Murder without Mercy Read online

  Table of Contents

  © 2020 Tegan Maher

  Dedication

  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

  Thank You!

  The Deadly Daiquiri | Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Other Series by Tegan Maher

  Connect with Me!

  © 2020 Tegan Maher

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form, by any means electronic or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system currently in use or yet to be devised.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or institutions is entirely coincidental.

  This eBook is licensed for your personal use and may not be re-sold or given away to others. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase a copy for that person. If you did not purchase this book, or it was not purchased for your use, then you have an unauthorized copy. Please go to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting my hard work and copyright.

  Dedication

  As much as I love what I do, these last few months have been tough on us all. It’s been a real struggle for me because it’s hard to clear my mind and write lighthearted, funny books when the world is burning. So, for your infinite patience, kind (and often hilarious) words, and unending support, I’d like to dedicate this book first and foremost to you, dear reader.

  There are a few other folks who have helped keep me sane when I was starting to talk to the houseplants. My fellow witchy authors, of course—they’re my rocks.

  And JM. Thanks, man, for getting me and for cheering me on with absolute faith and evil emojis even when I’m not so sure myself that I’ll make it to The End.

  Finally, to Dustin. There aren’t enough pages to list all the reasons why.

  Chapter 1

  “Wow,” Anna Mae said as she swung an awkward leg over the picnic table bench and plopped down across from me with a full plate of barbecue. We were at the annual Keyhole Lake Spring Festival, and she was so pregnant, she was about to pop.

  We dug in and appreciated the food in silence, but I noticed her gaze kept straying to a booth not too far away.

  Finally, she said, “Can you believe it’s been almost two whole years since our lives converged?” She tilted her head toward the table. “Right there’s where everything changed forever.”

  “For the better,” I said, thinking back to that fateful day as I shoveled a spoonful of the best baked beans I’d ever eaten into my mouth.

  Her husband Hank, one of the meanest people God had ever stretched hide over, had died pretty as you please from a piece of poisoned pie he’d pigged down that morning. The man had been a cancer in our town, and there wasn’t a single person who was worse off for his passing.

  The whole incident had freed Anna Mae from a miserable life, I’d met the man of my dreams, and Keyhole Lake had been shed of a sheriff who was blackmailing, strong-arming, and bullying nearly everybody in one way or another.

  “I still believe that was one of the best decisions I made in my entire life,” Cheri Lynn, our friend and the ghost of his murderer, said as she appeared at the head of the table.

  I silently amended my previous thought: there was one person who was worse off for Hank’s passing. Cheri had been murdered by Hank’s thugs at almost the same time he’d been dying from her poisoned pie.

  She’d been an exotic dancer—we didn’t use the word stripper—at Tassels, Keyhole’s one and only gentleman’s club. Except there hadn’t been anything gentlemanly about the place. Hank had taken a criminal amount of her tips every night as a fee, and he and his goons had treated her worse than they’d have ever treated a dog. And that was saying something considering they’d all, down to a man, been the type to kick puppies. Anyway, Hank had bought the title to her grandmother’s trailer when Cheri’d fallen behind on taxes, and he’d basically kept her enslaved because she had nowhere else to go.

  So she’d baked him a poison pie.

  “I wish it wouldn’t have cost you so much, though, Cheri,” Anna Mae said, a shadow of sadness flitting across her pixie face.

  “Shoot,” Cheri Lynn replied, flapping a hand. Her nails were painted a bright cherry that matched the red plaid top that she wore tied at the waist. “Honey, my post-life is oodles better than my breathin’ one was. Look at me! I’ve got friends and an awesome guy who takes me all over the world. Before, I was stuck in that trailer livin’ under Hank’s thumb without two nickels to rub together or a single hope that it’d ever get better. No siree, don’t you fret about me for a single second. Bakin’ belladonna into that pie was worth whatever happened after. Besides, they’da killed me anyway. I just got the winnin’ lick in before they did.”

  She was right, but I still felt a familiar twinge of regret that I hadn’t taken the time to get to know her before she’d died. Maybe I could have helped her, not that I’d had much at the time, either.

  “Plus, we’d have never met,” Matt, Anna Mae’s fiancé said, casting a loving glance at Anna’s rounded belly. “And we wouldn’t have Little Man on the way.”

  “Or Little Girl,” Cheri Lynn replied, raven brow raised. “We still don’t know for sure what she is.”

  I smiled at her use of the feminine pronoun. She and Anna Mae were hoping like crazy for a little girl, but Anna and Matt had decided they wanted it to be a surprise.

  “I’d be okay with a girl, too,” Matt replied around a bite of barbecue, his tanned face creasing into a smile. “As long as she’s healthy.”

  “The poor girl will never get a date,” Hunter said, swabbing butter over his ear of corn. He was probably right; Matt had been a sniper in the Army, and he still carried that intimidating military bearing. Combined with his height and muscular build, boys would think twice about bringing any daughter of his home even a second after curfew, assuming they had the nerve to ask her out to begin with.

  Anna Mae shuddered. “We have a decade and a half to worry about that, so for now, let’s skip it.”

