by Raven Snow
“Murder on the Dance Floor”
Supernatural Witch Cozy Mystery
Harper "Foxxy" Beck Series Book 5
Raven Snow
© 2016
Raven Snow
Disclaimer
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. If you have not purchased this book from Amazon or received it directly from the author you are reading a pirated copy. If you have downloaded an illegal copy of this book & enjoyed it, please consider purchasing a legal copy. Your respect & support encourages me to continue writing & producing high quality books for you.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner & are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover images are licensed stock photos, images shown for illustrative purposes only. Any person(s) that may be depicted on the cover are models.
Edition v1.00 (2016.07.04)
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Authors Note
Books by Raven Snow
Chapter One
"That's the way, uhuh-uhuh, I like it," I sang, doing a one-man disco performance in the middle of the skating floor. Jeb had turned off the glow lights a few minutes ago, so the peach-colored ground looked a little dirtier than normal.
Skating over to one of the purple half-walls that surrounded the dance area, I waved my very solemn-looking bouncer down. The customers had all gone home an hour ago, but he still had his scary business face on. I admired his dedication, though I wasn't even going to attempt to keep my composure that long. I was more of an eccentric free spirit.
"Are you going to take off your skates, Miss Foxxy?" Jeb asked. "We are closed."
I wiggled my finger at him while doing figure eights. At least I'd gotten him to call me by my stage name while at the business, finally. "You can't stop the beat. I can't stop the beat. No one can stop the beat. Get what I'm saying here?"
"I think so, but I already turned off the music so−"
"I'm saying that the beat can't be stopped."
Jeb went back to work with the usual lackluster clean-up we did at the Funky Wheel, a disco skate I'd inherited from the father I'd never known a little less than a decade before. The Wheel was dirty and smelled like Woodstock—mostly from our concession's worker, Stoner Stan—but that was all part of its charm.
I poked my head in the yellowing office to tell Amber, my teenage ticket girl, to head home. The room was already empty, and I let myself frown and shake my head in disapproval for a moment. Usually, I had to kick the girl out—boot to butt all the way home. But Amber was going through one of those teenage things I liked to pretend I didn't remember, and she'd likely clocked out on the dot to go see that good-for-nothing boyfriend of hers.
I couldn't keep my disapproval going for long, though, because it made me feel old and matronly. Plus, if I thought about what I would've been doing as a teenager at this time of night/morning, I would have probably broken down and called Amber's mother. Majorly uncool of me, as the sprouts say.
Instead, I checked on my own kid, who was fast asleep in a booth outside the office. His face was dangerously close to an unfinished piece of pizza, and I wondered if he'd ever get the scent of old cheese and pepperoni out of his nose. His brown hair and icy blue eyes were just like his father's, though Cooper's hair was longer and a little bit unruly. When he let me, I spent hours trying to puff it up into a full-blown afro, like the neon green wig I currently had on my head.
Not bothering to be motherly, because it wasn't my strong suit and he wasn't even biologically mine, I poked him in the shoulder. My nudge almost knocked him clear off the seat, and his eyes flew open and immediately glared at me.
"How late is it?" he asked.
"Late. And it's a school night." I said, grabbing my purse. "I'm not a very good caregiver."
"My dad says staying up late stunts your growth."
Though he was eleven, his chest still puffed out and his eyes shone with a pride that was oddly cute whenever he talked about his dad. In Cooper's eyes, his detective father could do no wrong. It was endearing and exasperating at the same time.
I, on the other hand, was the bad influence. Luckily for me, Cooper liked a little rule breaking and danger in his life. We were like two peas in a pod—at least when he wasn't getting on me to make my bed.
The nights were still hot, so no refreshing blast of wind hit us when we stepped out into the parking lot. A tour bus with glowing lights and spooky sounds roared past us. I heard the guide announce the magic store across the street, enlightening the tourists that it was the oldest in Waresville, a town known for its witches and spooks.
I just so happened to know that he was right about Hanes Magic Shoppe being the oldest in the town, and that was because of my senile, possibly ancient, definitely powerful grandma. She was a law unto herself, and for that reason, I avoided visiting her as much as possible. I only felt moderately bad about it. Most days.
Out of the shadows like some bad Dracula impersonator—he even had the cape, though it was electric blue—came Oliver Belafonte. His dark skin looked luminous in the moonlight, and he was as sheepish as I'd ever seen him. His appearance would've been creepier and more of a surprise if he hadn't been randomly showing up for weeks now. I almost considered talking to him just to tell the guy to get new tricks.
