Witches' Secrets: Paranormal Cozy Mystery Series (Vampires and Wine Book 2)

by Morgana Best

  The officer looked at Lila. “And you are?”

  “Lila Sanders. I’ve just now arrived in town to do a feature story on Lighthouse Bay. I’m staying in the cottage next to Mr O’Callaghan’s.”

  The cop nodded and turned his attention to the rest of us. “Did any of you see anyone who wasn’t a guest after six at this establishment anytime between last evening and midday today?”

  We all shook our heads.

  “All right then, that will be all for now. I’ll ask all of you to stay around the vicinity so the detectives can interview you. Mrs Williams, I’m afraid your cottage is a crime scene, so you’ll have to make other arrangements for accommodation for the next few days. Is there anyone we can call for you?”

  Linda shook her head and dabbed her eyes. Aunt Maude put her arm around her shoulders. “Come with us for dinner.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Linda wailed.

  “No matter, you’re coming with us,” Aunt Maude said firmly, locking her arm through Linda’s.

  I made to follow my aunts back to the manor, so we could discuss what had happened, but Lucas caught my arm. “Maybe you should stay with your aunts until the murderer is discovered,” he said in little more than a whisper. “I’m worried about your safety.”

  I noticed that Lila’s face had turned bright red at our close encounter. I nodded to him and hurried to catch up with my aunts.

  When we arrived at the house, Aunt Dorothy took Linda to the living room, along with a bottle of wine and two goblets.

  “Let’s all sit down and discuss this,” Aunt Agnes said as soon as Linda was out of earshot. She opened a bottle of Witches’ Brew and poured it into goblets. I took a gulp.

  Witches’ Brew provided the specific vitamins and minerals that vampires needed. Witches’ Brew was made by the Ambrosia Winery, a winery Lucas had recently inherited from his witch-vampire uncle. Lucas was renting one of the cottages while he was in town, and I had no idea how long he would continue to do so.

  I myself was still coming to terms with being a vampire, but I was relieved to know that vampires were born that way, rather than being made—or so my aunts had told me. I still wasn’t sure if I believed them. I was more convinced that there was no such thing as blood lust. That was just as well, because I had rather a weak stomach and I generally fainted at the sight of blood. The Witches’ Brew also enhanced our powers, but the only power I knew I had to date was being able to move fast. I still wasn’t able to do that at will. Oh, and I could see in the dark. The aunts told me that my powers would kick in the more I drank the Witches’ Brew.

  “Motive?” Aunt Agnes said loudly.

  “If his wife did it,” Aunt Maude said, “then the motive’s obvious. We all saw how he treated her, and we all heard the screaming arguments they had. Though surely she could’ve just got a divorce.”

  “It’s not as easy as it sounds,” I said wearily. “One can’t simply snap their fingers and get a divorce. Perhaps they had a prenup, who knows? Do we know anyone else with a motive? What about Lila Sanders?”

  “I know you don’t like her because she’s an old friend of Lucas O’Callaghan’s,” Aunt Agnes said.

  I sat upright. “What? She’s an old friend?” I wasn’t prepared for the wave of jealousy that hit me.

  “Yes, she said so,” Aunt Agnes said, seemingly oblivious to my discomfort. “That should help her write a nice story about our business, shouldn’t it?”

  I bit my lip. Not unless she likes living in a King Arthur themed cottage, I thought.

  “It could be Lucas himself,” Aunt Maude said. “Maybe he found out that Paul Williams was working against him.”

  “What nonsense, Maude,” Aunt Agnes said waspishly. “How could Paul possibly work against him? We need some sensible discussion, please.”

  I sighed, not wanting them to bicker as they usually did. “Let’s look at opportunity then,” I said in an attempt to change the subject. “Wasn’t the cleaning lady over at the cottage yesterday afternoon?”

  Agnes nodded and then shook her head. “Yes, but she wouldn’t have done it. We’ve used her for years.”

  “And wasn’t the lawnmower man there, too?” I said, trying to remember exactly who I had seen the previous day.

