Charming Blend (A Paramour Bay Cozy Paranormal Mystery Book 5)

by Kennedy Layne

  I slid the small rectangular holder that contained several kinds of sweeteners with both artificial substitutes and the real McCoy toward her, but I made sure to smile a welcoming greeting at our waitress.

  “Paula, we haven’t officially met.” It was my turn to lean back in my seat so that Paula could set down the two cups of coffee onto the table. “I’m Raven Marigold, and this is my mother—Regina. I own the tea shop across the street. It’s nice to meet you.”

  The younger woman was in her mid-twenties, and I’d heard through Elsie and Wilma that she was renting the room above the local pub. I couldn’t imagine how loud the small apartment was in the evening, what with it being above a bar and all. From the way Paula was smiling, it didn’t seem to keep her up at night.

  “It’s nice to meet you, too. Everyone in this town is so nice, it reminds me of the café back home.” Paula also set down two small containers of creamer, one for Mom and one for me. “Your meals should be ready in around five minutes. If you need anything else, please just give me a holler.”

  I’d wanted to ask Paula where home was, but she’d left the table before I could get the words out.

  “West Virginia.”

  “West Virginia…what?”

  Mom was being rather vague again, but that was par for the course.

  “Your new waitress is from a small town in West Virginia,” Regina revealed, tearing open two pink packets and pouring the artificial additives into her coffee. I grimaced and stuck with the real stuff intended for us to use…not a packet full of chemicals. “Now, back to this garbage you’ve been reading on the internet. Raven, that family book you have in your possession wasn’t carefully put together for the sake of being disproven by some idiot with nothing better to do with their time than make up stories while living in their parent’s basement.”

  Mom carefully poured the creamer into her coffee before leisurely stirring the contents as if she had all the time in the world. I almost asked if she were going to spend the night, but I’d wait for that bad news after I finally put something in my stomach.

  “Do you remember any of the aura cantrips?” Mom asked, tapping her spoon on the rim of the coffee cup. I was so happy to do the same that I almost didn’t respond. I was too busy swirling the hot, rich flavor around on my tongue. There was nothing more satisfying than that first sip of creamy coffee. “Raven, pay attention.”

  “Yes, I remember the first two from the back cover.” I quickly took another sip in case my mother made it impossible to enjoy the rest of my drink with whatever she had in mind. “There were only three verses in the one, and four verses in the second.”

  “They technically do the same thing, but try the first one,” Mom recommended, never taking her eyes off me. She was really good at this spy stuff. “Pretend you’re stirring more cream into your coffee. Go ahead. The simple somatic movement, along with the verbal components, will generate the energy you need to cast the cantrip.”

  It was times like these that I got a sneaking suspicion that my mother never really gave up anything after leaving Paramour Bay to start a new life. Maybe she just didn’t want to have magic in her daily life, the way Nan had. Or, maybe she didn’t want the restrictions of an overbearing mother standing over her while she wove her story.

  Regina Lattice Marigold was one of those secretive type women who would take things to their grave…I guess she was following in my grandmother’s footsteps.

  “Stop squirreling around and concentrate,” Mom ordered, lifting the coffee cup to her red painted lips. I was flabbergasted that she understood what squirreling meant, but the arch of her brow told me that she was losing her patience. “Proceed.”

  Fine. If she wanted me to prove her wrong about these auras, then I would.

  I poured a little more creamer into my coffee—not enough to mess with the taste, though—and proceeded to stir the contents with my spoon. I stared inside the cup, becoming mesmerized by the continuous motion. It wasn’t hard to conjure up the energy, which I’d been finding easier and easier to draw lately.

  The spoon was serving as my conduit, so I didn’t waste time in reciting the short verses.

  Show yourself to me.

  Reveal yourself to thee.

  The color is key.

  Show yourself to me.

