A Cold Case in Spell Read online

  A Cold Case In Spell

  J. L. Collins

  A Cold Case In Spell © 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 book is dedicated to a beautiful place that I will always cherish in my heart.

  Raven’s Roost Overlook, in Lyndhurst, Virginia.

  Thanks for the butterflies and memories.

  <3

  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 - coming July 29th, 2020!)

  Contents

  1. Cold Day In July

  2. Eleven Years Froze

  3. The LARPer

  4. The Special Council

  5. Wood Hag

  6. Avalanche

  7. Ten Minutes

  8. The Collector

  9. Evidence

  10. Stealth

  11. A Balance In Nature

  12. The Case Of The Iced Witch

  13. Pokey Moe’s

  14. Ye Olde Guru

  15. Scandalous

  16. A Twist Of Fate

  17. Served Him Right

  18. Gone Full Sherlock

  19. Lazy Magic

  20. Southern Hospitality

  21. A True Witch

  22. Gilded Lake

  23. Wrinkle In The Plan

  24. Delicacy

  25. Winter Jasmine

  26. The Road Ahead

  If You Like This Book…

  Series by J. L. Collins

  About the Author

  1

  Cold Day In July

  The pop star’s sickly-sweet voice warbled over the static of Nan’s old Ford Ranger’s stereo for only a few bars before I pounded my fist down on the dash. The static cleared up right away, but her voice grated my nerves even more. Figured.

  The very last thing I wanted to hear on my self-prescribed solitary road trip was how some girl was in love with some chump she just met. I white-knuckled the wheel.

  “Sorry, Selena Gomez, but it’s going to be a no from me.”

  I turned the dial way down until I was met with a satisfying click. There. The silence wasn’t really such a bad companion.

  The inside of my cheek was raw from my chewing it over the past one hundred miles or so. I poked at it with my tongue, wincing. I needed a new bad habit to pass the time with.

  Miles and miles of highway stretched between me and… well, I wasn’t sure of where just yet. In my head, I could picture a hazy scene of me lounging by the lakeside—a hot lifeguard to my left and an even hotter lifeguard to my right, but with a man-bun. Perhaps one of my favorite mojitos in hand. Jo, my Nan’s neighbor, always joked on me, calling me a hipster because of my love for minty booze. But the joke’s on her, because it takes exactly one and a half of my extra-strength ‘minty booze’ drinks to leave me feeling good while it takes at least five or six of her skunky beers.

  Yeah, no thanks. At thirty-six I couldn’t afford a whole weekend’s worth of recuperating from one night out anymore.

  Okay. Back to hottie one and man-bun hottie number two…

  I eased my grip on the steering wheel as I came around a slow bend in the road. The heat from mid-day July encased me and my poor truck, so I was happy to see the shadows under the trees on either side of the road. The scenic byway I took on a whim was a chance to slow down and enjoy the views, with one side of the rising elevation a grassy and rocky face covered in wildflowers. I recognized the butterfly weed and mountain laurel thanks to Nan’s lessons in the greenhouse.

  Purple coneflower for the immune system. Don’t touch the hogweed. The Black-eyed Susans are good luck as they’re the state flowers. Witch Hazel is great for stings and cleaning your face.

  Under the covering of thick treetops reaching across the road to commingle with one another, the temperature was cooler, the sun’s blinding light kinder. I pushed my sunglasses up and leaned forward to get a better look at the wooden sign ahead.

  “Great Wide Hill, 3 miles. Charming Springs, 2.2 miles. Huh.”

  A hill was great and all, but I was definitely leaning more toward the sound of Charming Springs. Was it a waterfall? I couldn’t recall seeing it on the map of Western North Carolina I picked up at the last gas station.

  “Guess we’ll find out in two miles.”

  The road sign showed a split ahead, with the main byway continuing straight ahead on the level elevation, while the rickety old sign half hanging on its post that read ‘Welcome to Charming Springs,’ had me making a slight left turn to go further up the side of the mountain.

  I had to take it easy chugging up the steeper terrain with Nan’s truck, which gave me even more time to think.

  I couldn’t remember when I came to the conclusion that my life in D.C. was for lack of a better term, sucky. I’ve lived there for a grand total of seven years and for some reason it took my fiancé cheating on me with his mailroom clerk a whole month before our wedding, for me to snap out of it. D.C. was never home for me. Not with its sky-high rent and crowded everything.

  It was the exact opposite of everything I loved in life, yet I made the move for a job I didn’t even really like, to live closer to friends who were never there for me. So maybe it was just fate that I attracted a jerk like Gavin, who couldn’t have stayed faithful. Two whole years devoted to him and there they went out the window, just like the expensive virtual reality set I’d just bought him last Christmas.

