Snowflake Bay Cozy Mysteries Boxset 1

by C Farren

  “She won’t come down,” said Ginger, sighing heavily. She grabbed a bottle of beer. “I think she’s scared.”

  “I’ll go up to her,” said Wren, eager to get away.

  “No,” said Ginger. “I think she wants to be left alone for a while.”

  Wren sighed. “Yeah. I suppose.”

  As the evening wore on Wren spent most of her time talking with Javier, the only one she felt an affinity with. For fifteen he was remarkably intelligent, full of keen insights into everything from television to politics. He had his whole life planned out as well, from college to being head surgeon at a top hospital by the time he was thirty-five.

  “I wish I’d had that ambition when I was your age,” Wren admitted. “I never did know what to do with my life.”

  “You run a coffee shop now?” he asked.

  Pilar had turned on some music. It was very loud, so Wren had to talk louder to get herself heard. She’d moved on to a hotdog now. It wasn’t an ordinary hotdog; it was a foot-long German sausage in a bun. It was delicious, especially heaped with tomato ketchup and fried onions. Jose knew how to run a barbeque.

  “I’m enjoying it so far,” Wren admitted. “Every now and then I think that maybe this was what I was supposed to do with my life, but I’m not so sure. I’m not exactly curing cancer or creating world peace here.”

  “As long as you’re creating peace in yourself, then that’s all that matters,” said Javier.

  She’d never looked at it that way before. Sure, running the coffee shop was hectic, and it probably wouldn’t make her rich, but it was bringing her a sort of peace.

  She smiled. “You’ve made me think. Thank you.”

  Pilar gave her a filthy look before she took a sip of beer. The woman obviously did not like people talking to her son. Wren didn’t care. Javier could talk to whom he liked.

  “Can you smell smoke?” Javier asked.

  Wren looked at the firepit. It had almost burned down to ashes, but it wasn’t creating any smoke.

  “Fire!” Ginger screamed, pointing.

  The apartment building was on fire.

  “Maureen’s still in there!” Wren cried. The cats were meowing loudly, frightened, concerned for their friend. “Oh dear...”

  She hesitated for a second before pulling out her cell and dialing 911. Just when she’d pressed the final key the top of the building exploded.

  Chapter 16

  Fiona laughed and hugged her son. He felt so warm and so real. She never thought this day would come in a million years.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked. “Why are you here?”

  “I need your help,” he said.

  He was in the prime of his life, maybe his early thirties. He was handsome, just like his father, but he had her eyes. He was a miracle.

  “Are you my giving?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Perhaps I should come in.”

  She felt giddy as he entered. She didn’t know he was in Golden or this part of Heaven otherwise she would’ve sought him out already. She’d looked for him after he died but Heaven was a big place.

  “How long have you been here?” she asked. “Tell me everything!”

  He looked around her apartment, a little shy. It must be overwhelming for him to meet the mother he hadn’t seen since he was a baby.

  “A while,” he admitted. “I just didn’t have the guts to come and find you.”

  “Give me a hug again!”

  She hugged him again, happier than she’d been in a long time. It made her miss Wren and Wick just a little less.

  Fiona made them both a cup of coffee as he sat down on her couch. Davey the dodo glared at him a few times before going back to sleep again.

  “So how can I help you?” Fiona asked, clutching his hand like he was about to float off any minute. She never wanted to let him go, not now she’d found him again.

  He said, “I’ve decided to become an angel.”

  “You won’t regret it,” said Fiona. “I suppose you got bored of Heaven?”

  He nodded. “Heaven is all well and good for people who like to do nothing, but I want to be challenged. I want to do something worthwhile, something interesting. Juniper told me I had to come and see you, and so here I am. I need you to teach me how to fly.”

  She jumped to her feet, excited. “You’ve come to the right place! I’m a whizz at flying.”

