Cozy Christmas Crimes - A Cozy Christmas Box Set

by Tonya Kappes

  I took a deep inhale, filling my lungs with the cool air. I exhaled through my mouth, giving the air more of a bite so the temperature would fall, sending heavy snowflakes down from the darkened sky,

  Chapter Five

  Roxy Bloom

  “Why are you turning the lights out?” Patrick asked and reached over to flip them back on.

  “Because they are watching us and I don’t want the lights on.” I glanced out the window and down to the ground where I could see June and Amethyst staring up at me.

  “Come on over and have a cookie.” Patrick popped a cookie in his mouth and held a steaming cup of tea up to his lips. “This is really good.”

  “I bet it is.” I watched June, Amethyst, and Mr. Prince Charming walk back towards to the woods until I couldn’t see them anymore. I blinked a few times when I swear I thought I’d seen more lightning bugs.

  I shook my head and decided it must’ve just been my imagination because they were suddenly gone.

  “I still think Officer Park was just asking me silly questions to keep me there.” I glanced up at the full moon that hung over the tree suite. “It’s snowing again. Did you hear me?”

  When he didn’t answer, I turned around. Patrick was face down in his pillow, lightly snoring. Sassy was on my pillow, sound asleep.

  “Hmmmmm,” I ho-hummed, looking down at Pepper. He was so cute sitting next to my feet and staring up at me with his round black eyes. His long Schnauzer eyelashes fluttered at me. “Would you like to go for a walk?”

  He yipped.

  “Shhhh, we can’t wake them.” I grabbed Pepper’s red sweater with the snowflake pattern and put it on him. “Daddy wouldn’t be happy if he knew we were going out. Especially since we’re going to check out the crime scene.”

  Pepper danced around me, his nails clicking on the hardwood floor. I continued to look at Patrick while I got my snow gear on, but he and Sassy didn’t move. I’d never seen him sleep so soundly.

  “Let me text Camille really fast.” I grabbed my phone and found my new friend’s phone number. “How are you doing?” I texted. “I’m so sorry about what happened. I’d love to talk to you. Please let me know how I can help.” I hit the green send button and slipped the phone in the pocket of my coat. “Let’s go.”

  Pepper was such a good dog. He didn’t ever need a leash. It wasn’t something I’d known about him when I got him from the Pet Palace, Honey Springs’ version of the SPCA. It was locally owned and operated by volunteers. Each month, I featured one of the animals from Pet Palace at The Bean Hive. It was a great way to get the animals out in the community to get adopted.

  “It’s really coming down.” I batted at the heavy snow after we’d made our way down the steps of the honeymoon tree suite.

  Pepper bounced in and out of the heaps of snow, snapping at the falling flakes. I followed him, thinking he knew where he was going.

  My phone buzzed a call in my pocket.

  “Camille,” I answered right away. “How are you?”

  “I’m so confused about why someone would kill Michael.” She sobbed from the other end of the phone.

  As a former lawyer, I knew this was when I needed to be silent. She needed to be heard and now was the time for me to listen. It was one of the things I missed about being a lawyer, being a good listener. It was probably why I loved owning The Bean Hive. Everyone loved to chat over coffee. Whispering Falls didn’t have anything over the magical powers of the coffee bean.

  It was over a big cup of coffee where people opened up and talked freely about things in their lives, good and bad.

  “You want to know the last thing I said to him?” She asked, sniffling on the other end.

  “If you’d like to tell me,” I offered and pushed away the dangling branches from one of the trees on the trail out to the shops where I wanted to see the crime scene again.

  “I told him it was going to have to be over his dead body before I left Whispering Falls before the tree lighting.” Her words pierced my soul.

  “Did you tell anyone else this?” I asked, knowing it would make her a suspect on Officer Park’s list.

  “I didn’t have to. June Heal, the owner of that lotion store, she told Officer Park I said that.” Her voice trailed off.

  “Did you say it in front of her?” I asked.

