Pet Psychic Mysteries Boxset Books 5-8 (Magic Market Mysteries Book 2) by Erin Johnson (simple ebook reader .txt) 📕

Peter sat upright. “I’m going with you.”

I grinned but shook my head. “Absolutely not.”

Heidi groaned. “I dunno, Peter.”

Will shook his head. “You can’t. You’ll def be killed.”

Peter dragged a big hand over his mouth. “I don’t like you going in there by yourself. It’s too dangerous—please, don’t. We can go back to the sanctuary and talk to more animals—they’ll probably give us all the answers we need.”

His eyes looked weary and desperate, a muscle in his jaw jumping. I could tell how worried he was, and I didn’t want to make it worse. I nodded. “Okay. Let’s do that.” I turned to my friends. “In the meantime, let’s keep looking through these photos.”

Will threw his head back and groaned. “It’s pointless.”

I raised my brows. “Keep looking, and I’ll buy you some coconut ice cream.”

He tipped his chin down and leveled me a serious look. “With sticky rice? From the cart I like?”

I rolled my eyes but grinned. “Yeah, whatever.”

He grabbed a stack of pictures off the chair beside him and pored over them. I paced as everyone munched and looked at the pictures. I ran over everything in my mind.

So Malorie’s first husband disappeared mysteriously, and we now had some evidence that he—or someone wearing his ring—had been eaten by a carnivorous plant at the last Night of the Phoenix party at the sanctuary.

I nibbled my thumb and traced a path back and forth in front of Heidi’s desk, the heels of my boots clicking along the linoleum. A few nights ago, fifty years to the day later, Malorie and the phoenix, who we now knew to be Maria Begin, died mysteriously. Malorie’s stepdaughter, Rebecca Rutherford, admitted to pushing Malorie into the enclosure in a fit of anger—but that hadn’t been how Malorie died. Where did that poisoned dart come from? Who had shot Malorie? And how had Maria Begin, the phoenix, died?

I frowned, thinking over our suspects. Rebecca had been consumed by guilt and fear and still mourning her recently deceased mother. I pictured her in her funeral blacks, all the mirrors in her shabby home covered in shrouds.

I froze, hardly daring to breathe as something slipped into place. The sanctuary—those mirrors that helped people see around corners had been covered in shrouds, too, after Malorie’s death. Had they had them fifty years ago, or were those recent installations?

“Jolene?”

Peter’s voice snapped me out of my deep thoughts. I looked up, grinning. “Check the photos for mirrors—round ones, mounted high up.”

Heidi bounced in her seat. “Found one!”

I rushed over to her and she handed me the photograph, pointing. Sure enough, the picture had captured not only one of the mirrors, but the reflection in it.

I grinned wider. “Check the reflections in the mirrors. Maybe one of them caught what happened to Richard Rutherford before his body was dumped inside that plant.”

Things moved quickly after that. It took another ten minutes, but we found enough photos with enough captured reflections to prove what happened to Richard Rutherford and who’d killed him.

Peter kissed my cheek. “You’re brilliant.”

I grinned, my face warm. “Go on.”

“Well, that solves one murder at least.” Will raised a brow. “What about the other ones? And I haven’t forgotten about that ice cream, by the way.”

I shrugged. “I’m hoping those will just kind of fall into place. And I’ll get you your ice cream.” I bit my lip, a theory starting to form. It stood to reason that someone who’d killed fifty years ago might strike again for the same reason. I nodded and turned to Peter.

“I think I’ve got it. Let’s get back up to the sanctuary.”

31

Habits

We headed again to the top of the mountain and the sprawling Rutherford estate that contained the sanctuary. My legs had better look good after all this hiking up and down through Bijou Mer.

The servant showed us in, and we found Quincy with a pair of shears pruning a potted plant near the entrance to the sanctuary. He rose and gave us a sheepish grin. “We have a gardening staff, of course, but old habits die hard. I find it calming.”

I nodded. That’s right—he’d been the gardener before he married Malorie. Another bit of the puzzle made sense. I glanced at Peter, then back at Quincy. “That’s understandable—are you feeling stressed out from all the murdering?”

He blanched. “W-What?”

Peter’s hand closed around his wand, his eyes hard on the shears in Quincy’s hand. I grinned again, another piece of the puzzle falling into place for me. Quincy had a few habits—including his tendency to pick up small things and absentmindedly pocket them.

I stared Quincy down, a grim smile on my face. “We know that the phoenix was actually Maria Begin, a shifter. And we know that neither she nor Rebecca killed Malorie.”

Quincy scoffed, his jowls shaking. “What is this nonsense?” He glanced around, as if to sic his servants on us.

“Malorie was divorcing you. When Libbie showed her this photograph from the last Night of the Phoenix party fifty years ago, it wasn’t proof that Malorie killed her first husband, as Libbie thought.”

Peter flicked his wrist, and the photograph we’d found in the safe appeared in his hand. He held it up so Quincy could see. The man squinted through his glasses at it.

“What is this?”

I raised my brows. “It’s a picture that clearly shows a hand wearing Richard Rutherford’s distinctive ruby ring sticking out of the mouth of a meat-eating plant.”

Quincy took a step back, his mouth slack.

“Libbie thought Malorie paid her to leave to cover up her own guilt, but that wasn’t it, was it? Malorie saw it as proof that you killed her first husband, Quincy, and fed his body to one of your carnivorous plants. As the gardener, you’d have known the plant would dispose of the body nicely, leaving no trace.” I shrugged. “Maybe it was a suspicion Malorie had always held—maybe not—but she moved quickly once she realized her first husband had definitely been killed and suspected you. Malorie confronted you. You probably