Hallow Haven Cozy Mysteries Bundle Books 1-3

by Mara Webb

  “I didn’t set the place on fire!” I replied. “What is dark flame?”

  “Oh, I know it wasn’t you. There is no way you have the skill to pull that off yet,” she laughed. “Who are you following?”

  “I have no idea,” I admitted.

  “But you decided to run after them? They could be a warlock or a demon or… or someone that puts pineapple on pizza!” she shrieked.

  “Keep your voice down!” I said. We were crouching by the edge of the trees having taken a few steps back off the lawn. We both looked back up at the giant house in front of us.

  “What do we do?” she asked.

  “I was kinda hoping you could tell me,” I said. “I didn’t have a plan. I still don’t.”

  “Is this about the photograph?” she asked. “I saw the look on your face when you saw the picture, you know something that you aren’t telling me.”

  “All I know is that the man in the picture is the dead guy from the bunker. It makes no sense, but then nothing in this freaky place makes sense,” I sighed. “Do you know anything about this house?” I asked.

  “Belongs to someone with a lot of money,” she answered.

  “How do you know?”

  “Well, it looks like a castle for one thing. Poor people don’t tend to live in castles, Sadie,” she smiled.

  “Good point,” I nodded. “I didn’t see where the person went, did they go inside?”

  “It looked like they ran around the back, but I couldn’t say for sure,” she replied. “Kate is gonna be pretty upset when she hears that she missed out on an adventure.”

  “I’m sure she will be, but it’s hardly my idea of a good time,” I said. “Do we get closer and investigate, or do we hold off?”

  “You want me to make that call? Jeez, pressure much?” Effie laughed. The peridot ring on my finger began to pulsate with light, a dull glow of green surrounded it. “Phew, it looks like the universe is deciding for us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your weird magic ring is telling us to go over there,” Effie said. “That is a legendary stone from a legendary treasure chest, everything that has been happening on this island must be connected. The ring is telling you to keep going, you must be getting closer to the truth.”

  “Are you sure it isn’t a mood ring or something?” I suggested. “Maybe it’s just glowing because I’m scared, or hungry, or both.”

  “Let’s not rule that out,” Effie laughed. “But yeah, we are breaking into that castle, Sadie. It’s been decided for us.”

  “Shouldn’t we go back and get Miller, and Kate?” I said, hoping to delay the inevitable.

  “I think you know the answer to that,” she replied, grabbing my hand. “Let’s go!”

  We ran around the edge of the lawn, staying under the shadows of the trees and staring at the house for signs of movement. Who on earth could live in a house like this? There was a small door that led into the building, probably a service entrance.

  “That’s our best bet,” Effie said, pointing at it.

  “What if it’s locked?” I asked.

  “Ha! Locked doors rarely stop me,” she laughed. We sprinted across the lawn towards the door. If anyone was looking out of a window then they would be able to see us, we were lit up by the floodlights and until we got to the wall of the house we were in full view. Effie immediately grabbed the door handle and started to rattle it up and down.

  “I thought you were implying that you could use your magic to get us in here!” I whispered.

  “I was planning to; this door isn’t responding. I don’t understand it,” she said, clearly confused. I heard something fall onto the grass behind us, a metallic thump. I turned to look at a cannister that was beginning to smoke at one end.

  “Uh oh…” I said, reaching over to tap Effie so she would look at it too. The smoke plumed until it surrounded us and we both began to cough.

  We were in big trouble.

  15

  “Sadie?!”

  I opened my eyes slowly and found myself being lifted off the ground. Miller was talking to me, but I felt like I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. He was holding me close to his body and I was reminded of how Ryder had carried me like this not long ago.

  I had no idea what was going on, but it seemed as if I was attracting the kind of hot guy that was strong enough to carry me around when I got into trouble. I wasn’t mad about it. My ex-boyfriend had needed a great deal persuasion to even help carry the grocery bags into the house from the trunk of the car, so this was definitely an upgrade.

