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

call me if you find anything out. My feet are killing me. I might drop back by the library though. Gavin’s mother is a mean old hag to me, but she never gets tired of Riley at least. I intend to enjoy my break.” She glanced at her belly. “Such as it is, anyway.”
    Bailey made an effort not to glance at Avery. The bitterness in Piper’s voice wasn’t new, but it was getting worse and worse over time. She didn’t like them to pry, though, so they didn’t. For now.
    “ I’ll see you both later then,” Bailey said. They traded hugs and kisses on cheeks and Avery walked with Piper back toward the library, their first amateur sleuthing attempt sorely unsuccessful.
    “… locked my keys in my car…”
    “… could be cheatin’ on me with that floozy Candice…”
    “… if Thomas would even notice if I…”
    “… so pretty I could just…”
    Bailey pressed her hands to her head and tried to focus on her breathing. It was all so loud. Why was it happening? She wished her Dad were with her. Suddenly she wanted to tell him everything that was on her mind, all of her worries. He claimed not to know anything about her mother, but maybe he at least knew how they could check hospital records, maybe find some instance of a crazy lady having a psychotic break.
    That would make sense, wouldn’t it? That her mother had gone off the deep end, and Bailey had been given up because she wasn’t fit to take care of an infant? Coven Grove didn’t have a psychiatric facility like an asylum, but there was one further inland—Lakeview Heights, maybe an hour and a half east. What if all this time her mother had been there? Crazy ran in families, after all, sometimes.
    The worst of it, though, was a much darker kind of fear. A secret, nagging worry in the back of her mind that had been festering since just a few hours after she found Martha, when the crowds had gathered.
    What if… what if she’d been right to put herself on the suspect list? What if she really was losing her mind, and had blacked out and…
    She shook her head, and squeezed her eyes tight against the sudden welling of tears that burned her eyes. It couldn’t be. She couldn’t have done something like that, surely, no matter what was going on inside her brain.
    Bailey realized she was standing on the sidewalk, still, about to start bawling her eyes out. She rubbed them, and looked around her. She wanted to be alone.
    Despite the terrible thing that had happened there, she found herself walking back toward the Caves. Underneath the dread she felt at going back there, though, was that same familiar tug; the promise of solitude, and calm, and a little bit of peace. Plus, the last time she’d started hearing the voices and gone there, they’d quieted a little bit.
    Just now, she needed that, desperately.
     
    It was a long walk, but it helped to calm Bailey down so she didn’t mind. She checked the Tour office when she got there, but it was still locked, no sign of Poppy. That was worrying, but with everything else going on, and Bailey’s world started to feel like it was coming apart at the seams—inside and out—and she couldn’t muster up the will to ruminate on it.
    The police tape was gone from the entrance of the caves. Martha had been removed, of course, and taken to the coroner’s office. They’d had to call in an out-of-towner. Coven Grove no longer had a resident coroner because death around here was categorically natural in some way, and very rarely unexpected.
    She wandered cautiously into the entrance to the caves, but dared not walk much further than the first one. The voices had grown distant the closer she got to them, and when she was deep into the first wide cavern they finally quieted all together. Blessed relief.
    Bailey lowered herself to the cool cave floor, and leaned back against one of the unadorned walls not roped off with the fancy red velvet ropes that only looked like actual velvet—they were cheap, like everything else