  “He stormed past you into the shop and told me he’d make me a romantic night at home. Something about wanting to get ahead of the snowstorm. That’s when I told him I wasn’t leaving. He stormed out and I didn’t see him again until. . .” Camille started to cry even harder. “Roxy, I know we haven’t known each other very long, but I feel comfortable with you.”

  I’d heard that a million times.

  “Do you think you can help me?” Camille asked in a pitiful tone that I couldn’t refuse.

  “I do still have my law license.” I stopped at the edge of the woods and noticed we were up the hill behind the shops of Whispering Falls. “Why don’t you get some sleep and I’ll come to you tomorrow. Did you say you lived in Locust Grove?” I vaguely recall her saying something about the small town next to Whispering Falls.

  “Yes. I’ll text you my address. I’ll see you around nine a.m.?” We agreed on the time before saying our goodbyes.

  The only thing that concerned me about that was what I was going to say to Patrick.

  A flash of light and a plume of smoke caught my attention.

  “Pepper,” I said in a hushed whisper to get his attention when I saw him dart off towards the smoke. “Get back here,” I fussed, but it didn’t do any good.

  He continued to run faster and faster. Quickly, I followed. The snow had lessened, making it easier for me to walk in the snow.

  “What on earth?” My eyes focused on a big rock that had some sort of brush on top of it that was emitting a smoke that smelled like a hot dog stand. You know, that mustard smell when you’re at one of the stands. “Weird.”

  There were several people standing around the rock with their noses to the sky, their eyes closed, and their arms out straight to their sides.

  “Is that June?” I shifted from side to side to get a good view between the people.

  June was walking around the people with some sort of lit stick. She started at their feet and twirled the smoking stick around them. Her lips were moving, but I was unable to hear what she was saying.

  Suddenly, she stopped. She looked between the people and focused her eyes on me. I gulped. My heart was beating so hard. My feet felt like they were cemented to the ground and I was unable to move. As our eyes met, I felt a shock run through me.

  Then. . .

  Chapter Six

  June Heal

  “I told you to keep an eye on her.” Oscar wasn’t being very nice.

  Both of us watched Roxy Bloom, asleep on our orange sofa. Mr. Prince Charming was sitting on her chest. Her little dog, Pepper, was curled up by the fire, not really worried about her.

  “Why did you put a spell on her to faint?” He asked with a sour tone.

  “What else was I going to do? She was watching the smudging ceremony. It was all I could think to do.” I stared down at her. “It’s like she’s immune to any other spells. I gave her a love potion to make her stay deeply in love with her husband during their stay here and keep her occupied. That didn’t work.”

  I threw my hands up in the air and walked over to the kitchen sink to look out the window where Petunia was finishing the smudge ceremony.

  “I gave her a Mr. Sandman potion along with an extra dose of sleep in those cookies Amethyst left for them.” A glow deep in my bag lit up the kitchen. I walked over to the chair to pull out Madame Torres. “For good measure, I put a snow spell around their tree suite and now her husband won’t be able to get here. She’s stuck here. How am I going to explain that?”

  “You can’t keep making her faint.” Oscar told me something I already knew. “I wish I could help, but I’ve got a murder to solve.”

  There was
a text from Amethyst. I’d asked her to check on Patrick and Sassy on her way back from the smudge ceremony. She sent a photo of Patrick face down, drooling on his side of the bed with his dog next to him.

  “You don’t think it was Camille?” I asked, having told him about the potion I’d made for her and the heartbreak that reverberated through me. I knew she was going to be heartbroken, but was it from his death? I gripped my phone tightly.

  “In the heat of passion, anything is possible if she was as angry with him as you said.” Oscar ran his hand through his black hair. His blue eyes made my heart melt. They always have. “What do we do with her? Take her back?”

  “We can’t do that.” I held up my phone, the screen facing him. I walked over. “Apparently, Patrick had all of the cookies and tea, which will make him sleep for nine hours. And I put the Sandman dust on his pillow.”

  “That means they’re going to be out for twelve hours?” Oscar’s jaw dropped, and he shook his head.

