Deadly Summer (A Witch in the Woods Book 27) by Jenna St. James

Author:Jenna St. James [James, Jenna St.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-08-27T00:00:00+00:00

“I’ll go upstairs and prepare the men you’re here,” Needle said as I held open the door to the Enchanted Island Law Enforcement building.

Zoie giggled. “You think Dad and Grant need to be prepared ahead of time?”

Needles did a flip in the air. “For you two? Sure do.”

I rolled my eyes. “You just don’t want to go downstairs to the autopsy room.”

“That too.”

As Needles zipped up the stairs, Zoie and I headed down the stairs where octogenarian Pearl Earthly-Caraway sat behind her desk. Hovering magically above her lap were two skeins of yarn and a crochet hook. She was busy checking the stitches from the enchanted hook.

“Now that’s the smart way to do it,” Zoie said.

“My hands aren’t what they used to be,” Pearl said. “So this is the next best way.”

“The colors are beautiful,” Zoie said.

“Our wedding colors,” Pearl said. “I’m making this blanket for Opal and her hubby, and then I’m making a matching one for us.”

Pearl and her twin sister, Opal, had married kitchen witch twins—now long retired from the bakery business—a couple years ago during the Samhain celebration. It had been the brothers’ first marriages as well.

Getting married after the Samhain celebration was nothing new on Enchanted Island. In fact, GiGi and Byron would be doing the same thing in just a couple months.

“You two go on back,” Pearl said. “Doc and the others are waiting for you.”

We hurried down the hallway and entered the first door on the right. Doc, Finn, and Harlow were already inside the medical examiner's laboratory, just as Pearl said.

"There you two are," Doc said. "I was just about to text to let you know we were ready to go. I'll just jump right into it if that's okay with everyone?"

“Sounds good,” I said.

Doc motioned us over to the examination table where Varda's body had been autopsied. "Varda Sageman, ninety-seven-year-old witch. Overall, her health was fair. I found a few concerns." He pulled back the sheet, exposing the top half of the body. "As you can see, we have a significant head injury here." He moved her hair to the side. "Skull fracture. Consistent with being struck by a heavy object."

"So she was hit with the Book of Shadows," I murmured.

"There's presence of brain hemorrhaging, indicating the blow caused the fatal damage.” He covered the top half of Varda's body, then moved aside the blanket, exposing her right side. "These bruises and scrapes are not life-threatening. They probably occurred when she fell down the hill. So the lack of significant trauma from the fall, combined with the severe head injury, leads me to conclude that the blow to the head is what caused her death."

"Were there any broken bones?" I asked.

"A couple fractures,” Doc said. "I'm putting time of death between midnight and 2:00 AM."

"Let’s take the Book of Shadows first," Finn said. "DNA on the book shows the blood belonged to Varda, which is probably no surprise. But this might be of interest to you. I had two sets of fingerprints come back on the Book of Shadows.

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