Murder of the Month

by Tegan Maher

  Table of Contents

  © 2018 Tegan Maher

  Dedication

  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

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  Thank you!

  Howling for Revenge

  CHAPTER TWO

  Connect with Me

  Other Books by Tegan Maher

  About Tegan

  © 2018 Tegan Maher

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form, by any means electronic or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system currently in use or yet to be devised.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or institutions is entirely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal use and may not be re-sold or given away to others. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase a copy for that person. If you did not purchase this book, or it was not purchased for your use, then you have an unauthorized copy. Please go to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting my hard work and copyright.

  Dedication

  THIS IS TO ALL OF YOU who have been with me from the beginning. Thank you for your loyalty, your kind words, and your patience. I know it took forever to get this one to you, and I’m eternally grateful that you stuck with me!

  CHAPTER 1

  MY LEG HUNG OVER THE hammock and I gave a little push against the cool, packed earth with my bare foot, then locked my fingers behind my head and settled in to enjoy the peace and quiet. I sighed, content to lie in the shade and just exist for a while.

  The rhythmic creaking of the rope, the gentle swaying of the hammock, and the sound of the water lapping onto the lakeshore put me in a state of Zen.

  A voice cracked through the silence. "Noelle!"

  I jerked awake, disoriented, and almost fell out of the hammock when I opened my eyes to find my Aunt Addy floating in front of my face, glowering.

  "What?" I snapped, struggling to regain my balance and untangle myself from the haven-turned-deathtrap. I wasn't the most graceful person at the best of times, so with one leg shoved through a hole in the webbed rope and the other asleep from dangling, it was a wonder I didn't kill myself.

  "Stop doing that!" I said, irritated. "You're lucky I don't have a heart condition."

  Waving me off, she said, "You’ll live. You're supposed to be at the farm. We have a new boarder showing up in fifteen minutes, and Gabi had to leave for work early."

  Scowling, I blinked a couple times to push the last of the fuzziness from my brain. We ran a horse farm and occasionally took on new boarders to help pay the bills, though I was making plenty of money from my upcycling store, Reimagined, to do that. Still, Shelby—my little sister—would be heading off to college soon, and the extra cash would help with tuition.

  I ran a hand over my face. "I'm aware. I'm also aware that Shelby's there and so is Matt, and both of 'em are more than capable of saying hello and walking with her and her horse to a stall. I've met with the woman four times; I'm pretty sure we covered all the bases, and I already put fresh shavings in the stall and filled the water bucket. She's just dropping him off and leaving."

  Addy drew her brows together, and I knew from experience I was about to get an earful. I held up my hand and tilted my head, studying her semi-translucent face. "What's wrong with you? You know as well as I do they don't need me up there."

  She huffed, but wouldn't meet my eyes. "Nothin'. Forget I said anything. Get back to loafin', but don't forget Camille's comin' over in an hour or so to see how much y'all have progressed."

  With a final downcast look, she popped out as unexpectedly as she’d popped in. I furrowed my brow, wondering what was up with her odd behavior.

  In truth, I had forgotten Camille was coming. She’d started out as Shelby’s magical social worker before my little sister had gained control of her powers, and had since become a friend. Her daughter, Emma, was Shelby’s bestie.

  I heaved a sigh and glanced around at the little oasis Hunter and Matt had made. They'd transformed what had once been an overgrown, rundown fishing cabin on the lake into a cute cottage, clearing the quarter-acre or so around it to make room for a barbecue pit, the hammocks, and a nice little beach, complete with a dock.

  It was about half a mile from the main house. That put it within walking distance, but I usually preferred to ride either my dirt bike or one of the horses. Though if I didn’t lay off the fried foods, I was gonna have to start walking everywhere just to fit into my jeans.

  Being in a relationship was great for the soul, but hanging out with somebody who ate like a lumberjack was putting my even my higher-than-average metabolism through the wringer.

  I climbed back into the hammock and tried to reclaim the peace I'd had before Addy'd popped in, but gave up after a few minutes because I couldn't stop worrying about her. She hadn't been acting like herself for a few days. At first, I figured it was because one of her friends had recently passed and crossed over, but that didn't seem to be it.

  She'd been mother-henning us even more than usual, and was obsessed with our magical lessons in particular. Over the last several months, Shelby and I had both developed some new powers. We could understand Shelby—she'd been blocked by a curse until a few months ago—but nobody could figure out why my magic was changing, too. Camille had been helping us master them.

  I slipped on my sneakers and helmet and hopped on my dirt bike, deciding the afternoon was a wash. I'd go greet Kristen, the new boarder, then make something to eat before Camille came over.

  Just for kicks, I twisted the throttle a little and put the bike through its paces. I cut off the path into the woods, sliding around the trees and brush, and hopped a little hill that led to the back pasture.

  Once I was through the gate and had a straight shot to the barn, I opened her up and leaned forward, grinning as the wind rushed past me and the tall grass whipped at my legs.

