Pawsitively Fatal (Silver Springs Cozy Mystery Series Book 4)

by Ginny Gold

  Mona shakes her head. “Even I haven’t been able to get that out of her. She just brushed it off when I asked. Said I wouldn’t understand.”

  “Maybe you wouldn’t,” Maggie offers.

  “Maybe. But something must have happened. You don’t just bad mouth someone for no reason.”

  Without more information, Maggie is skeptical of Tess being a legitimate suspect. The details about Kami and Anya probably knowing about the back door straight into the cooler is helpful, though, and Maggie is glad she took the time to talk to Mona.

  Before she can continue the conversation, her cell phone rings behind the counter and Maggie excuses herself to answer it. Ginger Rae is calling.

  “Hi Ginger Rae,” Maggie answers and glances at Mona, who stands from her chair and waves before letting herself out the front door.

  “Hi Maggie. I think we’ve all come to an agreement,” Ginger Rae says. Maggie has to wrack her brain to figure out what she’s talking about.

  The keys and time travel.

  “Oh?”

  “We’d like to get rid of everything.”

  Maggie is surprised that they’ve already decided that. This morning, Erline was dead set against it. She was confident that they would be able to keep everything safe from anyone wanting to exploit that power.

  “What changed your mind?” Maggie asks.

  “I think we’d better come in and talk to you. Do you have the final object with you?” Ginger Rae’s evasiveness puts Maggie on edge.

  “No. It’s at home. Come over at six. I can’t leave Two Sisters. I opened late and have to be here all afternoon.”

  Ginger Rae hesitates before agreeing. “Okay. We’ll be there at six. With all the keys.”

  Maggie hangs up. She feels overwhelmed with all that is going on today—Travis’s appraisal of James’s possessions, running Two Sisters alone, Mona’s accusations against Kami, Anya and even her roommate Tess, and now the fate of time travel in the hands of Maggie and her elderly friends. She wishes Clem was here to deal with Travis and Two Sisters.

  The rest of the afternoon is rather uneventful but full of customers. Maggie is barely spared a minute to eat sitting down or to use the bathroom. By the time she closes and locks up at five o’clock, her feet are aching and her stomach rumbles.

  Maggie walks into her empty house and all three animals are thrilled to see her. The two dogs, Suzie and Oscar, jump on her and she has to put her knee out to keep them from tearing her clothes. Opal even winds her body between Maggie’s legs with the dogs right there.

  “I know, I know. You’ve all been home alone all day,” Maggie says, immediately feeling like her sister. She doesn’t get down on the floor and let the dogs lick her like Clem. Maggie does have limits.

  She drops her handbag on the couch and wants to fall into the cushions herself. But the animals demand attention and food so she obliges, filling three bowls in the kitchen. She helps herself to a leftover beer from last night and keeps the fridge open, wondering what she’ll feed everyone when they show up at dinnertime.

  Her options are limited. There are tortillas, cheese and some mushrooms and peppers that she can sauté and turn into burritos. There are onions on the counter, and in the cupboard she pushes jars of dried beans aside until she finds what she hoped was there—refried beans with green chilies. Bean burritos it is.

  With dinner planned and a beer in hand, Maggie lets herself sit on the couch, her feet up and her eyes closed. Today has been a long one and she has four more ahead of her before Clem gets back to help with the store. She has no idea how Clem ran Two Sisters alone for nearly six months.

  Maggie gets only a few seconds of relaxation before she hears a car drive into the driveway. She opens her eyes but doesn’t lean forward or get up. Whoever is early can let them self in.

  She listens as the car door slams—only one, so she knows someone is coming alone—and footsteps crunch on the icy path to the front door. A single knock echoes through the open downstairs before the door opens and Drew walks in.

  Maggie can’t help but smile. “You’re a sight for tired eyes,” she says, finishing her beer and placing it on the coffee table.

  “You forgot I was coming, didn’t you?” he asks and laughs, not at all upset at the prospect. He takes off his jacket and hangs it just inside the door.