  I nestled my head against Miller’s chest and tried to take slow breaths through my nose, but I kept coughing. I remembered the smoke but nothing else. Effie and I had inhaled something and then woken up… where were we? Where was Effie?

  “Ef… Effie,” I spluttered.

  “She’s okay, you’re both okay,” Miller replied. I felt him start to run and I closed my eyes again. The cool air on my skin let me know that we were outside, but the sky had been too bright for me to keep my eyes open for long. I could hear other voices and the sounds of birds singing. The twittering from nearby trees felt comforting.

  I must have drifted into a light sleep for a moment or two, because when Miller lay me down, I woke with a start.

  “Sadie, it’s Brielle. Can you hear me?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Where’s Effie?” I coughed.

  “She’s here too, I’m taking care of both of you,” Brielle answered. “What happened?”

  “We were…” I considered keeping our nighttime activities a secret as I doubted that it made us look good, but there was no use lying about it now. “We were trying to break into a house on the other side of the trees,” I admitted. “Someone set the lawn on fire, all around the pit. I saw them and I chased them, then Effie chased me—”

  Brielle handed me a glass a water and helped me sit up enough to take a drink. The smoke in my lungs was making it hard to speak without coughing.

  “Why did you go out there alone?” Miller yelped.

  “Hold on, just wait until I finish telling the story before pointing out how dumb it all was,” I smiled. I took a few labored breaths and felt the tightness in my chest ease off. “We followed the person that set the fire and it took us to this big old house. We tried to open a side door when all of a sudden this gas cannister dropped down out of no where and next thing I know you guys are carrying me in here.”

  “What time did you go to this house?” Miller asked.

  “It was maybe half an hour after you went to bed,” I answered.

  “I saw you both on the lawn when I went into the dining room for breakfast, were you guys out there all night?” he said. I was still trying to adjust to the bright light of daytime, my eyes straining to see. It hadn’t occurred to me that the sun being so bright meant that it was now morning. We’d been out on the grass for hours, but how did we end up back on the lawn by the guest house?

  Had someone brought us back here? That felt like the scariest part of the whole thing.

  “Where’s Effie?” I asked.

  “I’m right here,” she called out. She was coughing too, and I looked over to see her sitting on a bed across from me.

  “We should get you both back to the main island so I can give you a proper checkup, I don’t know what gas you’ve both inhaled and it could be—” Brielle began.

  “Don’t be such a nerd,” Kate interrupted. “They got knocked out by a little bit of mysterious fog, it can’t be that serious.”

  “Pardon me?” Brielle said, her eyebrows so high up on her forehead in disbelief that I feared they might fly off.

  “Dude, I’m obviously joking!” Kate laughed. “Yeah, you guys need to get on a boat a.s.a.p.”

  “We need to get to Skerry,” I said. “This whole thing isn’t over. I think we got too close to the truth and we were attacked because of it.”

  “Sadie, you need to let Brielle look at you both. What if you’d be
en killed out there?” Miller asked.

  “I was with her!” Effie protested. “I wouldn’t let anything bad happen.”

  “Okay… but you both got knocked out by some random gas bomb and woke up on the other side of the trees with no memory of the last few hours. Doesn’t that sound like something bad did happen?” Miller said.

  “I see your point,” Effie conceded.

  “Effie, you go with Brielle and Kate back to the main island,” I said. “Miller and I will go to Skerry, then meet you later on. Kate, you stay with Jeff and keep him safe until we get back. We still have to catch a blackmailer today.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Miller whispered. He looked pained; I could see that he was worried.

  “I am,” I insisted. “I feel fine, I promise.” It was mostly true. There was so much to do, and everything felt like it was top priority. How was I supposed to focus?

  “You’re nuts, but I like you,” Effie smiled. “Come on Dr. B,” she said to her cousin. “Let’s get this freak show on the road. I could do with swinging into the café anyway, we have a big delivery of decorations for Shell’s Day, and I know Rosie is gonna mess that up if she is left unsupervised with it.”

