A Southern Charms Cozy Potluck Box Set

by Bella Falls

  Nana failed to hide her grin. “So it's man troubles then?”

  “No,” I protested, heat flooding my cheeks. “It's just that when I spoke with him, he acted all strange and different.”

  “You mean, he's been avoiding you. I don't think you need your powers to find the reason why, Birdy. When did things change with him?” she asked.

  I shrugged my shoulders. “I don't know.”

  “Yes, you do,” Nana wheedled. “The man's embarrassed. I've heard more details of Skeeter’s event than the ones I heard when I helped save the day. I'd bet the price of a phoenix feather that your detective acted less than noble when he was under the influence.”

  “But everyone was. It shouldn't change anything.”

  “But it did.” Nana leaned forward in her favorite chair. “Think about it. Aren't Lee and Alison Kate together? And Ben and Lily?”

  I dismissed her evidence with a shake of my head. “But they would have always gotten together at some point.”

  “What about Horatio and Juniper? That's about as unlikely a pairing as ever I would have figured, but here we are in a world where a giant troll has the hots for a tiny fairy.”

  “And both of them running in an election,” I added.

  “Right? So if you follow the clues, then you have to conclude that perhaps the detective revealed more of himself to you than he desired to at that moment. And if you'd open yourself up to that possibility, then maybe you can take some pity on the poor man and give him some distance to figure things out.”

  I squinted at my grandmother. “You just want me to stay away from the investigation of Mrs. K's murder.”

  Nana took a long sip of her iced tea in response.

  “And he's not my detective. But he is keeping me out of the loop.” I flashed back to our work together to solve Uncle Tipper’s murder. We'd made a great team.

  As if reading my mind, Nana spoke up. “But he had a reason to work with you, to save your life. This time, I'm grateful that you don't have to be involved.” Sadness shadowed her eyes. My near-death experience had also taken a toll on my grandmother.

  Thankfully, the timer on the stove dinged and interrupted our conversation. “That would be the brown sugar pound cake. Come on, let’s check to see if it's done, and you can help me by making the caramel frosting to drizzle.”

  The rest of my troubles could wait. Besides, I could use the calorie-packed cake as fuel for what came next.

  Chapter Eight

  “I don’t like this,” complained Beau as we approached the retirement home together.

  “What? The fact that I'm coming with you to your preferred dating spot or that you're helping me infiltrate the place so I can do some snooping?” I asked.

  “Both. If they catch you, then they might ban me from ever coming back,” the vampire whined.

  “Are you more concerned about your dating status than finding out what happened to a woman who lost her life? Beau, I never took you for someone so heartless,” I accused.

  His pudgy face drooped in guilt. “You're right. Let's go.”

  I might have laid the guilt on a little bit too thick, but I needed an excuse to get inside. While the wardens focused on Mrs. K's body, I could go through her room and see if anything in there gave any indication of who might have wanted to hurt her. I stopped Beau just shy of the entrance and pulled him to the side of the building. “Maybe we shouldn’t sign me in.” Thoughts of leaving hard evidence of my presence worried me. “Can't you do something to sneak me inside?”

  “Like what?” he asked.

  “Don't vampires have the ability to make humans do what they want? Isn't that one of your superpowers?”

  Beau crossed his arms. “I never took you for someone so simpleminded, Charli.” He mimicked my tone from before, laying the guilt at my feet. “Of course all vampires have the same abilities you’ve seen on television or in movies, right?”

  “No?” I replied with sheepish hesitation.

  “Do you have the same magical talents as your brother or your grandmother?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “It's the same for vampires. There are many of us who can live without taking much blood from others to survive. And only a small percentage of vampires can’t exist in daylight.” He admonished me with a disappointed expression on his face.

  “I'm sorry, Beau.” Remorse churned my stomach for pushing him and for my assumptions about his undead life.

  “Thanks.” He peeked through a side window. “Oh good, Alice is at the front desk. It shouldn't be hard to get you in. She has a thing for me, you know?”

  “How is it that in some aspects of life, you are a bumbling fool and in others—”

  “I’m a serious Don Juan Casanova? As I said, we all possess different talents.” He smiled a fangy grin at me.

  Beau sweet-talked his way in without signing the book, claiming he wanted to introduce me to Cordelia. After Alice flirted shamelessly with him, offering to finish anything Cordelia couldn't, I pasted a smile on to hide my abject disgust. We both climbed the stairs to the rooms on the second floor.

  “Which one is Mrs. K’s room?” I whispered to my roommate.

  He pointed down the hall. “Last one on the left. When she had her panic attack, they said that the nurses found her out on the roof of the porch that wraps around underneath her window.”

  “So there would be an easy way to get in and out of her room without detection?” I asked.

  Beau shrugged but didn't offer any other insights when he heard his name shrieked out in glee. Running his hand through the few strands of hair on his head, the vampire changed his attitude in an instant. “Cordelia,” he purred. “My darling.”

  “Quick, let's get you inside my room before the other girls find out you’re here.” The thin older lady gazed at him in absolute adoration.

  Beau gestured at me. “But I want to introduce my roommate to you, Miss Charli Goodwin.”