  Maggie feels her face flush. “I did. Ginger Rae, Erline and Winona are coming over. They’ve decided we have to destroy everything connected to time travel, but Ginger Rae didn’t sound completely sure about it on the phone.”

  “Oh?” Drew walks to the kitchen and brings two open beers back from the fridge. “Will they be okay with me here?”

  “I don’t see why not. Ginger Rae asked you to keep me safe way back in May so you’ve been involved in this since the beginning. Maybe you’ll be the deciding vote if they’re still on the fence at all.”

  Drew sits next to Maggie and hands her another beer. Both dogs follow Drew and make themselves comfortable around him, one on either side of his feet. Maggie looks around for Opal but doesn’t see any sign of her.

  “I could have brought dinner,” Drew says, regret filling his eyes.

  Maggie shakes her head. “It was so last minute I didn’t even think of food until I got home. I found something to feed everyone. It might not be enough but I’m sure they’ll bring wine. They can fill up on alcohol.”

  They share a smile just as another car pulls into the driveway. Maggie sits forward but Drew stands before she has a chance. “I’ll get the door. You look exhausted.”

  Maggie doesn’t protest. Her second beer is relaxing her and she’s not ready to give that feeling up yet. Drew opens the door and Maggie is hit with a cold wind while all three women get inside as quickly as they can.

  “It’s getting cold out there,” Winona moans, rubbing her hands together.

  “That’s why we brought wine,” Erline teases, holding up two bottles.

  Maggie gets off the couch with a sigh and takes the bottles from her. “Three glasses?” she asks. The women nod as they take off boots and jackets, hats and gloves. “I’ll get dinner started.”

  It’s only a few minutes before everyone joins her and the sounds of their voices fill the space around Maggie. She’s always felt at home in a busy kitchen. Growing up, she and her mom cooked most meals together with Clem and their dad playing board games either at the kitchen table or in the living room. Over time, the company in the kitchen evolved from family to friends or pets, but the same feelings of being comfortable and happy remained.

  Maggie allows Drew to help slice vegetables while she grates cheese for the burritos and opens two cans of refried beans. She heats up a pan with oil, and just as she throws in the onions, mushrooms and peppers and they begin to sizzle, a knock on the door makes everyone stop talking at once.

  Ginger Rae, Winona and Erline all hold the same expression—pure fear.

  “I’m not expecting anyone,” Maggie says calmly.

  “No. But I can guess who that is.” Ginger Rae pulls the chain around her neck and fingers the skeleton key.

  Maggie raises an eyebrow. “Who?”

  “Travis Kirsch. He’s been following me since Saturday afternoon,” Winona answers, her face as white as the day old snow outside.

  CHAPTER 18

  “What’s he doing here? Why has he been following you?” Maggie asks. She knows she asked the questions in the wrong order.

  “We think he’s after the keys,” Erline explains.

  Maggie’s palms begin to sweat. She didn’t mention her suspicion of Travis’s guilt to the women this morning. But if they’re coming to the same conclusion, there has to be something to it.

  There’s another knock on the door, more impatient this time. Maggie comes up with a plan on the spot. “Drew,” she whispers, “I’m going to let whoever that is inside. You stay out of sight. If it’s Travis, text Daniel. He knows I think Travis is guilty of killing James. Maybe he didn’t do it, but if
he’s following Winona, he’s guilty of something.”

  Drew nods and takes Maggie’s phone. Maggie isn’t sure that Daniel would take a message from Drew seriously. But he’d do anything for Maggie.

  Maggie watches Drew walk into her bedroom and keep the door cracked open. He gives her the thumbs up and Maggie opens the front door.

  To no one’s surprise, Travis Kirsch is on the threshold.

  Without an invitation, Travis pushes past Maggie. “Well, well, well. What do we have here?” Travis’s tone is anything but friendly.

  Suzie and Oscar come storming down the stairs at full tilt, barking their heads off. Their anxiety makes the hairs on Maggie’s arms stand up. She can feel goosebumps sprouting on the back of her neck and she cringes. She grabs both dogs by their collars as they try to run by.

