This Spells Trouble

by Stacey Alabaster

  This Spells Trouble

  Private Eye Witch Cozy, Book 1

  Stacey Alabaster

  Fairfield Publishing

  Copyright © 2019 Fairfield Publishing

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Except for review quotes, this book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the written consent of the author.

  This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is purely coincidental.

  Contents

  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

  Epilogue

  Thank You!

  1

  I wasn’t sure which was scarier—the fact that it was going to be my first day at my new job as a private investigator, or the fact that I was about to climb a broken ladder to reach the top of a plum tree.

  There was a tweeting noise coming from the tree above. I looked up at the little beak that seemed to be singing me encouragement. I’d always had an infinity for birds. Maybe it was because my name was Ruby Sparrow. Maybe because I always thought it would be cool to fly. Flying would really come in handy right now.

  Oh, maybe I should also mention the fact that birds talked to me. All animals did. This wasn’t something I told other people about, of course. They would think I was bonkers. But animals communicated to me.

  I glanced in the reflection of the barnyard mirror and checked that my hair still looked raven black while the birds looked on. They weren’t ravens, they were rainbow rosellas. Giving me their opinions. “You need more color!” one called out. I tried to ignore them. I had to look professional in my new profession—intimidating, yet approachable—so I could hardly have streaks of rainbow color in my hair like they did. Feathers were out as well. Maybe in my former job as a third-grade teacher.

  But this was different. This was a brand-new day for Ruby Sparrow, and I wasn’t going to let a broken ladder stop me before I had even begun. “All right. Here goes nothing,” I said, a basket hooked over my left arm as I began my shaky ascent. And then the strangest thing happened. I’d been sure the ladder, with its loose hinge and loose rungs, would sway and crack and maybe even break. But as I climbed, it seemed to almost heal, fix itself under my light steps—and I glided all the way to the top while the birds sang. Almost like I was flying up there.

  Of course, at that stage—and this is very important to know—I just thought I was a regular old, everyday human. A mere mortal. That there was nothing particularly special about me, except the animals thing.

  When things like this happened—ladders fixing themselves by magic, for example—I just always thought I’d gotten lucky.

  A strange silver glow haloed the Australian mountains behind me as I climbed back down. There had always been a sort of magic to the hills. I caught a glimpse of a dark shadow running across the fields and thought about The Gippsland Panther. The old legend had it that way back in the 1940s. A circus had toured town, and a pair of panthers had escaped from one of the enclosures and run away to the mountains. According to the rumors, they’d bred and then those offspring had bred, and on and on, and to this day, there was said to be one surviving panther stalking the hills.

  Of course, I didn’t believe in THAT. A panther living in the hills beside my little Aussie farmhouse? Nah, no way.

  It was 8:30 and I was waiting under the plum tree—a little impatiently—for my neighbor Violet to arrive and pick up her order. I’d picked her a few extra that I wasn’t going to charge her for. One of the plums fell on my head as Violet arrived.

  Maybe that counted as good luck.

  The plums seemed extra-large as I handed her the basket. I warned her that soon I would have to raise my prices as there were so many people in town who wanted the plums and it was costing me a lot to run the business on the side of the other business I was running. “Oh, I will pay anything for them,” she said, almost breathless as she held out her hands for the basket. “There is a kind of magical quality to these, you know.”

  People always said that.

  She bit into one right in front of me. “You ought to bake these into pies, Ruby, and sell them as well.”

  I had to laugh at that. There would hardly be time to have a baking business on the side AS WELL now that I was officially a private investigator. It had always been my secret dream, and now that I finally had my license, I was itching to get started on my first case. Still, selling fruits and vegetables on the side while the business took off would pay the bills for a little while longer. Because I didn’t actually have a first case yet.

  That meowing noise again. Just as I was about to get into my car, I heard it. Like there was a trapped animal somewhere. Three days straight, I had been hearing this sound. I hunted around the sheds for a little while and then stopped when I could no longer hear the noise. Must have been the wind hitting against the hinges again.

  Uh oh! Now I was seriously late, so I ran for my car. I mean, I didn’t have any clients yet, but I did have an office, and a phone number, and a sign on the door that I wanted to switch to ‘open’ as soon as the clock hit nine. Not that I was going to get there by nine!

  Much as I loved the folks down in Swift Valley, it was nice to have my peace and quiet up on the hill. I’d always loved the animals and the flowers and the way that we could just have our quiet conversations. Animals and plants were mostly polite, you see. They didn’t keep too many secrets, even though they held a lot of mystery.

  Now, this is going to sound really crazy, but when it came to people, sometimes I thought I could hear their thoughts. Only it was completely different to the way that animals communicated with me. With the animals, it was deliberate, and sweet, like they were desperately trying to reach out and be friends. But with humans, it was accidental. I heard things that they never wanted to actually be revealed. All the mysteries that they held inside their brains. Secrets—sometimes dark, sometimes funny, sometimes just downright strange.

