by L. L. Muir
Be Witched
The Witches of Falls County: Book 1
L.L. Muir
Green Toed Fairy
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
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License notes…
Prologue
She can’t be dead. This isn’t happening!
Please, God, don’t let this be real.
My life is over. I can’t breathe. I can’t think.
I can’t believe she’s gone.
I can’t believe… I killed her. I really killed her.
1
Maddy slowed to a stop at Dinkville’s only traffic light, knowing it would turn red on her. She knew it not because she was a witch—though she was—but because somewhere, some Dink always sat with his finger on a button, waiting for a car to come down the street so he could stop it. Some small-minded man or woman with a sick need for control.
Like always, the light turned red.
She wasn’t being paranoid. It was a fact. In the two years she’d lived there, she’d never, ever seen that light in front of Hinton’s Grocery stay green.
Her compact began to vibrate. She flipped it open and searched for her sister’s face in the mirror. “Hey, Mac. What’s up?”
“How close are you?”
“Four minutes. I’m at the light.”
“Trouble. Lots of it. On our doorstep.”
Maddy turned up the road that led to her place out on the edge of town. After passing the school, she squinted up the hill and saw lights on top of the cop vehicle parked in her drive, blocking the view of the old Victorian home once known as Hughes Manor. She considered turning her little SUV around, but since her house was the only building left on the road, it would be a little too conspicuous if she did.
Doesn’t matter. Nothing’s wrong. Just be cool.
Her compact vibrated again. She flipped it open. “A cop car. I know. Where’s Hootie?”
“No clue. All I can see is blackness. He must be asleep. The cop tried to get in. He shook the back door. Just one guy, I think.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Stop calling, then.” She snapped the mirror closed, pulled up the driveway, and into the carport at the side of the house. If the guy had parked in the circular drive to frustrate her, he’d failed already.
The big white SUV had a sheriff’s emblem on the door. A tall officer leaned against the passenger side, waiting for her. He pushed off once she was out of her car.
She grabbed her packages out of the back seat and closed the door with her butt. She looked him up and down, then looked away, like she hadn’t liked what she’d seen. But just the opposite was true, dang it.
“Hello,” he said, not bothering to smile at her either. He looked as happy as she was about him being there.
“You lost?” she asked, and fished in her purse for her giant key ring.
He arrived at the front steps the same time she did. “That depends. Are you M. Muir?”
“I am.” She started sorting through the keys, then stopped and put them back in her purse. She wasn’t going to invite the guy in, so there was no use opening the door and letting him hope.
“May I ask what the M. stands for?”
“Madison. And you are?”
“Forgive me. I’m Deputy Darro, Fall’s County Sheriff’s Department, Special Investigator.” He offered his hand but when she ignored it, he pulled it back. Then he pulled a mini notebook from his pocket and flipped it open. “Madison. Like Dolly Madison?”
“I live in a town named Dinkville, and you’re making fun of my name?”
He held up his hands. “Sorry. Not making fun. Just want to spell it right. One d?”
“Yeah. Mad, with one d. Deputy Fife, was it?”
Ooh. He didn’t like that, judging by the dirty look he gave her. “It’s Darro.” Then he spelled it.
She rolled her eyes like she was praying for patience. “Did you want something? ‘Cause I’ve got a conference call coming up and I need to prepare for it.”
“This will only take a minute.” He looked at the door over her shoulder.
“Gee. I’d invite you in, but the house is a mess.”
He pointedly looked around the immaculate yard. “Why do I doubt that?”
“Oh, you know us clean freaks. If we haven’t vacuumed in the last hour, it’s not clean enough for company.”
He sighed. “All right, then. Do you know a woman by the name of Monica Whittaker?”
“Monica Whittaker?” It sounded familiar. “I don’t think so.”
“You sure? Think about it.”
She pretended to think. “Nope,” she said, with a crisp pop on the p.
He looked pissy again. “Really? Well, that’s interesting. According to her schedule she had an appointment with an M. Muir, at this address, last Thursday.”
Ah. There was a very good reason she didn’t remember the woman. The appointment would have been with Mac. “Is she trying to use me as an alibi or something?”
He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “Something like that. I’ve been told you’re some kind of fortune teller. Is that why she came to you?”
She shrugged. “I prefer to work from home. And I just don’t have a steady hand for painting nails, you know?”
“Well, I won’t pretend to buy into that crystal ball stuff. But I do want to know about your appointment. And why you didn’t remember her name.” He backed up and gestured to his vehicle. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to get it on record. So if you would just come with me—”
“I already told you, I have to be on a conference call. When I’m done, I’ll look at my schedule and try to remember what I can about your victim. Then I’ll give you a call. Record it or not, I don’t really care.”