A couple months ago, when a new witch had rolled into town looking for a familiar to replace her dead one and boost her power, Oliver had teamed up with the woman and helped her ransack the Funky Wheel along with a lot of other places in Waresville. The town had forgiven him for his crime—easily, since they never knew about it in the first place—but as my former best friend, I wasn't letting him off that easy. Or at all, as the case was.
For someone who grew up with nothing but my friends to rely on—namely, my cousin and his best friend, Jack—Oliver’s betrayal hit me like an electric drill to the heart. I couldn’t even stand to look at him now, because when I did, I got this curious urge to cry. A
nd I wasn’t a crier by any means.
Cooper turned toward me. "Why is Oliver following you?"
Knowing full well he was within earshot, I said, "He's laboring under the delusion of eventual forgiveness."
Oliver winced. "Just come over to the shop, Harper. Just for a few minutes. If we could just talk about it−"
"I have to get Cooper home. It's past his bedtime."
Cooper raised his eyebrows at me as we got into the car. "Now I have a bedtime."
That stinker was growing such a smart mouth. I wanted to be annoyed, but I only felt a sense of pride that he'd taken on my best feature.
My sickly, orange car roared to life after a couple refusals, and I charged through Waresville like a bat out of hell. Secretly, I was hoping to be pulled over so I'd have an excuse for getting home so late, but since officers weren't known for detaining speeders for hours on end, that plan was mostly a dud.
We pulled up to the cozy, two-story Victorian house Cooper, Wyatt, and I now shared. Prior to moving in, I'd lived in a loft above the Funky Wheel where the clothes were thrown on the floor instead of put away in drawers, and non-perishable groceries were never put away. At the Victorian, however, I was barely allowed to have my cat, Whale, in the house because of all the orange fur. It made Wyatt's eye twitch hilariously.
Another difference between the two living spaces was the amount of furniture. Back at my old place, I’d had a bed, a kitchen set, and a whole bunch of boxes that held all the things I’d collected over my lifetime. The Victorian, on the other hand, was furnished with nice, cozy pieces that made it feel like a real home instead of like a crack house. Certainly, it was an upgrade, but I found myself still missing my crack house-like loft at odd moments.
Looking like a bigger, more muscular carbon copy of his son, Wyatt was sitting at the kitchen table, eating some of that horrible chocolate cereal that the two of them can't go an hour without. His hair, which was the same color as the cereal, was cut short in a military style. Crisp, blue eyes glanced up from the Waresville paper and pinned us at the doorway.
"It's nearly four in the morning."
Grabbing a piece of cold, leftover pizza—food of the gods—I slid into the chair next to him. "But it's not. And, if you think about it, isn't that what really counts?"
"Bed," he said to Cooper, nodding to the stairs.
The kid immediately went, yawning slightly and putting up no resistance. Sometimes, I thought he was exactly like me at that age: a little social outcast with a bit of a mouth and a penchant for danger. Then, he'd go and do something so hideous as conform like that, and I was back to seeing us as very different people.
I rested my head on Wyatt's shoulder, stroking Whale when he jumped up into my lap in a blur of orange poof. He'd only been my familiar for a little while, but he'd already succeeded in helping me save Wyatt's life when he'd been shot this summer. For that, and for his fluffy cuteness, he had a spot in our home.
"Your cat threw up in my shoes," Wyatt said bleakly.
Wyatt had a thing about dirt and disorderly conduct, which was why our union was a constant surprise to everyone in Waresville— including me. I couldn't remember the last time I was both clean and orderly, but it probably wasn't in this decade.
"He likes you," I said sagely. "Little traitor never throws up in my shoes."
Wyatt laughed despite himself, and we got up, following Cooper up the stairs. His hand was a warm, reassuring presence on my lower back, making me think indecent thoughts even though we were both bone-tired. Flopping down on the bed, I made sure to mess up the covers as best I could, earning me a glare as Wyatt changed into his ironed pajamas.
"You shouldn't sleep in your work clothes," he said. "You'll wrinkle them."
"Not wrinkles!" I mumbled into the pillow.
I never worried about creases before I moved in, and I certainly didn't now. Sometimes, I'd catch Wyatt sneaking off with my clothes early in the morning. Next thing I knew I'd be getting dressed for work in disco shorts with a clean press. The man just couldn't help himself.
"Someone called for you." He pulled back the covers into a neat triangle and joined me. "A man. Wouldn't leave his name."
"Mmm. Probably my lover." Punching the pillow into a more comfortable state, I said, "Don't worry; I told him not to call the house anymore. Strictly cell phone correspondence."
"Courteous of you."
