Witching The Night Away: A Cozy Mystery (The Witchy Women of Coven Grove Book 3) by Constance Barker Page A

you see?”
    “Was it shoddy spell work that couldn’t make a clear picture?” Avery asked innocently.
    “Temporal phantoms fade quickly,” Aiden said, ignoring the tone. “Like an echo in the mountains. In the very first moments, it can be much sharper; but that window is exceedingly small. If the door to the room had faced east, we would have gotten even less than that. As it was, the east-facing window caused some degradation. We can discuss this at length, if you like; but I imagine Bailey would appreciate our report?”
    Avery’s cheeks heated. Of course. This wasn’t about magic; it was about Ryan. “Fine. I saw the killer search the Professor. So they were looking for something. I couldn’t tell if they found it.”
    “What else?” Aiden asked.
    Avery replayed the scene in his mind. There had been the moment at the end. The killer had reached for something but stopped. What had they been reaching for? “The murder weapon,” Avery realized aloud. “The killer looked like they were going to take it with them, but then didn’t.”
    “Why on earth would a person do such a thing?” Aiden asked.
    “They wouldn’t,” Avery said. “Unless it would benefit them somehow; help them get away with it. That’s got to be the only thing on a person’s mind after they kill someone, right?”
    “And they knew the weapon was still at the scene,” Aiden added.
    “So… they left it because they knew it would place suspicion on someone else,” Avery finished. “It wasn’t Ryan.”
    “I’m forced to agree,” Aiden said.
    “You thought it might have been before?” Avery asked, horrified.
    Aiden shrugged. “It was possible. The Professor was investigating the Caves. If he got too close to their secrets, it is possible they could have defended themselves.”
    That gave Avery a chill that raised the hair on the back of his neck. He almost told Aiden about what Bailey had learned from the professor… but now wasn’t the time, and he wasn’t sure it was his information to pass along.
    “Let’s get to the Sheriff’s station,” Avery said. “Bailey needs to know this.”
    They pulled away, and the deputies seemed to watch them as they did. Avery clocked them in the rear-view mirror as one turned to the other and moved his lips as he said something.
    “What did you do to them?” Avery asked again.
    Aiden chuckled. “Basic laxative spell. Low-level stuff. I’m happy to teach you, if you like.”
    Avery grimaced, and shook his head. “No, thank you. I don’t need to know everything after all.”
     

Chapter 11
    “So… you’re with the paper?” The Coroner asked when Bailey presented him with her ‘credentials’ from the front desk.
    “Yes,” she said. She’d be gone before it mattered that she’d told a small fib. “Brand new. This is my first big story.”
    He looked at her with either sympathy or suspicion, Bailey couldn’t quite tell. Presumably, she was covering the story of her own father’s crime. That was understandably hard to swallow.
    “I see,” he said. The coroner was technically on loan from the county. Coven Grove hadn’t had a coroner of its own in a very long time; there was usually no real need for one. Dr. Lansing had only been to Coven Grove a few times—the last visit had been for Martha Tells’ autopsy.
    “Believe me, Dr. Lansing,” Bailey said gravely, “I am only interested in the facts.” It sounded journalistic; like something Ryan might have said.
    Dr. Lansing pushed his round glasses up on the bridge of his nose and wrestled briefly with the wisdom of it, but eventually relented. “Of course. Well there’s no order not to speak to the paper, so… come this way, then.”
    She followed him into a room with an old metal table and several tall bays that were mostly empty and one desk whereupon sat Dr. Lansing’s tools that he’d brought with him.
    “The equipment here is woefully out of date,” he explained. “You’re welcome to print that. Maybe