  She took his hand and they walked to the perch door. Fiona pushed it open and they stepped to the edge. He looked a little nervous. They were quite high up. The height didn’t bother Fiona anymore, but it must be quite scary for someone who was used to having their feet on the ground.

  “I’ve never been up this high before,” he admitted. He peered over the edge and pulled back. “How do you stand it?”

  “You get used to it,” said Fiona.

  He stared at the edge for a good five minutes. Fiona was patient with him.

  “What do I do?” Harold asked, a little nervous.

  “Extend your wings first,” she said.

  Harold nodded and concentrated. His wings sprouted out, slowly unfurling until they were spread out in all their glory. His feathers had a tinge of blue of them. They were beautiful.

  “When you practice more your wings will pop out in the blink of an eye,” Fiona explained. “And don’t worry if you lose the odd feather or two. They grow back almost instantaneously.”

  He nodded and said, “I don’t understand how my wings can hold my body weight.”

  “Don’t think about how they work. Just know they do.”

  She laughed and took a leap. She flew around in a loop and landed beside him.

  “That looks difficult,” he admitted.

  “Am I going to have to push you off like a mother bird?” Fiona asked.

  “We are high up. What if I die?”

  “You’re already dead. Nothing bad will happen to you.”

  Harold gritted his teeth and stepped off the edge of the perch. He plummeted through the air, down, down. Fiona let out a little shriek and prepared to dive after him when he flew back up. He laughed, his wings flapping behind him, the air buffeting his hair.

  “I’m doing it!” he declared. “I’m flying!”

  Fiona clapped, overjoyed. “It’s wonderful, right? Flying is the ultimate freedom.”

  “Thank you, Mom.”

  Fiona was about to ask him what next when he vanished. She held her hand out, wishing him to come back. For some reason she knew it was only a temporary thing. At least she’d got to meet him. That was something.

  “What happened?” a voice asked behind her. “I think I flitted!”

  She turned around to find Harold. “You’re still here? I thought you’d left!”

  “I was told I could stay for a few hours.”

  She leaped into the air and grabbed his hand. Together they flew around Golden for an hour, letting him get used to his wings. By the time they got back he was an expert at flying. She couldn’t be any prouder of him.

  When they landed back on the porch Harold laughed and said, “That was incredible! If I knew flying felt like that I would’ve become an angel long ago.”

  “There’s so much more to being an angel than flying,” said Fiona.

  She made them dinner, all the while explaining about flitting. She didn’t think he’d get the hang of that too quickly. It took a lot of concentration, especially when on Earth. He was a fast learner, though. Fiona was confident in his abilities.

  Harold smiled as he ate his spaghetti Bolognese. “This is good. I always imagined what your cooking would be like.”

  “That’s from a frozen packet,” said Fiona. “I imagine they use samples of my cooking to torture sinners in Hell.”

  She was joking, but that was always a possibility. You never know.

  He laughed. “Can we have dinner more often?”

  “I’d like that very much,” said Fiona.

  Half an hour later Fiona brought out some chocol
ate ice cream. Harold devoured his portion like he was starving. It felt good to watch her little boy eat.

  “Have you seen your father?” Fiona asked. She squeezed some chocolate sauce onto her ice scream. Davey the dodo was perched on a kitchen chair, watching her. “He lives in Golden you know. I bumped into him once but I pretended to be someone else and ran away.”

  “I haven’t seen him,” said Harold. “When you die you kind of want to spent some time alone, just to get used to things. It’s hard accepting your own death.”

  “It’s very hard.”

  Davey leaped onto the table and stuck his beak into Fiona’s bowl of ice cream. When she tried to push him away he attacked her with his beak.

  “Naughty dodo!” Wren cried. “Naughty!”

  Davey made a run for the edge of the table. He bounced off the side and ran into the living room. Fiona wanted to scream.

  “Have patience,” Harold advised her.

  “That thing will be the death of me,” said Fiona.

