Spirits, Pies, and Alibis Read online

  Spirits, Pies, and Alibis

  The Witches of Pinecroft Cove Book One

  Nicole St Claire

  Spirits, Pies, and Alibis

  The Witches of Pinecroft Cove Book One

  Copyright © 2019 Nicole St Claire

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher or author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Developmental Editing by Em Stevens

  Edited by Kelly Hashway

  Proofread by Paula Proofreader

  Cover Design by: Victoria Cooper

  Find out more: www.NicoleStClaire.com

  Contact the author: [email protected]

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  A note from Nicole

  About the Author

  Also by Nicole St Claire

  Chapter One

  It was the first day of summer, and the air along the Southern Maine sea coast was as thick and fishy-smelling as a bowl of New England clam chowder. As I pulled into the parking lot of the ferry terminal and followed the bright red painted stripe on the pavement to the waiting area for the service to Summerhaven Island, I held out hope for a cool ocean breeze to come along and make the temperature bearable. My hopes were quickly dashed. People used to tell me I lived a charmed life, but recently it was like I’d been enrolled in a crash course for crushed dreams. If I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn I was under a curse.

  I reached across to the passenger seat and picked up the letter my great-aunt Gwen had sent. Yes, a real letter. Pretty retro, right? And as letters went, this one was even more old school than most. It had been written in scrawling cursive with real ink from a fountain pen. The stationery was heavy and bore the logo of the Pinecroft Inn, a house that had been in my mother’s family for generations and which my great-aunt had recently turned into a bed and breakfast.

  Dear Tamsyn, the letter began, I know it’s been a few years since we’ve been in touch.

  A few? Try fifteen. I know because that was the last time I’d stepped foot on the island. That summer had started with the death of my grandmother, and by the end of it, my mother had vanished, and I’d been shipped off to Ohio for my father and stepmother to raise. I’d basically spent the worst summer of my life in Pinecroft Cove and had certainly been in no hurry to return.

  I’d like to invite you to spend the summer with me, the letter continued, learning the ins and outs of running a bed and breakfast. If it goes well, you may even decide you’d like to stay.

  Here’s the funny thing. Under any other circumstances, if I’d received a letter like this from a great-aunt I could barely remember, who hadn’t sent so much as a birthday card my entire life, I probably would have laughed and tossed it into the trash. Drop everything and travel halfway across the country to help her run her inn? Talk about presumptuous. After all, I was a successful woman with a college degree and a solid career as an accountant. I worked my butt off for my company and was pretty sure I had a promotion on the horizon. Plus, I’d just poured most of my savings into the first and last months’ rent and security deposit for a great apartment I was about to move into with my boyfriend, Greg. What did I need with some crazy old aunt and her bed and breakfast in Maine? My life was just about perfect.

  Only, this is the part where it gets weird. Like, really weird. Remember what I said earlier about feeling cursed? This was why. The very same morning that letter arrived, I walked into my office to find out my company was up and moving to Los Angeles. Just like that, I was out of a job. They didn’t even give me the option to relocate. I’d say being laid off was the biggest shock of my life, except that particular distinction goes to what happened a few hours later when I called to share the bad news about my job with Greg.

  See, Greg’s an artist, but the real money in the art world goes to the gallery owners, which is why I’d spent a year helping him figure out how to get in on the action. Well, when I called, I let him know we were going to need to pull the trigger on the opening a little sooner than planned. That’s when he told me the gallery had never been his idea, and that he’d decided to move into that fantastic apartment, which I’d paid for, with some other woman. A woman, who supported his dreams. I told him dreams don’t pay the bills. He said I’d never understood that he was a real artist and then promised to pay me back all the money I’d spent on the place, just as soon as one of the paintings he had on display at the local coffeehouse sold.

  Yeah, I know. I’m not holding my breath.

  In one day, after years of working to build the perfect life, I found myself single, unemployed, and about to be homeless, with every possession I owned stuffed in boxes all around me and no idea what I was going to do. Suddenly, Aunt Gwen’s letter was like an answer to a prayer. I packed up Miss Josephine and headed out the next week.

  Miss Josephine’s a car, not a cat, just in case there was any confusion. I’ve never been the sort to want pets. Never really wanted an ancient brown station wagon, either. Yes, brown. That was exactly how old my hand-me-down Volvo was. It was manufactured back in the day when brown was a color people honestly thought cars should come in. Before I was born, my father drove her off the lot with just seven miles on her odometer. He never so much as missed an oil change, as he took immense pleasure in reminding me after he’d offered me the car, and I’d responded by asking him how he could possibly think I would want to drive such an ugly old thing. I was saving up for a new car, I’d told him, something befitting a soon-to-be junior partner at the second-largest accounting firm in Cleveland. But I’d changed my tune quickly enough when I lost my job and realized the appeal of a vehicle that hadn’t required a car payment since the Reagan administration.

