Midnight Magic: A Ghost & Abby Mystery, #1

Midnight Magic (A Ghost & Abby Mystery)

Jo-Ann Carson

JRT Publications

Nanaimo, B.C. Canada

© 2017 Jo-Ann Carson Terpstra

JRT Publications

ISBN: 978-1-989031-00-1

Cover Art by Authors on a Dime

Midnight Magic (A Ghost & Abby Mystery) is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents are the products of my imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

I dedicate this tale to the mothers, aunts, daughters and grannies who selflessly give their heart and souls to their families. They are the true heroes of the world, the glue that holds us all together.

Contents

Dedication

Introduction

1. I'll Always Remember My First

2. Chapter Two

3. Chapter Three

4. Chapter Four

5. Chapter Five

6. Chapter Six

7. Chapter Seven

8. Chapter Eight

9. Chapter Nine

10. Chapter Ten

11. Chapter Eleven

12. Chapter Twelve

13. Chapter Thirteen

14. Chapter Fourteen

15. Chapter Fifteen

16. Chapter Sixteen

17. Chapter Seventeen

18. Chapter Eighteen

19. Chapter Nineteen

20. Chapter Twenty

21. Chapter Twenty-One

22. Chapter Twenty-Two

23. Chapter Twenty-Three

24. Chapter Twenty-Four

25. Chapter Twenty-Five

26. Chapter Twenty-Six

27. Chapter Twenty-Seven

28. Chapter Twenty-Eight

29. Chapter Twenty-Nine

30. Chapter Thirty

31. Chapter Thirty-One

32. Chapter Thirty-Two

33. Chapter Thirty-Three

34. Chapter Thirty-Four

Aknowledgements

A Note From Jo-Ann

Death by Seance - Excerpt

A Highland Ghost ... Excerpt

A Viking Ghost ... Excerpt

Confessions of a Pirate Ghost - Excerpt

The Biker Ghost ... Excerpt

About Jo-Ann Carson

Midnight Magic

(A Ghost & Abby Mystery, Book 1)

Ghostly Charms, Magic Spells and Secrets.

As the janitor in a haunted house, single mom Abby Jenkins has many contacts with the living and the dead in the small Pacific Northwest town of Sunset Cove, which puts her in a perfect position to solve local mysteries. Or so she thinks. Hired to find diamonds hidden in a haunted manor she gets help from a Viking ghost with existential issues. Will she survive? This book contains bad-boy ghosts, mischievous magic, and a woman who knows what she wants in a Viking hayloft.

***

Midnight Magic is a spin-off story from my novella, A Viking Ghost for Valentine’s Day, but it can be read as a stand-alone.

1

I'll Always Remember My First

I’m the night janitor in a haunted teahouse, in the small, Pacific Northwest town of Sunset Cove, where things happen no one talks about. Ever. You’d think that would be enough weirdness for one person in a lifetime, but not for me. I’ve started a business on the side, to sort and sanitize supernatural drama. That is to say, I am the community’s first private detective. My name is Abby Jenkins.

I’ve studied sleuthing for years, reading every Nancy Drew, Agatha Christie and Charlaine Harris book in the public library. I rock at jigsaw puzzles. I’m naturally nosy. And my whopper-credential is that I know all the usual suspects in town, both of the human and supernatural kind. Of course we get visitors, but that’s beside the point. I figure I can solve a local whodunit with the best of them, especially if there’s a butler involved. What could possibly go wrong?

Although my jobs may sound unusual, I’m not a freak. I look like a regular thirty-two-year-old mom, the kind you see at the grocery store herding her three young children through the shopping aisles. My blond hair lives in a creative ponytail and my thrift-store clothes are stained with life. I can’t remember the last time I put on makeup. I avoid mirrors, not because I’m a vampire, but because they make me cranky. You could easily pass me by, and profile me as a normal, single-mom-next-door—a minion in the landscape of America. But I’m not. Unusual things happen to me.

It’s as if I have a sticker on my forehead, reading: Send me your ghosts, poltergeists and living dead, and see what happens. Some people call me, "that widow, others, the janitor in that place, and now some call me, the private dick without a dick," but I refuse to be defined. I am simply Abby.

Let me tell you about my first case. Trust me, I’ll always remember my first.

