Deadly Desserts and Dark Secrets (Lainswich Witches Book 8) Read online

  “Deadly Desserts and Dark Secrets”

  Supernatural Witch Cozy Mystery

  Lainswich Witches Series Book 8

  Raven Snow

  © 2017

  Raven Snow

  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.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are 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 v1.0 (2017.04.15)

  http://www.ravensnowauthor.com

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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

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  Sometimes as a Greensmith witch, you got a premonition about things.

  “Something bad is about to happen,” Rowen announced, clenching her hands around the potato salad sitting in her lap. She could feel it. It was this niggling feeling in the back of her mind, a voice repeating itself over and over. Something unfortunate was on the horizon.

  Rowen’s husband, Eric, glanced over to her from the driver’s seat. They were on their way to the Greensmith house for dinner. “You say that every time,” he said, sounding distinctly unconcerned.

  He was right. They did this about once a week. Ever since Rowen had gotten married and moved out to her own place, they regularly came over for a big family dinner at her aunts’ insistence. They were a dramatic bunch, so something was pretty much guaranteed to happen when they were all in one place. Rowen definitely didn’t miss living there. She already saw them daily, working at the Lainswich Inquirer and helping out at the new age shop the rest of her family had gone into together. Aunt Lydia acted like they were drifting away, one of those families that only saw each other every other holiday. That was hardly the truth.

  The Greensmith family home looked much as it always had. It was old and lovely, sitting up on a hill like a witch’s house in a fairy tale. All the familiar cars were out front. Most of the family lived there already, so it was a packed house with her cousins, aunts, and uncle living together. Only Rowen, Margo, and Grammy were missing. Cousin Margo was traveling the world with Eric’s brother and poor Grammy had gone to prison more than a year ago now. It was the absence of Grammy she felt the most. She missed that woman.

  The front door was open before Eric had even finished parking. Aunt Lydia stood framed in it. She was a warm, curvy woman. Her formerly rust-colored hair was more silver than anything these days, but she didn’t seem to mind. “There you are!” she yelled from the front porch. “We’ve been waiting! Hurry up, you two! The food is getting cold!”

  Rowen glanced at the digital clock on the dash. It was two minutes until seven. If anything, they were early. She heaved a sigh, opened the car door, and headed for the porch. Eric switched the engine off and followed.

  “Oooh,” sang Aunt Lydia, nodding down to the plastic tub of potato salad as Rowen climbed the stairs. “You made something. That’s so thoughtful.”

  Rowen made something every time. Once, her aunts had implied that Rowen only came over there for the free food. She didn’t actually care about visiting her poor, lonely family. Rowen wasn’t having that again. She did love her family. She really did. Granted, she had moved away to the city almost immediately after hitting eighteen. Maybe that was why they gave her such a hard time now. Either that or they were just a neurotic bunch. Rowen would have believed either or both.

  “Just put it on the bar in the kitchen,” Aunt Lydia told them, holding the door open. “So nice to see you too, Eric.” She said it like she hadn’t just seen him two days ago when he swung by their shop to help with inventory.

  Eric took it all in stride. “Always a pleasure,” he said with a smile. To his credit, he really did know how to handle the Greensmith family. Rowen had lucked out when she met him.

  There wasn’t anyone waiting around for them inside. Aunt Nadine’s daughters, Willow and Peony, were still upstairs. Rowen could hear the muffled sound of them bickering over something or another. There were some smells drifting in from the kitchen like something was still baking. Rowen followed the scene and found Aunt Nadine and Uncle Norman in the kitchen. Nadine was complaining at her brother for munching on dinner rolls. “Can’t you wait five minutes?”

  Uncle Norman shrugged. “I’m hungry.”

  “Five minutes.” Nadine was peeking in at something in the oven. It smelled like meatloaf and didn’t appear to be ready quite yet. She looked up when she heard Rowen. “Oh, hi there! Dinner’s almost ready, Is that something you made? How lovely! You can put it anywhere.”

  “Tiffany!” Norman yelled. “Your kid’s here!” He gave Rowen a meaningful look. “She’s been sort of down today. Say something nice to her.”

  Rowen heard her mother hurrying down the hall before she had a chance to ask why her mother seemed gloomy. “Glad you could come, Dear!” Tiffany came around the corner and pulled her daughter into a hug. “Lydia said you had some case you were working on. She said you might not be able to make it. I’m glad you could find the time. Not that you skip out on these things often. It’s just that I know you’re so busy with the paper and the… detective work.” She fumbled a bit with the detective part.

  Again, Eric took it in stride. “I might have mentioned to her we had to go out and serve papers to someone when I was helping with inventory. We took care of that yesterday.”

