Hallow Haven Cozy Mysteries Bundle Books 1-3 by Mara Webb (books to read fiction .txt) 📕

“What a bold claim,” Effie gasped. “I am proud of myself, always!”

“Me too!” Kate exclaimed. “Plenty of strong, independent women hide in people’s yards. You are so judgmental!”

“Greta has a point,” I laughed.

“If you want to know if the house is empty then I could just float on in there and have a look. You are going to get eaten alive by mosquitoes if you stay out here much longer,” Greta said.

“Yeah, you don’t even want to know how many mice are running around out here,” Fitz scoffed. I hadn’t noticed my talking cat familiar sneaking up on us, but now we were a crowd of three witches, one ghost and a talkative shifter. Someone would notice us soon, surely.

“Greta, please check if the house is empty,” I instructed. “Fitz, just, stay still.”

Greta drifted away from our hiding spot and through the walls of the house. Within a minute she poked her head back out and gave us a thumbs up. Effie ran round to the back door, lifted a rock up by a plant pot and found a spare key.

I considered mentioning that she shouldn’t leave fingerprints on the key as we were technically doing something we shouldn’t, but then I remembered that Hallow Haven didn’t have a forensic science department. Unless someone caught us in the act, we would probably get away with it.

“Just for the record, I will say it one more time. I think this is a bad idea,” I said, almost bragging as if I had the moral high ground. Both Effie and Kate laughed as they continued to break into Max’s house and I dutifully followed behind them. They sometimes treated me like I was a pesky younger sister, but as I had grown up as an only child, I liked it.

The kitchen was different. It was every cliché of a kitchen for a single man. Empty containers from microwavable dinners lined the counters, six-packs of soda piled up beside the refrigerator and the whole place smelled vaguely of instant mac ‘n’ cheese.

“Oh, poor baby,” Effie said, holding aloft a cereal box.

“Do you remember that you don’t like him?” Kate prompted. I watched as Effie drifted between pity and rage.

“He isn’t looking after himself, but it’s not my job to do it for him. I’m not his mother. But he needs me. But that’s just too bad! I wonder if he is taking any multi-vitamins?” Effie spluttered. Her mood swings were almost tripping over themselves as they took control of her. They had been broken up for a year though, right? If this guy couldn’t bring himself to prepare a meal properly then there’s probably some other stuff going on.

“We’re looking for the book, Eff,” Kate said.

“Yeah, I know,” Effie sighed. “Maybe I should whip up a quiche and leave it in his refrigerator.”

“What a weird thing for a group of burglars to do?” I smiled. “Unless this guy keeps books in his kitchen, we should probably move on.”

“Yeah, I have literally eaten out of bins and I wouldn’t touch a thing in this guy’s cupboards,” Fitz added.

We walked through a doorway into a living room that also screamed ‘a bachelor lives here.’ The sofa was buried under dirty clothes that had possibly been on the way to a washing machine, but never made it. A few pizza boxes lined the floor, and the curtains were drawn still. It looked like he had left the place in a hurry.

“I don’t want to say it, but…” I began.

“What?” Effie asked.

“Are we gonna find a dead body in this house?” Fitz interrupted. “I mean, could someone actually be living in such filth? It kinda looks like he had a party last night and then never woke up to clean it.”

“That wasn’t what I was going to say, but thanks,” I grumbled. “I was going to say, are we going to be able to find anything in here? If he had a book of dark spells, wouldn’t he have used one to tidy up the place?”

“Sadie,” Greta laughed. “If you had ten million dollars, would your first thought be to buy a new vacuum cleaner? No! You would do something wild and exciting!”

“She’s right,” Kate said. “If he does have our book then he’s hit the jackpot. It’s not like he would know which ones to avoid or which ones will bring terrible, terrible consequences…” she trailed off and it looked as if the color drained from her eyes for a second, leaving them as two orbs of white. She blinked and then smiled again. Weird.

“I think it would be upstairs, I’ll go check,” Effie announced. Before any of us could suggest that she not go alone, she was halfway up the stairs.

“I give her five minutes before she’s crying,” Kate mumbled. “Oh man, this place really takes me back.”

“Have you spent much time here?” I asked.

“The thing about living on a group of islands like this, you go all in. By that I mean, my sister starts dating a guy and then it’s suddenly the most interesting thing that is going on anywhere around. I hung out here all the time, I am a super annoying third wheel. You’ll figure that out for yourself when you and Miller become o-fish,” she laughed.

“Huh?” I replied, tilting my head.

“She means official. I think all the hair dye has burned through the scalp to the brain,” Greta sassed. “I remember when Effie and Max were together. Kate wasn’t the only third wheel, I would hang around with them too sometimes. Max used to throw these huge parties after his band would play a show. Everyone would be in this house until the sun came up.”

“Maybe if he had gotten a little more sleep, the band wouldn’t have been such lousy performers,” Fitz said.

“Someone is in a spicy mood today,” Kate said, tutting in Fitz’s direction.

“I think we all know why,” he replied.

“Do we?” Greta laughed. “Wait, this isn’t still about… Fitz, you