His lips twitched, then he cleared his expression. “I never said she was a victim of anything.”
“But you wouldn’t need to interrogate me if you were only checking her alibi, right?” Maddy took a big step so she could get in his face. “Besides, I’m psychic, remember?”
For a few long seconds, they glared at each other. His golden-brown eyebrows were perfectly combed. His lips were the natural shade of her favorite lipstick—Palest Plum—which she would toss in the trash as soon as she went upstairs. And she could smell the starch in his shirt.
When he spoke, his voice was a lot softer than she was comfortable with. “I’m afraid I’ll have to insist—”
She moved an inch closer. “Did you find anything…when you were snooping around my house?”
He blushed a little beneath his tanned skin, took a step back, then he glanced at the closest window. “You live alone here?”
“Yes.”
“Then how do you know I was looking around?”
She backed up onto the step behind her and pointed down at his feet. “Muddy shoes.”
He put his hands on his hips, which pulled his jacket open and showed just how fit he was, damn him. “Maybe I’ve been busy this morning.”
She looked him over again, pausing on the stiff collar, the trim waist where his shirt was tucked in, that clean brown jacket that looked new, but wasn’t. “You’re either gay or you’re a neat freak. Either way, there’s no way you’d track that much mud into your car. Had to come from here. No mud out front. But nice try.”
He denied nothing while he looked at the empty fields in the distance. “I won’t apologize for trying to find a killer, Ms. Muir.”
“Well, your killer’s not here.”
His breath came out in a whoosh. “Will you please come to down to the county offices—”
“In Spirit Falls?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“No?”
She held her hand up to the side of her head like a telephone and bugged her eyes.
“When you’re finished?”
She shrugged. “Gotta card?”
He wasn’t happy about it, but he dug out a card and handed it over. Then he put his fingers to his temple in a kind of salute before he realized it was a mistake.
She smiled only long enough to salute him back, then let him know, with her expression, he wasn’t welcome to stop by again. Her purse vibrated while she stuck a key in the lock, but she ignored it, even once she was inside with the door locked behind her.
She could hear Mac shouting, but she ignored that too while she stood by the dining room window and watched the white SUV make its way down the hill and past the school. She was tempted to go out and draw a pattern in the road, so he would get lost if he tried to come back. But it was just too hard to get lost on a straight, dead-end street in Dinkville, Idaho.
The vibrating stopped. Her sister had gotten the hint and would wait patiently. But Maddy wasn’t in the mood to talk. She wasn’t in the mood to be in a mood, either, so she went upstairs and started a nice hot bath. Water was the only way to turn off all the emotions coming at her from different directions. But what disturbed her the most was...
They were all hers.
2
Tripp Darro stomped into the Falls County Building, marched into Sheriff Peterson’s office, and slammed his hand into the side of the file cabinet to get the man’s attention. Sitting back in his chair with his feet up, eating his homemade lunch, Farley Peterson smiled innocently, but his eyes were laughing.
“What did you do,” Tripp demanded, “warn her I was coming?”
The smile never faltered. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You sent me to Dinkville, then called the Muir woman, right? Does she have cameras around her house or something?”
“You make it sound like I know her personally.” Farley snapped the lid back onto his Tupperware and tossed his fork in the trash. “I don’t. I’ve never been out there. I just heard...”
“What?”
“That she’s not real friendly to police. Or anyone, really. I’ve never had a reason to send anyone out there before.” He put his feet on the floor and leaned forward. “So tell me, already. What happened? See any black cats? Any ghosts peeking through the curtains upstairs?”
“Cats? Ghosts? What are you talking about?”
Farley leaned back again, disappointed. “Nothing, huh?” Tripp gave him a lethal look and the sheriff held up his hands. “Okay, okay. She’s a witch.” When he saw the look on Tripp’s face, he nodded. “I mean it. A real one. Well, you know, supposedly. I just hoped you might have seen something exciting, that’s all.”
Tripp dropped into the chair that put his back to the wall. “The place was buttoned up tight. Shutters on the inside of the windows.”
“My wife said that’s a style now.”
“She wasn’t about to invite me in.”
“Maybe she has her cats freeze-dried by a taxidermist when they die. Keeps them around for decorations.” Farley laughed. “Who knows what’s inside?”
Daphne poked her head through the doorway. “If you’re talking about the Hughes house, I know what’s inside.” She bit her lips together, obviously waiting for an invitation before she would say more. Farley waved her in. She plopped down in the empty chair and sat up straight, like she was sitting on the witness stand. “I went out there last year for a tarot card reading. With Darschelle. Kind of an early Halloween thing, you know?”