  “At least, which means that she can’t go back there until they are awake or she’s going to think something is wrong with them.” I sure was in a spiritualist’s pickle. “I wish this were like those TV shows where we can reverse the potions we created.”

  “Don’t tell me anything else. Blah, blah, blah.” He put his hands over his ears.

  “The Elders?” I asked with anticipation.

  He nodded.

  “Great,” I grumbled and looked at Roxy Bloom. “The Elders will have a field day with this one. They’ve been trying to get something on me for years.”

  “This time, June, you’re involved a mortal. A nosy, but innocent mortal.” Oscar must’ve lost his mind because he was the one who told me to keep her busy.

  “You told me. . .” I went to remind him but pinched my lips. No matter how much I argued, it wasn’t going to stop The Elders from coming. “Have you heard from them?”

  “Right now they have their hands full with one of the Villages out west, but I anticipate they’ll get wind of this before too long.” He looked between me and Roxy. “I hate to leave you, but I have to work through the night and right now I need to see the body at Two Sisters.”

  “I’ll let you know when she wakes up.” I hit the button on the coffeemaker. It was going to be a long night and a long next day.

  I sat down in the chair across from the couch Roxy was laying on to wait for the coffee to brew.

  “What am I going to do with you for twelve hours?” I asked the sleeping southern beauty.

  Rowl, rowl. Mr. Prince Charming hit Roxy on the nose.

  “You’re right.” I stood up and walked over to them. “She has slept enough. I can’t have The Elders showing up here.” I watched as Mr. Prince Charming batted her nose again as though he were playing with it.

  “Stop,” Roxy groaned to life when she opened her eyes and found Mr. Prince Charming on her chest. “Where am I?”

  “You are in my cottage.” I grabbed my ornery cat and put him on the ground.

  He moseyed over to Pepper and curled up next to the cute dog in front of the fireplace.

  “I’m afraid you were outside and passed out from the cold. It’s a blizzard out there and I’m sure your husband is snowed in.” I walked back to the kitchen to get us some coffee because I didn’t want to look her in the eyes. I wasn’t so sure she didn’t have some sort of mortal intuition. “You’re going to have to hang out with me for a while.” I picked up the coffee pot and turned around. “Coffee?”

  “That’d be great.” Roxy sat up on the couch. “Look at those two. They are so cute.” She pointed to Mr. Prince Charming and Pepper.

  “I’ve never seen a dog not try to chase him.” I filled her mug, and then reached for the memory loss potion I had my cabinet. With my back turned from her, I unscrewed the top and held the bottle over the hot brew.

  Before I could get a dash out of the bottle, Madame Torres lit up, grabbing my attention. I screwed the lid back on the bottle and focused on Madame Torres.

  “I own a coffeehouse and I work with the local SPCA. Well, it’s not really the SPCA, but our local version,” Roxy’s voice was like white noise to me while I focused on the waving globe with brown liquid with a little foamy top.

  Madame Torres was telling me something about Roxy. Her red lips took up all the space in the globe, leaving no room for anything else. Her finger lifted to the middle of her lips as though she were telling me a secret was about to be told.

  “I guess Pepper just has that amazing soul,” Roxy continued to talk.

  Words swirled around Madame Torres’s globe in no particular order. I put the memory potion down and waved my hand over my crystal ball. The words fell into a sentence.

  I bind you from the left. I bind you from the right. I bind with you day and night until the fight unfolds.

  I read Madame Torres’s words and knew she was stopping me from giving Roxy Bloom the memory loss potion.

  Rowl! Rowl! Mr. Prince Charming scurried across the room, jumped on the counter, and knocked the memory loss potion bottle into the sink, shattering it.

  “Oh, no! Pepper, did you do something to Mr. Prince Charming?” Roxy pushed herself up off the couch and walked over to Pepper.

  “No,” I assured her. “He’s probably hungry. He gets a little irritable sometimes.” I slid my gaze over to him and winked. “Let me give you this and then I’ll clean up the spill in my sink.”

  I lifted my hand in the air as I looked out into the dark night and waved away the black, letting reappear.

