Dark Chocolate and Death Read online

  Dark Chocolate and Death

  Pacific Cove Mystery #1

  Samantha Silver

  Blueberry Books Press

  Contents

  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

  Epilogue

  Untitled

  Also by Samantha Silver

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  I will always remember November sixth as being one of the worst days of my life. I think what made it worse is that it wasn’t one of those days that you could see coming. There was no warning. One day, I was Megan Numa: twenty-eight-year-old student studying to be a Healer at one of the most prestigious universities in the paranormal world, Spellford. The next, I was Megan Numa: twenty-eight-year-old pariah daughter of two business owners who had just been arrested for fraud back home in Pacific Cove, a small paranormal village on the Oregon coast.

  The whole awful day had started completely normally. I got up and made my standard breakfast—two eggs, sunny side up, and a container of yogurt—before running out the door and racing to get to my first class. The life of a Healer student was not an easy one. Healers trained for years before they were able to practice, and here I was, twenty-eight and not yet finished my studies. I still had two years to go.

  Of course, it wasn’t as though I was some sort of prodigy or anything like that. The profession of Healer was considered incredibly prestigious, and it was where most of the naturally talented witches and wizards flocked towards, but that certainly didn’t describe me. I wasn’t an idiot, sure, but I also wasn’t one of the smartest witches out there, either.

  I was a hard worker, though. I took pride in the fact that my marks in classes had always been higher than a lot of more naturally talented classmates, simply because I was willing to burn the midnight oil and make the sacrifices necessary to get the marks I needed.

  After all, I saw how hard my parents worked in the family business, making a name for the Numa family in Pacific Cove, working hard so that I, along with my two sisters, could have a good life. They had always wanted me to become a Healer, and I wasn’t about to let them down.

  That was how I found myself flying at breakneck speed to reach my first class of the day—Common Potions and their Effects on Different Paranormal Species. I rushed in, shot a smile at the guy sitting in the seat next to the empty desk I grabbed, and pulled out my notes right as the professor walked in.

  Little did I know then how much my life was about to change.

  When I left the class, I checked my phone, which I had put on silent, as always.

  I had sixteen missed calls from my sister Ashley, and twelve from my other sister, Andrea.

  My heart sank straightaway. What on earth was wrong? Something big had to have happened for them both to be calling me. Had my father’s heart, which had always been a bit weak, finally given out?

  Oh Mars, please no.

  I called my sister back immediately and curled myself up in a little nook in the building I was standing in. After all, if I was about to get the worst news of my life, I didn’t want any of the dozens of students milling around to see my total breakdown.

  “Ashley?” I said as my sister answered her phone. “What’s wrong?”

  “Oh, Meg,” my sister answered, and I could tell she’d been crying. “Mom and Dad have been arrested.”

  I was so shocked I didn’t answer for a minute.

  “Meg?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’m here. What do you mean, arrested?”

  “I mean Chief Enforcer Lupo came into the shop today, complete with like six other Enforcers, and took them away.”

  “Why? What on earth could they have possibly done?”

  “He said they had committed fraud.”

  “What kind of fraud?”

  “I don’t know,” Ashley said, her voice cracking. “He wouldn’t tell me.”

  My mind was spinning. A hundred thoughts passed through at once. My parents, committing fraud? Not a chance. They were two of the most honest people I had ever met. There had to be some kind of mistake.

  But right now, the most important thing was my parents, and taking care of them. What was the first thing you were supposed to do when your parents were arrested? It wasn’t exactly the sort of thing you learned in Healer courses at Spellford.

  “Ashley?”

  “Yeah?” My sister’s voice was hollow, like she’d given up on life.

  “Have you gotten them a lawyer yet?”

  “A lawyer?”

  “Yes. That’s the first thing you have to do. We all know Chief Enforcer Lupo likes to play fast and loose with the rules; he might try and interrogate them before they’ve had a chance to speak to a lawyer. I need you to hang up the phone, call literally any of the criminal lawyer elves in town, and get one of them to go to the prison and see Mom and Dad. Can you do that?”

  “I can, yeah.”

  “Good. Call me back when you’ve done it.”

  “I will. You’re right. Thanks, Meg. You always were the one with a good head on your shoulders.”

  Normally I would have blushed at the compliment, but this was anything but a normal situation. I had way more pressing issues on my mind.

  “I’ll talk to you soon, Ash. I’m on my way home now.”

  As soon as I hung up I leaned against the wall, willing the cool stone to calm me down somewhat. It was time for a few deep breaths. No, I didn’t have time for deep breaths. I had to get home.

  I had another class to go to, but that was the last thing I was thinking about right now. I wouldn’t have been able to focus, anyway.

