Murder at Midnight (Witches of Keyhole Lake) Read online

  “I sure have. They’re just over in Eagle Gap, so if I need to get back in a hurry, I can.” Not that she would. Matt was the most responsible human being I’d ever met, and he loved that kid to distraction. From the minute she’d landed with a howl in the doctor’s arms, she’d had us all wrapped around her pudgy little finger.

  “Don’t forget we have to go dress shopping Monday, too,” I said. I was her maid of honor, and even though my typical stance on clothes shopping was that I’d rather be stabbed in the eye with a fork, I was looking forward to this trip.

  “Oh, I haven’t forgotten!” she said, excitement tinging her words. “I’ve already been window shopping. Penelope has one in her front display that I’m drooling over. I want to go there first!”

  I smiled at her enthusiasm. Even though this was her second marriage, her first one hadn’t exactly gone to plan, namely because her husband had turned out to be a lying, thieving, cheating pig. Fortunately, he’d died. I don’t say that about many people, but I mean it from the bottom of my heart about him.

  “Then Penelope’s it is,” I replied. “What time are the auctions tomorrow, and where are they?”

  “One’s a private estate sale on this side of Eagle Gap and the other is at the auction house. It’s a mix of estates and random sellers, so I’m not sure what we’ll find there. I’m more excited about the first one because they’re doin’ it in a barn. It starts at ten.”

  We’d learned that barn sales often had a lot of treasures that most people saw as junk because they’d been stored in the barn for years and were covered in dust and grime. The secret was to look past that to see what was hidden underneath. Anna Mae had found quality antiques for peanuts just because most people didn’t bother to do that.

  “Awesome!” I replied, grateful it was a later-starting one and that it was only twenty minutes up the road. “Wanna meet at the farm at nine? That way, we’ll have some time to look through their inventory before the auction starts.”

  “Perfect. I’ll see you tonight, then. I’ll be the one smilin’ from ear to ear.”

  I disconnected then buckled my seatbelt and turned down the AC. One of the best things about my truck was that it would freeze you out in less than five minutes. My old one hadn’t had either a heater or AC, and in southern Georgia, that was not a good thing. I’d roast in the summer and freeze in the winter, but Old Blue had gotten me from point A to point B, and that’s all that had mattered.

  I pulled out of Bobbie Sue’s parking lot and pointed the truck in the direction of my shop. I’d finished up a set of indoor hanging doors I’d made from old barn doors for a couple and wanted to make sure the stain wasn’t spotty before I varnished them. That was the second set of those I’d done, and they were terrific moneymakers. I hoped I was lucky enough to grab a couple more at the auction.

  I pulled around to the back of my shop, waving to Alise, the nail tech at the Clip N Curl, as she heaved a garbage bag into the dumpster.

  “Hey, Noelle!” she called as I stepped out of the truck. “What are you up to?”

  “Not much,” I called back. “Just workin’ on a project before I head home. Are you comin’ out with us tonight?”

  She shook her head, sending her dark bob swinging. “Nah, I’m goin’ out of town for the day tomorrow, so I’ll have to skip. Me and Mama are goin’ to Atlanta to go shoppin’, then we’re spendin’ the night and comin’ home Monday mornin’.”

  “That sounds like fun,” I lied, smiling. “Have a good time and drive careful!”

  “You too,” she said as she disappeared back inside.

  “Yoohoo!” I called as I entered the back door of the shop, not sure if Erol, the previous owner and current ghost, was there or not. Lately, he’d been spending a lot of time with his post-living friends. I was over the moon that he’d finally found a group he enjoyed, but I was also a little sad because it seemed strange when he wasn’t there to greet me like he’d been for the better part of two years.

  “Hey!” Erol replied, floating through the wall that separated the kitchen from the front retail area wearing his standard polo—yellow today—and khaki shorts. “I was just heading out. Rick Is cookin’ ribs on the balcony of the penthouse at the Gardette Le Prete House in New Orleans. It’s vacant right now, so we figured we’d eat then go see if some of those places really are haunted. I went when I was alive and took one of the ghost tours, so now I have a chance to get some answers to all the questions I had at the time.”

