Pet Psychic Mysteries Boxset Books 5-8 (Magic Market Mysteries Book 2) by Erin Johnson (reading diary .TXT) 📗

Her husband (I assumed) paused his grumbling and turned to her. “What?”

She jerked her head in our direction, and he startled and did a double take at Peter’s uniform.

They both looked at each other, threw their heads back, and yelled, “Joe!” at the same time. Then they promptly returned to loading up the cart with pots, cauldrons, and crates full of slightly wilted greens.

Peter and I exchanged confused looks. How had they known we were looking for Mr. Joe “Something” himself?

A young man, probably in his late twenties, sauntered out of the servants’ entrance. He was short, but his tank top revealed muscled arms wrapped in colorful tattoos that wound all the way up his neck. He wore a dirty waist apron, and as he made his way toward us, in no particular hurry apparently, he used it to wipe a chef’s knife clean of blood.

My stomach clenched, and I recalled Chaz mentioning that Joe had recently gotten out of prison. I edged a little closer to Peter and his broad shoulders, then glanced over at the sniffling Daisy. Even on her best day, I doubted she’d do much to defend me from a killer. Bark her head off and point them in my direction was more like it.

The guy looked up, caught me staring at the knife, and smirked. I sucked on my lips. Yeesh. He definitely had the whole hot, bad boy thing down. I bit back a smile as I thought of the sobbing Chaz wrapped in a blanket. He didn’t give off the manliest of vibes. No wonder he found Joe threatening… in more ways than one, I’d bet.

“Relax.” He held up the now clean knife, its blade glinting in the moonlight. “Letty died of an allergy, not a stabbing. This is pigs’ blood.”

I flashed a tight smile. So comforting.

“Are you Joe?”

The kid glared up at Peter. “Who’s asking?”

I flashed my eyes at Peter. Sassy.

He leveled Joe a serious stare. “I’m Officer Flint, this is my partner, Daisy—”

Joe lifted an incredulous eyebrow.

“—and consultant Ms. Hartgrave.”

He made eyes at me. “Ms, huh?”

A hot flush spread up my neck in spite of myself. This guy was good.

I caught Peter looking between Joe and me with his brow pinched and took a breath. “Are you Letty’s childhood friend Chaz told us about? The one recently released from prison?”

That seemed to snap Peter out of his confusion. He turned to face Joe again.

The bad boy sniffed and looked to the side. “Yeah, I did my time for robbery—and now I’m out.” He shook his head. “And that eel would tell you that.” He widened his stance. “Me and Letty were childhood sweethearts.”

I raised my brows. Were you, now? This was getting more interesting. I watched Joe carefully—was he a shifter also? Had he known Letty was one?

“Why did Letty choose you to cater the event?” Peter’s quill scratched away at the scroll magically hovering beside him.

I crossed my arms. “Yeah, Joe. It wasn’t awkward catering your ex’s wedding?”

He sniffed and looked off toward the woods at the edge of the lawn, then waggled his thick dark brows at us. “Maybe she wanted to see a little more of me.” He looked me up and down, and I scrunched up my face.

Okay. This was getting to be a little much.

Peter glared at Joe. “Is that it? Because Chaz seemed to think your family could use the money.”

Joe’s nostrils flared. “Yeah, you know what, my family did need the money.” He pointed at Peter (thankfully with his knife-free hand). “But that guy’s a douche. I insisted we turn down the job, even despite the great pay—I mean, who wants to attend an ex’s wedding as ‘help,’ right?”

I raised my brows. “No kidding. If you turned it down, why are you and your parents here?”

He glanced behind him at the older folks, then turned back to us, slightly softened. “It was just like Letty to want to help out. You know she was going to school during the day and working nights at the country club?”

Peter and I exchanged surprised looks.

“She was going places—she didn’t need a hand up from these people.” Joe turned his head and spat on the lawn. “She was a good person—she wanted to help us out. Plus, Letty told me she wanted a familiar face there.” He scoffed. “Can you believe they didn’t let her invite any of her own people?”

Yeah, I’d thought that was pretty weird too, but decided to push Joe a little bit. “Chaz told us she understood.” I shrugged.

He scoffed and waved the knife around. Beside me, Peter’s hand twitched to the wand tucked in his belt.

“And you buy that? They pressured her into it!” He threw his tattooed arms up. “I’m sure it’d be unseemly for a bunch of Darkmoonies to crash this elite, highbrow shindig.” He shook his head and let his arms drop to his sides. “Poor Letty—I don’t think she had any idea what she was getting into with these people.”

I bit the inside of my cheek. I’d had the same thought earlier.

Peter’s hand still hovered near his wand. “Were you aware of Letty’s strawberry allergy? Did any of your dishes contain them?” He cocked a brow. “We’ll be checking.”

Joe looked scandalized. “No way! And of course I knew about her allergy.”

“Then why didn’t you let Chaz check?” I flashed my eyes at him. “He said you wouldn’t let him look into certain pots.”

“That idiot tried to ‘examine’ everything we were cooking!” Joe’s mom paused, wand in hand, with a line of pots floating midair on their way to the cart. “He kept taking the lids off and ruining things.”

Joe’s dad threw a couple of crates into the back of the cart. “This stuff has to slow cook—he just about messed up the pork adobo!”

My mouth watered, and I rose on my toes to look past Joe at the pots of food. “Pork adobo?”

“Mm-hmm.” Joe’s mom waved me over. “Come see.”

“Jolene…”

I