  Cordelia paid me no attention. “Yes, yes. Nice to meet you. Come on, Beau. We’ve got almost half an hour before the women in the quilting bee will miss me and come lookin’.” She licked her lips in anticipation, and I turned on my heel, sprinting for Mrs. K's room. I didn't need any more horrors to be stuffed into my head to fuel more nightmares.

  I half-expected a warden’s protection to be blocking the door. With the absence of any, I blessed my luck and tried the doorknob. It turned freely, and I nudged the door open. Not locked. Wanting to get inside to escape detection, I folded my body through the small opening I'd created and slipped into the darkened room.

  It reeked of gardenias, and the sense memory of the scent and the odor of her dead body came back, turning my stomach again. After a few seconds to compose myself, I opened my eyes and let them adjust to the light. All of her life existed in this tiny space. A twin bed on the left was still unmade, the quilted comforter pooled on the floor beside it.

  In the far corner by the window sat a large desk. Memories of the same piece of furniture sitting at the front of a classroom came back to me. She had taken a token of her teaching days with her, holding onto what was important to the very end.

  With my eyes adjusting, I noticed that all the decorations in the room were from her classroom. A map of the United States was tacked up over her desk. Motivational posters that she used to quote to us hung on the walls, their tattered edges rolling up a bit. As much as we made fun of her for her passion for our town, the woman had brought the same level of enthusiasm to all of her teachings.

  A wave of sadness crashed over me at the thought of someone taking her life. I wondered how long they would leave her stuff there until they boxed it up and put it away as if she never existed. As far as I knew, she had no family, calling all of us kids hers. And we all grew up and left. But a part of her never did.

  Shaking off the grief that she was due, I conjured a ball of light. I searched all the nooks and crannies for anything out of the ordinary. Crawling on the floor, I saw nothing u
nderneath her bed.

  I wrinkled my nose when I got to her laundry hamper. The stench of her cloying perfume choked me. I started to back away but caught a glint of something in the basket. Digging through the clothes and attempting to ignore the possibility that I might be touching her dirty undies, I felt around for what I thought I'd seen.

  “Eureka,” I whispered, grasping a glass bottle.

  My hand would stink of the spilled perfume for weeks, I thought. How did this get in here?

  Standing up, I searched for a nearby place where it might have been. On the top of her antique wooden dresser, a dark-ringed stain stood out on its surface. Leaning down and taking a whiff, I confirmed that the perfume bottle had been here before it was spilled and fell into the laundry basket. Not much else sat on top of the surface, which was unusual for an impeccable Southern woman, but maybe what she cherished most rested on her old desk.

  I ran my hand over the wood and stepped closer to inspect the dresser. My foot crunched on something. Peering down, I examined whatever was broken underneath. Reflections of my light bounced off the remains of the glass of a mirror. A silver handle poked out from underneath the dresser. A matching brush lay nearby, almost as if both pieces had been on top of the dresser and knocked off.

  I guessed that there’d been a struggle here, making the room the potential scene of her actual death. At least maybe my efforts would put Horatio in the free and clear. No way could a troll have made it into the room without being heard or seen. And his massive presence wouldn't have fit very well. But whoever had attacked Mrs. K, surely they’d committed the murder here and deliberately moved her. But why?

  The door slammed open, and I jumped, dropping the perfume bottle from my hand. “Charli. I should've known.” Mason glared at me in disapproval.

  “I’m here visiting a friend?” I attempted.

  “Don't tell me. You excused yourself to go to the bathroom and somehow found yourself in a murder victim’s room instead? How lucky for you.” He crossed his arms.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Do you think so little of my skills that I wouldn't have already searched this room? I purposefully didn’t cast a warden’s protection on it because it occurred to me that perhaps the killer might return to the scene of the crime. And here you are.”

  “You know I didn’t do it,” I scoffed.

  Mason stared me down until something caught his attention. He sniffed and stepped closer to me. “Why do you smell like that?”

  I pointed at the bottle on the floor. “Her perfume.”

  “Did you pick that up yourself? Charli,” he admonished.

  Pixie poop. “I found it in her clothes hamper. There’s a stain on top of the dresser where it probably sat before it was knocked off.”

  “I know,” said Mason.

  “And a hand mirror and brush look like they flew off the dresser in a struggle, too,” I added.

  “Again, I know, Charli.”

  “How do you know?” I challenged.

  “Because I’ve already done a thorough sweep of the room, taking notes from everything.” He produced his pad.

  “Then why wasn't it cordoned off?”

  Mason’s eyes burrowed into me. “Because I set up an alarm spell to alert me if anyone came in. I thought that maybe the culprit might return to the scene to clean up his or her tracks. I get here and find you right in the middle of things. Even when I instructed you to stay out of it.”

  He had me. There was no excuse I could produce that would get me out of trouble. I raised my hands and shrugged my shoulders. “Curiosity?”

  “It killed the cat and could get you into trouble,” he countered.

  “I’m used to that,” I said.

  “I wish you weren’t.” The detective sighed. “Fine. Did you find anything else worthy of note?”

  I shook my head. “I was kind of hoping I would pinpoint something that didn't belong. That way I could test it and see if it led me somewhere.”