We were asleep a few seconds later before I could muster up enough energy to ask about the caller. The last thing I felt was Wyatt's arm tucking me close to him, and then images of ex-best friends and bullet wounds invaded my subconscious. It was not a pleasant sleep.
Chapter Two
Wyatt was gone by the time I woke up the next morning, off to the police station at an ungodly hour to get a head start on detecting. If there was any love of his that could hold a torch to Cooper or me, it was his job. Wyatt, like me, was a busybody and a walking encyclopedia. He was born to be a cop.
On the other side of the coin, if the first two decades of my existence were anything to go on, I was born to be a criminal.
Cooper was sitting at the table, fully dressed with his backpack on. His lips were curled, and he was tapping his foot sporadically. All this just caused me to move even slower, taking the time to carefully consider all my breakfast options while he sighed in the background.
"Someone called," he said.
"Who?" I asked between bites of toast.
He gave me such a look. "My dad says I'm not allowed to answer the phone when he's not here."
"Hmm," I said. "I wonder if it's okay for me to use the phone when he's not here. Have I been breaking another rule all this time without even knowing it? I'm good."
"Aren't you going to check the answering machine?"
I grabbed my keys and hustled him out the door. "You just want to blame being late on me again."
"I'm never late when my dad takes me to school."
The engine struggled against me as I turned the key, but I emerged victoriously. "But you don't have half the fun when your dad takes you."
He smiled at me, one of those infectious ones that made dealing with his "my dad" syndrome worth it. "Yeah."
I watched until Cooper was safely behind the front doors to the school. Unfortunately, “safely” was a relative term. A couple of cases ago, a teacher had committed suicide on the grounds after a warlock had irrevocably messed with her mind. Suffice it to say, there were limits to what even magic could do.
Now, every time that kid got out of my sight, I felt a little uneasy. It was like that feeling when you search for your phone in your purse and can't find it on the first or second try. You know it's in there and that everything will be fine, but until it's actually in your hands, your heart races, and your mouth goes all dry.
But since I wasn't about to homeschool Cooper—all I had to teach was limited to the areas of picking up a dollar without my hands and doing the cabbage patch—I just had to deal with the feeling. Absently, I wondered if Wyatt felt the same way and if this was just one of the crappy parts of being a parent.
To ask him, though, would lead to one of those moments I still wasn't comfortable with. Intimacy wasn't easy for me—no secret as to why, just look at my childhood—and I'd only just told Wyatt I loved him, though we'd both known I felt it for ages. Even now, he'd say the "L" word to me, and I'd immediately knee-jerk to "shut up" before I could stop myself. It was leaving the territory of funny and heading toward pathetic.
"The phone is going to ring."
Swearing, my body jerked, and the car almost veered off the road into Mr. Heery's cart of black roses. Since he spit at anyone who looked at them funny and wasn't buying, I couldn't imagine that would have gone well.
I rummaged through the console and pulled out a large, ancient-looking text. My grandma had given it to me a while back which had been a shock, because she wasn't into gifts and this was a big one. The book, like my cat, was her familiar. It'd weathered the years with
her, had helped me solve a poisoning, and was seemingly very wise.
And it could talk.
"Why haven't you taken me into your house?" it asked. "It's boring in the car. I was under the impression that, if I went with you, there'd be excitement." If it'd had a face, I was sure it would've pouted then.
"I don't want Cooper finding you. He already spends too much time with magic when he visits Gran." I paused. "Why is it significant that the phone is going to ring? People call me all the time; I'm very popular."
"Magic is nothing to fear."
I snorted and turned toward the grocery store. Usually, Wyatt did the domestic stuff, but all this thinking about my inadequacies had me wanting to mix it up a little. Maybe I'd actually find something in the domestic sphere I was good at.
"Magic is fear incarnate," I said.
Once upon a time, right after my mother had died, leaving me alone and underage in the middle of Miami, I'd reveled in magic. It'd been my way of survival when I wasn't dancing for money or stealing what I couldn't conjure—which was most things; there are rules to magic. Then, on my way home from work one night, a boy just a little older than me had jumped me. Probably just looking for money. When I let the magic out to defend myself, I lost control and hurt him badly.
But that wasn't what had frightened me away from magic. It was the feeling I got when I used it. The feeling that I could just fall into the abyss of power and drown in it. I wanted to let it swallow me whole.
Just thinking about it gave me shivers, so I refocused on the road, putting the thoughts of why I stayed away from the practice as a general rule out of my head.
"You didn't answer my question," I told the book, amused that I was talking to inanimate objects again.
"I find myself unmotivated to answer any question you could pose while I remain a prisoner in this foul carriage."
