A Cold Case Spoiled (Ice Witch Mysteries Book 3) Read online

  A Cold Case Spoiled

  J. L. Collins

  A Cold Case Spoiled © J. L. Collins 2020.

  First Edition.

  All rights reserved. No part of this story may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the copyright holder, except in the case of brief quotations embodied within critical reviews and articles.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  The author has asserted his/her rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book.

  Cover design by Cozy Cover Designs - Molly Burton

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  This is a different dedication this time. With this being my last book of 2020, I just want to say thank you to each and every person who took a chance and read any of my books this year, even through the trying times we’ve all had.

  Your support has made all the difference to me, and with it I was able to handle life throwing several curveballs my way.

  So thank you.

  From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

  More from J. L. Collins

  Spell Maven Mystery Series Order:

  Spell Maven from Spell Haven (Book 1)

  Snitch Witch (Book 2)

  Tragic Magick (Book 3)

  Witch Hazel Lane Mystery Series Order:

  Grits in the Graveyard (Book 1)

  Devil on My Doorstep (Book 2)

  Monsters Under the Magnolia (Book 3)

  Ice Witch Mystery Series Order:

  A Cold Case In Spell (Book 1)

  A Cold Case Froze (Book 2)

  A Cold Case Spoiled (Book 3)

  A Cold Case Spoiled

  Charming Springs - Where every day is colder than a witch’s kitty!

  Reluctantly powerful witch Indie Warren is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Okay, it’s more like she’s stuck between the charming, hunky leprechaun and the brooding reaper with the crooked smile.

  But Indie finds herself distracted despite her current relationship woes, drawn to the mysterious hot springs that have quite literally shown up out of thin air. And in a town cursed with eternal winter, nothing screams front page-worthy than an excuse to break out your bikini…

  As the editor of the local newspaper, Indie really has her work cut out for her when a resident frog shifter turns up facedown in the springs. She and her best friend Goldie immediately start hunting for clues.

  Where did the hot spring come from and how did their victim end up dead within its rotten-smelling waters?

  And perhaps more importantly, can she and Goldie keep their supernatural neighbors from skinny-dipping in the deadly hot springs?

  Contents

  1. A Birthday And A Bribe

  2. Edge Of Frostbite

  3. Familiar Face

  4. Eyes In The Sky

  5. Catch A Skelping

  6. Ready For The Next Step

  7. Wordsmithing

  8. The Shaken History

  9. Press Pass

  10. Dumb Hussy

  11. Anonymous Tip

  12. Cause Of Death

  13. Clubbing

  14. Invite For Tea

  15. And More Research

  16. Like Atlantis

  17. Survival Skills

  18. Best Friends

  19. The Party

  If You Like This Book…

  Series by J. L. Collins

  About the Author

  1

  A Birthday And A Bribe

  The ice sculpture of a wonky-looking owl exploded into a fine powder that rained down to the ground beneath it.

  I squinted, tilting my head to the side. “It’s the legs. I can’t seem to get the legs right.”

  “Hmm, yes, I did notice that. I thought for a moment you might have been trying for a peg-legged pirate.” Fatima came to stand next to me, her head tilted the same way.

  “Not my intention, but noted. Maybe a parrot dressed as a pirate? Anything seems easier than a replica of a real person—ah, friend. I should’ve just stuck with the igloo birdhouse idea. At least it was functional.” And as an earth sign I find that functional is essential.

  “Maybe we don’t tell her about it. She does have a propensity for being vain about things like that, after all. Besides,” Fatima said, wiggling her fingers in front of her until the ice column vaporized into steam, “I told you Goldie wouldn’t like the igloo idea. She’s not fond of feeling tied down to things.”

  I knew this, though my feathered best friend did seem to enjoy having a permanent invite into my camper complete with her own perch inside. But I didn’t point this out.

  “All right, so back to the drawing board with the birthday present. You know, before all of this I was an excellent gift-giver. Ask my friends. They would say the same thing—Indie? That girl? Oh yeah, I remember her. Also, she gave me this one amazing gift I’ll never forget.”

  Fatima’s shoulders shook along with her smile. “I’m sure.”

  “But there’s something about trying to pick the perfect gift for an owl that I can’t wrap my head around. Though it is pretty fun to try.” I focused on the thread of magic I could feel thrumming between my fingers and the snow under my feet.

  With a tug, I sent the snow upwards in a wintry whirl above our heads. The fine snow hung over us like a veil of powder, shielding us from the sunlight through the bare trees around us. A flick of my fingers sent the snow flying across the clearing behind Fatima’s cottage and into a giant heap of sparkly white.

  I grinned.

  “Impressive! Do you see how much easier it is to manipulate snow once you’ve gotten the hang of water?”

  “I wouldn’t say I’ve gotten water down, exactly.” At least if Fatima’s soaking wet rug in the kitchen is any indication.