  “You are hoping to find an item off the murderer that would take you straight to him or her?” Mason blew out a hard breath. “You really have no sense of safety, do you?”

  “I hadn't gotten that far in my plans,” I admitted. “Plus, you know my limitations. Finding a person is a lot harder for me than finding an object.”

  “So, what you're saying is that your skills may not be helpful at the moment and that maybe you should leave the job to someone say, oh, more like me?” He pointed at himself.

  “Fine,” I huffed. “You win.” I held up my hand like a common criminal in surrender.

  “I sincerely doubt that you’re giving me anything other than a victory in this small moment.” He escorted me to the door. “I’m going to have to reseal the room again.”

  “I’m sorry I gave you more work to do,” I teased. Before I left, I took his hand in mine. “Promise me you will call me if there is anything I can find for you.”

  He pulled away from my touch. “The only thing I want you to search for is your way home and the ability to stay out of my investigation.” He wrinkled his nose. “And maybe some soap and water to wash off that scent.”

  I sniffed my hand and cringed. “I don't think I'll ever be able to have gardenias in my house.” I made my way down the hall, bypassing Cordelia’s room and ignoring the grunts and giggles coming from behind the closed door.

  Chapter Nine

  Whenever I attempted to use my magic to find any evidence of Uncle Tipper’s participation in my adoption, I only drained myself of spent energy. Perhaps the papers I longed for didn't exist, or maybe, like finding a needle in a haystack, I might have to clear out the house of more junk before my magic would work.

  I toiled through an entire day, sifting through piles and piles of stuff with no more success than a few full trash bags. At least the task at hand kept me busy and stopped me from obsessing about Mrs. K. By now, the entire town was focused more on who had killed the old teacher than on the election. Based on the rumors floating about, Horatio's chances in the election were slim to none, and none just rode out of town on the back of a unicorn.

  “I think you need some help,” suggested Beau, interrupting my thoughts.

  I rubbed the back of my neck. “It’s getting to be a bigger task than I thought it would be. Even with your help, it could take years to go through everything.”

  My roommate opened up one of the trash bags to sift through what I was tossing. “What about your friend's service? Or maybe Juniper’s too busy with the election and her boyfriend currently in hot water.”

  I shrugged. “She does have a crew that works for her, although I’m not sure I would trust anybody but her to go through the paperwork. You do have a point, though. I can’t go through the entire house alone. I’ll check with her. It might be worth the money to at least organize the chaos.”

  Beau eyed the small space clean from the debris that surrounded me in the room. “I agree. Oh, and you have a piece of mail waiting for you downstairs.”

  When I got to the first floor, I found the thick cream envelope sitting on top of a side table with my name written in fancy calligraphy. I dreaded opening it, but throwing it away wouldn't change what waited inside. With a sigh, I ripped the expensive paper open and pulled out the invitation announcing the engagement party for Tucker Hawthorne and my cousin Clementine.

  No one knew about the conversation between Tucker and me when he confessed he still had feelings for me before I took off to find his business partner and guilty murderer Ashton at Tipper’s house. I'd closed the door on the chapter of my life that included him, and he chose to walk through the rest of his with my cousin. I hoped that he found happiness in his choice, but I would never be able to conjure up anything more than good wishes.

  Giving in to a darker mood, I trudged into the kitchen and poured myself a tall glass of iced tea. Carrying it out to the porch, I plopped down into one of the rockers, staring out into the glow of the day’s sunset. A black d
ot in the sky winged its way in my direction, and the caws that called out as it got closer stopped the flood of my heavy thoughts. Tipper’s crow, Biddy, circled and descended until she landed on the porch railing, flapping her wings and squawking at me.

  “Hey there, Miss Biddy,” I cooed at her. “How you doin’?”

  The bird cocked her head to the side to regard me with her bright yellow eye. She cawed in odd syllables, holding up her end of the conversation.

  “Oh, me? I guess I've been better,” I admitted to the crow. I don't suppose you know where Tipper kept all his secrets hidden?”

  The bird hopped on the railing but gave away no hints. With a light flap of her wings, Biddy fluttered to the rocking chair beside me, Tipper’s usual place to enjoy some sweet tea.

  “I miss him, too.” Even if he wasn't all there in his head, the old man had given pretty decent advice, and I could use any help I could get right now. As if sensing my sadness, the crow hopped over and lit on my shoulder much like she used to with my great-uncle. Her head nudged under my chin. And I scratched her dark feathers with the tip of my finger.

  “Thanks, girl.” The two of us rocked on the porch together until the last orange rays of the sun decorated the sky.

  When I opened the door that evening to answer an incessant knocking, a strong hand grabbed my arm and pulled me outside. I shrieked and fought against the perpetrator, beating my fists into strong muscles.

  Dash snickered at my efforts. “Feeling feisty tonight, are we?”

  Adrenaline pumped through my veins, and I smacked his arm. “Far from it.”

  He picked up my hand and sniffed it. “Why do you smell like that awful odor from the other night?” I’d done my best to scrub off the remains of Mrs. K’s fragrance from my hand, but his sensitive nose still picked up on the few particles left behind.