  When the twenty-first of June rolled around, I’d hit the road early and was already a couple hours outside the city by the time the sun came up. As luck would have it, the sunrise coincided almost to the second with when the air-conditioner stopped working. And remember that part about being cursed? Perhaps it wouldn’t surprise you to know the meteorologist on the radio said it was the hottest start to a summer in over a decade. What with the open windows and the humidity, not to mention the eight-hundred-mile drive I made in a single day. By the time I hit the Maine border, any hair that hadn’t plastered itself to my neck had turned into a halo of bright red frizz around my head. I was exhausted and more than a little cranky, but with my final destination only an hour away, just a fifteen-mile trip across Penobscot Bay, I held out hope that it would be clear sailing from here.

  Once again, I’m aware that when it comes to holding out hope for things, I don’t have a great track record.

  I looked back down at the letter in my hand, focusing on the instructions I’d been given in the last paragraph. The ferry to the island can be busy this time of year, she’d warned m
e, but if you park in line overnight after the final ferry departs, you should be able to get one of the unreserved spots the next morning.

  Despite my aunt’s crowd warning, the parking lot appeared deserted. A seagull cawed from the top of a post, and a shaggy black cat prowled the rocky shoreline, probably searching for an unsuspecting critter to have for dinner. The last ferry of the day was still at the dock but almost ready to go, or at least I thought it was, as I could see a worker in a brightly-colored vest who had just started to close the safety gate. Confident I had followed all the directions I’d been given, down to the last letter, I switched off Miss Josephine’s engine, leaned back in my seat, and shut my eyes. Exhaustion had turned every muscle in my body into a lead weight, and I was certain I would sleep soundly until morning.

  Aunt Gwen’s letter hadn’t been specific about what I should do with my time between dropping off the car in the evening and setting sail on the dawn ferry. She’d probably assumed I would call a taxi and find a nearby motel for the night, maybe grab a bite to eat at a local restaurant for good measure. That would have been a fine plan, except that, unlike my aunt, I happened to know what my checking account balance was. Let’s just say it wasn’t pretty. Miss Josephine and I would be fine in the parking lot until morning. As for dinner, I had a granola bar in my backpack to tide me over, the crunchy type that I always thought was more filling because it took longer to chew.

  My eyes had only been closed a minute when a tapping on the windshield sent them flying open again. I sat up straight, overcome with a sense of guilt even though I was pretty sure I hadn’t done anything wrong. A man stood beside the driver’s side window, his neon-yellow vest identifying him as the same ferry worker who had been closing the gate a moment before.

  “Uh, excuse me, miss?” he said, his lilting accent pegging him as a lifetime Mainer.

  “Am I not allowed to park here?” I asked, not sure what I would do if the answer was no. I grabbed Aunt Gwen’s letter and held it up for him to see. “I was told it would be okay, that I should park in the line overnight and wait for the first ferry in the morning.”

  “You’re okay to park,” the man told me. “It’s just I thought you might want to know you’ve got some smoke coming out of the tailpipe of your car. Saw it when you turned into the lot.”

  That thread I’d been hanging on to hold me upright until I reached the island snapped at the news, and my whole body slumped like a marionette with cut strings. “You’ve got to be kidding me. My father’s mechanic just gave Miss Josephine a perfect bill of health three days ago.”

  “Well, she’s an old one,” he pointed out diplomatically. “Things can change quickly.”

  “Peas and rice!” I exclaimed, and yes, I did actually say it in those words. I’d made a bet with my friend Bailey when we were in college that I could go the longest without swearing. At six years, eight months, and thirteen days, I’d more than proven my point, but my make-believe cuss words were second nature now. “Please tell me there’s a mechanic over there, because I can’t afford to stick around on the mainland to have her fixed.”

  “Larry Sloane’s your guy. He’s got a shop out by Cabot Field, and his prices are fair.”

  “Thanks,” I said, trying not to worry too much over the fact that just because prices were fair didn’t mean they were low. Worst-case scenario, I’d be doing a lot of walking this summer.

  “You’re headed to the Pinecroft Inn?” As the man pointed to the letterhead, there was a shift in his expression that I couldn’t quite read, and it put me on edge.

  “My great-aunt runs the place, and I’m going to help her for the summer?” For some reason, though it was one hundred percent true, my statement came out as a question. My self-confidence always plummeted when I felt nervous, a trait that drove me nuts.

  To my relief, he broke into a grin. “Why, you must be Tamsyn!”

  I blinked. “That’s me. How did you—?”

  “Miss Gwyneth’s been talking all week about her niece visiting, although I could’ve sworn she said you’d be gettin’ in tomorrow.”

  “I am arriving tomorrow. That is, I’m just parking here tonight so I can get a spot for my car on the first ferry in the morning.”