  I wondered if this skill was going to help me on the job.

  Okay, okay, I told you it was going to sound crazy. Oh well, maybe it was all in my head after all.

  “Morning, Julie!” I called out to the florist next door as I ran to my own office door.

  “Looking good today, Ruby!” she called out with a cheery smile. “Good luck with your first day on the new job.” Meanwhile I could hear her thinking that shade of black hair dye does not suit her while she walked away.

  See? Hearing people’s thoughts could be a curse. I made sure to send back some extra positive vibes to counterbalance it…You can’t fight bad with bad.

  Anyway, I thought my hair looked pretty good.

  There were certain ways that I thought a private investigator” should dress, so I tried not to be too shaken as I quickly checked myself in the window. All in black. Not my usual colors, but it made me look more ‘serious.’ And that was what I was going for. I was no longer that third-grade teacher who could wear long colorful frocks and bright hats. I had to blend into the shadows.

  I just hoped my clients would buy the new me.

  There was something very weird in the air that day, as I opened my empty office and sat in front of the silent phone—almost like I kept thinking that I could hear wind chimes but there weren’t any in my office. Just a desk that only took up about a tenth of the room and looked swamped in it. But I actually liked the empty space.

  The door opened.

  Whoa, a custom
er already? I sat up straight, feeling a little nervous. Jittery. I hadn’t perfected my intro yet and was still trying to figure out whether I should be dark and imposing or light and cheery.

  “Welcome to Sparrow Invest— Oh,” I said, stopping. “It’s you.”

  “Nice to see you too, Ruby. Or rather, not see you.” Akiro was chastising me, but he was also holding out a coffee cup for me and failing to hide the grin. I supposed it was nice to see a friendly face. “What’s up with you skipping your morning triple-shot latte? I wasn’t sure whether I should call the emergency department at the hospital to see if you had been admitted.”

  He was right. It was the first time I had skipped my morning latte in three years. “Well, as you can see, I have a new job now,” I said, standing up. “My schedule is going to be a lot different than it was when I was a third grade teacher.”

  He passed me the latte and I was full of relief as I opened the lid and took in the fragrance. Coffee withdrawal could be brutal, and I needed my hit. I took a sip and grinned at him.

  Akiro Johnstone was in some ways your typical Aussie bloke—a man of few words, liked his weekends out camping or on the water, and with an accent as broad as any I had heard. But in some other ways, he wasn’t so typical. He had a Japanese grandma on his father’s side and a gentle way about him that only came out with the right people. It was very strange to see Akiro out of his natural habitat. He usually never left the counter at the coffeehouse he owned. He didn’t even like taking coffee out to the tables, he usually made one of the staff do it. I must have been special to warrant a home—or office—delivery.

  “So, you’re not my first client?” I asked, feeling like I had come back to life now that I’d had my morning remedy. Talk about magic in a cup!

  “Well, I suppose I could be.” He glanced around the spacious office. “I mean, I was wondering what the heck had taken you away from your morning coffee. But then again, that mystery has already been solved. It’s this strange place.”

  I stuck my tongue out at him.

  The door opened again and this time, I had a real client. Gosh. It was showtime. She was a woman, very tall, with a sleek dark bob bluntly cut just below her ears. I had never seen this woman before in my life. She looked like she lived in Paris, not Swift Valley.

  She completely ignored Akiro and strode over to me in long, confident strides like this was not the first time she had been in this office. She took off her dark shades and I saw that she had a perfect, pale complexion and long dark lashes. Where did this woman come from?

  Akiro raised an eyebrow. “I guess I’d better leave you to it.” He gave me one last wink for good luck. I was almost wishing I hadn’t downed the triple-strength latte—now it was making me shaky. I wanted to impress this woman and instead, I was sitting there almost trembling.

  Pull it together, Ruby.

  This was my dream. A real client in a real detective agency. I smiled and wondered if that was the right thing to do.

  Anyway, my grin was quickly wiped off my face when she looked me up and down with a scowl—that seemed painted on—and found something about my appearance lacking.

  “You look haggard,” she said simply.

  Wow.

  “Why did you dress like that?” she asked me.

  Well, I didn’t know that I would be offered fashion tips from my first client. I glanced down at my black shirt and pants. “What’s wrong with all black?” I asked.

  “I think blue would suit you more.”

  She sat down across from me and undid the clasp of her purse with long, gold-painted fingernails. They looked like they were sharp enough to rip someone’s throat out.

  “My name is May Sheridan,” she said simply, almost as though I should recognize the name. I didn’t.

  “My husband is missing. I didn’t want anyone in Swift Valley to know. I’m afraid some kind of dreadful fate has befallen him.”

  Er, okay. I straightened up and tried to play it cool, as though I had conversations like this all the time. Of course, when I was teaching third grade, there were very few conversations about potentially dead husbands, so it was a little bit out of my usual wheelhouse.