  Instead, I rushed back to my apartment, packed a bag with a handful of clothes, and rushed over to the closest portal, a small statue of Ariel, the patron of the coven to which Spellford’s founder belonged. In front of the portal was a shifter making sure no one nefarious came in or out.

  “Destination?” she asked, her blonde hair shining in the sun. I recognized this lion shifter, and normally I might have stopped to chat for a minute, but not today.

  “Pacific Cove,” I muttered dully. She nodded and motioned for me to step forward. I touched the statue, and a moment later, I was home.

  Chapter 2

  Pacific Cove was a small town of about two thousand paranormals, set right on the Pacific coast. In the human world, we would be halfway between Portland and Eugene. But, of course, all of the paranormal towns were magically enchanted, so it was impossible for humans to see or get to them.

  The primary portal in town was right on the beach, only steps away from both the main road and the ocean. I stepped off the portal—a huge old piece of driftwood that had been sitting on the beach for years and years—and immediately made my way home.

  Pacific Cove was a cute little town. The tallest building was the chocolate factory my parents owned, at three stories tall, and it was way in the back of town, backing against a small hill, so it was hidden and unobtrusive to the overall skyline. Most of the buildings down here by the beach were single-story wooden bungalows, w
hich were painted in seriously bright colors. The local bakery, for example, was bright blue, next to a bright yellow gift shop and a bright pink clothing store.

  The way the buildings here all had their own personalities was one of the things I loved about this place. To be completely honest, outside of summer, the Oregon coast could be somewhat dreary. The weather forecaster may as well have just stuck with “overcast” as his weather report for about six months of the year, and winter storms often brought the rage of the ocean battering the shores of a town whose coven was ruled by Mars, a fire coven.

  But through all that, the town still shone, and I was thankful for it. Rushing through the main cobbled street of town, I headed away from the beach toward our family home, which stood on the same land as the factory my parents had built about fifteen years ago when their small family chocolate business finally grew too large for them to continue working out of our kitchen.

  My phone rang and I answered as I walked, thankful to hear Ashley’s voice on the other line. “Ok, I got a lawyer to come over,” she told me. “He’s going to be here soon, and he’s agreed to help Mom and Dad.”

  “Good,” I said. “Where are you?”

  “At the factory,” Ashley replied. “I sent everyone home for the day. I didn’t know what else to do. Where are you?”

  “I’m ten minutes away. I’m walking; I didn’t even think to bring my broom.”

  “Ok. Thank Mars. I’ll see you soon.”

  “Where’s Andrea?” I asked, thinking of my other sister. Ashley was the quiet one of the three of us, the one least likely to make a fuss about anything. Andrea was the complete opposite of that.

  “She went down with our parents. Chief Enforcer Lupo tried to stop her, but of course, you know Andrea. She kept going on about how all she was doing was visiting the center of town, and there was nothing he could do to stop her, and if she just so happened to be yelling at Chief Enforcer Lupo, well, there was nothing he could do about that, either.”

  I cracked a smile at that, despite everything. It certainly did sound like Andrea.

  “Right. Well, I’ll come over to the factory. I’ll see you soon.”

  I hung up the phone and continued on. I couldn’t help but notice as I walked through the streets that people were staring at me, and I was sure it wasn’t just because I was supposed to be at Spellford and not home in Pacific Cove. The rumor mill in town had to be working in overdrive already. The problem with small towns like ours was that no information was ever private. Everyone knew everyone’s business, and as soon as literally anything happened in town, it seemed to flow like water to the ears of every single resident.

  Andrea following Chief Enforcer Lupo and hounding him until they got to the Enforcer’s headquarters probably didn’t help very much, either.

  A woman widened her eyes as soon as she saw me then scurried off in the other direction, and I sighed. This really was an awful day.

  A few minutes later, I reached the factory. It was an odd-looking building, there was absolutely no denying that. Originally, the building had been not much more than a cheap shack that my father built with his own hands. My parents had needed a space that was larger than their kitchen to make their chocolates, and that fit the bill perfectly.

  However, over the years, as the company grew, so did the building. My father realized he didn’t have the carpentry skills to expand the place himself, so he hired the job out to someone, who built an extension. Then, a few years later, another floor was added, this time by another builder. And over the years, as the building grew, it got more and more eclectic.

  See, my father was two things: practical and a spendthrift. He didn’t see the point in having a beautiful factory when he could convince the builders to use leftovers from other jobs and the cheap clearance products to build an extension that was just as functional, but which came at a discount. The result was that none of the extensions added to the building looked remotely similar to one another, and so overall the building kind of looked like an abomination created by a child with multiple Lego sets.

