The Ghost Detective Books 1-3 Special Boxed Edition: Three Fun Cozy Mysteries With Bonus Holiday Story (The Ghost Detective Collection)

by Jane Hinchey

  I ABSOLUTELY love talking to readers (especially when they send me photos of their pets!) Send me a message ANYTIME at www.JaneHinchey.com or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/JaneHincheyAuthor

  XOXO

  Jane

  © Jane Hinchey 2020

  This work is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  For my insider team, Fleur, Misty, Dana, Lilly, Lisa, and Marcia you guys are the BEST!

  Author’s Note

  Hey! Welcome to the weird and wacky world of my imagination. I hope you enjoy your time here.

  If you love anything supernatural as much as I do, then you’re going to enjoy the journey ahead - at least I think you will.

  Give up the Ghost is the second book in my Ghost Detective series, with more to come, so make sure you sign up for my newsletter to get notifications on when the next book is ready.

  You can sign up for my newsletter here:

  Janehinchey.com/join-my-newsletter

  Okay, ready to weave some magic and solve some mysteries?

  I’ll see you on the other side!

  xoxo

  Jane

  FREE BOOK OFFER

  Want to get an email alert when the next Ghost Detective Mystery is available?

  Sign up for my Reader’s Group today,

  https://janehinchey.com/starter-library/

  and as a bonus, receive a FREE e-book of Cupcakes & Curses!

  About this book

  Never in my almost thirty years did I think my new normal would be talking to ghosts, yet here we are.

  After inheriting a PI business, I find my clients are more incorporeal than not and are relying on me to solve their untimely deaths. Unfortunately, being a magnet for ghosts has its downside. Hello? Lack of privacy, for starters. Not to mention looking like a looney tune for holding animated conversations with myself. But the biggest problem? Their killers don’t want me on the case.

  Now I have a new mystery to solve. Local psychic Myra Hansen woke up dead and she’s none too happy about it. Seems she didn’t see that one coming! Together with my ghostly best friend, a talking cat, and Captain Cowboy Hot Pants—or, as he likes to be called, Detective Kade Galloway—I’m in yet another race against time.

  Catch a killer before the killer catches me.

  Join Audrey Fitzgerald in the Ghost Detective series, a paranormal cozy mystery featuring a talking cat, a ghost, and a murder to solve.

  1

  There was a dead man sitting in my living room. Since it was way too early for anything resembling civilized conversation, I ignored him and padded the five steps to my kitchen, yawning and scratching my butt. My apartment was on the small side, a boho broom closet would have been a more apt description so the journey from bed to coffee nirvana was a small one. My name is Audrey Fitzgerald. Fitz to some. And recently I've gained the ability to see and talk to ghosts. And a cat. Other than that I’m perfectly normal, I swear.

  Moving on auto pilot I opened the overhead cupboard, blindly felt around for a pod, shoved it into my Keurig and hit the magical button, then raided my fridge for anything remotely edible. Pickings were slim. There were some suspect green and fuzzy items at the back, then I spotted a leftover slice of meat lover’s pizza—how had I missed that? With a little yip of joy, I tossed it in the microwave. Today was going to be a good day, I could feel it in my bones. Any day that started with leftover pizza was a winner in my book. The microwave beeped, and I immediately shoved the pizza slice into my mouth, ignoring the searing temperature and the very real possibility I’d just removed one hundred layers of flesh from the roof of my mouth. It was worth it.

  Through watering eyes I fixed my coffee, carried the rest of the pizza slice over to the sofa and sank into it, looking at the dead man who was waiting patiently for me to acknowledge him.

  “You know, I’m not really fond of mornings.” I said.

  “Pizza too hot?” he drawled. If he was trying not to smile, he failed.

  “Not at all.” I lied, poking the roof of my mouth with my tongue, schooling my features to not give away the horror at discovering the flap of loose skin I’d scorched off.

  His smirk gave way to a full-blown laugh. “Give it up Fitz, if your glassy eyes weren’t proof enough, the way you’re sucking your cheeks in and out is a dead giveaway.”

  I glared at him, refusing to admit he was right. My stubborn streak kicked in and with my eyes locked on his I defiantly stuffed the rest of the pizza into my mouth, worked my jaw to chew and sent a stern message to my eyeballs to stop watering.

  “You know if you choke, I can’t save you?” he said conversationally. I held up one finger, signaling him to hold that thought, while I chewed. And chewed. And chewed. After swallowing, I took a sip of coffee which only intensified the scalding in my mouth—nothing builds character like nerves of steel—then calmly lowered the mug, resting it on one thigh, ignoring the heat searing through my pj’s. A coffee ring burn would look cool, right?

  “What can I do for you this fine morning, Ben?” Ben Delaney was my best friend. And he’d died. Correction, he’d been murdered and now instead of live Ben, I had ghost Ben. And his cat, Thor, who was not a ghost, but for some unholy reason I could now understand and speak to. I told you, totally normal.

  “Why don’t you move into my house?” Ben shook his head, his eyes traveling around my shoebox of a home, “It would be so much easier for you. The office is there. Thor is there. He misses you, you know.”

