Back Room Bookstore Cozy Mystery Boxed Set: Books 1 - 12

by Susan Harper

  “I wish I could say I did,” Holly said. “But the whole family seemed so excited to meet me. They had cousins and aunts and uncles. They called in the entire extended family, and they all came running just to meet me. It was incredible. I don’t recall anyone acting odd toward me.”

  “We’re going to figure this out,” Monica said, putting a hand on Holly’s shoulder. “We need to get back to the motel for now, though.”

  “Yeah, didn’t you two have a cat or something?” Officer George asked.

  “Yeah, we left her at the motel,” Monica said.

  “Better get back before she messes up the carpet or something. That would stink to have to pay for that,” George said.

  “Yeah, we don’t really worry too much about that with her,” Monica said. We have other things to worry about in regards to Abs, Monica thought. She was, after all, really a witch serving a prison sentence as a cat for starting the Salem Witch trials. “Come on, let’s get back to the motel. We’re going to need plenty of rest if we’re going to have the energy to solve this case.”

  8

  Of all the cops in Bankstown who could have responded to Isaac’s frantic 911 call, it had to be Brian. The man was now standing in the middle of Isaac’s living room with the biggest smirk on his face. “So,” Brian said, trying not to laugh at him. “Let me just make sure I got this, you know, for the record… You came home late. And there was a what in your house?”

  “Owls,” Isaac hissed, and Brian started laughing. “I didn’t know it was a bunch of owls at the time. I thought someone was in my apartment. That’s why I called 911. I thought I kept hearing voices around the corner, and I’d turn and no one would be there. Then I open up my kitchen cabinet, and four full-grown owls came flooding out. They went straight out the window. I hollered, and the 911 operator must have thought I was being attacked or something.”

  There was indeed a scattering of large feathers all over the apartment, the only evidence that Isaac’s ridiculous story was even remotely plausible. “You’re really telling me you called 911 over a bunch of owls?”

  “It wasn’t just that, man,” Isaac snapped. “Weird stuff has been happening to me all day ever since Monica’s house. Something chased me through her cottage. I swear that freaky gnome was looking at me. When I was in town today, this guy hissed at me and when I turned to look at him, he was gone. Now a bunch of owls were hiding out in my house!”

  “And what do you think is going on exactly, Isaac?” Brian asked.

  “I don’t know, man,” Isaac said. “I think… Honestly… I think Monica is some sort of… I don’t know…”

  “I swear, if you say what I think you’re about to say—”

  “Alien,” Isaac said, knowing good and well that the crazy part of him was coming to the surface. He was the alien conspiracy blogger, after all, so it was only a matter of time before his insanely cooler friend saw this side of him. “Look, I know it sounds crazy, but think about it. Monica is totally weird. She calls cars motor transport vehicles. She has all these weird technical names she uses for things. She sounds like a walking Wikipedia article. Like all her knowledge of the way the world works came from an internet search.”

  “Isaac, it’s a cultural thing,” Brian said.

  “She’s from Chicago! Not some random third world country with no internet or cable!” Isaac yelped.

  “Look, are you pressing charges against anyone? Do you need a statement for insurance or anything like that, or can I get back to the station and clocked out for the night?” Brian asked at last.

  “Nothing was broken,” Isaac said, grumbling.

  “Then chill out, lock up, and go to bed,” Brian told him, flipping his notebook shut. “And another thing, stop digging around looking for, I don’t know what, about Monica. It’s creeping me out, and if she knew what you were doing, it would creep her out too. Last warning, Isaac.”

  “Fine,” Isaac said, relenting a bit. Brian picked fun at him a bit longer, but eventually left, leaving Isaac alone in his apartment, still feeling really uncomfortable about the owls. He checked all his windows multiple times before he settled in for the night.

  He had to know what was going on. He was going to find out what was up with the Montoya family if it killed him. Without giving it a second thought, he booked a flight for first thing in the morning to Chicago.