Tripp wished there was some way to make Daphne talk faster, but the girl was loving the attention. “And?”
“She’s remodeled it. Looks like it’s right out of a magazine. All except this creepy curtain she has hanging on the back wall of the living room. Not my taste.” Her eyes widened. “But when the witch ran upstairs to find her cell phone, I took a peek behind it…”
Daphne had something juicy. It was written all over her face. But she wasn’t going to give it up unless they begged her.
Tripp put his hands on his knees and shook his head. “Daphne, you know we’re talking about murder here. If you know something and don’t tell me…”
He didn’t think her eyes could get any bigger, but they did.
“A door! With locks. Lots of locks. All different kinds. Padlocks, combinations, sliding bolts. You name it. All for one regular old door.” She shook her head and grimaced. “But then she caught me!”
“And how did she react?”
“I asked her what she kept locked up in there.”
He couldn’t believe he had to keep prodding her. And Farley was no help at all. The man was going to have a heart attack from trying not to laugh out loud.
Tripp had no choice but to ask. “And what did she say?”
Daphne shrugged. “Chocolate.”
“Chocolate what?”
“She said that’s where she kept her chocolate. Said that, by the time she got to the last lock, she usually had her self-control back and was able to resist it.”
“She said she locks up her chocolate?” Again, he wondered if the sheriff was pranking him.
“Yeah. Did you see how pretty her skin is? Maybe chocolate really is bad for us. I mean, if I thought I could look like that, maybe I’d lock up my chocolate too.”
Tripp exchanged a look with Farley, who was suddenly done laughing. They both understood that any reply could be taken the wrong way. “Daphne,” he said. “Do you remember anything else? When she…read the cards, was she, you know, any good at it?”
“Oh, sure! She told me to hold onto my money and not let anyone know how much I had. Then at Christmastime, my cousin Paul came to town and everyone invested a little bit in his condo deal at the lake. But not me. I remembered what she said and sat on my money. When the condo deal blew up, I was the only one in the family that didn’t lose anything.”
“That’s it? One coincidence?”
Daphne rolled her eyes. “Like I’d tell you boys everything. Hah!” She got up and moved back to the door, then gave him a coy look over her shoulder. “Anything else I can do ya for?” Like a dozen times before, since he’d been assigned to Falls County, the girl was flirting with him. He wished she’d give up and set her sights on someone else.
“No,” he said, “but thanks.”
Farley waited for Daphne to get back to her desk before speaking. “We don’t talk about chocolate around here if we can help it. Daphne has decided she’s allergic to it—but only when it’s not around, if you know what I mean. Did she give you anything useful?”
Tripp nodded. “Two things. One, that Ms. Muir is hiding something in that house, and I’ll bet you lunch with Daphne that it’s not chocolate.”
“And two?”
“That our so-called witch is happy to let paying customers through the door.”
Farley shook his head. “You think she killed Whittaker? Maybe the lawyer found out what she’s hiding or something?”
“I don’t know. Yet.”
3
Mac almost felt guilty that the compact hadn’t moved the entire time she’d had the cop in the house. Even if Maddy hadn’t noticed the excitement of having a visitor, she should have been able to hear the m
an’s deep voice rumbling through the walls. Even though she’d moved him into the kitchen and away from the door, Maddy should have noticed.
For a second or two, she toyed with the possibility of her sister being asleep, but then she got a glimpse of the argument to come. There was no use hoping.
She went to the front door to make sure the cop had gone, then turned the lock and went into the parlor where she fished the wad of keys out of their hiding spot. From years of habit, she kind of zoned out while her hands went through the ritual of finding each key, inserting them into the locks, and turning them. She took a deep breath before she turned the handle, preparing herself as she always did. As she always must.
“I’m a little early,” she said as she entered the little room. “But I thought we should talk.”
Maddy didn’t come up to the mirror. She sat on the edge of the bed inside the reflection, her spine stiff, her arms folded. “You knew he was coming.”
“Oh, so you did hear.”
“You don’t deny it, then. You knew he was coming and didn’t bother to consult with me first.”
“I didn’t know what he’d say, so it’s not like I could have prepared.”
“Doesn’t matter. You still should have told me. And you shouldn’t have let a cop in the house!”
“If I’d told you, you would have worried.”
“Yes.”
“Well, there was nothing to worry about. At least I didn’t lose my temper. And since you’re about to lose yours, maybe you’d better get out of here so you’ve got room to jump around.”