  “Pft, he’s a furry little jerk who doesn’t give a damn as long as his food bowl is full.” Ben’s cat aside, he had a point. Ben had left me everything in his will. And I mean everything. His house. His car. His PI business. Audrey Fitzgerald, temp extraordinaire, was now Audrey Fitz, PI in training. And I worked out of Ben’s home office.

  But for some reason I couldn’t bring myself to move into Ben’s house. His car, on the other hand? Who could turn down a metallic gray Nissan Rogue SUV with charcoal leather seats? Not this girl, certainly not when my set of wheels was a 1970 blue Chrysler. As it was, I commuted backwards and forwards between Ben’s house and mine and it worked fine. As long as I pushed down the guilt that I left Thor to his own devices for such lengthy periods. Despite my protests to the contrary, I was secretly fond of the big gray cat that resembled a teddy bear.

  “Did you want something?” I deflected. We’d been over this ad nauseam and if I knew what was holding me back from moving, I’d have done something about it because yes, Ben’s house was ten times better than my apartment. I knew it. He knew it. Thor definitely knew it. But each time the subject came up, I baulked, like a filly at its first hurdle, so much so I refused to discuss it anymore.

  “How’s the case going?” He asked. I acknowledged his change of subject with a nod. Smart ghost. “It’s done.” I beamed, proud of myself. As a PI in training, I had to clock fifteen hundred hours with supervision before I could sit my exam and get my official private investigator license. Lucky for me, Captain Cowboy Hot Pants, or as he likes to be called Detective Kade Galloway, agreed to be my supervisor. He pretty much lets me do my own thing and signs of
f on my weekly reports. Since Ben’s death I’d not only solved his murder, I’d recovered a missing prized chihuahua, and solved the great gnome mystery of Firefly Bay. Someone had been stealing gnomes from gardens and leaving them on rooftops along the main strip. Turns out it wasn’t someone, it was several someones and was a practical joke started by some high school kids. Still, I broke the case, and that’s what counts.

  I regaled Ben with an extra lengthy description of the great gnome mystery of Firefly Bay, watched as his eyes became glassy, could pinpoint the exact moment when he stopped listening. It wasn’t difficult, he literally disappeared. It was a quirk I’d noticed recently. Whenever Ben was disinterested, he’d slowly become more and more incorporeal until poof, he wasn’t there anymore. I’d quizzed him on where ghosts went when they weren’t haunting someone and he’d taken great exception to the term haunting and we’d spent over an hour debating the term and I’d never gotten an answer. From what I knew he didn’t sleep, he wasn’t restricted in where he went—which came in handy during investigations, Ben could slip inside and scout around undetected, whereas I, on the other hand, could get arrested for breaking and entering.

  Therefore, when my phone rang, and I wasted precious minutes searching for it—I eventually located it under my bed—he wasn’t around to hear the details of my next case. As much as I loved Ben, and I did dearly, he could be a little... smothering. Just because he used to be a police officer and then a private investigator didn’t mean he got to tell me what to do. And yes, I know, he calls it guidance and training since it is technically his PI business I’ve taken over, but sometimes a girl needs a little elbow room, a little space to get things done herself.

  I pushed down the little twang of pique that emerged when I applied the same principles to Captain Cowboy Hot Pants. Because, contrary to what I wanted from Ben, I did not want from Kade Galloway. A little attention would be... nice. But after the rather unfortunate incident when I’d been dosed with Crimson Bark, which FYI has the unpleasant side effect of explosive diarrhea, and said Detective had witnessed said aftermath—much to my utter mortification. Lets not even mention the fact that I’d been dressed in nothing but panties and a T-shirt at the time, I’d been expecting... something. Flowers? Chocolates? A date? Color me surprised when none of that happened. And color me even more surprised that I’m sitting here wishing it had. Me? Date a cop? Madness.

  Shaking myself out of that particular daydream, I got dressed, snatched up my bag, tripped over the rug I’ve tripped over a million times before but refuse to move, and headed out the door to meet my new client.

  2

  “Down on the ground! Hands on your heads!”

  I dropped to the floor along with five other customers in Firefly Bay Community Bank, not believing my misfortune. I’d only stopped in to sign a document that had been missed when I’d been added to Delaney Investigations bank account. The red tape had been phenomenal, they’d actually wanted to talk to Ben, which I’d pointed out wasn’t possible due to him not being alive anymore. Instead, I’d produced his death certificate and his will. Again. Dealing with the bank was up there with one of the most painful experiences of my life. I’d rather have my hoo-ha waxed, and that’s saying something!

  Face thrust into the carpet, I tried not to think of how many dirty shoes had walked across it, treading God only knows what into the fibers. Fibers that my face was now intimately pressed against. Instead, I snuck a peek out the corner of my eye. Three men. All on the taller side. Slim builds. Denim jeans, black hoodies, clown masks covering their faces. I screwed my eyes tightly closed for a second, sucking in a steadying breath. Why did they have to choose clowns? Clowns got such a bad rap, they really weren’t the evil creatures some people made them out to be. Yet seeing a clown waving around a big ass gun and threatening to blow your head off if you so much as twitched was doing absolutely nothing for their reputation.