  “Did you not call ahead for one of the reserved spots?”

  I shook my head. “I tried, but I was told they’re completely booked until the middle of July.”

  “Ayuh, that’ll happen. Summerhaven’s become a real popular tourist destination these past few years, since the condos went in.” He glanced back at the ferry, which had yet to depart from the dock, possibly because he hadn’t actually finished shutting the gate and raising the ramp. “Tell you what. Give me a minute. I think I can squeeze you on.”

  “What, on this one? Tonight?” I flashed him a grateful smile. I might have been resigned to sleeping in the parking lot, but I hadn’t exactly been looking forward to it. After weeks of rotten luck, finally something was going my way. “That’s really kind of you.”

  He waved his hand dismissively, but I could’ve sworn the man’s cheeks turned three shades of pink. “I wouldn’t do it for just anyone, but Miss Gwyneth makes the best blueberry pie I’ve ever tasted, with those little berries that grow wild on the island. Maybe if you just let her know that Walter at the pier helped you out…”

  “You got it, Walter. I’ll make sure she’s got a whole blueberry pie with your name on it, even if I have to beg.”

  Walter hurried back to the ferry, and I watched as one by one, the last row of cars backed off the boat, traveled partway down the ramp, then pulled back onto the deck in a tighter configuration. Sure enough, by the time the last car was in place, there was room for one more. He waved me on board.

  “Thank you again,” I called through the open window as I slowed to a crawl and maneuvered Miss Josephine into the narrow spot. “That was like magic, how you made the space appear.” A funny look crossed his face when I said the word magic, but it was gone in an instant.

  After fourteen hours of driving, my legs ached with the need to stretch. I eased myself out of the car as soon as the boat was underway, pulling my phone from my pocket so I could give Aunt Gwen a call and let her know I would arrive ahead of schedule. As I turned toward the stairs that led to the upper deck, I found myself staring into the glinting, green eyes of a black cat, the same one I’d seen prowling around on shore, who was perched on top of the metal railing. My gut twisted as the ferry lurched into action with a bumping jolt that threatened to send the ragged creature right over the edge and into the water.

  “Hey there, fella,” I cooed as I inched toward the edge of the deck. “What are you doing here?”

  The cat watched me with unblinking eyes, then lifted a paw and began to groom it with his pink tongue as if he weren’t one careless move or oversized wave away from certain death.

  “Why don’t we get you somewhere safer?” I soothed, though as I’ve already mentioned, I’m not a cat person, so it probably wasn’t very convincing. He lifted himself onto all four paws and arched his back. You don’t have to be a cat lover to have a heart, and mine nearly stopped as one of his rear paws slipped. “Easy, buddy. You need to get down from there right now.”

  Without warning, his other leg slipped and now the cat dangled from the railing with nothing between him and the sea to break his fall while his back claws desperately sought purchase in the metal mesh that made up the ferry wall. He let out a plaintive mewl, and I cried out as I lunged, reaching toward him with both arms. At the same moment, he must have achieved a good grip with his claws, as he catapulted from the railing and came hurtling toward my head.

  My arms flew up for protection, and the phone I’d forgotten I was holding slipped from my grasp and landed with a plop in a large puddle of salt water on the deck. The cat scampered beneath one of the cars and disappeared from sight. As I dropped to one knee to retrieve my waterlogged phone, I felt the waistband of my skirt come loose as the top button popped off and disap
peared over the side of the deck. When I flipped the dripping phone over in my palm, the screen had gone dark, and it sported a spiderweb of cracks in the glass.

  That rotten luck I’d been so sure was coming to an end? Turns out I was mistaken.

  Chapter Two

  As I made my way to the passenger cabin on the upper deck, I tried to remember how many years of bad luck having a black cat cross your path was worth. Seven? Thirteen? And then there was the phone. I mean, technically it wasn’t a mirror, but I did often use the selfie function to check my hair and makeup, and the way things were going, it wouldn’t surprise me if the universe decided to count the cracked screen against me. Even if it didn’t, the stupid thing was still broken, and I couldn’t afford to fix it.

  What I needed at that moment was a strong cup of tea. At least I knew where I could get one. Every summer when I was growing up, after we’d made the drive up from Boston, where my mom and I lived, she would order an Earl Grey tea as soon as we boarded the ferry. Then we’d sit at a table by a window to watch the waves. I could almost taste the bergamot oil on my tongue after all these years, and the strength of the memory surprised me. Most of that period of my life was lost in shadows and mist. Once I’d settled into life in Cleveland with Dad, selective amnesia had been my best defense against the pain of unanswered questions surrounding her disappearance. I’d been determined to move on, not to let the mystery of her fate haunt me. For years, I’d assumed my efforts had succeeded, but my return to the island would be the ultimate test.