  “Yes he was, but they left early afternoon, well before six. Anyway, why would the cleaning lady or the lawnmower man want to kill Paul?” Aunt Maude said, her eyes wide.

  “Well, that’s the first thing that would have to be looked at,” I said. “Plus the time of death hasn’t been established yet. For all we know, it could’ve been much earlier. The cops fixated on six in the afternoon because that would’ve been the paramedics’ best guess at the earliest time of death. The first thing the detectives will look at,” I continued, “is whether any of the people who had opportunity actually knew the man.”

  Aunt Agnes set down her goblet hard. “Great idea, Valkyrie. Get a pen and paper and we’ll make a list.”

  “A list?” I echoed. “I was just speculating. The detectives will have it all sorted.”

  “I don’t think you understand, dear,” Agnes said. “This is the second murder that has occurred in a short space of time at Mugwort Manor.”

  “But surely you can’t think the two murders are related?” I said in disbelief. “Do you think Shifters are at it again?”

  “Something is afoot,” Agnes said, “you mark my words. It is very rare to have a murder in this town, and now there have been two in quick succession. There must be a common denominator.”

  Maude tapped her chin. “On the other hand, it could just be the energies.” She fixed me with a look. “Lucas O’Callaghan has recently taken over the running of the Ambrosia Winery. That impacts us all. Valkyrie has just returned and has gone into business with us. Such things shake up the energies in town.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand,” I said, a comment I had made a lot lately.

  “Energies attract things to them,” Maude said, “kind of like a vortex. Try to picture it like energy swirling, sucking other things into it.”

  I was puzzled. “But me coming here was a good thing, surely? Are you saying that Lucas is evil or his inheriting of the winery is somehow bad?”

  Both shook their heads. “No, no, no,” Agnes said. “Energy is neither good nor bad. Energy does not discriminate. Energy can become bad when it rushes, and that energy we can make good by slowing it down. That’s why, in Feng Shui, it’s best not to have a house at the end of a road because the energy will speed there in a straight line at that house.” I was still at a loss, and said so, so Agnes continued. “It’s just that profound events, whether good or bad, will attract other events to them.”

  “I think I understand.”

  “How do you think he was killed, Valkyrie?” Maude asked me.

  “Well, he sure wasn’t shot or stabbed,” I said.

  “Quite so.” Maude nodded. “So the police saw something that made them suspect murder.”

  “And the paramedics probably saw something and told the police,” I pointed out.

  “What? Poison? That seems the most likely,” Maude said.

  Agnes agreed. “Valkyrie, I think you should move back to Mugwort Manor until we know what happened to Paul Williams.”

  “Absolutely not,” I said. “I’m quite sure I’ll be safe in my cottage. It’s not as if there’s a serial killer.”

  Aunt Dorothy marched into the room. “We don’t know that yet. We’ll only know that if more people are killed. Serial killers always start with one person.”

  “Thanks for the cheerful remark,” I said.

  Dorothy smiled. “I suggested Linda stay here, and she’s agreed.”

  “Great, she can have my old room,” I said hopefully.

  Dorothy narrowed her eyes. “I’ll take her a plate of food and wait with her. I don’t think she should be left alone.”

  We stopped talking about the murder while everyone turned their attention to serving the food. When Au
nt Dorothy left the room with two plates of food on a large tray, the talk once more turned to the murder.

  “Do you think Linda did it?” I asked the aunts.

  “We should just come straight out and ask her,” Aunt Agnes said.

  “Obviously she won’t confess,” Maude said, which set them off into a rather loud round of bickering. I certainly hoped Linda couldn’t hear them. At least they seemed to have lost all interest in insisting I stay at Mugwort Manor.

  I was greatly relieved about that. I had grown quite fond of my cottage, and it had taken me no time at all to remove the castle theme. I had simply painted over the pictures of turrets, flags, and princesses. Sure, the kitchen was dated, but not so bad that I couldn’t live with it.

  After dinner, I made my way back to my cottage. I was a little afraid to walk there at night after a recent murder, but I knew I had lightning fast speed. Although I didn’t yet know how to control it, I was confident it would save me if it came to that. I could see in the dark quite well, even with the mist, so I didn’t need to turn on my iPhone’s built-in torch.