  But to my father’s credit, he was right about one thing: the factory did make chocolates just as well as they would have from a building designed by a world-renowned architect.

  There wasn’t a shadow of a doubt that they were good chocolates that my parents made, either. My mother had been making chocolates for herself, for my sisters and I, for my father, and for friends and family for years. She had perfected her recipes, figured out exactly how to add the perfect amount of magic to the velvety smooth chocolate she worked with, and everybody raved about her skills.

  “You should sell these,” everybody always told her. “I bet people would pay a lot of money for chocolate this good.”

  I remembered being little and hearing this conversation over and over. My mom’s reaction was the same every time. Her face would go red, she would get a little bit flustered, and she would always answer exactly the same way. “Oh, Mars, thank you so much. But I just couldn’t. I have the little ones, and I just wouldn’t know where to start.”

  When I turned seven, however, something changed. I didn’t know what it was exactly. I wasn’t sure if all of those years of being told by everybody that she should do it professionally had finally worn my mother down, or if she realized that she could really do it if she set her mind to it, and that there was plenty of information available in the paranormal world about starting a business. Or maybe it was the fact that now my sisters and I were all at the Academy learning to do magic ourselves, giving my mother a lot more free time that she hadn’t had in the past. But whatever the reason, that year, my mother started selling her chocolates, and Pacific Chocolates was born.

  For twenty-one years both of my parents, but especially my mom, poured every inch of their hearts and souls into that business. It went from being a small locally run place one day to one of the primary suppliers of goods to the paranormal world seemingly overnight. I had always enjoyed reading letters that people sent telling my mother how much they enjoyed her chocolates, since we did get fan mail occasionally. To start with, most of the clientele was local or coming from neighboring paranormal towns like Western Woods up in Washington. But then, over time, the range extended. I would be so excited when we received letters from places like England, then South Africa, Australia, Japan, Egypt, and more. My mom’s little company had truly become a worldwide empire.

  And now, as I walked through the doors of the factory, for the first time since I could remember, everything was silent.

  There was no sound of a mortar grinding ingredients in a pestle, no sound of witches and wizards tapping their wands against the cast-iron cauldrons that lined the entire row of tables, creating the potions that would be added to the chocolates for various effects. There was no sound of spells being cast as other witches and wizards magically organized the finished chocolates into adorable little square boxes and then magically cast a spell to have a ribbon wrap around them perfectly. That perfect black-and-red ribbon that had become synonymous with Pacific Chocolates.

  “Meg, I’m so glad you’re here,” Ashley said, rushing down the steps from the second floor, making her way over to me, and taking me in a huge hug. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “It’s going to be okay, Ash,” I told her. “I’m sure it’s just some sort of misunderstanding.”

  “I really hope you’re right,” my sister replied.

  “What are we going to do about this?” I asked, motioning to the factory floor.

  “You always were so much like Dad,” Ashley said. “I bet you he’s thinking exactly the same thing right now.”

  “Well, it is important,” I said. “After all, the factory is the major employer in town; we can’t just shut it down. That would completely destroy the local economy. And besides, people want their chocolate. There’s no reason why this place should be shut down just because Mom and Dad aren’t around for a few days.”

  “That’s true,” Ashley nodded. �
��I did tell all of the workers that they would be paid for today, even though they’re not here.”

  “Good,” I said. “Tomorrow, though, things have to keep going. And when Mom and Dad are back, we need to have a plan in place in case something like this ever happens again.”

  “I’m surprised Dad didn’t,” Ashley said. “His middle name might as well be ‘contingency plan.’”

  I smiled at that, and then I turned my attention to the more pressing matters. “Have you heard from the lawyer? Do you have any information about what’s happening with our parents?”

  Ashley shook her head. “No, I have no idea. Andrea called a little while ago. She said she’s going to find out what she can, and when she comes back, she’s going to let us know what’s going on. What about you? How long are you staying here for? I mean, you have classes and stuff, don’t you?”

  I nodded. It was funny; I really didn’t need all that much time to think about the answer.

  “I’m staying here for as long as is necessary,” I replied. “Family is more important than anything, and I can always go back to Spellford. But I’m not going to sit there and try and continue my studies while Mom and Dad are in jail. We need to sort this out first.”

  Ashley nodded. “Good. I’m not going to lie, I really want you around. You are always so levelheaded.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “If it’s alright with you then, while we wait for Andrea, I’m going to go up to the office and have a look at Mom and Dad’s things. After all, tomorrow the workers are going to come back and expect there to be a job for them to do, and I’m going to make sure that they’re not disappointed.”