  I thought I would know exactly what to say, but instead, I blurted out possibly the worst and most stupid thing I could have. “So, what do you want me to do about it?”

  Oh gosh. I could have just died from the cringe. It was pretty obvious what she wanted me to do about it. It was the only reason she was there in my office.

  May just stared at me. “You’re a private investigator, aren’t you?” she said flatly. “Investigate it.” She stared straight into my eyes and for the first time, I noticed that the irises looked almost purple in color.

  “Right. Of course. Let me just get some details from you then.”

  At least I didn’t have to worry about overhearing negative thoughts with May—she was completely upfront with all her feedback and criticisms. In a way, that was comforting. She certainly couldn’t be accused of being fake.

  “As long as you’re sure that this is within your skill set,” she said, eyeing me. “My husband’s name is Mark Sheridan, and I last saw him at our home on Friday night. He has been missing all weekend. He is the CEO of Sheridan Industries and now that it’s Monday morning, people are going to start asking questions.” She paused. “I was hoping that he would come back over the weekend. Sort of like a cat that has strayed away but wanders back.” She took in a sharp breath. “But that hasn’t been the case.” She raised her eyes to stare at me again. “If he is dead, I need to know so that I can work out a plan for how to break this to the shareholders without our stocks plummeting. But most importantly, Miss Sparrow, I need to find out who did it.”

  I gulped and told her that my hourly rate was fifty dollars, and she laughed as though it was cute. “You’ll learn,” she said simply as she stood up and passed me a check for five hundred dollars as a retainer for the first few days of work. I’d told her that her husband might come home before that but that I had a no refund policy as per the contract she had signed.

  May Sheridan was my one and only client that day.

  Not the meowing again!

  And the wind chimes again.

  I hunted around the barn for where the noises could possibly be coming from. There seemed to be a cry for ‘help’ coming from underneath the frame of the barn.

  But the wind chime noise, that was something a little different. It seemed to be following me from place to place. It was almost like it was coming from somewhere inside me.

  That was impossible, though.

  Oh well. I had my first case. I needed to concentrate on that. I didn’t want to let my very first client down. That would be super embarrassing.

  Definitely a heavier load than I had been expecting. I mean, a potential murder! But probably not, I told myself. More than likely, May’s husband was just having an affair and she was only using me as a way to locate his whereabouts. She was just too proud to admit it.

  “That’s it!” I said. I knelt right down on the ground and used my phone as a flashlight to shine the light underneath the barn. I had to stretch my arm in so far that it hurt and when I still couldn’t see anything, I tried to pull my arm back before it got stuck.

  And there I finally saw the source of the noise. It was a tiny, teeny tiny, black kitten. Barely still alive.

  “Oh my goodness…” I yanked my arm out and yelped when I scraped my bare skin with a nail.

  There was someone I needed to call.

  “I know you hate coming up the mountain, but I really need your help.”

  Akiro didn’t have coffee for me this time, but he did have tools with him, and he was able to take out one of the wooden planks and create a wedge so that he could climb underneath the barn so we could rescue the tiny kitty.

  There were hues of bubblegum pink in the clouds behind us as the sun set. This was always my favorite time of evening. The purples and pinks always made it look so magical. On
e of the reasons I chose to live on the hill was the clear view of the stars and the moon.

  I was cuddling the kitten, trying to warm her.

  “Did you see that?” Akiro asked me, shivering as he nodded toward the mountains.

  “Oh, that?” I said with a bit of a giggle, thinking it was funny that it scared him. “That’s just one of the Hill Shadows.”

  He just stared at me. “WHAT?” he asked, like I had just said the most preposterous thing. When I had said it like it was the most natural thing in the world.

  “You know, Hill Shadows.”

  “That’s not a thing, Ruby!”

  “Well, I thought it was a thing. Here, help me get this cat some food!”

  “I don’t think you’re actually supposed to feed them milk,” he said as I set the saucer of milk down on the floor of the barn and sat on one of the tubs of feed.

  “What are you, a cat expert now?” I asked him, standing up and dusting off. Wow, black was a difficult color to keep clean. “I’ll feed her whatever she wants to eat or drink. And she is drinking that milk. So as far as I am concerned, cats drink milk.”

  Akiro shrugged. “So, I suppose you’ll be getting an early night. Must be tired.”

  “Nope. Got my first case. Missing husband. Will have to stay up all night doing some digging.”

  “She probably did it,” Akiro said, then took his coat and left.

  It turned out I was tired and did fall sleep quickly, but not before I’d done some digging into Mark Sheridan and found out that he owned a large company called KARVA who owned, amongst other things, the milk production plant just outside of town. I’d managed to get into his social media account, and it seemed like he was having an affair with a woman named Kylie Leonard. So my instincts had been right. Or maybe Akiro’s were right and May had already killed him in a jealous rage.