  None of the women say anything to answer his rhetorical question and Maggie forces herself not to look toward Drew. She hopes he’s already called Daniel and that he’s on his way.

  “How could I be so lucky to find all four of you in the same place?” The smirk on Travis’s face grows. Maggie is thankful she didn’t go to James’s house alone to meet Travis this morning. She can’t imagine how differently that meeting could have gone, even with Anya there to interrupt them.

  Winona stands and meets Travis’s gaze, but she barely reaches his chin. “What do you want, Travis? I’ve been watching you follow me all day.”

  “Just today?” His eyes widen in amusement. “I’ve been following you for weeks. I know you have something I’m looking for, and everyone else here has something, too.” He lets his gaze fall on each woman, ending on Ginger Rae who is still fiddling with the key on her necklace. “In fact, I see that you know what I’m after.”

  Ginger Rae drops her necklace. “This? This is worthless. It doesn’t even open anything.” Maggie is impressed with her confident lie.

  “Not alone, it doesn’t.”

  Ginger Rae doesn’t falter. “What exactly are you hoping it unlocks?”

  Travis’s smirk turns into a sneer. “Don’t play games with me, Ginger Rae. I know exactly what’s been going on in Silver Springs for the past year. You think Josh, Mitch and Karl were acting alone? I was the mastermind behind it all.”

  “Some mastermind,” Erline says through a single laugh.

  “So things didn’t go as planned. For them. But I will be successful. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “Except kill James Vaughn,” Maggie accuses him. She’s skeptical that he’s guilty since no one can place a man in Flower Power at the time of James’s death, but it’s worth a try.

  Travis turns on Maggie. “You wish I had. That’d make your job easier. I talked to Detective Stevens today. And then he talked to three witnesses that placed me at The Coffee Bean all afternoon on Saturday.”

  Maggie’s heart sinks.

  Travis turns back to Ginger Rae. “Now, if you’d so kindly turn over the key around your neck, no one has to get hurt.”

  Maggie slips into the bedroom past Drew with the two dogs still firmly in her grasp. She wants to get them out of the way and also grab the final object that Travis is after. She knows Ginger Rae wants everything destroyed, but she didn’t sound completely convinced it was the right choice on the phone. Maggie knows she has to end it.

  The dogs unwillingly let Maggie lock them in the bathroom. She takes the cat collar and attached trinket from beneath the loose tile and watches Drew continue to point her cell phone through the cracked bedroom door and toward Travis. She exchanges a concerned smile with him and leaves the bedroom.

  “I believe you’re also looking for this, too,” Maggie goads Travis when she returns to the kitchen. She holds up the cat collar, the spherical object glinting in the artificial light.

  The corners of Travis’s lips turn upward into a menacing smile. “I knew everything would be here when I saw all four of you together.”

  Maggie looks at the table and is horrified that in the short time she was in the bedroom, all three women have placed their keys on the table. She worries that she’s been setup and now everything will fall into Travis’s hands. She doesn’t trust a single hair on his body.

  Travis’s eyes don’t leave the object in Maggie’s outstretched hand. “You have no idea how much of my life I’ve devoted to finding all of these. And now they’re within my grasp.”

  He lunges for the trinket on the cat collar but Maggie is faster. She throws it as hard as she can against the wood wall. With a satisfying crack, the object shatters into a million pieces and emits an instant of bright, blinding light.

  Five pairs of eyes stare at the disappearing glow and the dogs immediately stop barking. To Maggie’s surprise, Opal comes out of hiding from beneath the couch and stares at the same spot as everyone else.

  The house seems to fall under a spell of silence that no one is willing to break. At least a minute passes with everyone staring at the shards on the floor before a knock on the door breaks them out of their trance.

  Everyone moves at once. Travis has fire in his eyes and all the women at the table look relieved. Opal retreats to her hiding spot under the couch and Maggie heads to the door. Drew has yet to make an appearance.

  A second knock sounds before Maggie opens the door and is face to face with Detective Daniel Stevens. “You asked me to come?” he says, looking past Maggie at everyone in the kitchen.