  I furrowed my brow as I pushed through the swinging doors into my work area. I’d been reading up on New Orleans because Hunter and I had talked about going down for Mardi Gras. “Isn’t that the Sultan’s Mansion? The place where a bunch of people were murdered all in one night, and now it’s considered one of the most haunted places in the city?”

  He waved a dismissive hand. “Rumors started by Jean Baptiste LePrete himself, apparently. The bank ­he founded in that very parlor foreclosed on it when he hit tough times after the Civil War, so he figured if he couldn’t live there, nobody would. He paid some folks to start whispering rumors, and the story took off.”

  “So the place is called one of the most haunted places in the city, but it’s not really haunted?” I arched a disbelieving brow at him as I pulled a box of cheese crackers from the shelf and shook a few out for Sammie and Norm, our pet rats. Both nodded in thanks.

  “Oh, no,” he said, floating after me. “It’s definitely haunted. That’s who invited us. A wonderful lady named Darcy. She was a servant in the house and died of smallpox. Somebody else lives there, too, but I’m not sure who. We’re gonna eat, then Darcy’s gonna give us a tour of the city.”

  I cast a sideways glance at him as I lifted the doors onto sawhorses and opened the varnish can. “Is Jose going?”

  A pink flush crept into his translucent cheeks. “Yeah. He’s meeting me there.”

  Jose was a guy he’d met several months back, but I hadn’t met him yet. I wasn’t sure what the deal is, but if nothing else, I was glad Erol had found someone he liked spending time with. Heavens knew he’d spent enough time cooped up in the shop before Cheri Lynn, another of my post-living friends, had started dragging him out.

  “Good,” I replied, dipping my brush in the varnish. “Make sure to ask about the vampire place. I can’t remember its name.” I pressed my lips together and thought as I brushed, but it wouldn’t come to me.

  “The Saint Germain House,” he said. “That’s not haunted so much as it’s a part of local history, or at least I don’t think it is. I’ll get the 4-1-1 for you, though.”

  “Thanks. Or maybe I don’t want to know. You can go with us when we take our trip, and if the tour guides get anything wrong, you can correct them.”

  He hummed in agreement as he watched me work, then pointed to an area near the top of the one I was working on. “Missed a spot.”

  I shot him a wry glance but decided to let it go. Erol was a perfectionist and also couldn’t resist micromanaging. I wrote it off to the fact that he was no longer able to grab a brush and do it himself, which was something I could relate to.

  We chatted for a few more minutes about New Orleans before we changed to local topics. I started to ask him more questions about Jose, but the bell above my front door jangled. Scowling, I tried to tamp down the irritation. I’d unlocked the front door and flipped the sign to open in case any passers-by decided to pop in, but that wasn’t something that happened on a regular basis. Nearly all my business came from special orders, though I had started keeping semi-regular business hours. I figured if I was going to be there working on projects, I might as well be open.

  Before I could even cap the varnish, Coralee breezed into my workroom, her blond hair and dramatic makeup perfect as always.

  “Hey. Cute top,” I said, admiring how the poofy orange crop top she was wearing complemented her hair and tan. It didn’t show much of her belly because she was wearing high-waisted jeans, but even if it had, she had the sort of
abs in her forties that most twenty-somethings would have killed for.

  “Thanks, sugar!” she said, beaming. “I bought it online from one of those social-media ads.”

  I smiled because she bought more stuff from those than anybody I knew. Most of it was cool, though, so I couldn’t fault her.

  “What brings you over to the dusty, stained part of the neighborhood?” I asked, swiping on a few final strokes of varnish. One of the reasons these were so profitable was because after I had the wood sanded down, the rest was a piece of cake and involved more drying time than actual work time.

  Coralee crossed her arms, her blue eyes shining like a starving man staring at a steak. “I just heard you had a front-row seat to Barbie Lee Phillips’s comeuppance. That woman’s had that comin’ for a decade or better, and I’m glad Miranda’s the one who gave it to her. Why didn’t you text me?”

