Poison and Pinot (A Paranormal Cozy Mystery) (California Witching Book 2) Read online

  “Definitely, and trust me, it’s not just a saying,” Karen said with a bit of a smile. “Luckily, this week we’ve only had two intakes, including your little guy. There are fourteen other cats here, already. Hopefully the adoption fair coming up next month will help find some of these little guys a new home.”

  Karen and I walked over and looked at a fluffy gray cat currently clawing away at the scratching post in one of the corners. According to the sign posted outside of his kennel, which Karen pointed out to me, his name was Murphy.

  "Hi, Murphy. You having fun?" I laughed. I leaned against the kennel, almost forgetting to tell Karen about the debacle from earlier. I twisted a piece of stray red hair around my finger, shaking my head to myself. "Oh, I totally forgot to tell you what happened to me this morning,” I started, but Karen groaned before I could continue.

  "Seriously? Who leaves their shoe in the middle of the —AHHHH!" she shrieked at the top of her lungs, peeking around the far end of the kennel.

  Alarmed, I looked around to see what she saw and my jaw dropped as I tried in vain to draw in another breath. It was nearly impossible.

  It wasn't just someone’s shoe — it was a whole someone. Someone who was lying on the ground with her face turned to the side, eyes wide open and glassy, but not seeing. I didn't know who the older blonde woman was, but I knew from the way she was positioned on the floor that she was most definitely not breathing.

  I dropped to my knees, not thinking, just focusing on pulling up every bit of my magic. It surrounded the woman in an invisible blanket, cocooning her as it tried to sink into her and work its way through her. But I could feel the resistance, feel the way the magic was unable to penetrate for the very first time, and I knew for sure that I was too late. I leaned back on my heels, blinking. This woman was definitely beyond my healing powers. She was dead.

  The sound of kennels rattling into each other from behind me made me turn, only to see Karen pressed against them in total shock.

  I jumped up and shook my best friend, gently. It took a moment for Karen to finally come back to me, her face ashen.

  "Who is she?" I asked, knowing she must have recognized the woman at our feet.

  Karen sucked in a breath, throwing her arms around me.

  "It's Lisa Lim! Oh my god, I was just talking to her before you got here! I don’t know what could have happened to her," Karen said, tears coming to her eyes.

  I had no idea who Lisa Lim was since I'd only moved to Rosemary Creek a few months ago, but I rubbed Karen's back consolingly anyway.

  "Okay, okay. We need to call the police. There's nothing we can do for her now. Is anyone else here today, working with you? Someone else we need to tell?"

  She quickly nodded her head. "It's just me here right now, but Portia is out running errands and will be back soon," she said in a small voice. Then, as if some sort of thought had just struck her upside the head, Karen’s eyes flew open even wider. "Oh my God, Taylor, what if they think I did this?"

  I pulled out my phone, shaking my head as I punched in 911. "I wouldn't worry about that," I whispered to her before the operator picked up. "Yes, um, we need an ambulance and the police to Gilly Mills Animal Sanctuary in Rosemary Creek, as soon as possible. I think we just found a body."

  In a flurry of panic, Karen rushed out of the cattery, leaving the door wide open. It didn't take a rocket scientist to know she was heading toward the bathroom. I couldn't exactly blame her, it wasn’t every day you came across a dead body. And judging by the way Karen said her name, Lisa Lim must have been someone she knew and liked. I took in another deep breath and gave the emergency dispatcher all the information she needed before hanging up. I was advised to stay put and wait for the police to show up since it was technically a crime scene until the cops said otherwise.

  Deciding to wait for Karen, I found the bathroom and stood outside of it, squatting down against the wall, trying to focus on my breathing. I wasn’t exactly used to coming across dead bodies, either.

  A sliver of light flickered underneath the bathroom door as Karen finally came back out a few minutes later, looking pale and clammy.

  "I'm so sorry Karen," I told her. "Did you know Lisa?"

