Free The Witching on the Wall: A Cozy Mystery (The Witchy Women of Coven Grove Book 1) by Constance Barker

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    “ I don’t think so,” Bailey answered. Or, she thought she did. It was getting hard to hear anything over those whispers.
    “ Any odd smells?” Chloe asked. “Sulfur, or… herbs, anything like that?”
    Bailey caught the sharp eye Avery gave her and shook her head. “No. Nothing like that.”
    Chloe nodded slowly, seemingly thinking about something. Her eyes settled on Avery, and she sighed. It seemed strange—not like Chloe at all to seem so… irritated? Maybe nervous?
    “ Well, I’m glad you’re doing okay,” she said to Bailey. “Ave, Piper; I’ll see you two around. The three of you come by the bakery later on—get this girl out of the library and into the sun sometime, it’ll do her good.” She winked at Bailey and they all exchanged pleasant, if tight, goodbyes.
    When Chloe was gone, Avery leaned in and whispered loud enough that anyone outside the door probably could have heard him anyway. “Oh my God Chloe Minds totally killed Martha!”
    “ What?” Bailey said. “No, don’t be… that’s ridiculous. Why on earth would Chloe have killed Martha?”
    “ Well I don’t know, Bee, but you can’t tell me that wasn’t suspicious as heck!” He glanced over his shoulder like she might come back any minute. “She wanted to know what you smelled? Why would she ask for a detail like that unless she had some idea of what happened? Maybe she was trying to see if you remembered some key piece of evidence or something; the thing that would implicate her. We should totally follow her, see if she’s up to anything suspicious.”
    “ He does have a point,” Piper mused. Suspecting Chloe of murder hadn’t kept her from enjoying a peanut-butter cupcake, though. She licked frosting off her lower lip.
    “ You two… it just can’t possibly be Chloe.”
     
    “ Are you sure you aren’t just biased?” Avery asked. He tapped the list. “You had a good point. We have to be objective about this.”
    Bailey struggled to ignore the whispers. They were receding again, but slowly. Honestly, she wasn’t sure she could even be rational right now. But she took Avery’s point and tried to set aside any feelings she had about anyone. It took some convincing, but ultimately she was able to admit to herself that the whole visit had been unusual.
    “ Alright,” she said finally. “If I’m being entirely objective… then, yes. It was odd. Good grief, I don’t know if I could deal with that…” But she penned Chloe’s name at the bottom of the list, right under her own, and circled it. “The bakery isn’t far. Maybe she walked. If we go quickly, we should be able to keep an eye on her.”
    The three of them scampered out of the chairs—well, Avery helped Piper up, anyway, but he scampered for the both of them—and the trio peeked out the door before they went out into town, hot on the trail of their first real suspect in the murder of Martha Tells.
    Bailey sighed to herself as they attempted the pursuit. This is all going end very badly, she thought through the growing storm of voices in her head. I just know it.
     

 
     
    Chapter 8
    They did manage to keep an eye on Chloe. She had walked to the Library, of course—there was no reason to drive such a short distance—but rather than rub her hands with obviously sinister glee or duck into any non-existent dark alleys or some secret lair like Bailey thought her friends possibly expected, she merely walked back to Grovey Goodies and, presumably, went back to work. She did have a job, after all.
    Avery wasn’t convinced. He rubbed his bare chin as though there should have been a goatee there for him to scratch ponderously. “What if all three of them were in on it?” He wondered out loud.
    “ That’s a leap,” Piper sighed. Between their first uneventful tailing, the midday heat, and her unborn child, her energy had pretty much waned at this point. Still, she was trying to maintain some enthusiasm. “I could bring the minivan, and