  I had read up on horoscope and astrology a long time ago, and I recalled the colors of specific months. Of course, my aura should have been indigo. I had been born on Halloween, which meant I was a Scorpio. Seeing as I was still staring at my cup of coffee, you can imagine my surprise when a bright green hue radiated from my body.

  Drat.

  I’ve gone and messed up again.

  The incantation had been meant for Billy, but I’d done it to myself instead. I quickly glanced up, hoping that no one else was witnessing my blunder, only to find my mother’s red lips raised in the right corner with satisfaction.

  Ohhhhh….

  All around her emanated a reddish-orange. I recall that color signified confidence and that she was a force to be reckoned with.

  Well, wasn’t that the unadulterated truth?

  My gaze finally slid away from her and toward the intended target. He was finishing off his sandwich and plopping a fry in his mouth as if he hadn’t just spent the last hour at the police station defending his honor.

  “What do you see?” my mother asked softly, indicating that only I could see the aura of every individual inside the diner. “Is there a blackness swirling inside his aura?”

  No, but amazingly, his aura was indigo. He was an introvert, keeping to himself with the exception of those he truly trusted. There wasn’t an ounce of black churning inside the beautiful hue he was generating.

  “There’s your answer, Raven. Billy Owen is not your culprit.”

  No, he wasn’t. But the arsonist might very well be inside his family.

  “Raven?”

  “Mom, Pete Owen has streaks of black running through his aura,” I whispered, taken aback by the startling sight. “Could Billy’s father be the arsonist?”

  Chapter Eight

  WHAT WAS YOUR mother thinking? Dear Angel of Mercy, strike me down swiftly.

  “We don’t have to keep rehashing yesterday’s events,” I grumbled, having heard the near continuous lecture that witchcraft shouldn’t be used as a method for invasion of privacy. By the time Leo got done reaming us both out, I was pretty sure that particular aura spell should be burned. “Mom was just trying to help us narrow down the suspect pool.”

  I bought myself a little time from hearing another sermon by flipping the sign on the door to signify we were open. Leo and I usually liked to quietly watch the town come alive as each of the shops’ lights came on one by one, but I had a feeling that wouldn’t be happening today.

  Leo was pacing in the display window, telling me that our daily ritual was about to be nixed on account of my slow learning curve. At his current rate of pacing, I’d have to repaint the wooden surface of the windowsill by this afternoon.

  He was so amped up over yesterday’s debacle, I had to wonder if he got any sleep last night.

  You randomly peered into everyone’s soul, Raven! You invited yourself to witness their most fundamental vulnerabilities without their consent! You took from them without their permission, which makes you no better than a thief!

  “How is that any different than pulling up the memory of the victim or the guilty party of a crime, as we’ve done in the past?” I’d been wanting to ask that question since yesterday, but things had gone from bad to worse when a couple of businesses located on Oceanview had gone up in smoke. I sipped the all-too-limited supply of coffee hidden inside my tea cup while trying to see if there was still smoke rising in the air. “We’ve done that particular incantation several times, Leo.”

  Leo finally plopped on his haunches with an uncontrollable tic to his bulging left eye. The learning curve to this witchcraft stuff was really, really steep. He needed to cut me a break, and the lo
ng audible sigh that twitched his whiskers told me he’d finally run out of steam.

  How do I put this so you’ll understand?

  Leo’s tail thwacked the hardwood of the bench seat inside the display window as he contemplated his analogy. He was always big on using comparisons to explain the suitability of a spell, so it wasn’t surprising that he would do so in this situation.

  You’re wearing clothes. Right? You don’t mind when people stare at you.

  Well, I wasn’t going to say that a stranger—man or woman—staring at me for no reason wasn’t awkward. Of course, it was.

  Either way, Leo had pointed out the obvious.

  I glanced down at my peacock skirt with different shades of burgundies and greens blended together. I had a ton of these in my closet consisting of different colors, but this one was my favorite. I’d really needed the pick-me-up today.