  She nodded, her pointy chin quivering. "Yes. We all did. She was our biggest donor — she's actually one of the richest women in town. She was the one who gave us the money to finish up the cattery renovation and she was just a really sweet person. She usually comes in once a week to play with the kittens and other cats. We like to encourage socializing with the animals, so we set up three days a week where community members can come in and interact with them for a couple hours at a time. It was actually Lisa's idea. She'd done a ton of research on the subject. She was a cat person in case you couldn't tell. I just can't believe she's gone. Just like that," Karen said, silent tears running freely down her face.

  I threw my arm back around her, squeezing her gently. "I'm really sorry. She sounded like a nice lady."

  But Karen slid out from under my arm, still looking shaken. "Taylor, I just have this bad feeling. It was so weird – I was just talking to her not even twenty minutes before you pulled up in the drive. She seemed fine then. She was going on about how excited she was about the cattery finally being open. And then this happens. You don't think the police will think it’s suspicious?"

  "No way. She looks like she may have been in her fifties, right?"

  "Yeah, probably something like that."

  "Well, there you go. It could have been something like a heart attack—you never know. Those things happen really fast. It didn’t look like, um, anything had happened to her." I glanced back around the corner to where I had closed the cattery door behind me, not wanting the cats to escape. “I’m sure it was just a heart attack or something.”

  Chapter 3

  It didn't take long for the police to show up, Chief Benson’s squad car rolling up to the front of Gilly Mills only five minutes later. He got out of the car and reached for his walkie-talkie, muttering something into it before walking over to the two of us.

  "Where is she, Karen?" he asked her softly.

  The wailing siren of the ambulance echoed from further down the road, and Karen wrapped her arms around herself, looking down at the ground. "She's in our cattery. I'll show you."

  As we made our way to the cattery, we cleared away any extra boxes and stuff that filled the hallway in order to make more space for the paramedics to push their gurney between the doors.

  "Can you please tell me the events leading up to finding Mrs. Lim’s body?" another officer - named Capps, going by the name badge on his uniform - asked, pulling out a small notebook.

  Karen chewed on her lip for a second before drawing in a shaky breath and nodding, steeling herself before she finally met his eyes.

  "I got here first thing this morning at eight o'clock. I opened up since Maxine has the day off, and Portia was out running errands for the shelter. I think she’s somewhere in Sonoma. It was just a normal day." We both watched as the paramedics rushed into the cattery, big medical kits in both of their hands.

  I knew they wouldn’t be able to help. My stomach sank.

  Karen went on to explain everything she did from the time she clocked in, until she had just finished going over their food inventory for the animals when Lisa Lim showed up.

  "When did you first see Mrs. Lim? Or was the first time you saw her when you found her lying here?" Officer Capps asked her.

  "She came in I guess probably forty-five minutes ago. She comes in once a week to play with the cats, mainly. She seemed totally fine when she came in, she was even telling me about how she was thinking of adopting another cat. She has three at home, you know."

  "And when did you find her?" He flipped to the next page of his little notebook without looking up.

  "Right before we called 911," I offered. "Not even fifteen minutes ago."

  "And what about you? How long have you been here?" he turned to me as if he only just realize
d I was standing there, too.

  I knew I didn't have anything to do with what happened to poor Lisa, but I couldn’t help feeling like I was being interrogated. I cleared my throat and took a deep breath before answering.

  "I got here I don’t know, maybe twenty minutes ago. I was bringing a kitten in that Karen’s mom found abandoned behind the grocery store, and I talked to Karen for a couple of minutes before we came into the cattery. I hadn’t been here since the renovation had been finished, so Karen wanted to show it off. That was when we found her. Just like that," I explained, nodding in the direction of Lisa's body. "We called 9-1-1 basically straight away."

  Officer Capps gave another curt nod, turning his back to us and facing Chief Benson.

  The paramedics tried to revive Lisa, but it was obvious even before they slowly put their equipment away that it had been no use. If my healing powers hadn’t been able to save Lisa, there was no way even modern medicine would have managed it, either.

  "Thank you for your statement, Miss Mortran," Chief Benson said gruffly as he walked over. "And you too, Miss Dean. You two are free to go now."