  “Um . . . yeah. Something like that,” she mumbles, inviting him in and closing the door to the cold, dark evening.

  Daniel stomps the snow off his boots and removes his jacket. Maggie can feel the winter air in the fabric when he hands it to her and he squats down to untie his boots. “What’s going on?” he asks when he stands again.

  Maggie hangs up his jacket with everyone else’s and follows his gaze to the kitchen. Ginger Rae, Winona, Erline and even Travis are staring at Daniel.

  “Well . . . um . . .” Maggie is hesitant to answer honestly so she avoids the last few minutes altogether. “Winona has been concerned that Travis has been following her and then he showed up here not long after she did. She feels like she’s being stalked,” Maggie adds for good measure though Winona has never used that word.

  Maggie watches Daniel’s eyes travel to Winona’s and Winona gives him a single short nod. Travis looks from Winona to Daniel and his face transforms from the anger he held since Maggie smashed the trinket, into a hesitant smile.

  “I think I’ll let myself out,” Travis says, the most friendly he’s sounded since arriving.

  Winona’s eyes widen when Daniel doesn’t make a move to stop him which spurs him into action. “I’ll show you out,” he says, slipping his feet back into his boots.

  “Don’t trouble yourself.”

  Travis shoulders his jacket on and opens the front door before Daniel can tie his boots. But that doesn’t stop him. Daniel walks into the cold night without a jacket and Maggie desperately wants to follow them but she resists. Daniel will return and she’ll find out what happened then.

  Drew finally lets himself out of the bedroom. He and Maggie sit at the table with the three women and everyone sips from their wine or beer. No one seems to want to be the one to bring up the trinket and the loss of time traveling.

  “So I guess our decision has been made,” Ginger Rae finally says, refilling her glass with more wine.

  Maggie looks from one face to the next. “Sorry. I guess we should have talked about that first.”

  Erline shakes her head. “We decided it had to end. It wasn’t safe to keep the keys around. Someone would always be coming after us. The journals from your mom really shed some new light on the whole thing, and Travis was definitely someone we couldn’t trust with this power.”

  “But will destroying the single piece be enough to ensure the powers are gone forever?” Maggie asks, looking at the three keys lying on the table.

  “I think everything has to be destroyed,” Winona says, and the other two women nod.

  Maggie
is relieved. She wants everything around time travel to end. She’s confident the murders in Silver Springs would never have happened if the knowledge of time traveling had never come here. And with it gone, the small mountain town can return to the quiet pace it enjoyed for decades before this past year.

  “How can we destroy them?” Maggie asks.

  “Your garage is full of tools from your dad. I’m sure we can find something in there to cut them up,” Ginger Rae says confidently.

  Winona holds up her hands to stop everyone from leaving. “But first, dinner.”

  Daniel walks back inside just as everyone sits down with food in front of them and Maggie offers him a plate. The table is packed with six of them eating together, but it’s worth it to find out what he and Travis talked about.

  “What did Travis have to say for himself?” Winona asks Daniel through her first bite of bean burrito.

  Daniel chews slowly before answering. “That you’re a delusional eighty year old who is paranoid.” He doesn’t take his eyes off Winona, weighing her reaction.

  “Well I never—” Ginger Rae huffs.

  Daniel holds up his hand to stop her. “And that you all have some things that belong to him. Is that true?”

  All three older women shake their heads. “Did he say what they were?” Erline asks.

  “No.” Daniel shakes his head. “And I didn’t quite believe him.”

  “So what can we do now? You didn’t arrest him?” Winona asks. Her voice remains calm but her eyes give away her fear.

  “I didn’t have anything to charge him with.”

  “Harassment? Stalking?” Winona asks, using Maggie’s word from earlier.

  “You’ll have to file a formal complaint. And then we can get a restraining order setup,” Daniel explains. “We can do that tonight if you’d like.”

  Before Winona can answer, Maggie redirects the conversation. “What about his ties to Mitch and Karl? He admitted to being involved in their crimes, as well as Josh’s.” Maggie looks to Drew for backup.

  “Can you prove that?” Daniel asks.