  By the time morning came, he was seriously regretting this decision. Was he really spending money to take a flight out to Chicago to investigate one of his friends? And what would Brian say if he found out? He had managed to get out of Wilma the name of a neighborhood the family had supposedly grew up in. His plan was to interview a few neighbors to see if he could confirm that the Montoyas were in fact from Chicago. If he couldn’t prove their existence within the city, then surely that meant they were lying about something?

  It took him about an hour and a half once he landed to finally find his way to the neighborhood. It was a small, suburban area just outside the main hub of Chicago. Isaac was sure when he told the cab driver to pull into the neighborhood that he was going to confirm that no one in the area had ever heard of the Montoya family. That this whole “we’re from Chicago” thing of theirs was some sort of cover story for what was really going on.

  However, he was proved wrong at the very first house he visited. He rang the doorbell, noting by the car in the driveway that someone was home, and he heard a distant voice calling, “Coming! Coming! One second, pulling something out of the oven!”

  Isaac waited patiently, and the door flung open. He had to do a double-take. There was an older woman staring back at him that, for a split-second, he believed to be Monica’s Aunt Wilma. It wasn’t her, but she bore a startling resemblance. Her hair was red like Wilma’s, though she wore it shorter, she was a bit plumper, and her nose was more button-like. “Uh…” Isaac said under his breath.

  The woman smiled. “Can I help you?”

  Isaac could smell cookies; the woman was baking. “Er…yeah…um… Do you know the Montoya family?” Isaac asked, still a bit taken back by the woman’s appearance.

  “Of course, I do,” she said. “Are you looking for me?”

  “What is your name, ma’am?” Isaac asked.

  “Wanda. Wanda Montoya,” she said.

  “Any relation to Wilma Montoya?” Isaac asked.

  “Oh, you mean my sister!” she said. “Wait, nothing happened, did it?”

  “Um, no! No!” Isaac said quickly. What if this woman called Wilma and told her that he had shown up? He covered his face. “So…your sister Wilma, does she live around here?”

  “Right here with me,” Wanda said. “We’re a couple of old spinsters, I’m afraid. We live together, but she’s supposed to be out in Bankstown. Are you a friend of hers?”

  “Can I… Can I be absolutely honest with you?” Isaac asked.

  “I’d prefer you did,” she said, putting her hands on her hips and looking utterly confused.

  “I am an absolute idiot,” Isaac said. “I convinced myself that Wilma was lying about being from Chicago, and I flew out here…just to prove…”

  “Oh, that is crazy,” Wanda said. “What is your name?”

  “Isaac,” he said, still shaking his head. “I don’t know why I… I’m so sorry. Is there any chance I can walk away from here without you calling your sister and telling her what I did?”

  “Only if you come inside and tell me why you felt the need to come all the way out this way just to prove my sister was lying?” Wanda said, and Isaac agreed.

  The next thing he knew, the kind woman was fixing him a plate of freshly-baked cookies. He told her everything. How he had always thought Monica and the rest of the Montoyas were a little off, how he had broken into Monica’s house, and how he had been investigating them for the past couple of days. “Well, you do realize you sound like an absolute lunatic, yes?” Wanda asked him, taking a bite of one of her cookies.

  “Yeah, I do,” Isaac said, rubbing his face
for a moment before sitting upright on the kitchen stool she had so kindly offered him. “I am friends with your sister Wilma. I respect her a lot, and Monica has become one of my best friends… I really don’t want to upset them. If they found out what I’ve been up to…”

  “You would look like a crazy stalker,” Wanda said, nodding along. “Look, we Montoyas have always been a bit…colorful, I know that, but there is nothing abnormal going on here, Isaac.”

  “I think I realize that now,” Isaac said, staring at Wanda. How could he have acted so crazy? Buying a plane ticket out to Chicago just to see if they were lying? How ridiculous was it to immediately be greeted by someone who looked almost exactly like Wilma? This woman was obviously related to the Montoyas, and she was saying they all lived around here. It was like all his paranoia suddenly melted away.

  He inevitably left the house, feeling a little worse for wear. He decided to spend the day in Chicago before flying back home—might as well since he had bought the plane ticket, after all.