***

At 2 p.m. on a stormy day suitable for ducks, I sat at my desk across from my first client in the attic of the Sunset Cove Teahouse, a Victorian gingerbread home with a wicked reputation for things that go bump in the night. The palms of my hands itched. I had never expected to live out my dream of being a detective, and I wasn’t sure I could pull it off.

I pushed a box of tissues across the desk towards the woman, hoping to stop her tears. She had cried since she entered my office, four minutes ago. I didn’t know her name or why she arrived at my doorstep. She walked in and sat down. Her fancy scent made my nose twitch.

I drummed the old, oak desk with my fingers and watched the seconds tick by slowly on the antique clock hanging askew on the opposite wall. My stomach twisted. This was not what I expected for my first day. I figured I would be looking for lost cats, wandering spouses or, at worst, lost souls. I had not anticipated tears.

My visitor was a noisy, theatrical crier, all sniffles and broken sighs. Her face flushed crimson and perspiration beaded her forehead, all signs she was definitely a live human. I checked the clock. Six minutes had passed.

I didn’t recognize her, so she had to be new to town. Fine lines radiated from her eyes. I pegged her to be a well-preserved forty-five. Her trembling right hand, holding a tissue to her nose, had a salon manicure. An expensive charm bracelet dangled on her wrist. Her left hand, resting on her lap, had a ring with enough diamonds to sink a casket. My fine sleuthing abilities surmised she could afford me.

It’s haunted, she blurted out. She blew her nose loudly and commenced crying again.

I know, I said. Of course I knew. Everyone knew. The Sunset Cove Teahouse was haunted and a—shall we say interesting—gang of ghosts called it home. It was only quiet at that moment because they played elsewhere during the day. All I could hear in the house was the sound of people—of the breathing variety—coming and going from Azalea’s teahouse on the main floor, looking to find good fortune in their tea leaves. Azalea, the owner of the house was, among other things, a talented tea-leaf reader. The house belonged in a catalogue for the Best Haunted Businesses.

Trying to retain my cool PI persona I looked out my window. I could see most of Sunset Cove, a small inlet with a few boats, and a sleepy town nestled in a cozy semicircle around it. My window box overflowed with purple petunias, yellow pansies and midnight-blue lobelia. The sweet scent of the flowers almost masked the smell of the supernatural. I breathed in my Norman Rockwell moment, determined to wait out the woman’s tears.

They continued.

I squirmed in my seat, and I was not a squirmer by nature. Her problem had to be big, but that didn’t cut it with me. Label me a thrift-store snob if you like, but she looked way too comfortable to have any real issues, like starvation or marginalization. Or how about cultural genocide? Maybe her poodle got a bad haircut.

Most people dress casually in our sea-side town of five thousand people. For women, yoga pants or leggings with cool footwear covers you anywhere at any time, but she wore a pair of navy-blue dress pants, a white silk blouse and a well-cut blazer; an impressive power outfit, designed to take control of any situation. Her straight, platinum-blond, shoulder-length hair had enough highlights for a fashion cover. She wore black-leather stilettos with red soles that would cost more than six months of my part-time janitor’s salary. What could this woman possibly know about trouble?

She sniffed loudly.

Would you like a cup of coffee? I said.

She shook her head. I need help. She broke into another elongated sob.

The ticking of the clock echoed in the room. What did one do with a whimpering woman? I took a deep breath and decided to wait out her emotional episode. After all, doesn’t everyone need a good cry every now and then?

I am an expert on the power of crying. Two and a half years ago my husband died of cancer, leaving me with three children to raise, all under the age of six. Losing my high-school sweetheart broke my heart. Having to raise our kids on my own almost broke my backbone. I cried a lot as I pulled my life together, but I did it. I built a new life for myself.

The icing on this new life was to be this supernatural-PI gig, but it wasn’t looking too sweet at this moment. Why had I ever thought taking on other people’s problems would be fun? In one word—Eric. That’s why. My boyfriend Eric talked me into the mystery business. Become a detective, he said. You love to solve mysteries, he said. You’re a natural, he said. And I’ll help, he said.

Yeah right. At this moment, as I faced the whimper-queen, I felt like a real natural: a natural idiot. And he wasn’t here.

I handed her another tissue. My name is Abby and I want to help you. This was the third time I had said that, but this time she stirred.