  Truth be told, any wise potential suiter for her daughter would be more scared of her than of Matt. She was a mama grizzly wearin’ a hundred-pound woman’s suit, and it didn’t take much of a poke to bring out her protective side.

  I took a long pull off my glass of tea, and I wasn’t sure which was more heavenly—the ice-cold refreshment inside the glass or the cool condensation on the outside of it. It was upwards of ninety degrees, and the humidity was so thick the air felt heavy.

  A laughing little girl of about ten ran past us and caught her sneaker on one of the tent pegs as she glanced over her shoulder at the boy chasing her. With a gasp, I shoved out a pulse of magic to keep her from face-planting into a table groaning under the weight of about fifteen covered dishes.

  The look of dread and horror on her face changed to one of confusion as I tipped her back onto her feet. It was subtle magic. All I did was slow her down long enough for her to get her foot untangled, but she still sensed that it wasn’t quite all her doing. She glanced around, but I went back to talking like nothing had happened.

  “I saw that,” Hunter said, nudging me with his elbow. “That was sweet of you.”


  I just smiled back and bit into my barbecue sandwich, wondering if the butterflies in my stomach would ever stop fluttering when I looked into those sea-green eyes. Sappy, I know, but still true.

  Matt cleaned his plate first and twisted around to stand up. “Anybody need anything? I’m gonna grab another plate and see if Ms. Mayweather brought her cola cake.”

  One of the things about any Southern shindig is that you could count on folks showin’ up with a covered dish. Most anybody can afford to bake a cake or throw together some macaroni salad, and it’s sort of a point of pride for many folks to strut out their signature dishes. During the Fourth of July celebration, there was a pie contest that had actually led to all-out hair-pulling catfights. Women were serious about their secret recipes.

  Bobbie Sue and Earl, the owners of Bobbie Sue’s barbecue, hosted several events including the Spring Celebration, the Fourth of July barbecue competition and festival, and the annual Christmas festival every year and refused to charge a dime. Keyhole Lake isn’t a rich town, and it was their opinion that nobody should miss out on the festivities just because they’re broke. That’s just how they are, and one of the many reasons I love them.

  “I’ll go, too,” I said, sopping up the last of my baked bean juice with my last bite of sandwich. “I didn’t have room for cucumber salad or that cornbread casserole. Anybody want anything?”

  “I’ll have some ambrosia salad,” Anna Mae said. “I’d go get it myself, but I honestly don’t know if I’m gonna be able to stand without a crane.”

  She wasn’t exaggerating, or at least not much. She was a little bitty thing unpregnant, and now that she was carrying what appeared to be a half-grown person in her belly, movement of any sort was a challenge. It was amusing to watch her walk, though. She’d give any duck a run for its money and had to keep her back arched a little, presumably to keep from falling forward. In short, she was adorable.

  “I gotcha,” Matt said, bending over to kiss the top of her head. “You sit tight, and I’ll bring you all the ambrosia salad you can hold.”

  It didn’t take me long to get a refill, but I went ahead and grabbed a second plate with a slice of Hettie Long’s bourbon pecan pie on it because it was the last one. That stuff was so good that though I’d have hated to fork somebody for the last piece, I would have. Better to avoid the scenario altogether.

  “How are you eating like that in this heat?” Anna Mae asked, wrinkling her nose as I flung my leg back over the picnic bench and went to town on my seconds. “You’re gonna barf when you get on the rides.”

  She was referring to the big carnival that always accompanied the spring festivities. The joke was on her, though. “It’s not a problem I have to worry about. You couldn’t pay me to ride the rides.”

  She tilted her head. “Oh, yeah. I always forget because it makes no sense to me. You race your motorcycle at a hundred miles an hour down a track and ride Missy hellbent for leather every chance you get. I’m not sure who’s crazier—you or her. I’d think carnival rides would be right up your alley.” Missy was my paint mare.

  Hunter rolled his eyes as he took his seat beside me. “This isn’t an argument you can win. Trust me, I’ve tried.”

  “That’s because there’s no argument. I don’t like heights, and I especially don’t like being flung upside down in a rattletrap put together by a bunch of stoned teenagers.”

  Not that I had anything against stoners, but I knew a couple of these particular carnies personally. They’d pretty much smoked away the last of the five brain cells they’d been born with, and I wouldn’t have ridden in a go-cart they’d put together, let alone a sixty-foot death machine where the only thing keeping me from being flung into a crowd of innocent people were a couple of bolts they may or may not have remembered to tighten. Nope. No way. I said as much.

  Matt waved me off. “Don’t be a baby. When was the last time that actually happened?”

  “Never that I know of,” I replied, taking a swig of my tea, “which means it could happen any time now.”

  “Told ya,” Hunter said, bumping me with his shoulder. “She’s great at the games, though.”

  Anna Mae sighed. “I’m jealous. I wish I could ride, but it’s a bad idea even if I were allowed. With my luck, my water’d break while I was upside down.”

  I laughed at the visual. “I’d feel even worse for the people below you.”