  I let off the throttle as I approached the front gate, and Matt, who must have heard me coming, swung it open for me.

  I'd first met Matt at the cabin when it was just a dilapidated shack. He'd been squatting there, trying to get a handle on his PTSD so he could rejoin society. As an Army vet who'd seen a lot of combat, he had a lot to process, and it had taken him a few years of drifting to even start to heal. To make a long story short, he now lived in the apartment above our barn, worked as a foreman at a local construction company, and was part of our family.

  He smiled and shook his head as I eased t
hrough the opening. "You have just as much fun on that thing as you do on your street bike, I think. I thought you were going to be gone for the afternoon."

  After a few months of riding with Hunter—my own personal slice of tall, dark, and handsome—I'd decided I wanted my own motorcycle. He'd bought the dirt bike for me to learn on, then I'd gotten the CBR, a sport bike, once he was comfortable turning me loose on the streets. I’d indulged him because I knew he was being cautious and bossy because he cared. Plus, I figured the pasture was softer than asphalt if worse came to worst. My bikes and the horses were my therapy.

  "Yeah," I said, pulling the bike into the barn we used as a garage. "So did I, but Addy popped in right when I'd drifted off in the hammock, and the idea of spending the afternoon alone sorta lost its shine. She guilted me for not being here when Kristen brought Cowboy."

  He furrowed his brow. "There was no reason for her to come bother you. Shelby and I are here."

  "I know," I said, climbing off the bike. "Addy's been acting weird for a few days but won't tell me what's got her tail all twisted."

  "I've noticed that too,” he said. “She's cranky."

  I cocked a brow at him as I pushed the bike back into a corner out of the way.

  "Crankier than usual," he amended.

  Addy wasn't so much cranky as she was cantankerous and ornery. She had a dry sense of humor and was easy going, at least as long as things were going her way. One thing I had learned since she'd come back without a corporeal body was that she used all her extra time to find chores for us to do. To be fair, she'd run a tight ship when she was alive. If something broke, we fixed it right away. The only difference now was that we no longer included her, and she had more time to look for things that needed fixing.

  My phone rang, and I dug it out of my pocket. It was Raeann, my best friend and cousin. I held up my finger to Matt and answered it.

  "Hey," I said, "I thought you were working late trying to get inventory done."

  "I was," she said, her voice wobbly and a bit freaked out.

  "What's wrong," I demanded, and Matt looked askance at me. "Are you okay?"

  "I'm fine," she said, pulling in a couple deep breaths. "Or at least I think I am. But I watered that half-dead vine in my office and gave it a little zap of magic to give it a boost while I was doin' my paperwork. Next thing I knew, It was growin' off my desk—I could see it growing. I panicked and hit it with a shrink spell."

  "Did it work?" I asked, grabbing my keys and heading toward my truck.

  "Well ... sorta. But now it and my desk—which had my purse and keys on it—are small enough to fit in a doll house." Her voice started to tremble again, which worried me because Rae wasn't a crier. "I'm afraid to do anything else."

  "Okay, sweetie," I said, trying not to freak out. Rae never lost control of her magic, and for her to do so on such a grand scale was bad. "Just hang on. I'll be right there."

  We disconnected, and I explained the situation to Matt.

  "I'll stay here and get the new girl settled," he said.

  "Thanks," I called over my shoulder, then called for Addy. Whatever was going on was way beyond my pay grade, and it was time to bring in the big guns.

  CHAPTER 2

  BY THE TIME I GOT TO Brew4U, Addy was already there and so was my Aunt Beth, Raeann's mama. Rae was sitting on a stool at the far end of the gleaming black bar looking miserable, and the two elder witches were in the doorway to her office, one floating and one standing, rubbing their chins and studying the situation. Concentration and worry were etched on their brows, and in that moment, there was no doubt they were sisters regardless of the fact that one of them was translucent.

  "So what's the diagnosis?" I asked.

  Rae heaved a sigh. "They don't know what happened any more than I do. Mama's gonna try to fix it."

  I slid onto the stool beside her and nudged her with my shoulder. "Look at the upside."

  She raised a brow and huffed a short breath out her nose. "There's an upside?"

  "Sure," I said, smiling. "At least you had a vine and not a Venus flytrap."

  She rolled her eyes and lifted the corner of her mouth in a half smile. I was relieved to see her sense of humor cracking through. Humor and sarcasm were her go-to defense mechanisms, and I was glad she wasn't crying or hysterical. We were raised tough, and histrionics were scoffed at. Addy always said you couldn't hoe a row by leaning on the handle and whining about it, and she was right.

  Instead, we Flynns dug in and solved our problems, and that's what we'd do this time too.

  The sisters came toward us, one floating and the other strolling, wearing identical, bumfuzzled expressions. A glance passed between them, and I tried to figure out what it meant. They masked it too fast for me to decipher it, though.