Sitting back in her chair she made eye contact. Behind the tears, the hardness of her baby-blues jolted me for a second. This was no ordinary wilting woman.

Charisma Dubois, she said with a slight French accent that purred.

I nodded.

I have a problem I’m told only you can help me with.

Me? Did she want advice on breast feeding? How about potty training? I did have some awesome coping tips for late-night diarrhea. Nope, I guessed none of the above by the look of her. Go on, I said.

I have inherited a property.

That’s nice, I said with trepidation, because something in her tone was off.

Oh, I don’t care about the property. I will sell it after . . .

After?

After I find the treasure.

Of course, there would be property and treasure. Treasure?

My great-grandmother Louise Dubois was a bit odd.

I see, I said, though I didn’t see at all.

She didn’t believe in banks and kept all her assets in diamonds.

And the diamonds are in the house.

Yes. Maybe. I’m not sure. I’m not sure at all, actually. She stopped to sob. According to my uncle’s will, she continued, I have been left my great-grandmother’s manor. No one has ever found her diamond stash and I believe it’s there.

Did anyone else inherit? I didn’t want to get in the middle of a family feud. I’d seen too many murder mysteries about them.

No. I’m the only living relative, and my uncle bequeathed me the house and all its contents.

Okay. So you want me to clean it so you can find the stash? It was a Lysol job after all. Right up my alley.

The woman’s eyes shot wide. Heavens, no.

Then what do you want me to do?

Her spine stiffened as she raised her pointed chin. I want you to find my diamonds.

Why don’t you go into the house and look?

I tried that. Staring at a spot above my head as if the answer were there, she wiped gently at her nose. I was told you understand abnormal things, things beyond the normal, supernatural events and such.

Are you saying the house is haunted?

It would seem so. Yes. The color in her red face drained to a sage-green hue. Now the hysterical crying made sense. Encounters with the dead unravel the best of us.

My squirmy butt froze. Okay, let me get this straight. You want me to go with you to a haunted house and look for diamonds.

Yes, she said with glee. But not with me, Ms. Jenkins. No, no, I don’t want to go back there. I’m from Montreal. I’ll pay you to find the treasure for me. I’ll pay you well.

Uh-huh. Clearly something in the house had scared the bejesus out of Ms. Dubois. If I was a sane person I would’ve turned her down right then and there, especially given my experience with a poltergeist, but the scent of mystery pulled on my natural and too abundant curiosity. Not to mention the thought of having extra money in my pocket. I rubbed my chin.

I’ll pay you double your normal fee.

I pushed a contract her way. We’ll start with a two-hundred-dollar retaining fee, and I’ll charge you by the hour. If you write down the address I’ll get started tomorrow. Surely Eric would turn up by then and we could go together during the day when most ghosts are busy in other dimensions. I gave her a professional smile and myself a mental thumbs-up.

I want you to start today.

I nodded. Of course, Ms. Power Suit would demand more than I was willing to give.

After she filled out the contract and handed me five-hundred dollars in cash, she wrote down the address, which I read out loud: Graystone Manor, 333 Witch’s Peak Road.

It’s five miles north of town, up a windy road, but not hard to find, she said. Her eyes narrowed to pinpricks. I will pay you double your regular fee for every hour you look for the treasure and an extra finder’s fee when you retrieve the stash. She hesitated a moment. Say ten thousand dollars.

Ten thousand? Oh my word! My heart raced. There were so many things I could do with that kind of money, starting with finding a place to live without a leaky roof.

I bit my lip. I needed to concentrate on things at hand. Witch’s Peak? I didn’t know there was such a road. For that matter, I didn’t know there was another haunted house in town. I had so much to learn.

The sooner you start the better, she said as she pulled a set of keys out of her purse and handed them to me.

I stood to shake her hand and wondered.

Better? Is that better for me? Better for her? Or better for the ghosts?

2

The day was gloomier than a Stephen King nightmare. Originally from the interior, I have ongoing issues with the weather in the Pacific Northwest. Sunset Cove is on the edge of civilization, nestled comfortably between a mountain range and the ocean. You could not find a more beautiful place to live when the sun shines, but when the storms settle in, it turns nasty. It had rained for three days straight. According to Alfred, my favorite weather guy on the radio, a storm front had moved in from the Pacific, bringing with it a low ceiling of dark clouds and constant drizzle. With a rumbling voice, he warned lightning could strike later in the day. I put on my rain-coat and rubber boots and headed out the door.