  A weird sort of weight lifted from off my shoulders and I thanked Chief Benson and Officer Capps, leading Karen out into the main lobby where we could get away from what was happening. "We should probably call Portia and Maxie, right?"

  The door to the front lobby burst open and a curvy woman with a mess of blonde curls and a black shawl thrown over her white sweater and chinos entered, her eyes flashing

  "Karen! Karen? What's going on in here? Nobody would tell me anything outside."

  More tears slid down Karen’s face and she shook her head so fast I thought it would spin right off her shoulders.

  Portia Russo, a pretty woman in her mid-forties who had a big heart when it came to animals, was a co-owner of Gilly Mills. I’d rarely seen her around—usually it was Maxie I ran into when I came around. From what Karen had said about her, she was pretty reserved, but got a lot of the day-to-day office stuff done.

  I knew Karen didn't want to go back into the cattery, but Portia was already rushing past her, following the sound of everyone's voices down the hall.

  "Wait, Portia!" Karen cried after her, and the two of us took off to get to her before she came upon the unfortunate scene in the cattery.

  "What is it? Tell me what's going on right now," she ordered. Karen simply sniffled, wiping at her face with the sleeve of her shirt.

  "It's Lisa. She was just playing with the cats. We went in there so I could show Taylor the renovation and everything, and we found her on the ground. She's gone. I don't know what happened."

  Portia’s face fell. "Gone?" she muttered quietly, almost to herself.

  "She's dead," Karen blurted out, clapping her hand over her mouth, as if it would have been less real if she hadn’t said the words. "I'm sorry."

  Looking a little unfocused, Portia leaned against the doorway, shaking her head. "How? What happened to her?"

  I shrugged. "We don't know yet. My best guess is a heart attack," I offered. "Karen was telling me about how Lisa was the one who funded most of the renovation project in here. I'm very sorry. I'm sure she probably meant a lot to everyone around here."

  Portia let out a horrid sound, swallowing it back down with a sob.

  "Meant a lot? She’s the main reason we’re still open. Sure, we have plenty of donors here and there, and everyone likes to show up for the adoptions and to help out from time to time, but Lisa? She was an angel. What she did for the cats here, no one else would have or could have done. She donated money month after month." She turned and looked at Karen, worry lines crinkling at the corner of her eyes. "I don't know what to do. Without those donations, well, I just can't believe this is happening. Poor Lisa.”

  “Don’t worry,” Karen told Portia. “Things will work out for sure. You and Maxine ran this place before Lisa was a regular donor, and you’ll manage again.”

  “I suppose you're right. But I can't help but worry. This isn't good. This isn't good at all." The three of us stood in the doorway for a moment before Portia sighed. "I want to at least see her. I just feel terrible. Lisa was such a kind-hearted woman."

  I looked over and Karen nodded, following after Portia slowly as she made her way towards the body. She spoke to one of the paramedics for a moment, who eventually removed the sheet covering the body. It was hard not to look down and see what was going on, and when the female paramedic moved and I got a view of Lisa's face, I realized something.

  "Is it normal for someone's eyes to be so red?" I asked out loud, squinting. I hadn’t noticed before – I had been in such a panic – but Lisa's eyeballs weren't just bloodshot, they looked downright red instead of white. I had never seen anything like it before. "What does that mean?"

  The paramedic glanced up at me after she realized I was actually asking her, but she shrugged.

  "No idea. I've never seen anything like it in a heart attack patient before."

  "So it was a heart attack?" Karen asked, moving out of the way as another couple of paramedics arrived on the scene with the gurney.

  "We can't give an actual prognosis until the autopsy. But this woman was in her fifties, her skin is clammy with a cold sweat, and her jaw is shut tightly. It's a common way to go, unfortunately."

  Still, I couldn’t help but think the paramedic sounded a bit funny, as if maybe she didn't believe her own words. I frowned, looking down at Lisa's stiff body again.

  What if this wasn't a case of death by natural causes after all?