  “Mistakes happen. At least it wasn’t fire.”

  “This time,” I muttered, dusting flakes from my coat.

  She rolled her eyes but smiled in her usual good-natured way.

  Fatima, being the magic enthusiast and fantastic teacher that she was, was the one who had explained all of it to me months ago during my first real magic lesson.

  Back before we realized just what kind of magic I was dealing with—or magics.

  Funny enough, magic had a lot to do with science. Each element had its own difficulties but they ranged from air being the easiest to manipulate to earth being the most difficult.

  Air consisted of gases and was easy to manipulate once you learned how to grasp it with your magic. The tricky part was doing just that because how do you hold air?

  Fire was easy to manipulate, but also very dangerous. Just as you’d expect, fire moved quickly and it took total understanding to contain it. It wasn’t easy to access, which was the reason why fire-powered witches and wizards carried lighters around with them.

  On the surface, water seemed easy to control. It’s everywhere in some form or another and unlike the other three elements, you could change its state of matter like a switch. Water to vapor to ice and back to water again, if you liked. It was certainly a powerful ability to have in a place like Charming Springs where snow covers a good chunk of the landscape, but water didn’t like to behave.


  Earth…well, it was the most stubborn of the bunch. You had to have some serious strength to work with it because it was solid—underneath you no matter where you step. It also happened to be the first magic I was able to manipulate and work with, which meant that I was now known as an earth witch. The only problem was that I ended up also being an air witch, fire witch, and a water witch. The first of my kind and a secret I intended to keep.

  My frustratingly mediocre grasp of my earth powers made me seem somewhat incompetent to everyone else who didn’t know the real truth. And the irony was not lost on me.

  We headed back to the cottage, ready to call it a day. “I still need to work on a birthday present for Goldie,” I said, wincing as I pushed a stray branch out of the way. “And stretch out my hamstrings. I think my trainer nearly killed me this morning.”

  Fatima adjusted her hijab as she let me past her and through the door. “Oh, I didn’t realize you had kickboxing today. Were you dealing with Cindy or Louise?”

  I snorted. My kickboxing trainer’s name was actually Cindy-Louise but it was a running joke that she was two different people. Cindy being the sweet, supportive one while Louise was over-the-top and high-strung, ready to really push you hard. “Cindy for the most part, but then she started going Louise on me the last ten minutes. I was glad to get the heck out of there. I could’ve wrung my T-shirt out, I swear.”

  “Brave girl. I would’ve been done after the first time. My legs aren’t meant to kick that high,” she said, closing the door behind her.

  I grabbed my keys from the table and spun them around in my hand. “It’s not so bad. It definitely gets the blood pumping, which is pretty nice when I have to be at the Gazette later in the morning.”

  “You had a pretty relaxed week there, right?” she asked as she unwrapped the hijab from around her head, her dark hair like a shiny waterfall down her back. My blue dye job had grown out considerably the past month, but there was no way I could pull off that whole hair model look.

  “Drusilla and I are still talking about finding a new photographer. Henny’s been filling in but, um…”

  She arched a brow. “But…?”

  “Henny and technology shouldn’t be put in the same sentence together. I don’t know how she managed to do it, but she cracked one of the camera bodies. Thankfully it was the paper’s oldest camera because there was no way I was going to give her the newer one, but still. Henny’s good at her job and that’s where she should, uh, focus her efforts.”

  Fatima’s quiet laugh made me smile. “But other than that, it’s been okay?”

  I shrugged. “Can’t complain. It’s been pretty chill, I suppose.”

  The corner of her mouth quirked up. “Mm-hmm. You mean pretty boring?”

  I shot her a look. “Hey, there’s nothing wrong with typing up birthday posts and reporting the weather for the week. Not that it ever changes.”

  “No, not at all! You just prefer the edge-of-your-seat stuff.”

  “What? No way. I mean, yeah, I would rather be up and moving around and out there around town than cooped up in the stuffy newsroom. And being bored is not my favorite thing—but,” I said, cutting her off before she could laugh, “I would also like to not worry about someone trying to kill me.”

  The corners of her brown eyes crinkled. “Sensible.”

  I banged the top of the older-than-dirt coffee machine with my fist until the thing finally lurched to life. All I could do was roll my eyes as the coffee drained into my cup slower than molasses.

  “It might not be in the budget today, but you can bet your sweet sass that I’m going to replace you with something from this century when I get the chance.” The machine let out a squelching sound, obviously mocking me.

  Grabbing my mug, I blew across the top of it and headed into the newsroom, stopping short and nearly sloshing the hot liquid all over the floor as I ran into Henny. She was standing not five feet in front of me wearing the usual impassive expression on her wide face.