  As I walked quietly to my cottage, I saw someone ahead of me. I froze on the spot. With my vampire night vision, I at once identified the form as that of Lila Sanders.

  She was sneaking along slowly, heading straight for Lucas’s cottage. She didn’t notice when I passed her, partly because it was so dark that she couldn’t see much in front of her face, and the wind no doubt obscured any sound of my sandalled feet on the sand.

  When I reached my cottage, I risked a glance back, only to see her hand raised to knock.

  I slipped inside my front door, tension gnawing away at my stomach.

  Chapter 3

  I awoke at seven after a particularly bad night’s sleep. I hadn’t been able to sleep much at all, and had tossed and turned. I had been scared, after all. I had made sure my window was bolted and I’d pulled my heavy dresser across my door. This was beginning to be quite a habit.

  It was the early hours of the night before I had managed to get to sleep. Normally, if I woke up in the night I would make a cup of hot chocolate and work on the website. After all, I hadn’t made much progress on it to date. Still, with a murder that had happened only metres away from where I was now lying, there was no way I was going to leave my secured room until the cold light of day.

  I was groggy and suffering from a somewhat sick feeling when I woke up, and I staggered to push the large chest away from my door with one thing in mind. Coffee. Of course, I had done my best not to think of what Lucas and Lila had been up to in the night.

  I drank one cup of coffee so I would feel human again, and then made a second one which I could enjoy. I booted up my laptop and thought I might as well get straight to work. I had nothing better to do, and I needed to keep my mind occupied.

  My office was in the enclosed porch of the cottage and afforded a good view of the walkway from the manor to the beach, and, if I craned my neck, of the other cottages. The black cat scratched on my door, so I opened it for her. A flash of movement to my left caught my eye. It was Lila, clad in the scantiest bikini possible. She was coming from her own cottage, but then again, I assumed she had gone home to change. I wondered why Lucas wasn’t going to the beach with her.

  It was about nine when I heard a car. I was eating vegemite toast, with the cat purring loudly near my feet. I looked out the window and saw a large silver Ford come to a stop outside Lila’s cottage. This had to be the detectives.

  She wasn’t there, of course, so they duly moved on to Lucas’s. I kept watching and saw them go inside. I heaved a sigh of relief. That meant Lucas was inside and not on the beach with the scantily clad Lila Sanders. I shook my head to clear it. No matter, it seemed they had spent the night together. And what did I care?

  I turned back to the website and tapped away at the keys viciously. It was quite a while before the car continued on to my cottage. I was surprised they hadn’t walked the short distance.

  I had been expecting Detectives Banks and Anderson, but these were two men I had never seen. I walked over to the front door and opened it, waiting for them to walk up the pathway. They flashed their badges and introduced themselves as Detectives Mason and Oakes.

  I showed them into the tiny living room. They wasted no time making themselves comfortable on my blue and white striped couch. As requested, I supplied them with my name, address, and age, all of which Mason wrote in his notepad.

  “And did you give Mrs Williams a voucher to stay here for free for a further fortnight?” It came out as an accusation, or maybe that was just my paranoid mindset.

  “Yes, I did. I gave one to Mr O’Callaghan, too. That was because a man was murdered at the manor, so I thought I should give them a voucher for extra time here. I knew Mr O’Callaghan would accept it because he has a business here, but I didn’t actually expect the Williamses to stay longer.”

  “And what was your relationship with Mr Williams?”

  I was taken aback. “Well, I didn’t have one. I mean, I’ve moved here as a partner in the Bed and Breakfast, and Mr Williams was a guest. I didn’t have much to do with him.”

  “And his wife?” He quirked an eyebrow.

  “Yes, I’ve had more to do with her,” I said.

  “And the previous murder was the only reason you gave them a voucher?”

  “Yes, of course. What other possible reason would there be? I thought it good business practice.” I knew my tone was defensive, but I was beginning to feel like a suspect rather than a witness.

  The other detective spoke for the first time. “And you didn’t hear anything the night in question? You didn’t see any vehicles parked outside?”