  When the night was over, Fiona knew it was time to say goodbye. She wasn’t sure whether her giving was over or not yet, but she was content. She’d gotten to see her son again after such a long time, and she’d helped him fly for the first time as an angel. In her view tonight was a win.

  She kissed him on the cheek in the doorway.

  “You have to keep me apprised of what you do next,” said Fiona.

  “I will,” said Harold. “You too. When you go back down to Earth please tell Wrenny I asked after her. I miss her very much.”

  He said goodbye and Fiona closed the door. She’d never been happier.

  “YOU’RE QUIET TODAY,” said Cynthia. “Talk to me.”

  “I met an old flame last week. Dan.” She grinned, thinking about his smile. “He’s a demon now.”

  “Oh, yes. Dan.”

  Cynthia would know every secret Dan had. She would know why he became a demon.

  “How is he doing?” Fiona asked. “Is he okay? Do you think he can become an angel?”

  “I can’t talk about other clients,” said Cynthia. “But things haven’t gone so well with him.”

  “What happened?”

  “His demonic urges were too much for him. He’s been sent back to Hell.”

  Fiona couldn’t believe it. Was this her fault for turning him away, or was he too far gone already? Dan didn’t deserve his fate. The man she’d known was loving and tender. He didn’t have a bad bone in his body.

  “What did he do?” Fiona asked. “I have to know.”

  Cynthia hesitated for a moment before saying, “Shortly after the war he got drunk and murdered his wife. He was given the electric chair a decade later. He’s been a demon ever since.”

  Fiona couldn’t help but blame herself. Did he start drinking because she’d died, or because he had PTSD from the horrors he’d been witness to in the war? Was it a combination of both? Or maybe he’d just been hiding what an awful person he was all along. Had she had a lucky escape in the long run?

  “I cared for my husband, don’t get me wrong,” said Fiona. She needed to talk about Dan. “He gave me a life away from my father. He doted on me. He gave me a child. I did love him, in my own way. But I wasn’t in love with him. Then I met Dan, and I fell for him hard. I felt like I was on cloud nine.”

  “It must have been tough, falling in love in a time of war,” said Cynthia.

  “It was. He was from an island called Jersey. At the time it was occupied by the Nazis and he was terribly worried about his family. He didn’t know whether they were dead or alive.” She sighed, the earlier guilt flooding back. “I was going to take him away from them. I was going to leave my own family. We were going to throw away everything we had for each other. I still feel guilty about it now. Sometimes I feel... sometimes I feel I deserved to get killed by that German bomb. Maybe if I’d kept my feelings to myself I wouldn’t be here.”

  “It’s okay to fall in love.”

  “Not if it destroys two families in the process. Look, never mind that. Thinking about what I lost makes me angry. Let’s forget about Dan.”

  “Did you do your exercises?”

  “I did. They made me feel calm.”

  “And what about the givings?”

  She smiled, and told Cynthia all about meeting her son again for the first time in nearly eighty years. She couldn’t keep the jubilation out of her voice. Meeting Harold was the greatest thing that had ever happened her.

  Cynthia smiled. “You did well.”

  “I feel better, cleaner. Seeing Harold released so much tension inside me, tension and worry I didn’t know I was holding in.”

  “You still have a long way to go.”

  “I know that. I think I can do this. I think I can go back to normal.”

  “Things won’t ever be the same. You’ve been banned from using any of your angelic abilities ever again.”

  “But I can still help people, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then that’s all that matters.”

  Chapter 17

  When the dust had settled, and the fire had finally been extinguished, it was almost five in the morning. Wren was sitting in the back of Sheriff Fisher’s car, wrapped in a blanket, drinking from a flask of sugary hot chocolate. Her head was desperately trying to process what had happened.

  Maureen was missing, presumed dead.

  I failed her. If I’d found Rosa sooner...