  The woman watched Isaac as he got in a taxi and pulled out of the neighborhood. She exhaled, relieved, once he was gone. She closed the door behind her. She exhaled again, and her waist drew in, her hair grew out, and her nose pointed slightly. Wilma smiled. “That was close,” she said under her breath. “That transformative potion only lasts so long…thought he’d never leave.”

  Wilma pulled her wand out and began waving it around the house. Pictures on the wall changed, herself and her nieces disappearing and replacing themselves with pictures of the family who actually lived there. “Hope these mortals don’t mind I borrowed their house.” Wilma slipped out the back door to where her broom was waiting for her in the garden. She had been warned by Monica’s ghoul, the creature that had attacked Isaac in the cottage, that Isaac was looking into them. She had been monitoring him ever since. Her ex-boyfriend, Drac, had been tailing Isaac most of the day before in Bankstown. He had told her he had mistakenly hissed at him once. She had also set a few pet owls of hers into Isaac’s apartment to spy on him for her. Most of them had been caught, but her most trustworthy owl had managed to report back that Isaac had booked a flight to Chicago that morning. It seemed that she had gotten Isaac off their trail for now.

  Wilma threw a leg over her broom and kicked off, and soon she was flying back toward Bankstown. She’d had to get Mona and Deimus to watch both sides of the shop for her since she was supposed to be keeping an eye on things while Monica was out of town. She hoped Mona and Deimus were handling things fine without her. The two of them never did too well working the mortal side of the bookshop on their own. They didn’t quite understand mortals the way Monica did, and Wilma had years of experience of interacting with mortals. Clearly, she was good at it because she had just managed to convince Isaac she was her own sister. Wilma laughed at the thought; she didn’t even have a sister. She would have to update Monica on this new bit of false information she had given Isaac to keep their cover.

  The wind whipped through Wilma’s hair. It had been a long while since she had flown her broom like this. It was nice. She knew she would make it back to Chicago long before Isaac did. She only had another day or two of working her old shop left before Monica and Holly arrived back in town, and she wanted to take advantage of it. It wasn’t every day she got to hang out in Bankstown where she had befriended some of her favorite mortals over the years.

  9

  Monica blinked her eyes open slowly the next morning, having been woken by the sound of a cellphone ringing. It wasn’t hers, so she thought about rolling over and going back to sleep, but she could hear Holly talking. She buried her face in her pillow, but she listened. “No, I’m glad you called,” Holly said. “I’m honestly really surprised you did after everything that happened yesterday… Coffee? Really?” Holly sounded thrilled. “Oh, but I don’t know. Is it a good idea if you leave the house? I know Anniston was so upset yesterday. Don’t you think it’s a good idea if you stay there with her?” There was a pause. “Yes, I suppose a couple of hours will be fine. She does have her mother…” Another pause. “Okay, we can meet you there in forty-five minutes, no problem. I’m sure my friend would love to come, of course. Okay, bye… Dad…”

  The next thing Monica knew, Holly was shaking her awake. She heard Abigail hiss. Apparently, she didn’t like being woken up either. “Why?” Monica groaned.

  “Don’t be so lazy,” Holy said. “My dad wants to meet us for coffee, and it’s eight in the morning!”

  Monica sighed and threw her feet over the side of her bed, much to Abigail’s dissatisfaction. “Come on, don’t hiss at her again,” Monica said. She hurried to get herself ready, taking a rapid shower and using her wand to dry her hair.

  They headed out the door, Abigail included, and took a bus into town. Holly kept checking her phone nervously. “I think this is the coffee shop he told me to meet him at…” she said, so they settled down outside after ordering themselves a cup. She kept tapping her fingers on the table.

  “Holly, are you okay?” Monica asked.

  “I’m just so shocked he still wants to get to know me,” Holly admitted. “After what happened.”

  “What did he say when he called you?” Monica asked.

  “Well, he did say he thought it was best that we meet somewhere away from the house like Officer George was suggesting. He told me doesn’t want what happened to Angel to affect how I feel about him,” Holly said, a slight, frightened smile on her face.