  Now imagine if I had a pair of x-ray vision glasses and they allowed me to see through those clothes. Would it be fair of me to randomly look at anyone I cared to undress? Or maybe I should allow others to rent them, and do the same to whomever they want to perv out on?

  Hmphf. When Leo put it like, I could see where he was coming from.

  A person’s memories are like a collection of items—stamps, coins, you get the drift. Summoning up those memories to help solve a mystery are like discovering clues. Have you ever seen a police lineup on television where all those men and women holding numbers are laid bare? No—no, you do not. Everyone has a certain expectation of privacy that shouldn’t be violated without a valid moral reason based on due process of law or in our exparte case—where we can’t be heard aloud in the court of human opinion. We need a darn good reason to look, one in which we’ve weighed against their expectations and found it is in the best interest of the common good. Bottom line? You need a moral reason to look.

  “Leo, I have to hand it to you…that was very well explained.” I made my way over to the cash register, feeling lower than dirt. It hit me that the divination shouldn’t even be used except in rare instances, yet my mother had no qualms about using such a spell to randomly pry. “Why did Nan include something like that in the family grimoire to begin with? I mean, we can’t be the only ones to have that type of easily accessible magic.”

  Those types of divinations should only be used in the direst of circumstances—like life and death situations. Your mother should have known better, but she avoided her formal training and has suffered as a result.

  I’m pretty sure Mom had just wanted to show me that witchcraft could be used in many different ways and in many different circumstances. With that said, she did allow me to utilize a wing-dinger of a spell and it hadn’t even required massive preparation of power.

  “We’re not facing an apocalypse as of yet, but Pete Owen isn’t the most upstanding citizen according to the nature of his aura,” I pointed out, still trying to figure out a way to let Liam know that Billy’s father might be the one responsible for the fires or some other criminal intent. I shouldn’t have used the spell yesterday, but it had been cast nonetheless. Now I had indirect information that could play a part in stopping these arsons and return Paramour Bay to normal. “I somehow need to let Liam know that Mr. Owen is a prime suspect to be investigated.”

  Have you not heard a word I said? Just because you saw streaks of black on his aura does not mean that good old Petey is setting fires around town. The man is in his forties, and I’m sure he’s done a thing or two in his past that he feels regret for, and therefore carries a certain amount of guilt. If the blackness had been threatening to take over the brightness of his other hue, that’s when we’d have a problem that I’d gladly turn over to your mother. No sense in all of us sacrificing ourselves on the altar for the greater good.

  One good thing came of this morning’s conversation, and that was the fact that Leo had calmed down a bit. Let’s just say that my mother ended up driving back to the city last night after she and Leo had traded broadsides, low blows, and insults…but thankfully nothing so bad that had them resorting to spell combat to vanquish one another.

  On that silver lining, Wilma and Beetle’s admiration for one another had dimmed somewhat to their former friendship. I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Richard, and my little charm mishap might have actually resulted in a newfound relationship. Word around town had it that Chief Mason asked Candy out for dinner, and she happily accepted regardless of the fact that her hair made her head look like an Easter egg.

  There was only one thing left unresolved.

  Can’t you for once let the good ol’ sheriff do his job on his own?

  “We’re helping like we always do. There’s a difference. And if you don’t believe that Pete Owen’s guilt is a result of setting those fires, then it looks like we’re back to square one,” I said, walking around the counter so that I could pull out my laptop. Thursday mornings were always a tad bit slow, but it was a welcome relief compared to the chaos of yesterday. “There should be an online map of Paramour Bay that can give us a better view of the town. Maybe the fires weren’t random, after all.”

  Oh, thank the supernatural! My supply of edibles has arrived, and just in in time.

  “Good morning, my dear Raven,” Beetle greeted as he came barreling into the shop. His entrances were like that of a hurricane, but his energy was quite infectious. Although, that might have been the coffee talking. “I’m sorry to say that I won’t be able to have one of our training sessions this morning. Sorry, indeed. I have business elsewhere today.”