  Coralee was the uncontested queen of the local gossip mill, and the Clip N Curl was where she held court. If she didn’t know about it, it probably wasn’t worth knowing. She worked hard to manage the juiciest information and did her best to use her powers for good, so it was understandable that she was miffed.

  I smiled at her as I tapped the lid onto the varnish and tossed my brush into a small bucket of water in the sink. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t think about it because it didn’t seem like that big a deal. Miranda was pissed though, to put it lightly. I hope for her own sake, Barbie Lee got a tech out there right away.”

  Coralee flapped her hand. “Don’t count on it. Ms. Barbie don’t do nothin’ that don’t benefit her aside from the bare minimum that it takes to keep the ship from sinkin’.”

  “What’s that mean?” I asked as I washed my hands.

  “That means she thinks every dollar she spends on repairs comes straight out of her pocket, when really what it means is that it’s money that won’t go in her pocket.” She pressed her lips together and nodded like she was passin’ on gospel. To be fair, Coralee wouldn’t say something like that if she didn’t know for a fact it was true. She’d preface it with a disclaimer such as, “Rumor has it,” or “Word is.”

  “You’re sayin’ she’s pocketing the money she’s supposed to be usin’ for repairs?” I asked, and took the towel she was holding out to me.

  “Yep. I can’t prove it, but it don’t take a rocket scientist to do the math on what she likely makes versus what she definitely spends. Look at that sporty little Lexis she just bought. Those aren’t cheap. Neither’s the boat she bought last summer or the four-inch Louboutins she trots around in like they’re Walmart sneakers.” She shook her head. “Nope, that woman’s paddin’ her checkin’ account from somewhere, and it sure ain’t from workin’ extra. Debbie, her secretary, comes in to get her nails done, and she told us she’s seen invoices for repairs submitted that she knows never happened. She’s the one who schedules all of it.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “Is she just pocketing the money or is she splitting it with the vendors? I mean, if there are invoices ...”

  She huffed. “She’s datin’ Frank Hawkins, the guy who owns the AC and appliance repair shop down by Pigs.”

  I nodded, knowing what business she was talking about. Pigs, or Piggly Wiggly, was the grocery store where I shopped most of the time, and the business was in the same shopping center.

  “I know him,” I replied. “He stops in a Brew for coffee most mornings. Large black, two sugars. Quiet, but seems like a nice guy.”

  She shrugged. “Could be. I don’t know much about him. He moved here a couple years ago and keeps to himself. One-man show, mostly.”

  “That’s a shame,” I said, sighing. Why was there always somebody waiting in the wings to shaft good people that had no alternatives?

  “It is. I gotta get back to the shop, but I wanted to stop in and hear it from a reliable witness.” She grinned. “Can’t be passin’ on stuff that’s not true.”

  Unlike most people, she meant that one-hundred-percent. Don’t get me wrong—Coralee had no qualms about manipulating the truth when the situation called for it, but she did it sparingly and only used her powers for good. She’d squash vicious gossip like a bug underneath her hot-pink sneakers and had no patience for liars. She did, however, have so many branches on her gossip tree that she could disseminate information faster than any social media platform.

  I smiled back at her. “No, we can’t have that. I’m gonna run up to Rae’s. You wanna go with me?”

  She shook her head as we left the backroom. “Nah, I’ve already had enough caffeine to keep a platoon goin’. If I have any more, my hands’ll be shakin’ so hard I’ll accidentally give somebody bangs.”

  “We definitely can’t have that!” I said, grinning.

  “No,” she said with a look of terrifying glee. “No, we cannot. Though I can think of a few people I’d love to do it to on purpose.”

  And that was why I made it a point never to piss off Coralee.

  Chapter 2

  My cousin Raeann was closing down Brew4U, her coffee shop, when I got there. She was only open for breakfast and lunch, so even on a busy day, she was closed by four. Rae and Levana were putting the final touches on the day so it would be ready to go the next morning.