  "Did you fix it?" Rae asked, hope lacing her voice.

  Addy gave a nod. "Beth did, sort of, but we have no idea what went wrong." She tilted her head toward me. "Noelle and Shelby are practicing at the farm this evening, and I think you should join them. See if it was a weird fluke or if something is genuinely wrong."

  Aunt Beth turned toward Rae. "Were you upset or focusing particularly on the plant when you gave it a boost?"

  Rae shook her head. "No. If anything, it was the opposite. I was looking at a mug catalog and gave it a trickle of magic as an afterthought when I noticed it was wilting a little. I was looking at the details of two different mugs, trying to decide between them. The plant was just kinda an afterthought."

  "Okay," I said, slipping off the stool and stepping toward her office. "I have to see this mutant plant."

  When I reached the doorway, I sucked in a surprised breath and raised my brows, amazed by what I was seeing. She hadn't been exaggerating; if anything, she'd downplayed it a little. The desk and plant were back to scale, but it was the vine sitting on the front center edge of the desk that caught my attention. At least a dozen lush, glossy tendrils had grown across the front of her desk and wound all the way down to the floor, wrapping around the legs and trailing a little onto the carpet.

  "You said the thing was almost dead?" I called in disbelief. It was nowhere near gasping its last breath now.

  "Yup. Bobbie Sue was gonna throw it away, so I rescued it a couple days ago." Bobbie Sue was a good friend and a whiz with barbecue, but giving her a houseplant was sentencing it to death. If it had come from her, chances were good it had been little more than a couple sticks. That was quite a difference from the lush plant now taking over the desk.

  "How long did it take it to grow that much?"

  She came over to take a peek and ran a hand over her face. "Wow. I didn't realize it had grown like that. I only saw it from this angle after I'd already shrunk it. I noticed it within just a couple minutes, I guess. I was lookin' at the cups on my laptop and a vine poked around the edge of the screen."

  "You're saying it grew that much in two or three minutes?" It's not like she couldn't grow something like that when she was focusing on it, but if it was unintentional and caused by a simple little push of magic ...

  "That's exactly what I'm saying,” she said miserably. “And I had no idea it was even happening. No draw on my energy or anything. And something like that would have been a serious power suck."

  Addy and Beth were standing behind us, and Beth put her hands on our shoulders. "We're not gonna learn anything here, I don't think. Grab your purse, Raeann, and let's get to the farm."

  My aunt stepped into the office at the last minute and grabbed the plant. "Just in case. We should probably do some pokin' at it to make sure it was Raeann rather than a booby trap or practical joke of some sort."

  Shelby flitted through my brain. I could see her playing a trick like a rapid-grow plant, but that didn't explain why the desk and everything on it shrank to dollhouse size when Rae tried to fix it. That wasn't something Shel would be able to pull off. For that matter, I'm not sure how anybody would be able to pull it off without being right there to cast the spell.
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  I glanced at Addy out of the corner of my eye, and she was a million miles away, her form more transparent than translucent, and she looked more worried than I think I'd ever seen her.

  "Don't worry, Addy," I told her. "Camille will sort this out in no time. I'm sure it was just a fluke."

  Her eyes refocused and she returned my gaze. "You know as well as I do, there ain't no such thing as coincidence in this family. I don't know what's going on, but I can guarantee you it wasn't any fluke."

  She was right, and in my heart, I knew it. The problem wasn't whether or not something was up with her, because there was. There was something up with all of us. The question was—what?

  CHAPTER 3

  WE HAD TO STOP AT THE grocery store on the way home to pick up something for supper, and Piggly Wiggly was closer than Walmart.

  One of the town's two ambulances was parked outside doing free blood pressure and diabetes checks, a service they offered every few months. They had a tent set up outside the ambulance and were giving balloons and stickers away to kids. Adults weren’t so lucky; they got pamphlets about everything from stroke symptoms to STD avoidance. And there was, of course, a donation jar.

  Franky Lipscome, a guy who'd been a little ahead of me in school, was unwrapping a blood-pressure cuff from a little old blue-haired lady. "Hey Noe, Rae, Ms. Beth!” he called. “How y'all doin' today?"

  "Doin' well, Franky," Aunt Beth said as we waved back. "How's your mama?"

  "Fine as frogs hair," he replied, grinning. "She just left. Had to go down to the ladies' auxiliary for a quilting session. They’re startin’ to make plans for some charity event or another."

  “Well tell her I said hi,” Beth called over her shoulder.

  “Will do, and you take care.”

  We'd reached the doors, so with a final wave, we pushed into the blessed air conditioning. I didn't know how he was standing it out there in full uniform.

  I shook a buggy loose from the row and angled it toward the meat section.

  A rack holding bunches of those baby bananas caught my eye, and I gave Rae a shove on the shoulder. "Try not to shrink anything while we're here. With the price of food, I can't afford to feed us all if you shrink the fifteen-dollar pack of burger down to nothin'."