  “Thanks, Eff,” I grinned.

  “Anytime, boss!”

  I lowered my feet to the floor and jumped off the bed, leaning on Miller for support. I could still smell his cologne from when he had carried me, and it was intoxicating. I remembered that I had told Kate and Effie that today was the day I was going to invite him to the Shell’s Day parade. I felt as if I was losing my nerve, though.

  A few more sips of water had helped me clear my throat and now I felt completely normal. It made the whole incident even more bizarre as it seemed we had no long-term side effects. It was like we’d been put under a general anesthetic, weird.

  Miller and I were heading straight down to the dock to take the boat over to Skerry. I spent the walk silently trying to build up the nerve to ask him out, miming the words that I was planning to say, then shaking my head. I didn’t even know how to bring it up. We were in the middle of a murder investigation; the mailman was attacked in his own home and I was knocked out less than twelve hours ago. Maybe the timing wasn’t right.

  “Are you talking to yourself?” Miller asked. “Your lips have been moving for, like, five minutes and you look like you are really concentrating on something.” Well, this is embarrassing.

  “I have a thing to say, now, out loud,” I blurted. Smooth.

  “Okay…” he said, stopping to face me. Oh, darn it, he had stopped so that he could really pay attention to what I was about to say. I was kinda hoping he would just keep walking and I could make the whole thing seem super casual and like it didn’t matter if he told me that he didn’t want to go or that he had secretly had a girlfriend this entire time. Actually, that would suck.

  “I would like to, Miller, you see the thing is… and I’m sure you know that…” I was floundering. I could feel the heat rising on my face and I was starting to panic. If I passed out from humiliation then I could blame it on the weird gas bomb that had knocked me out, right? Claim it was another side effect or something. Why was I so nervous?

  “Is this you trying to tell me that you have a date with Ryder?” he said flatly. He looked down at his shoes and was visibly disappointed.

  “No! I want a date with you!” I said. The smile on his face made me realize that my worries were unjustified. I should just say the things I was thinking. “Miller, there is no one I would rather be with on Shell’s Day than you. We have barely had two seconds of alone time since I moved here, and I would love to spend time with you in a non-work way. Am I blowing this?”

  “Not at all,” he grinned. “I was planning to ask you to be my date for the parade, I just thought you might want to wait until all this was over.” He gestured vaguely at everything and I laughed.

  “Yeah, I know this isn’t the most romantic timing on my part,” I said. He closed the gap between us and nudged my chin upward with his finger. He kissed me. All of the little moments we had shared up until now crashed together.

  His mouth felt so soft against mine and it was all I could think about. My mind had been swarming with thoughts and noise, and now everything was quiet enough that I could collapse into this feeling of bliss. It felt like an eternity, but when he stepped back it felt as if it had been too brief.

  “So, is that a yes?” I smiled.

  “It’s a yes,” he laughed. How on earth was I supposed to get anything done after that? I felt week at the knees from it, but we had so much to do. Shell’s Day couldn’t come quickly enough.

  We got down to the dock, jumped into the boat and pulled away from the shore on our way to Skerry. I was smiling from ear to ear as we travelled around the island, ruining any chance I had of playing it cool. Within a few minutes we were dropping anchor off the Skerry shore and hopping out into the shallows.

  The three men that had been preparing to fire a cannon at Green Holt were each sitting on deckchairs, intently staring at the crumbled wall between the two islands.

  “Good morning!” I shouted. The shortest one gave an acknowledging wave, but never broke his glare at the rubble in front of him. I pulled the photo up on my phone, the one that I had asked Effie to send to me, so that I could show the men what she had captured underwater.

  “Do you think they had anything to do with Jeff’s attack?” Miller asked.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I think that their missing aunt is tied up in the story of what happened to Robert and I figured that we should find out what her name was. If she was Robert’s girlfriend then their relationship may have been another motive for his murder.”

  We approached the men, stopping directly in front of them so that they were forced to look at us.