  Chapter 4

  Maybe it was how quickly it happened. Maybe it was because Karen was so freaked out. Or maybe it was because of the way the paramedics didn’t seem one hundred percent convinced about Lisa Lim’s cause of death, but something sat wrong in my stomach.

  I never really gave any thought to how fast these things could happen. One minute you're sitting in a car, listening to music on the way to the movies, the next minute you're plowed into by someone who fell asleep at the wheel, like the case had been for my parents. Life had a way of snatching you away without a moment to spare, and while I knew that it could very well have been a heart attack which took Lisa Lim from this world, I still wasn’t one hundred percent convinced. Not after seeing her eyes.

  I nudged Karen when I saw her face was no longer wet with tears. "Hey. Did you see that?"

  "See what?"

  I lowered my voice, leaning down by her ear. "Her eyes. Did they seem a little weird to you?"

  "I didn't really notice. Why? What was weird about them?"

  "How red they were. Like all the blood vessels in her eyes had burst or something. This one time I was at a park by our house when I was a kid, and I slipped and fell from the monkey bars. I got a black eye and this blood vessel was all red and crazy looking in my left eye," I whispered, pointing to the spot where I'd stared for days on end before it finally faded away. "Both of her eyes looked completely blood red. I've never seen anything like it before."

  Karen took another quick look as the paramedics loaded Lisa’s body onto the gurney, her eyes immediately darting away. As Karen clutched her stomach, mine panged with guilt for having mentioned it to her.

  "So, it’s a bit weird. Nothing about a heart attack is normal, though, really."

  "Maybe it’s nothing," I mumbled, almost more to myself than to her, looking between the group of police officers standing around and the paramedics who were now pulling a white sheet over Lisa's body, before jacking the gurney up. “Still, I’d like to know for sure.”

  My eyes were drawn to a small black purse, lying about a foot away from where Lisa's head had been. It must have been hers. I couldn't shake the feeling that maybe we were missing something, but everything was happening so fast that I knew I wouldn't get a chance to really look into any of it further if I didn't stall, somehow.

  I turned to Karen. "Quick! What's that spell for telekinetic abilities? Like to reach out and touch things without actually touching the
m?" I hissed.

  Confused, Karen looked around to make sure no one was paying attention to us. "It's telekinroa. Why?” She narrowed her brown eyes at me. “What are you doing, Taylor?"

  "We need to get her purse, but they're about to pick it up for evidence. Distract them!"

  "How?" Karen mouthed as she walked over to hold the door open for the paramedics as they left with Lisa’s body.

  I waited until she’d let the door shut and I looked casually over my shoulder at the red button by the window. An idea sprang to mind and I smiled.

  "The fire safety button," I whispered, earning myself a strange look from Karen.

  "Are you crazy? How are we going to—"

  "Telekinroa," I whispered, just loud enough for the two of us to hear. I focused on that red button, and all of a sudden a loud buzzer went off, tripping a flashing red light I’d had no idea was there. The whole thing had a real prison-break kind of vibe to it, and all at once the dozens of kennel doors went flying open, clanging backward and scaring the absolute bejeezus out of all four of the officers, Karen, and all of the cats.

  A split second later, a tidal wave of dozens of bewildered, hissing cats filled the room, followed by the frantic cries of shock from everyone else as the cats flung themselves every which way to break loose. Hackles were raised and fur was flying!

  "Taylor," Karen growled in my direction, taking a second to glare at me before taking off in a flurry to try and grab as many cats as she could, yelling out apologies to the officers, most of whom seemed rather flustered. Karen began placing cats back into the kennels one by one, but there were so many of them, and they were all so agile and, well, cat-like, that it quickly became evident that it was a mostly-futile effort. Now that they had had a taste of freedom, these cats weren’t about to get corralled back into captivity.

  "How on earth? What kind of alarm system is this?" Officer Capps screeched, backing away from a couple of advancing felines. Judging by the way he was curling up into the corner, trying to make himself into a little ball, I had a feeling Officer Capps wasn’t a cat person.