  That was a real showstopper, yanking open the window and throwing it out like yesterday’s trash. I didn’t know whose face was more surprised. His or mine.

  There I went with the chewing again.

  Really this trip was a much-needed breather for me. A chance to get away from the crazy hustle and bustle of the city. And Nan… she’d done me the most perfect kind of solid anyone could ask for.

  Now that she was living in that fancy condo inside that fancy retirement community, she didn’t have the space for the truck or the camper. So she snatched my car keys from me and tossed me hers.

  “Take Big Ben. The camper too. You’ll need somewhere to live while you’re out there.”

  “Out where?” I’d said with one hand on my hip, clutching the keys, uncertain.

  She’d jutted her chin in the general direction of the front porch. “Out there. Away from all that mess you’ve been in, and on the open road. I better see some ‘Wish you were here’ postcards, Indie girl.”r />
  I’d smiled at her, doing my very best not to tear up. A blessing in disguise, is what she’d called Gavin’s affair. That he was a numbskull and many more colorful words than that. She told me I was free to go and do whatever I wanted and that I didn’t need to stick around just to worry over her.

  She knew me too well.

  Nan was raised on a farm in Cumberland, Maryland and it showed. The woman worked hard, even at eighty years-old, and she’d been the one to primarily raise me while my own mother went and did all the wrong things in life. After my Granddaddy died when I was fourteen, it was just me and Nan.

  I already missed her long white and faded copper hair pulled back in its usual braid. The sunhat she kept perched low over her brow while she worked in the garden, and the way her freckled skin had turned to a ruddy tan on her arms and hands over the years. I always chided her about not wearing sunscreen when she was outside, but she was stubborn as a mule.

  Nope. I wasn’t about to start crying yet again on this supposed spirit quest I was sending myself on. It wasn’t like I couldn’t drive back to see her whenever I felt like it.

  I glanced in the rearview, happy to see that my favorite mascara was still holding up. Pushing the wavy blue locks out of my face, I sighed. After getting my hair chopped off into a cute wavy bob, I decided to bite the bullet and dye it blue after hemming and hawing over it for weeks. The blue was in stark contrast to my natural white blonde hair and while my quirky writer friends all raved about it, the Chair of the English and Creative Writing Department wasn’t particularly a fan. According to Dr. Dennings, as an Assistant Professor I should have a more professional appearance.

  Guess it was a good thing I did most of my work online.

  A loud ding rattled me from my thoughts, and I looked down at the gas tank on the dash and groaned. The little red arrow was hovering over ‘E.’

  “Hope this place has a gas stop.” My stomach growled. “And some nachos.”

  A night in Ocean City with Emily, my roommate in college, popped up like a weird soap bubble floating across the surface of my memories. The gas station nachos had been a very, very bad choice.

  “Okay, maybe not nachos…”

  The tree line dropped off on one side as Big Ben climbed the incline, and I did my best to pretend that the low guardrail on that side would be enough to keep me safe from driving off the edge of the road. I didn’t have a whole lot of experience with mountain driving and my stomach was still debating whether it was just hungry or nervous. Or a weird mixture of both.

  Ahead, there was another sign, this time painted a cheerful blue with white letters splashed across the front and a bunch of hand-painted flowers curling around the words. ‘Charming Springs Welcomes You! Population: 1313’

  Huh. Small town, then. Maybe they still had a pretty waterfall tucked away somewhere.

  The bend in the road came unexpectedly, and my heart leapt up my throat as I quickly cut the steering wheel to the left, Big Ben lurching to a slow as I accidentally let off the gas and switched over to the brake. Carefully I pressed back down on the gas with a groan. My driver’s ed teacher would not be impressed.

  The truck continued its climb, but it wasn’t hard to pick up on the weight of the camper in tow. Gravity had a firm grasp on it, and I had to bring my foot all the way down on the gas pedal just to keep going up. How far did this road go up the side of this stupid mountain, anyway?

  The road seemed to twist deeper into the side of the mountain until both sides of the road were bordered by thick trees that overhung above me again. Was it my imagination, or did the spaces between the trees close in, blocking more and more of the sunlight?

  Something prickled along my spine. The a/c in the truck wasn’t great but it suddenly felt too cold all at once. The temperature difference between here and the beginning of the road was stark. Weird elevation issues, I guess.

  The further down the road I went, the colder I got. And the straight shot of the road ahead looked like it finally emerged through the overhanging tunnel of trees surrounding me, with bright sunlight lighting up and washing out everything in the distance. I must be close to town…

  My breath hung in the air as the windshield fogged up so fast that I had to slow down yet again and crack the windows. The defrost was thankfully working in the beat-up truck and when the windshield cleared I realized I was much closer to the opening in the trees.