  The fire had to be arson. It was too big of a coincidence that the place burned down while someone was desperately trying to kill Maureen. They wouldn’t know for certain for a while yet, maybe for weeks, not until the arson investigator delivered their results. Wren didn’t need some official verdict though. She knew.

  “Are you okay?” Deputy Stark asked, poking his head through the open car window. “Do you need another blanket?”

  She smiled a little. “Have you... have you found a body yet?”

  “Not yet,” said the deputy. “The place is a mess, but not as bad as it could have been. Only the top floor apartment got burned, and the building’s roof seems to have come down too. Thankfully the other apartments seem to be fine, though nobody can stay there for a while, obviously.”

  She nodded, still stunned. A part of her wanted to berate him and the whole police force for not keeping Maureen safe, but she couldn’t do it. They’d feel just as guilty as she felt, maybe more.

  “Where are Ginger and the others going to go?” Wren asked.

  “The Vandenbergs have agreed to put them up for free,” the deputy answered her. “Lucky them! I love their place.”

  The Vandenbergs owned one of Snowflake Bay’s three guest houses. This one was situated on its own between the main hub of the town and the marina. It looked like a small French chateau, with minarets and a small pond out the back. It was very pretty, but very expensive.

  Deputy Stark walked away, leaving Wren alone with her thoughts once again.

  I could have done more.

  SHERIFF FISHER ESCORTED her to her door. She thanked him for taking her home and was about to let him go when something occurred to her. She didn’t want to voice it, but she knew she had to.

  “Is there any chance that Keegan is still alive?” she asked him.

  He shook his head and said, “No. I don’t think so.”

  She ran to him and hugged him. They both started to cry, letting out their grief and fury over a situation they couldn’t control.

  “I’ll still look for him,” Wren stated, wiping at her eyes. “I failed Maureen, but I won’t fail him.”

  When he’d driven away Wren stood in front of her door, not wanting to go inside. Brock would be in there, waiting up for her, wanting to ask questions. She couldn’t do it right now. She couldn’t talk about Maureen.

  There’s no way she could have escaped that roof.

  The door opened before she could make her mind up over what to do.

  “I think you need to see something,” said Brock.<
br />
  “I’m not in the mood for your burnt offerings for breakfast,” she said unemotionally. “I just want to go to bed and sleep until next year.”

  “Just come in,” he said impatiently. “And close the door behind you. Someone might see.”

  She sighed and did as she was bid, just so she could go to bed. Perhaps a little sleep would help? As long her nightmares allowed her that is.

  A strange cat ran across her path, running up the stairs. Another cat, a small black one, followed it.

  “Who let those cats in here?” she demanded. Her temper and frustration knew no bounds. “I don’t have time for any more cats!”

  “They keep turning up,” said Brock. He picked up another cat, a pretty black and white Maine Coon that looked familiar. “Look how big this one is! You could almost ride it.”

  She ignored him and looked around her living room. All in all, including her own two, and the ones that had ran upstairs, there were now fourteen cats in her house. Gracie was still behind the television set, asleep, oblivious to the chaos around her. Casper was sitting in front of the TV, staring daggers at a big white cat that was sat glowering at him only a yard or two away.

  “That’s Darcy,” said Wren, recognition suddenly set in. “All these cats belong to Maureen! What are they doing here?”

  A figure stepped out from the kitchen. She had a mug of tea in her hands. Her hair was ragged, half burned away, and her clothes were stained black with soot.

  “Maureen?” Wren cried.

  Maureen grinned. “Hello Wren.”

  Wren cried and hugged her friend, not caring how she’d survived or why. It was just so good to see her.

  “How did you get out?” Wren asked. “What happened?”

  “Let me sit down,” Maureen insisted. “I’m still a little wobbly on my feet.”

  She sat down with her mug of tea and there was a sudden avalanche of cats. All twelve of her precious felines ran to her, fighting for the right to sit on her knee. Darcy claimed the victory and pawed at the others as they tried to displace him.