  Where are my edibles? I’d like to report that this employee has failed in his most sacred of duties. Raven, I’m afraid he needs to be let go.

  I stared at Beetle in horror as the realization of why he couldn’t work today hit me like an energy ball. Oh, this was bad. Really, really bad.

  I agree. No catnip is bad. Does this man not realize the week I’ve had?

  “Beetle, was one of the offices that burnt down yesterday yours?” I asked, coming back around the counter to meet him halfway. “No one said a word to me, other than the fact that Chief Mason thought the fire had started in the treasurer’s office.”

  Are you trying to break it to me gently that all of my edibles have been burned alive? The horror of it all. We need to find this villain, pronto!

  “Oliver is mighty upset,” Beetle exclaimed, rubbing his hand over his chin as he contemplated his own predicament. “Mighty upset, and I don’t blame him. I’m going to be spending the rest of the week attempting to get my clients to reprint all of their receipts and any paperwork that went along with them. What a mess. A complete mess, I tell you.”

  Would this be a bad time to ask Beetle exactly how much catnip he had stored in his office?

  “At least most of your clients are local,” I pointed out, wishing there was something I could do to help Beetle with the amount of work he had cut out for him. “Insurance should cover the damage to the office, and I can go around at lunchtime asking the other shop owners to duplicate their tax receipts and anything else applicable to their year-end finances. I do insist that they keep all originals for reasons of an audit or something of this very nature.”

  Insurance? Oh, that’s great news! Any catnip he had stashed will be covered!

  When I’d first moved to Paramour Bay, it was a given that Heidi would complete the tea shop’s taxes. It had never even crossed my mind to keep things status quo, especially considering that Heidi was my best friend. Maybe she would have some suggestions to help Beetle in his time of need, especially considering she was very interested in buying out his business.

  Heidi can fix anything. Hey, let’s give her a call now!

  “It wouldn’t be so bad if my computer hadn’t caught fire.” Beetle shook his head in misery, and I didn’t blame him. All that work he’d put into his clients’ taxes had been destroyed with the simple strike of a match. “I’ll have to start from scratch and recover my backup files to rebuild everything on a new machine.”
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br />   Raven, do something. I can’t stand to see this poor man suffer.

  “Beetle, let me make a phone call.” There was a slim chance that Heidi knew of a computer whiz who could recover data from a burnt hard drive. “And why don’t you write down the name of some of your clients so that I can pay them a visit during the lunch hour today?”

  “My dear Raven, you are an absolute saint to want to help me,” Beetle gushed, patting his cardigan sweater and somehow finding a pen that must have been tucked away in the pocket of his dress shirt underneath. “A saint, I tell you!”

  Not to burst your bubble, but Beetle wouldn’t be saying such a thing if the reason he lost his life’s work had been due to your attempt of a charm spell.

  “I take it that Leo’s catnip you sneak him every day got burnt to a crisp?” I asked before reaching into my pocket for my cell phone.

  Touché.

  I sent Leo a satisfied smile that let him know two could play his game. I also had a sense of inspiration that I was able to help those in need, which we should all do more often. Although Oliver Bend wasn’t my most favorite person, I’d still give him a call to see if there was anything I could do to help. That was the benefit to living in a small town.

  “Oh, no,” Beetle replied to my question after having written down some shops that I could visit later this morning. “No, no. The premium catnip I buy for him came to the house. That way, I never forget to slip a small packet in my breast pocket every morning. Ta-da!”

  You know that saying his eyes lit up with happiness? That was the only way to describe the expression of euphoria on Leo’s furry face when Beetle pulled out a tiny package of catnip from underneath his cardigan sweater.

  I love this man, Raven. Just love him. In his hour of need, he remembers those he loves.

  Leo had adopted Beetle’s habit of repeating phrases, but I’d let him have this moment of bliss. He’d find out soon enough that I planned to use the upcoming visits to the various shops to snoop around to see who had access to all the places that had been set on fire.