  I reached into the cooler and pulled out the tea pitcher, then refilled the to-go cup I’d brought from Bobbie Sue’s. One of the few drinks Rae refused to sell in a bottle was tea, though she did offer unsweetened. That one, we kept in its own bright orange container so we didn’t accidentally grab the wrong one. Nothing like takin’ a big ole drink of tea with no sugar when you’re expecting it to be sweet, especially as strong as Rae made it.

  “Busy day?” I asked, checking the near-empty pastry case.

  Raeann shoved a lock of dark hair behind her ear as she wiped down the counter in front of the espresso machine. “Insane. I didn’t stop from the minute I unlocked the door until about an hour ago. I don’t know where they came from.”

  “Me either,” Levana said. “We barely had time to run to the bathroom.”

  “Bobbie Sue’s was busy, too,” I said, flicking my wrist to lock the front door and draw the shades so that I could set the broom and mop working. I didn’t take magical shortcuts often, but when it came to cleaning, I was shameless. “I saw lots of bathing suits. Is there something goin’ on at the lake that we don’t know about?”

  “Not that I know of, but then again, I haven’t been paying much attention lately. I’ve been too busy studying.”

  “Have you learned anything?” I asked, trying to keep my voice casual. Since our magic had begun to change a couple of years ago, Raeann had been compelled to try to find out why. After all, a witch got whatever powers she was going to have when she hit puberty. Sure, you could hone them, but you didn’t just get new gifts or an increase in your inherent magical strength out of the blue. Except we had. As an earth witch, all of her powers had been magnified and she hadn’t gained many new ones per se. Still, all Flynn witches were powerful; we were an old bloodline that had managed to slip through time without dilution as happened with some families.

  “What?” she said, her gaze whipping to me.

  “What do you mean, what?” I asked, startled.

  “You’re not just asking for giggles. What’s happening now?” She tossed the towel into a bucket of sanitizer and leaned against the counter so that she was facing me. Apparently, either her empathic skills were growing or she just knew me well enough to know something was bothering me.

  Levana paused, too, and tilted her head, examining me. “There’s something strange with your aura. What’s going on with you?” She was a much older witch than we were though she wasn’t as powerful.

  I sighed and took a sip of my tea. “I’ve been having weird dreams. Disjointed, and Dad’s in them. Sometimes he talks, but it’s usually only to give me advice.” I lifted my shoulder. “I figure it’s my subconscious working stuff out while I’m sleeping.”

  “Maybe,” Rae said, “b
ut what do you mean when you say weird?”

  “I don’t know. Just weird. Like, last night, I was riding a unicorn.”

  She raised a brow. “Yeah, that’s a little weird, but not like, crazy. You love riding horses and you always say a unicorn is your spirit animal, so it’s not such a stretch that you’re riding one in your dreams.”

  “Yes,” Levana added. “They’re protective and make you feel safe.”

  I raised a brow at them. “A unicorn is my spirit animal because it’s pretty but can shank stupid people with its horn. That’s a brilliant trait to have. I’m just mean like that. It has nothing to do with some deep-seated need to be protected.”

  Rae laughed. “You just want people to think you’re mean, you big marshmallow. The only time you’re really that way is when people deserve it, and not even then most of the time. You’re snarky. There’s a difference.”

  I lifted a shoulder. “Maybe, but it still doesn’t explain why I’m riding unicorns and talking to dead people in my dreams.”

  “People? Someone other than your father?” Levana furrowed her raven brow.

  “No, so far it’s just him, which is weird. You’d think my brain would bring in Mom since she’s the one who could give me the best advice right now.”

  “Yeah, that would make more sense.” Rae pulled off her apron and hung it on a peg beside the register. “The last thing I’m gonna try to do is figure out what’s going on in your gourd, though. I love you, but that’s a terrifying thought.”

  She finished counting the drawer, and we left, locking the door behind us. “Now, why don’t we go lounge by the pool for a few hours before we get ready? I could use a pool day. We may even pre-game and have a glass of wine while we’re at it.”

  That was the best proposition I’d had all day.

  Chapter 3

  Three hours and two glasses of wine later, we were dressed and ready to head to Fancy’s to meet the girls.