Murder of the Month

by Tegan Maher

  As always, tendrils of regret wound through me at the thought of leaving the peace and getting back to the grind. I propped my foot against a picnic table and leaned into a stretch, feeling a little euphoric as I did so. The endorphins flooding my brain were more addictive than any drug, which was the main reason I ran daily, rain or shine, in either this form or my other.

  The wind shifted and I picked up a coppery, cloying odor that was as out of place in my little slice of heaven as a Ferrari in a trailer park. Dread trickled down my spine and I put my nose in the air, grinding my teeth as I searched for the source.

  I picked it up and followed it, the stench getting stronger as I approached the road that ran parallel to the small strip of forest that separated it from the trail. My heart sank. A small white hand lay in the grass, palm up, about ten feet from the side of the road. Glossy red fingernail polish gleamed in stark relief against the dull, gray skin of the fingers.

  My gaze traveled up the hand to the mangled body of a woman, her platinum hair covering her face, hiding her identity. I pulled my cell from my armband and called 911.

  “Hey, Kay,” I said when Castle’s Bluff’s one dispatcher picked up. “This is Cori. I need an ambulance out on Route 6 by the park, and keep it as hush-hush as you can, please. We have another dead body.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  MY NEXT CALL WAS TO my second in command, Sam Cassidy, who said he’d call the coroner and meet me there in ten minutes.

  I examined the scene while I waited, using my heightened sense of smell to pick apart the different scents in hopes of finding some clue to the identity of the killer. Sometimes being a werewolf came in handy, but it wasn’t doing me a lick of good right then.

  All I could detect was the same strange wolf scent that I’d gotten from the other scene. Like fingerprints, it would help if I came across the killer, but for the moment, it was useless. All I could tell for certain was that he was male and wasn’t a member of my pack.

  Exactly ten minutes later, a beat-up truck pulled off into a wide spot across the road from me and a grizzled man climbed out the driver’s side, followed by a shorter, younger guy I’d known since grade school.

  Sam strode across the road, a slight hitch in his step and a scowl on his leathery face. My mind shifted from the murder to the man I’d looked up to since I was a little girl.

  Even though I was his boss, he still saw me as a little girl if things got real. Of course, until the murders, "getting real" usually involved a drunk tourist getting handsy when I'd have to haul him out of the Hook, our local dive bar. Even with—or more likely because of—the confluence of supernatural beings in Castle's Bluff, things like murder just didn't happen. Until then, anyway.

  “Cordelia,” he said, nodding at me as he strode toward the body. Though he tried not to show it, I knew he was worried about me; it was the only time he defaulted to my given name. I drew my brows together, but didn’t say anything.

  Stan Lee, the younger man, took off his hat and mopped the sweat from his forehead with a bandana he pulled from the shirt pocket of his deputy’s uniform. Though it was late in the summer, the humidity still made the air thick as the Georgia mud our state was known for.

  Despite his best efforts, his gaze inadvertently dropped to my chest; my snug tank top was still damp with sweat. I whacked him on the arm and glowered at him.

  His face went beet red and he snapped his eyes back to my face. “Sorry, Cor—Sheriff,” he stuttered.

  I cut him some slack because I knew he’d had a crush on me since the seventh grade, and he was a good guy with a huge heart. He looked around me, trying to put on his cop face, but turned green when he caught his first glimpse. I couldn’t blame him; I wasn’t feeling so peachy myself.

  Sam was standing back a few feet from the body, one arm crossed over his chest, the elbow of the other resting on it. He rubbed his chin, his gaze roaming over the scene, taking in the body and the mish-mash of huge paw prints surrounding it.

  “You pick up anything?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “Nothin’ other than what I got from the last scene.”

  A breeze fluttered through, and I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, behind the body. Squinting to get a better view, I stepped closer to the body. A clump of black fur clung to a broken branch.

  “Do you have an evidence bag on you?” I asked, a little thrill running through me; this time, he’d left evidence. I moved around the body to avoid disturbing the scene.

  Sam reached into a small pouch on his gun belt and pulled out a clear baggie, passing it to me over the weeds.

  I placed my hand on the bottom and pushed it back over my fingers like it was a glove, then pulled the clump of fur off the branch. Holding onto it, I peeled the bag back over my fingers and sealed it.

  When I held it up to the light for a better look, a few white hairs glinted through the black. Not enough to alter the color of the wolf, probably, but it would give me something to compare it to if—when—I caught the guy. Maybe before, but I doubted it since black wolves were common in our region.

  Still, if I could match it to somebody who’d been acting erratically or couldn’t vouch for their whereabouts during the times of the murders, it could be a nail in the coffin.

  I turned to Stan. “Would you mind running crime-scene tape around this area?” I asked, motioning to where I wanted it.

  He nodded, glad to have something to do that didn’t involve dealing directly with the body, and turned toward Sam’s truck to get the tape out of the box of supplies he kept there.

  The ambulance pulled up, lights off, and the coroner, Colleen Bennett, pulled in right behind it in her Blazer. Two guys stepped out of the ambulance and started to pull the rear doors open to pull out the gurney, but Colleen held up her hand.

  “It’s gonna be a few minutes, boys,” she said, swinging her black crime-scene bag as she approached us.

  Like Sam, Colleen was in the loop when it came to the existence of supernatural beings. She had to be when all of the deaths in the area passed through her office.

  She tossed a humorless smile our way, but went straight to work. “Same as last time?”

  “Yup,” I said. “No real sense of who he is, other than a werewolf.”

  “You can’t pick up anything with your other abilities?” She wiggled her fingers, indicating my witchy powers, inherited from my mother.

