A Lethal Legacy: A Witch Cozy Paranormal Mystery (Witches of Hemlock Cove Book 6) by Kennedy Chase

Author:Kennedy Chase [Chase, Kennedy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Monty's Tale Press
Published: 2017-02-09T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

The sun rose high and bright in the sky the next morning, casting its warm glow over Hemlock Cove. A harbinger for a beautiful day for the townspeople as they went about their shopping and the tourists as they headed for the usual sights and stops.

Most of that beauty was wasted on us as we stood in front of Baron’s decrepit and tumbling home. As though the building was surrounded by its own murky haze, the sun didn’t make it through the trees as well as it did deeper in town, and the wind cut sharper.

I pulled up the collar of my jacket to fend off the chill and looked to the others.

Dario and Zach appeared to share my reaction to the state of the place, their expressions crinkled with horror and distaste.

“It’s not much to look at,” Amber said. “I wish I could say the inside is nicer. Keep your shoes on when we go in. I’m afraid you might cut yourself on something.”

I was glad we’d left Noah and Jessie with Hope at the guesthouse. Who knows what they would have dug up.

The property sat on the edge of the city’s limits, a good fifteen-minute drive away from the nearest store. Mostly a log exterior, the roof was worn in patches and a few of the beams needed to be replaced. The porch was rotted through; one stair was cracked across the middle.

At its height, the house would have been beautiful. I picked out the engravings in the wood near the base beams and along the handrails. It had clearly been lovingly crafted, likely by the person who had lived here. Time and carelessness had let it crumble into dereliction.

“We might as well get this over with,” Zach said. “Ladies first.”

Amber led the way up the stairs, showing where to step to avoid falling through. “I’ve only been here a few times,” she said, “but you learn quickly when you almost break an ankle in the same place each time. He hid the key over here.”

On the landing, she went to a large flowerpot filled with nothing but earth. Beneath it was the key. Amber unlocked the door and let us inside.

“Wow,” I said, unable to come up with anything more eloquent. “I never knew people still left keys under flowerpots.”

“Given the state of the place,” Dario said, “I doubt there’d be much worry of being burgled.”

“Fair point,” I conceded.

If the outside was a tumbledown building, the inside was a disaster zone.

The entrance carpet crunched under my shoes with years of built-up grime, and the walls showed fingerprints where someone had leaned against it to remove their shoes. I decided to take Amber’s suggestion and keep mine on.

A part of me wished I had one of those white hazardous materials outfits. Who knew what was floating around in the stagnant air of the place?

As we moved further into the house, I realized the worst affliction of the place wasn’t the dirt, but the clutter.

Coats hung over the backs of chairs, and books lay open on every surface.

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