  “Oh gosh, you scared me,” I said with a nervous chuckle despite the lack of a response. “Are those for the budget?” I nodded to the neat stack of paperwork tucked under her arm.

  Henny yanked it out and shoved it toward me with a grunt.

  Okay, then. “Right. Did you want to go ahead and sit down at my desk and...” I trailed off as she shook her head and pointed toward the hallway that led to her office. “All right, your office it is.” I wasn’t about to boss around the only person who knew how to expertly crunch numbers in this place.

  Just as I suspected, going over the paper’s budget with Henny wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. She may have said a word or two but walking out of there, I wasn’t sure whether I’d imagined it or not.

  The front door of the newsroom opened and in strolled Drusilla with some bounce in her light steps. She flashed me a fanged smile, waving her blood-red manicured fingers. “Morning, Indie.”

  I smiled back. “Morning, Dru. How was your weekend?”

  Before I took the reins at the Charming Springs Gazette, Drusilla was scrambling around to keep the place going after the last editor-in-chief kicked the bucket right outside my camper door. That meant she was the first person in and the last person to leave—not an ideal schedule for a vampire. Now that she came in midday, she was ready to get right to work. After a quick cup of, well…the red stuff.

  She flipped her long black hair over one shoulder with a cheeky grin. “Oh, you know, same old. Alina and I were out with some friends. They got the brilliant idea to go check out the new hot spring.” She shook her head. “That place is trippy. Alina’s new guy wound up trying to jump off the rockface above it and make it into the spring.”

  I gasped. “Oh my gosh. Was he okay?”

  “He was fine—a fairy, you know. But it was so weird. She said he hates heights and suddenly the guy’s jumping from almost one-hundred feet in the air?”

  “That’s definitely weird. But I wouldn’t be surprised if people are a little stir-crazy, especially around something shiny and new.” And I knew a thing or two about being shiny and new to a small town of supernaturals. “I have to say, your sister sure knows how to pick them.”

  “The last one was worse, trust me. They were only really dating for three or four weeks when she wanted to get matching tattoos. Alina was horrified! So she made up some excuse and backed out of it but it’s not easy having exes in a town where everyone’s stuck, you know?”

  I pulled a face. “I never really thought about that but yeah, I guess not.” Running into my ex-fiancé would’ve been terribly awkward considering the whole cheating on me thing.

  I hardly had the chance to sit down at my desk when someone knocked on the front doors of the building. A rush of cold air shoved its way past the doors as they swung inward. Hovering several inches above the ground, a beautiful blonde woman with gossamer wings fluttering behind her floated into the newsroom. Her long blonde hair was perfectly curled, with her short lavender dress matching the giant bow on top of her head.

  “Amortencia?” Drusilla and I spoke at the same time.

  Amortencia Fell’s lips drew up into a measured smile and she folded her long fingers together in front of her. “Hello. Did I come at a bad time?”

  It was hard to answer this considering she was the representative and apparent princess of the fairies on the Special Council. “Oh no, we were just talking about the weekend. It’s been another nice and easy week here as I’m sure you know,” I said with an equally polite expression. Amortencia said it herself—she had eyes and ears everywhere. There was no doubt she didn’t keep some sort of tabs on us here.

  She nodded. “Something I think we can all be thankful for. That’s actually part of the reason why I’m here.”

  “Oh?” Drusilla said, coming back over toward my desk. The vampires and fairies got along well enough, but after Amortencia’s disastrous work-for-hire deal where we nearly died at the hands of a certain crazy fairy, Drusilla was much more guard
ed around her.

  The sound of thicker, heavier wings flapping in the wind caught our attention and all three of us looked toward the front where Goldie’s feathered body zoomed past.

  I didn’t need to ask if something was wrong—her gold eyes said it all. When Amortencia turned back toward me Goldie silently nodded her short beak in her direction. Something was up with the sudden arrival. And it didn’t bode well.

  “Hello,” Goldie added a few moments later, settling on the edge of my desk. “I was just getting in some dives. Sorry I’m a little out of breath.”

  Without acknowledging Goldie, Amortencia met my gaze. “I know you may feel you have reason not to trust me at this point, and it is certainly regrettable on my part.” Her mouth formed a tight line. “But I want to propose something to the two of you and I’d like you to hear me out.”

  Did we really have a choice? I sighed. “We’ll listen. I can’t guarantee we’ll be able to help you but we’ll listen.” It was the best halfway answer I could give. Drusilla folded her pale arms out in front of her with a nod.

  “I thank you,” Amortencia inclined her head ever so slightly. “I have heard that you are once again looking to hire someone to help out here at the paper.”

  My stomach clenched right along with my jaw.

  “I know it sounds a bit like tempting the fates but I thought maybe you would be willing to work with one of my constituents. Not related, of course. He’s merely a fairy I know who needs help with getting back on his feet. Wait—wait!”