  “Good,” Monica said. “It sounds like you have a good dad. It’ll be fun getting to know him. I just hate that it’s at such a troubling time for the family.” Monica nudged Holly and pointed. A white GTI came pulling into the parking lot, and Holly’s father hopped out and looked up anxiously in their direction. His face lit up when he spotted Holly, and he hurried across the parking lot.

  “I’m going to grab myself a cup of joe, and I’ll be right out,” he told them, looking so relieved that they came, as though he had expected them not to. He returned shortly, pulling up a chair between them both and giving Holly a mildly awkward side hug before they sat back down. “How was the motel?” he asked.

  “It was all right,” Holly said, smiling at him.

  He looked at Monica. “I don’t think you and I really had a chance to talk yesterday at all. Monica, right? And your cat, I see you brought… Was it Abigail?”

  “That’s right,” Monica said.

  “How do you two know each other?” he asked.

  “Holly works in my bookshop out in Bankstown,” Monica said. “I just moved there from, um, Chicago, and Holly and her friend Isaac were so sweet to me. Pulled me into their friendship circle.”

  This brightened him up once more, and he looked at Holly. “Isaac? Another friend of yours?” he asked.

  Holly’s cheeks turned red. “He’s been my best friend since grade school,” she said.

  Monica couldn’t help it. She wanted to ease the tension that was still present from the events of the night before. She leaned forward over her coffee and winked at Joseph. “I’m thinking that title is going to be changing soon. The poor guy has been in love with her since they were chasing each other around on playgrounds.”

  “Monica!” Holly yelped in embarrassment, but she smiled.

  Joseph beamed. “Oh, I’m definitely going to have to meet him sometime. What does he do?”

  “He’s a journalist,” Holly said. “And a bit of an internet celebrity, but we’ll avoid talking about that part for now. It’s a little weird, but he’s a really nice guy.”

  “So, bookshop, huh?” Joseph asked. “You do well there?”

  “I used to have this awful desk job. I made good money and all, but I couldn’t stand it. I quit, and Monica offered me the job there. It’s been…life-changing,” she said.

  “Bookworm,” he said, grinning. “Just like your dad, then. Have you had a good life, Holly?”

  “I really have, Dad,” she said. “My adoptive parents are incredible.
I’m sure you’ll get to meet them someday too.”

  “How did they feel about you looking for me?” he asked.

  “Are you kidding? My dad called the adoption agency that day for me and got all the paperwork we had that could help us track you down,” Holly explained.

  He smiled. “Your dad… Yes, good,” he said, trying hard to keep that smile. “I’m glad they’ve been good to you. That you’ve had a good life. I hope you know that that is all I ever wanted for you, Holly. Leaving you, it was the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make.”

  “Can you tell me about my mom?” Holly asked. “I really want to get an idea of who I am, you know? Where is she? And why wasn’t any of her information on the adoption papers?”

  Joseph nodded. Monica studied his face. He looked very conflicted about this question, but he also seemed like he knew it had been coming. He took a sip of his coffee and played with the cup for a moment. “I hardly knew your mom at all,” he said. “I was just a kid, you know. A teenager who was being stupid and used a fake ID to get into a bar. That’s where I met your mom. Morgan. She was beautiful, and I knew she was a little older, but she was interested in me, so I really thought I was something else. I never told her I was a teenager, and I probably should have. We went back to her apartment, and the next morning, she drove me home. That was the last I saw of her. Nearly a year later, I was off at college, and she found me.”

  Monica knew Joseph was having a hard time telling this story. She watched Holly reach out and take her father’s hand, smiling at him reassuringly. “It’s okay, Dad,” Holly said. “I’m not angry at either of you. I just want to know how we got here you know?”

  Joseph nodded and squeezed Holly’s hand. “This is probably the part I’ve most regretted having to tell you, but you deserve to know. Your mother, Morgan, she had twins. Twin girls. Told me she couldn’t afford to take care of you both and plopped one of you in my lap and took off. I didn’t even know the woman’s last name or if you were even really mine. I never even held your sister; she wouldn’t give me a chance.”