  The Firefly Bay Community Bank had undergone renovations a while back, ditching a regular counter that segregated the staff from the customers and instead going for that whole open plan thing, with desks at different stations, machines in one wall taking care of all your cash needs. The opposite wall housed floor to ceiling monitors that displayed one giant video loop. I bet the staff were regretting this new layout now, exposed as they were out here with us. No big counter with a hidden alarm. No security screen to activate, keeping the robbers away. Instead, the tellers were on the floor with the rest of us.

  “Get your asses over here!” One of the robbers growled. Only with our faces buried in the floor, we had no idea who he was referring too. His robber mates, or us? And where, exactly, did we need to be? My questions were answered when I felt the press of a metal barrel between my shoulder blades. “On your hands and knees and crawl over there with the others.” I did as instructed, crawling to join a handful of customers several feet away in the middle of the room. Jennifer—or was it Judith? Jessica? Anyway, the staff member who I’d dropped in to meet with and sign that one final ever so important document, crawled alongside me, her face pale, her lips trembling.

  Once we reached the main group, we eased down onto our stomachs to lay flat on the floor once more. But the brief journey had given me a chance to look around. The man who’d pressed his gun into my back stood between us and the front doors, which were now locked, I’d seen him reach up and deactivate the automatic sliding mechanism. I thought I’d glimpsed a tattoo on the inside of his wrist, but I was too far away to make it out.

  One of the other robbers had a backpack and was going around collecting cell phones, wallets and purses, dumping them into the bag. When it was my turn I wriggled, easing the phone out of my back pocket. It slipped and fell to the floor. Not a big fall considering my current position. I reached for it, fingers fumbling, flinching when the robber shouted at me, “Hurry up!” I finally got a grip on the phone and dropped it into the backpack, mourning the loss. It was new. I’d only had it a little while, had finally replaced my old, broken up and only just hanging in there model. And now my shiny new phone was gone.

  I watched the man with the backpack move away, taking my phone with him, before dragging my eyes away to search for the third robber. He was at a door leading to the rear of the bank. I assumed that’s where the safe was. After all, all the automatic teller machines had to be kept stocked, deposits had to be taken care of. Despite the human race moving toward a cashless society, there was still plenty of cash around and these guys knew it.

  He and the man with the backpack had a brief, hushed discussion. Backpack man turned to where we were all huddled on the floor, eyes searching before coming to rest on a man laying opposite me.

  “You!” Backpack man growled. “Up!” He prodded the man’s leg with his gun to give him extra incentive to get a move on. The man scrambled to his feet, eyes terrified. He was young, early twenties, dressed in gray trousers and a blue polo shirt with the bank’s logo on it. Backpack man prodded him in the back with his gun, steering him toward the closed door. The other robber moved aside, and the penny dropped. On the wall next to the door was a keypad. They needed a code to get through.

  “Unlock it.” Backpack man snarled. I lifted my head a little higher to watch. The employee punched in his code. There was a beep, and the door clicked open. Backpack man kept his gun trained on the employee and pushed him through the door ahead of him.

  A nudge from the barrel of a gun pressed against the back of my neck had me flattening myself to the floor. “Stay down!”

  I’d kinda forgotten about the gun wielding robber behind us and gotten a little too enthusiastic with watching what was happening. Jennifer, Judith or Jessica reached out to me, touching my arm. “Are you okay?” She whispered. I gave a small nod and was about to open my mouth to answer when a booted foot appeared in my line of vision. “If you two don’t shut up, I will put a bullet in her brain. Understood?” I knew whose brain he was talking about because I could feel the barrel of the gun pressing against
my skull. Jennifer-Judith-Jessica made a little yip noise and screwed her eyes shut.

  Thankfully, his attention was diverted away from me when the door the other two had disappeared through slammed open and they came barreling through, shouting, “Alarm’s been tripped. Time to go.”

  “Shit. Did you get anything?” The floor vibrated by my head as a booted foot stepped over me.

  “Yeah, but not what we came for.” I chanced another look. Backpack man was now carrying an extra sports bag, black, nondescript. The other man had a matching one. How much money would two sports bags hold?

  “On your feet, bitch.” It was my turn to yip in surprise when I was grabbed by the arm and dragged to my feet. “You’re so keen to watch then you can stick your head out the front door and check for cops.”

  Oh, goody. Lucky me. With my upper arm in a death grip, I had no choice but to go along as he dragged me toward the glass sliding doors. Reaching up with his free hand, he unlocked the doors, and they slid open.

  “Don’t try anything stupid,” the gunman said.

  “Okay.” I wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted me to do, so I slowly stepped onto the sidewalk. I glanced left, then right.

  “What do you see?” the gunman asked. I looked back at him over my shoulder, saw the barrel of his gun trained on me. “No cops?” I squeaked.

  “You sure? You don’t sound sure, and if it turns out you’re lying, you’re gonna get a bullet.”

  I double checked up and down the street. “No cops.” I said again, with a ton more conviction. A bullet was not in my plans for today. Although neither was being smack damn in the middle of a bank heist either.