  When I reached for Roxy’s coffee cup, Mr. Prince Charming batted my bracelet, making me more aware than ever that I was going to have to use Roxy Bloom in solving the murder of Michael, but I was going to have to protect her too.

  “Thank you.” Roxy met me in the kitchen.

  “Sit down.” I pulled a chair from the table. “I’m sorry about this crazy weather on your honeymoon.”

  “I love it. Patrick, on the other hand, he’s not a huge fan of the snow. His company does snow removal among other things, so it’s work to him.” She lifted the mug to her lips and smiled. “You know, coffee is my thing.”

  “You said you owned a coffeehouse. Have you always owned it?” It was time to get to know Roxy Bloom and figure out what she was all about.

  “I was actually a lawyer, which reminds me.” She bit the edge of her lip. “Camille, Michael’s fiancée, she asked me to look into some things for her and I need to get to Locust Grove to do that.” She took her phone out. “It’s already 8 a.m.?”

  She glanced out the window with a confused look on her face. The sun beams flooded through the window, giving off a warm pink glow.

  “Yes. I didn’t want to wake you. You were sound asleep.” It was sometimes good to have a few powers as the Chosen One. I moved across the kitchen with my cup of coffee and sat across from her.

  It was also a curse to the have that title. I had a few extra gifts here and there, but homeopathic cures were my true spiritual gift.

  “I do feel refreshed.” She picked up the phone. “I guess I should call Patrick and check on him.”

  “You don’t have to do that.” I reached over and pushed her hand down. “Amethyst already checked on them since they are all snowed in,” I lied. “She said he’s sound asleep.”

  There was a look of relief on Roxy’s face and a shift in her posture.

  “Then I won’t feel bad going to see Camille.” She took another drink of her coffee.

  “Going to see her?” I asked, glancing over the rim of my cup.

  “Yes. She said that Officer Park asked her questions that made her feel like he thinks that she killed him. I’m not sure why he’d think that.” Roxy gestured between us. “You and I both saw how crazy she was over him.”

  Yeah, crazy enough to kill him, I thought.

  “Listen, I think you should know that I’m married to Oscar Park.” This was something I had to tell her. “I’m not sure if you should be looking into this.”
>
  Say, my mind had a light bulb moment. What if I just told her that she needed to stop snooping and let him do his job. That would solve everything.

  Think again. . .

  “Then it’s more important than ever that you take me to Locust Grove and see for yourself that she didn’t do it.” She took another drink of her coffee and very confidently said, “Camille didn’t do it. I know these things and I already told her I’d represent her which means he can’t even begin to question her again unless I’m present.”

  Was Roxy Bloom beating me at my own game? A half smile crossed my face.

  It appeared she had.

  Chapter Seven

  Roxy Bloom

  “I thought we were snowed in?” I questioned everything June Heal was telling me while we cleared off her old car. It was one of those car and truck combos.

  I clearly remember the commercials from when I was a little girl between the man and a woman along with a car salesman. It’s a truck. It’s a car. It’s a truck. It’s a car. Wait, you’re both right. It’s an El Camino.

  If this old green thing was going to get us out of Whispering Falls in the snowstorm, surely Patrick could just walk out of the tree suite. But again, I kept my mouth shut.

  There was somethings about Whispering Falls that didn’t add up.

  I’d yet to ask her about that little freaky smoke thing they were doing last night. And the odd behavior of her cat. Maybe it was one of those feral cats that had been born through some inbreeding, In any case, I was going to play my lawyer hand and just observe. See how this all played out.

  “Since Whispering Falls is in a holler, we are lower than the rest of the state,” June said as she pointed to the mountains surrounding the town. She unlocked the passenger door and opened it up for me.

  Pepper jumped in the car and sat in the middle like he knew exactly where we were going. Mr. Prince Charming jumped in, perching himself on the dashboard. I got in behind them.

  “He likes to feel the heater.” June put the key in the ignition and the old car started right up. She rubbed her hand over the dashboard in front of her. “The old Green Machine has never let me down.” She gave it a loving pat before she threw the gear shift into DRIVE.