  “Hey, a group of Green Holt folk could come charging over that wall any second, we need to keep an eye on it! You are blocking our view!” the tallest one shouted.

  “Yeah… I doubt that’s gonna happen. I wanted to ask a few questions about your missing aunt,” I began.

  “Like what?” the short one asked.

  “First of all, what was her name?” I asked.

  “Aunt Allie?” the short one replied.

  “Do you have more than one aunt that’s gone missing?” I said.

  “Good point,” the tall one laughed. “Yeah, we all called her Allie, but her full name was Natalie Jazz Scott. Honestly, our middle names are probably our best feature, Skerry is famous for coming up with some wicked middle names.” Natalie Scott. It was her.

  “Were you aware that she was in a relationship with Robert Barton? He’s the man we found dead in the bunker on Green Holt,” Miller explained.

  “Urgh, no way,” the short one scoffed. “No one in their right mind would date someone from Green Holt. Even if she thought about it, there’s no way our dad would have allowed that to go very far.”

  “Your dad?” I pressed.

  “Yeah, that’s her brother. He was always so protective over her, it broke his heart when she disappeared,” the tall one said. “He’s always instilled in us the understanding that it is completely unacceptable to fraternize with anyone from Green Holt. He said if he even heard a rumor that we’d been talking to a Green Holt girl that he would never speak to us again.” Charming.

  I looked at Miller and felt as though I knew he was thinking the same thing as me. Jeff told us that Natalie and Robert were an item, they both got passports around the same time and Robert had two tickets to Australia. They were planning to elope.

  “Never speak to you again?” I echoed.

  “Yeah,” the tall one nodded. “I heard about a girl that dated a guy from Green Holt and her parents locked her in a basement for 3 months! I heard about a guy trying to flirt with a Green Holt girl and his brother got into a huge fight with him over it, throwing fists all over the place they were!”

  “Our dad is kinda, I dunno, he has a short fuse. Let’s pu
t it that way,” the middle one said. “Quick to anger, slow to forgive.”

  What would Natalie’s brother have done if he’d known the truth? Would he have been angry enough to kill Robert? If so, would he have killed Natalie too?

  16

  I grabbed Miller by the arm and pulled him far enough away from the men to talk to him without being overheard. As I explained my theory, I could see the confusion on his face turned to one of agreement. I could be right, but unless we spoke with Natalie’s brother, we might not get anymore answers.

  “Where is your father now?” I asked the tallest one. We still had time before we had to meet Jeff for the drop off for his mystery blackmailer.

  “He’ll be up in the tower, he’s always up in the tower,” the tall one replied. He glanced at me sideways and saw me hold my palms upward in a ‘what are you talking about?’ way. “Oh right, you haven’t been here before, not properly. Well, dad built a tower to spy on Green Holt because they’re all sneaky little snakes. It’s up on the top of that hill, there’s a path over there that leads to it.”

  I looked in the direction he had pointed and saw that there was a dirt track sloping upwards into the trees. I couldn’t see the hill that he was referring to, but I didn’t have time to waste. I thanked them for their help and started jogging towards the path. Miller was close on my heels.

  “What are you hoping is gonna happen up here?” Miller asked. “Do you think he will confess to killing Robert? What if he’s dangerous?”

  “If he’s dangerous then we will just have to handle it,” I said. “Currently we have no explanation for why Natalie Scott is missing, we haven’t got the first clue. All I have is a picture of a dead guy underwater with someone else that might be Natalie, which would suggest that she is dead too, right? I should have shown the picture to those guys on the beach but my head’s all over the place.”

  Was there another reason why I’d not shown them the photo? If I was being honest with myself, truly honest, then it hadn’t slipped my mind. I had made the choice not to show them the picture. I had thought about it, then felt the peridot ring grow cold against my finger. I had taken it as a sign to keep the picture to myself. I was trying to follow my instincts, or at least do what I thought the ring was trying to tell me to, but what if I’d made the wrong decision?