  With the windows cracked, icy air blew into the cab. My bare arms and pretty much everywhere else broke out into frantic goosebumps. Red flags went off in my head—something wasn’t right here.

  I slowly pulled into the washed-out light of what I hoped was the town of Charming Springs. An interesting choice in name, for sure.

  The light that I thought led to an opening in the trees was just a trick of the light. It was bright but the sun was invisible behind the heavy gray clouds hanging low in the sky. It was like seeing one of those quilted weighted blankets covering what I knew to be a beautiful, sunny day. Not here.

  The part that had me slam on my brakes though, was the foot of snow that stretched as far as the eye could see. Buildings farther down the road topped off with snow, bare trees that looked as though they were in the dead of winter, and the sharp twist of icy cold that kept breezing through the truck…

  I guess I never believed in the saying ‘it’ll be a cold day in July,’ yet here we were.

  My mouth hung wide open.

  The world outside the truck was straight out of a fairytale. Everywhere you looked there was snow. Untouched banks of snow in heaving piles reminding me of those perfect scoops of ice cream covered with my favorite marshmallow cream. Icicles hung down from the damp trees’ long, spindly branches. I half expected Mr. Tumnus to come dashing over with his scarf and cloven feet.

  The tires were having trouble gripping what I assumed was the road, although that was only a guess. I had to go off of where the buildings were and how far back they sat, and the barely discernible slope of possible curbs underneath on either side. Could be a road. Could be a six-foot ditch death-trap. It was anyone’s guess, really.

  A small plastic sign capped in snow seemed to mark what looked like the entrance to a parking lot. Cautious relief spread through my now freezing body as I caught sight of two gas pumps hidden under a red roof. The tiny store next to it must have been the gas station!

  I patted the top of Big Ben’s dash. “Come on, old man, you only have to make it another four-hundred feet. You got this. You got this!”

  The camper was making it even more difficult to get traction and I was worried I’d have to stop in the middle of this empty road and unhook the stupid thing, just so I could pull in and pump some gas.

  But the clunky weight of it moved along as I did my best to swerve in close enough to the gas pump.

  Trying to hurry up, I threw open the door with my credit card in hand. I was already shivering as I attempted to read the screen on the iced over gas pump. But there was nothing on the screen.

  A sinking feeling pushed down in my gut as I forced open the gas tank on my truck and shoved the gas pump into it. I tried to squeeze the pump’s trigger but nothing was happening. There was no gasoline pumping through the line. There was no sound at all.

  I leaned in to listen closely but all I heard was the sound of the wind whipping past my ears. It was eerily quiet.

  “No, no, no,” I quickly mumbled, trying again and again to get the gas to pump. If I couldn’t get it to work, then how the heck was I going to make it back out? I really didn’t want to be stuck somewhere like this place.

  “Ugh!” I shouted and jumped back into the cab of the truck, wrapping my arms around myself the best that I could.

  I couldn’t just sit here—I had to do something. If there was one true thing about me it was that I didn’t sit still for very long. And at this point with the temperature outside being what it was, it was absolutely important not to.

  Through the weather-ridden windows of the tiny
store next to the gas pump, I tried to make out if anyone was inside. But there was no movement, no lights. No sign of life.

  Which brought me to my next point.

  This was place was a ghost-town. I didn’t expect it to be hopping with people in the middle of this strange weather phenomenon going on in the middle of July but come on. Where was everyone?

  No footprints in the snow other than what looked like maybe rabbits or something. No other tire tracks, which might have had something to do with why the roads were not plowed at the moment.

  The burning smell of the heat core coming to life for the first time since spring kicked in hit me with a sputtering noise as I slid the heat button to full blast. I wrinkled my nose but was at least thankful for no longer feeling like I was freezing my butt off.

  I eyeballed the convenience store one more time. Hm. Should I at least check to see if someone was inside? The slowly warming comfort of the truck cab was getting harder and harder to say no to, but I had to find out.

  With a grunt, I pushed open the heavy door and rushed over to the store’s door, glad to see it was open. Though as soon as I rubbed my hands together I saw that it didn’t matter.

  Not a soul was in here. No one behind the counter, and when I called out there was no reply. A shiver ran up my back but it wasn’t from the cold this time. The lights were on. The heat was on. But no one was home.

  I sighed. I was getting real far here.

  “Okay then, we’re going to have to try and make it out of here on a wind and a prayer my friend,” I said to Big Ben as I climbed back inside.