but it was as the landlord had told her — impenetrable due to age and weather.
Nobody should have been able to open the gate, and nobody should be knocking the door. Millie only opened it an inch or two when she wanted a little fresh air blowing into the room — and she always checked for rats first.
Even the most eager of cold-calling sales people gave up reaching the door when they realised the gate was firmly shut in place, and the landlord had never visited, even when she’d begged him to fix the leaking water pipe which was turning one corner of the room into a thriving environment for mildew. He’d use the back door anyway.
Then it dawned on her — the police. They must have finally got around to investigating the scam she’d been a victim of. She’d reported it three weeks ago, but it seemed that losing all her savings to a con-woman masquerading as a modelling agent was near the bottom of the priority crime list. Maybe they’d forced the gate open in their eagerness to finally solve a low priority crime.
Millie climbed off the bed and ran a hand through her hair, tidying it the best she could. She opened the front door, which protested with a grumbling creak, and stared in wonder at the man who looked up at her.
“Miss Millie Thorn,” he said. A statement rather than a question.
Millie managed to draw her gaze away from the man’s colourful three-piece suit, a watch chain hanging from the pocket of the red waistcoat, and focused on his eyes — magnified by thick lenses set in circular gold metal frames. “How did you get through the gate?” she asked.
The man looked over his shoulder, and stared at the gate, which stood wide open. “I pushed it, Miss Thorn. As one does with a standard gate.” He turned his attention back to Millie, bringing his battered leather briefcase close to his chest. “Now, I think I should come in. We have a lot to discuss, and I need to be on a small island off the coast of Scotland before the full moon tonight. Time is of the essence,” he insisted, taking a quick step towards the doorway.
Millie put a hand on the door-frame, using her arm as a barrier. “Wait right there!” she demanded. “I’m not about to just let you into my flat. I don’t know who you are, or what you want. Are you a policeman?”
The man didn’t look tall enough to be a policeman, although Millie knew height restrictions surrounding police recruitment were lifted years ago. He seemed older than retirement age, too. There was more, though… something Millie could only refer to as an aura — a concept she’d never considered as real. He simply didn’t feel like a policeman.
“Golly gosh, no,” said the man, attempting to peer past Millie, who moved to block his view. “I’m not a policeman. I’m Mister Henry Pinkerton. I’m here to change your life, Millie Thorn.” He crouched to peer beneath Millie’s arm at the interior of the flat, turning his short nose up at the sight. “For the better, it would seem. Let me in, Miss Thorn.”
Despite not knowing the man, and despite being the recent victim of a scam, Millie surprised herself. She stood aside, not understanding why she trusted the little man, but aware that her own mind was fighting against her willingness to allow a complete stranger into her home.
The sensation in her head was not too far removed from the feeling she’d had when she’d tried cannabis for the first time… calm, but slightly confused. She was a little peckish, too.
“Shall I sit here?” said Mister Pinkerton, pointing at the only seat in the room.
Millie closed the door, rubbing her forehead. She blinked three times. “Yes, please. Sit down. Erm… why did I invite you in?”
“Because I asked you to,” said Mister Pinkerton, opening his briefcase and retrieving an old black leather journal from within. “Take a seat on the bed, Millie. Let’s begin.”
Millie lowered herself onto
the edge of the mattress, her head beginning to clear. “I don’t understand why I let you in.”
“I can be persuasive,” said Mister Pinkerton, flicking through the yellow pages of the journal. “Here we are,” he said, studying the page he’d paused on. “Millie Thorn, born on the twenty-fourth of December, nineteen-ninety-three. A Christmas baby. That makes you twenty-four years old.”
“The fact that you have my date of birth written down in that book makes me nervous. What do you want, Mister Pinkerton?”