  Once we’d finished eating, I stood and tossed my plate into the trash can, sorta regretting the second helping. It was hot as blue blazes, especially for early May. “I’m gonna go in and thank Bobbie Sue and Earl and see why Justin hasn’t already been out here torturing us to go to the carnival.”

  “Sure thing,” Hunter replied. “We’ll go over and check the bikes, then meet you inside. I want a refill on my tea anyway.”

  I sighed in blessed relief as I pushed through the side door of Bobbie Sue’s Barbecue. The A/C was on and working overtime, and the cool air tickling over my damp skin felt amazing. That was one of the small pleasures in life that I’d learned not to take for granted.

  Inside, the restaurant was packed, and I headed straight to the waitress station, where I stuck a twenty into the Miller Light bucket the girls were using as a tip jar.

  I’d worked at Bobbie Sue’s for years, and the money I’d earned there had helped me raise my kid sister Shelby after my Aunt Addy had passed and left me as her guardian. The events were brutal to work, but we always made a boatload of money in tips to make it worth our while.

  My mind drifted back to the last big festival I’d worked. It had been the day Hank had died, and I realized how much had changed. I’d been exhausted from working two jobs, scared because it seemed like the wolves were always at the door, and worried because Shelby’d gone hog wild.

  To add to it, Hank had threatened to do something bad to her that very day if I didn’t sell him my farm. I’d put a magical squeeze on his windpipe and reminded him that he would do well to think about who he threatened. In fact, when the poison kicked in, I thought maybe I’d played a hand in his demise.

  Now Shelby was in college, Hunter and I were engaged, and I ran a little shop called Reimagined and did fairly well for myself. And Hank was exactly where he deserved to be; I’d watched his soul get pulled under myself. It was hard to believe almost two years had passed since that day, but in another way, it felt like it had been a lifetime ago.

  “Thanks, Noe,” Sarah, one of the waitresses and a good friend of mine, said when I stuffed the money in.

  “Of course,” I said as I refilled my tea and snapped the lid back on. “You guys makin’ out okay?”

  “Better than okay,” she said. “We’re not sure who did it, but somebody put a crisp hundred-dollar bill in the outside jar a little bit ago. No idea when since you can’t see through the old mayo tub we’re usin’.”

  “Nice!” I said, knowing just how much that would help. “You bringin’ the kids to the carnival later?”

  “Maybe,” she said, filling glasses with tea and arranging them on her tray. I know she’d probably already delivered three hundred of those and would run three hundred more as hot as it was outside. “It depends on how late I get out of here. Skeet’s pickin’ up the kids and bringin’ them here when I get off. We’re all going together if all goes well. I’m supposed to get off at three, but the new waitress only bothers to show up half the time. Since you and Shelby both left, it’s been hard to find good help. I can’t just leave Louise by herself, though. Not with all this.”

  And she was the type of person who’d feel too obligated to help to just walk off the job at three no matter what plans she had. She was a good egg, and I was happy she and Skeeter, another good friend of mine, had found each other. They both deserved to be happy.

  “Good luck, sweetie,” I said, taking a drink of my tea. “Hopefully the money will win out over her urge to slack off and go to the carnival.”

  I made a mental note to come back and check later.
We didn’t have any set plans and I wouldn’t mind taking over for her so she could take her son Sean and niece Bonnie to the carnival. They were little, and it would be a shame for them to miss out on cotton candy and the carousel when I could do something about it.

  Chapter 2

  “Hey, guys!” I said, pushing through the batwing doors that led to the kitchen. Bobbie Sue was at a long stainless-steel table making coleslaw, and Earl, her giant teddy bear of a husband, was at an identical table shredding a huge steaming chunk of meat.

  I say teddy bear, but if you didn’t know him, there was no way you’d think that. He was a sturdy six-four with arms like a lumberjack and a USMC bulldog tattoo on his bicep. Years of cooking some of the best barbecue in Georgia had added meat to his bones, and the frown of concentration creasing his brow only added to his overall I will break you in half appearance.

  That all changed when the young redheaded boy working beside him said something and nudged him with his elbow. His face split into a wide grin and the gentle giant I knew took the place of the mean-looking dude he appeared to be at first glance.

  “Hey, Noelle!” the boy exclaimed and jumped off the stool. “Is it two already?” He pulled out his brand-new cell phone and checked the time. “I guess it is. We’ve been so busy that I lost track of time.”

  Since Bobbie Sue and Earl had adopted Justin over a year earlier, he’d settled in with them like they’d raised him. He hadn’t had the easiest time before he’d come into our lives, but now it seemed like he’d always been in it.

  “Hey, kiddo,” I said, ruffling his hair. “It sure is. You ready?”

  “Stop,” he said, shrugging out from under my hand. “Brittani Daniels is helpin’ her mom at the duck pond, and I don’t want my hair messed up.” A blush spread over his freckled cheeks.

  “Well we can’t have that, then,” I said, grinning at Bobbie Sue as she dumped half a gallon jar of mayo into the huge tub of shredded slaw and carrots in front of her.