Hallow Haven Cozy Mysteries Bundle Books 1-3 by Mara Webb (hardest books to read TXT) 📗

this before, I think you are going to make things really interesting around here,” he grinned. I looked at him expectantly. “Wait, that’s Chris Davick, no mistaking that face!”

“How is he related to the others? How has he not been reported missing?” I said.

“Who would normally report someone missing?”

“Loved ones, like family members or friends?” I replied, not understanding why he had asked.

“And what if you have no friends and your family hates you? Who reports you missing then?” he said. Ah. A man has been missing, possibly killed, and no one has involved the police because they don’t care. What a sad life this guy must have led.

“Could one of them killed him?”

“Chris was a calm, pleasant guy. This didn’t sit well with several members of that blood-thirsty group of people he is related to. They wanted to bring the chaos back. In my mind that means that they are currently all my number one suspects for Chris’s murder and Greta’s. With those two gone, they would be free to start an all-out war, they might not have expected you to show up so soon,” he explained.

“Can I speak candidly?” I said. He nodded.

“There is a tunnel system that connects the islands, there is an entrance on the beach at the base of the cliffs. I think Simon knows about it, and possibly had the ability to move the boulders that Greta had put there. She was trying to stop people sneaking about to do illegal stuff.” He stared blankly at me. “You already know this though don’t you. You know this because when you ran away from my house the other night, that is where you ran to.”

He stilled, bracing himself for something that I might say next. I waited him out. He collapsed into the wooden chair opposite me and ran his hands through his hair. “How did you know?”

“Your eyes looked the same,” I explained.

“I had heard the stories, the rumors. I didn’t think any of it could be real. Somehow, when it started, I just knew. I don’t know what possessed me to go to you, but I must have thought you could help me. I shouldn’t have done that; you are so new to all of this and I probably scared you half to death. I went to the cave because I wanted to hide, I hadn’t known it existed until that night, I was just following my nose,” he sighed.

“So, you’re a werewolf and I’m a witch, but a week ago we were both just regular people,” I laughed. “In a way we are in it together then.”

“I guess, but I don’t think there’s much risk of you freaking out and attacking someone with your clawed feet though,” he said.

“You were avoiding physical contact with me when I got here, but then you had to drag me out of the water. That is what made this happen to you, isn’t it?” I hadn’t considered it until just now, but in a way, I was responsible for this. “My touch...”

I was lost in an idea, Miller looked up and saw that I was drifting through a sea of possibilities, considering my next move. “What do you need?” he asked, suddenly changing back into sheriff mode.

“Do you have Greta’s shoes? Were they removed from her body when she was collected from the cemetery?”

“Yeah, her clothes are in the evidence room. We keep stuff like that but then don’t get any professionals on the island that can do anything about it,” he said through a half-smile.

“I need to see it, all of it,” I replied. I had touched those bones on the mountain and seen the face of the victim. I already knew what Greta looked like, but I was hoping that my powers might be able to tell me where she last was. We know that the car crash was staged, we know she was shot. Where was she when the gun went off?

We walked out of the office where I had been drawing, through a locked door that required a keypad to enter and stood in a large room filled with rows of shelving units loaded with cardboard boxes.

“Feast your eyes on this,” Miller said. “I don’t know why we have this stuff, maybe it was all kept in anticipation of your arrival so you could solve all of these cases. We haven’t had anyone with your particular skills before.”

“How did Greta get things done?” I asked. I didn’t want that to sound as though Greta hadn’t been doing anything, but it seemed obvious that we had different abilities.

“Greta could move objects, she and that cat of hers used that ability to keep the land clean and free of trash. I think she could diffuse tension, but she never spoke about it, she would enter a room with people fighting and they would just calm down immediately and start discussing things rationally. She made a lot of motivating speeches too actually, got a lot of volunteer groups started on the islands.

“We would travel on the boats together, make sure everything was running smoothly with the treaties and then travel back, we didn’t speak all that much. She had a pretty obvious crush on Ryder so any free time she had she used to spend chasing him around the cliffs.”

“Which box is for Greta?” I said, reading the marker pen scrawl on a few of the nearest shelves.

“Over here,” he said, weaving around piles of boxes on the ground that had no permanent storage place yet. I wondered what was in all these boxes. It couldn’t all be murder victims' belongings, right? I feel like I probably should have looked up some crime statistics before I made my big move out here, then again if some higher power had coerced me to buy the café then it was all out of my control anyway.

I took the box out of Millers hands and set it down on the concrete, lifting the lid and peering in at