  “Oh, good.” Tiffany gave her son-in-law a hug. “Well, I’m glad to see you both.”

  “Your hair looks nice today,” ventured Rowen, remembering what Norman had said. She wasn’t sure that was what he had meant, but compliments on hair never hurt. And it did look nice. She had taken the time to weave some small blue f
lowers from the garden into it. It went well with her gauzy blue top and worn blue jeans. Rowen had always liked her mother’s free spirit sense of fashion. It wasn’t her taste, but it suited her mother.

  “Oh, thanks,” said Tiffany, touching her hair absentmindedly. “It’s frizzy today. It’s always frizzy here. I miss the beach. For whatever reason, it always laid flat at the beach.”

  Rowen smiled but wasn’t sure what to say to that. She had never been to the beach with her mother. When she was a child, her aunts had mostly raised her while her mother was gallivanting around with strange men. It was difficult enough for Rowen to forgive her mother for an entire lifetime spent apart. She didn’t need her reminding her of those days.

  “Help me set the table?” Eric asked, stepping in. He must have sensed his wife was getting uncomfortable. Rowen readily agreed to help and followed him into the dining room with a stack of plates. Rose had come down by then. She was already sitting at the table, playing on her phone. She looked a bit out of sorts and didn’t even look up when Rowen and Eric entered. That wasn’t too unusual. She was often distracted by work. It didn’t seem to be a bad thing. With Rose’s dark hair and Asian heritage, it was easy to tell she was adopted. It was a truth she had always seemed uneasy with, in their close-knit family. Leading her other family members at work had done wonders for her confidence over the course of this past year.

  “Did you finish that article on Craig’s trial date?” asked Rowen.

  Rose jumped, looking up from her phone, wide-eyed. “Hmm? What? Oh! Oh, yeah. It’s in the blog’s queue. Should be up as our main headline in the morning.”

  “Did you want me to look it over?” asked Rowen. Rose more or less ran the Lainswich Inquirer now. That had been Rowen’s job, but Rose had more of a knack for it than she did. That didn’t mean Rowen didn’t still help. Rose often ran headlines by her. Craig’s trial date certainly qualified as a major headline. He had been responsible for the last murder to take place in Lainswich. Rowen had done her part in solving that one. That seemed to be what she had a knack for. “I can proofread it if you think it needs another set of eyes on it.”

  “Sure,” Rose replied still sounding distracted. She looked back down at her phone. “I’ll send it to you tonight.”

  “Sounds good.” Rowen looked over at Eric as she kept laying down plates.

  Eric shrugged and made a face as if to say he noticed the strangeness, too. Rowen decided not to question her on it. Not right now anyway. This didn’t really seem like the time or the place with most of their family hanging in the wings ready to eavesdrop. Rowen just hoped things with her and Ben were all right. Rose had been dating the Lainswich Chief of Police for a while now, and it certainly felt like their relationship had been nothing but one problem after another. Rowen really wanted things to work out between those two, but this was getting out of hand.

  “It’s done!” Aunt Nadine announced from the kitchen, sounding somewhat surprised. “It’s done! See, I told you it would be done… I mean, I suppose it should sit for a few minutes, so it can cool.”

  “It’s done,” grumbled Norman. “Just put it on the table. Let’s eat.”

  Gradually, the Greensmith family made their way into the dining room. Rowen sat between her mother and Eric. Rose sat beside Aunt Lydia, though she looked especially uncomfortable next to her own mother tonight. Lydia was too busy complaining at Uncle Norman taking Grammy’s old seat at the head of the table to notice. Meanwhile, Aunt Nadine was yelling at her own daughters to hurry up and come downstairs. “It’s going to get cold!” she shouted, even though that was very unlikely. The meatloaf was still smoking, definitely too hot for anyone to touch. That hadn’t stopped Uncle Norman from trying to scoop some on his plate as he pointedly ignored Lydia.

  At long last, Peony and Willow came downstairs. Peony was walking ahead of Willow, looking upset about something or another. It was still a bit jarring seeing her with her purple hair. Willow had helped her dye it from its usual blond. They were close for sisters, though they were clearly having a spat of some sort right now. It happened sometimes. They sat apart at the dinner table, forcing their mother to take the only remaining seat between them.

  “All right. That’s everyone. You can all dig in now,” Aunt Lydia announced, as if half of them hadn’t already. Everything but Rowen’s potato salad and the rolls was still too hot to eat, but they started passing it around anyway.

  “Are you still going to see your grandmother this weekend?” Aunt Lydia asked Rowen.