As I drove to Witch’s Peak Road, I wondered why I didn’t feel more excited about visiting the haunted manor. It was my first investigation, my opportunity to prove myself as a detective, to earn a reputation in town as the queen of sleuths and, best of all, it was my chance to earn ten-thousand dollars. I should be thrilled, I really should, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had bitten off more than I could chew, which in the supernatural world could spell disaster. Whatever I bit could bite back and chew with ferocious intensity. Unease sank its teeth into my shoulder muscles.

And where the heck was Eric, my partner in crime-fighting?

Worrying won’t help, I told myself. I needed a to-do list, a straight-forward way of going about things. A one, two, three fix-it solution. Ms. Dubois wanted me to go into her haunted house and find a lost item. That should be simple.

So what if the manor was haunted? I did haunted on a regular basis. What was one more domain of the undead? The memory of the poltergeist who had tried to devour my children crossed my mind. Yeah, there was that. Not all ghosts were equal. Like breathers, there were some I would prefer not to meet. Especially in a spooky place. My gut clenched. But what were the odds it would be one of the bad guys?

Fifty-fifty? Too even. Life’s not like that. At least not mine. Okay. Sixty-forty, bad to good. But it only takes one nasty poltergeist to ruin your day.

What had I gotten myself into? And why on god’s green earth was I going in alone?

Technically, I was not supposed to be doing this alone. Eric was my sworn partner in stealth, my protector and my guy, but I had no idea where he was.

Did I even want to think about Eric right then?

I met him the second night I was in Sunset Cove and we’d been an item ever since. Albeit an unusual item. It’s hard for me to describe Eric without using a lot of sappy superlatives. You could say he’s beyond the normal. As in, way beyond.

To start with, he’s physically large, as in six-foot-six inches of easy-to-look-at muscle. With the broad shoulders of a line-backer and six-pack abs of a gymnast, he makes an unforgettable impression wherever he goes. His eyes are an arctic blue that turns steely when he’s mad. A battle scar crosses his right brow, but that just adds to his rugged good-looks. The only imperfection I’ve found on his body are his feet, which are so long they look like flippers, but who looks at a guy’s feet when there are better bits to admire?

To be honest his Nordic good looks are not what I fell for. He has more integrity than a legion of boy scouts. He’s the kind of guy who’s always there for his loved ones, feet firmly planted on the ground, shoulders squared to danger. The kind of guy they write stories about. For the last two years, he has stood by me and my children, helping us in every way he could. He is my rudder in my mucky life, my rock in the murkiness, my confidant and my friend.

Yes, there is no question in my mind, or my heart, Eric Eklund is the perfect man for me. Perfect, except he’s dead.

As in dead and gone, but not completely gone. Eric is a thousand-year-old, Viking ghost.

As they say, love is complicated.

After my client, Charisma Dubois left, I had considered waiting for Eric before I started the investigation. I probably should have waited. But he’d been missing for the last two nights and that wasn’t normal for him.

Did I mention my number one complaint about having a ghost for a boyfriend is they don’t use cell phones?

When Eric faded into another dimension three mornings ago, he warned me not to expect to see him for a few days. While it sounded odd, I didn’t press him. I didn’t want to seem clingy and I had come to accept that his life as a ghost had complications I didn’t fully understand.

I smiled weakly, and he said, "Later, my snygg rumpa, in a low rumbling voice that raised the temperature in the room. Yeah, I knew his words meant nice ass." I’d let him pillage my village anytime, if that were possible.

But now was not the time to think about him and our complicated love life. I needed to concentrate on the mystery at hand, the one that could put a solid roof over my family’s head. I had to take command of this situation, so it didn’t take command of me. Supernatural beings like to do that. I hit the steering wheel with the palm of my hand. I would make my first visit to the haunted manor a quickie. I’d go in and straight out again. What could go wrong?

I needed to keep it simple. To start with, all I needed to know was if anyone alive or dead lived there. That shouldn’t be hard. I’d check the kitchen for food, which would cover the living souls, and smell the house for the other kinds. Resident spirits may not be active during the day, but their scent lingers and I have a pretty good nose for them. Supernats all have distinctive odors. I