  I pinched my lips shut and shook my head. “You know they’re spotty on the best of days.” Turning so that my back was to the medics, I pulled the bag of fur out of my pocket and showed it to her.

  I opened my mouth to say something, but a tingle of electricity ran through my body, and I got a glimpse of a woman screaming. It was over before it even really started, and I swallowed, trying to fix it in my brain before it wisped away, but I lost it. Speaking of shorted-out witchy powers.

  “What did you see?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at me. Like Sam, she’d known me since I was young.

  “Nothing of use,” I replied, frustrated. “Just a quick glimpse of her”—I nodded toward the victim, shuddering—“screaming while something dragged her by the arm. I could feel the teeth biting down.”

  Anger flashed across Sam’s face, and Colleen set her jaw as she snapped on a pair of gloves and bent over the body. When she pulled the hair back from her face, she gasped.

  “I know this girl, Cori.” She smoothed the bangs back and her face hardened. “Nobody deserves to die like this. We have to get this guy.”

  As I expected, a small crowd had started to gather, and I went to help Stan keep them back while Colleen did her thing. Sam pulled his truck so that it blocked most of the scene. The gossip was going to be bad enough without giving them access to the gory details.

  Half an hour later, he laid his hand on my shoulder and I turned to him.

  “She’s almost done.” His voice was tired and his thick salt-and-pepper hair was standing on end. I knew he'd been running his fingers throu
gh it like he did anytime he was frustrated.

  He gestured toward my running clothes. "I got this handled if you want to go home and change or something."

  I gave him a wry half-smile. "I will, but first I wanna take one last look at the scene before everything gets trampled worse than it has. See you back at the station in an hour?"

  Sam nodded. "See ya then, kiddo."

  Despite his use of pet names, Sam respected my position as sheriff. As a matter of fact, he was the one who pushed for it when others urged him to step into the role instead. He said he liked fishing too much to listen to old ladies bicker over parking tickets.

  To be fair, that was definitely a time-suck, but he also understood there was much more going on beneath the façade of our town that he didn’t have the experience to deal with. He was one of the few humans who knew about the town’s diverse citizenry.

  I noted the slight hitch in his step as he walked back to his cruiser. He brushed off his aches and pains, but I worried about him. At sixty-five, he was healthier than many people in their early fifties, but still.

  As I combed over the scene looking for anything we may have missed, I tried to figure out the murderer’s angle. The one thing that bothered me more than anything about this one and the one that had been committed a few days prior was that the wolf didn’t seem to care if he was caught. That was a problem on a number of levels. He had to know the pack wouldn't tolerate this, and that if we didn't get him, one of the other organizations would, so I didn’t get it. Yet.

  What I did get was that it was about to turn into a hot mess if I didn’t get it under control, pronto. Some of the unofficial supernatural organizations tended to come in with sledgehammers rather than scalpels, and I needed to avoid that at all costs.

  A little farther into the woods, I saw what looked like another small tuft of fur, but I was interrupted before I could move toward it.

  "Cori?" somebody said from several yards behind me. My heart stuttered at the familiar voice, even though I hadn't heard it in nearly twelve years.

  I paused as a tangled rat's nest of competing emotions writhed in my stomach, the fur forgotten. I mentally wadded them up and shoved them to the back of my mind. That was a therapy session or twelve for another time.

  I schooled my face into a friendly yet detached expression, then willed my heart to slow before I pushed to my feet and turned to face the man who’d broken my heart. Because, you know, I didn't have enough to deal with right then.

  Want to keep reading? Pick up Howling for Revenge here for 99 cents or free with Kindle Unlimited.

  Connect with Me

  JOIN MY READERS CLUB here to be the first to hear about new releases, giveaways, contests, and special deals. I’m a reader too, so if I come across a good deal by a great author, I may share in the weekly update, but I won’t spam you with salesy BS. I may include obscure trivia, though; you’d be amazed what I learn while researching!

  If you’re not an email-list person, keep track of new releases by following me:

  ON BookBub

  On Facebook

  On Amazon

  Or at Teganmaher.com

  Email me – I always love hearing thoughts and feedback, or just drop me a line to say hi!

  Happy reading, and thank you for your time. ☺

  Other Books by Tegan Maher

  Witches of Keyhole Lake Series

  Book 1: Sweet Murder

  Book 2: Murder to the Max

  Book 3: Murder so Magical

  Book 4: Mayhem and Murder

  Book 5: Murder and Marinade

  Book 6: Hook, Line, and Murder

  Book 7: Murder of the Month

  Witches of Keyhole Lake Shorts

  Bubble, Bubble, Here Comes Trouble

  Witching for a Miracle

  Moonshine Valentine

  Cori Sloane Witchy Werewolf Mysteries

  Howling for Revenge

  Dead Man’s Hand

  Bad Moon Rising

  Enchanted Coast Magical Mystery Series

  Deadly Daiquiri

  Surfboard Slaying

  About Tegan

  I WAS BORN AND RAISED in the South and even hung my motorcycle helmet in Colorado for a few months. I've always had a touch of wanderlust and have never feared just packing up and going on new adventures, whether in real life or via the pages of a great book.

  When I was a little girl, I didn't want to grow up to be a writer—I wanted to raise unicorns and be a superhero. When those gigs fell through, I chose the next best thing: creating my own magical lands filled with adventure, magic, humor, and romance.

  I live in Florida with my two dogs. When I'm not writing or reading, I'm riding motorcycles or binge-watching anything magical on Netflix.

  I'm eternally grateful for all the people who help make my life what is today - friends, readers, family. No woman is an island.