  Every second Saturday of the month, a local church prepared food and took it over to Lainswich Correctional. It was a small, low security prison. That sort of thing had been going on for a while. Inmates were allowed to have no more than two visitors join them at the meal. It was nothing fancy, just a closely monitored luncheon in the visitation room. This month it was finally Rowen’s turn to go, and she was bringing Eric along.

  Rowen nodded. “Yep. Wouldn’t miss it.” She loved to visit Grammy whenever she got the opportunity.

  “That’s good. I’m sure she’ll love to see you,” said Aunt Lydia. “Both of you,” she added, smiling at Eric. Eric nodded but didn’t really seem to have anything else to add to the matter.

  “So, how has everyone’s week been?” asked Aunt Nadine, her smile cheerful and bright.

  “I’m moving out,” Willow announced, immediately and effectively killing the happy, familial mood.

  Everyone but Nadine and her daughters exchanged troubled looks. They weren’t quite sure what to say to that. Rose looked especially scandalized, her eyes very wide. “What?” asked Nadine, looking at her daughter. This was clearly news to her. “Where are you moving?”

  “Benji has an apartment,” Willow explained, as if this was the most normal thing in the world for her to discuss. “I’m moving in with him.”

  “You only just met!” Aunt Nadine was usually a calm, collected, sweet sort. This had thrown her for a loop.

  “We’ve known each other a while.” Willow shrugged. “I like him. He likes me. I’m an adult, and I feel like it’s high time I moved out of here anyway, so…” She turned back to her food and took a bite of a roll.

  “I told her it was a bad idea,” said Peony. Rowen supposed that explained what she was so upset about.

  “It’s not a bad idea,” Willow snapped back at her. “You’re just jealous.”

  “What’s there to be jealous of?” Peony glared at her sister. “It’s not going to last. You’re just going to drive each other crazy in the first month. I’m not going to help you move out, and I’m definitely not going to help you move back in after it all falls apart.”

  “She has a point, Dear,” said Aunt Nadine.

  “She’s an adult,” said Uncle Norman, stepping in and earning himself another glare from Lydia. “Let her do what she wants. Let her make her own mistakes if she wants.”

  “Benji does seem like a nice boy,” offered Aunt Lydia, likely seeing there was no way around this. “And it’s not like we won’t be here when – I mean if - she changes her mind. It’ll be fine.”

  “I’m moving out, too,” Rose blurted out.

  “You’re what?” Lydia demanded, doing a complete one-eighty on her attitude just a moment ago. “With who? With Ben? You’re not even engaged!”

  Rose looked around the table for help, but everyone just looked down at their plates. Rowen burnt her tongue shoving meatloaf in her mouth just so she wouldn’t have to say anything. “Yes, with Ben,” said Rowen. “And a lot of people move in together before they get married or engaged, even. It’s… it’s pretty normal.”

  “Yeah,” said Willow, as if that applied to her as well. She hadn’t exactly known Benji nearly as long as Rose had known Ben.

  Aunt Lydia looked very much like she might start crying. “Little birds have to spread their wings and fly some time,” offered Tiffany. “This was going to happen someday.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” Lydia grumbled. “
You and Norman there left home and never came back.”

  “We’re going to visit,” Rose assured her mother. “We’ll see each other every day. You see Rowen all the time, don’t you?”

  Aunt Lydia gave a little huff like that wasn’t much consolation. Aunt Nadine had more or less resigned herself to all of it. She was frowning sadly into her plate.

  “Don’t worry about it, Rose. They’re just being overly dramatic,” said Willow, pointedly glaring at her sister.

  “I’m not--” Peony began, but she was interrupted by a knock on the door.

  Everyone at the table exchanged puzzled looks. Even Lydia and Nadine shook off their sadness enough to appear confused. They were all here and accounted for, weren’t they? “Who could that be?” asked Lydia.

  It was Uncle Norman who stood and headed for the door. Out of curiosity, everyone else rose from their chairs and followed him out into the hallway to watch. It seemed too late for unexpected visitors. Not that they got many of those up here anyway.

  There was another knock on the door. “Hold your horses,” Norman called. He unlocked the door, opened it, and revealed, “Margo!”

  Margo stood on the front porch looking terribly pleased with herself and her little surprise. Her blond hair was cut in a fashionable bob, and the little black dress she wore was expertly tailored. It was a little much for Lainswich. “I’m home!” she sang, launching herself into a hug with her father.

  Norman laughed and hugged her back. He was smiling wider than any of them, his eyes huge. She hadn’t told anyone she was coming back. Rowen had a web cam call with her several times a week, and even she hadn’t had any clue about this.

  Eric pushed his way through the Greensmiths to approach Margo. There was a somewhat bemused expression on his face. “Did my brother come back with you?” he asked.