  I shook my head. “I had dinner with my aunts, like I told the uniformed officers, and left there about nine. I came straight to my cottage and worked on the Bed and Breakfast’s website for a couple of hours, and then I fell asleep watching TV.”

  “Did you notice if Mr Williams had any guests?”

  I shook my head again. “No, I didn’t see anything like that. His lights were on, but the lights on both the rented cottages were on when I walked to the cottage after dinner. It was a heavy fog.”

  “And when did Mrs Sanders arrive?”

  “Yesterday morning,” I said. “All that information is recorded with the bookings. My aunts gave those details to the uniformed officers.”

  “Quite so.” Detective Mason set down his pen. “Is there anything else you can think of that could help us in this investigation?”

  “Was Mr Williams murdered?” I asked him.

  “We are treating it as suspicious for the moment,” Detective Oakes said.

  With that, both men stood up. “That will be all for now. Please make yourself available for questioning later.” Oakes’s manner was abrupt.

  I showed them to the door. What did that mean? Weren’t they sure whether or not it was murder? I suppose they had to wait for the Forensics tests to come back. Surely they didn’t think it was suicide?

  I went back to the laptop and tried to write an enticing description for the home page of the Bed and Breakfast’s website, but I came up blank. Out of the blue, a rare moment of self pity engulfed me.

  I bit back the tears and decided to go to the manor. I locked the door and walked to my gate, the tears flowing freely now. My sunglasses were dark, but I couldn’t arrive at the manor in this state, given that I could hardly wear sunglasses in the kitchen. I forced myself to take deep breaths. The detectives’ questioning had unnerved me; it was more probing, accusatory even, than the previous questioning over the last murder. And that was it, too, the last murder. Had I made a mistake in coming to Lighthouse Bay? I had expected a quiet, sleepy town, and contented family time with my aunts. Instead I had got vampires, Shifters—and murder.

  And then there was Lucas. Don’t go there, I silently warned myself.

  And here he was now, walking my way, no doubt off to the beach for a rendezvous with Lila Sanders. I nodded
and made to go past him, but he stepped in front of me. “Trying to avoid me?”

  I looked up, surprised. “What do you mean?”

  “I came to speak to you, and you walked straight past me.”

  I looked up at him, taking in his fresh scent, as if he had just showered with sandalwood, amber, and cinnamon soap. I wondered if vampires had enhanced powers to detect scents. “I thought you were going to the beach.”

  He gestured to himself. “Dressed like this?”

  I looked him up and down. Yes, he was overdressed for the beach.

  “I’m on my way to the winery, and I wanted to check if you were all right.”

  “Me?” I squeaked.

  “You’ve been crying.”

  My hand automatically went to my sunglasses. Surely he couldn’t see through the dark tinted lenses, so I expected tears had run down my face. “I’m just overwrought. You know, murders, lack of sleep.”

  He observed me for a moment. “I’ll walk you to the manor. I assume that’s where you were going?”

  I nodded, and fell in beside him.

  “Was the questioning rough?”

  “Not too bad,” I said. “It’s just that they seem, well, I don’t know how to explain it, but they were kind of passive aggressive.”

  We had reached the back wall of the manor. “Take care, Pepper.” With that, he was gone.

  I opened the back door to see the aunts and Linda all sitting at the kitchen table. Some colour had returned to Linda’s face. “Are you okay?” Aunt Agnes asked me, before I had even removed my glasses.

  I nodded, and then shook my head. “I didn’t sleep well. Linda, how are you feeling?”

  She set down her mug of steaming coffee. “I’m doing okay. Your aunts have been awfully kind.”

  Aunt Maude reached across to pat her hand. “This is a terrible time for you.”

  Linda’s eyes flickered, and then she looked up. “To be honest, I couldn’t stand my husband. I had wanted out of this marriage for a long time. I didn’t want him to die, of course.” Her voice broke as she said it, but she pushed on. “I hated him. He was so cruel to me. I don’t mean physical abuse or anything, but he yelled at me and said I was stupid all the time.”