Locked, Loaded, and Baked?: A Cozy Paranormal Women's Fiction (Snips and Snails Cafe Mystery Book 5) by Elizabeth Rain

Author:Elizabeth Rain [Rain, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: cozy, mystery
Publisher: Elizabeth Rain
Published: 2021-10-16T23:00:00+00:00

BY THE TIME I ARRIVED almost an hour later, the search was already underway. They’d started on the second floor. Jerry met me at the bottom of the stairs when I came through the front door.

I nodded towards the upstairs. “Find anything?”

“Nope. Shows no signs of anyone having been up there in probably years. Our Mr. Willows is elderly, so he probably wasn’t fond of all those stairs, and living alone with a main floor bedroom makes it unlikely he went up there at all if he didn’t have to. I have a few guys checking the basement now.”

It was then that I realized there wasn’t a flashlight in sight. Every light in the place appeared to be on and functional. I frowned. “That’s odd, isn’t it? So the electricity is on.” I looked around the living room, taking in the big screen TV and the comfortable-looking couch, a bright red throw neatly folded over the back. “Maybe he really is just off somewhere visiting relatives we don’t know about. But the half-inch of dust on all the furniture says he’s been gone more than a couple of weeks.”

“There’s something else, back here in the kitchen.” I followed him into the room I’d only caught a glimpse inside of before.

“I agree, the house looks like no one has been in here for months. But here it looks like someone has been making themselves right at home with the canned goods and snacks in the cupboards.”

I wrinkled my nose when we entered, the smell of the full trash can overpowering. “That’s ripe. What is it?”

“Empty cans and boxes. Leftovers. The kitchen is a mess.”

I nodded at the table. “When I was here before, I could peek inside a little through the window. I can’t remember if I told you, but I noticed the trash on the table then, too. But I don’t recall it being near this bad. But then again, I can’t swear to it, since it was just a short bit later that someone was sending bullets whirring past my head.”

A sharp pain had me slapping at my ankle. I looked down and realized it was an ant. The floor had an abundance of them. They were running over the legs of the table and inside a potato chip bag that was crumpled in the center next to an empty cereal box. Crumbs decorated the surface of the table. I looked closer and realized what I was seeing wasn’t crushed chips or the remains of a package of cookies. It was dirt. “Hey, see that? I get the dirt on the floors. But on the table?” I reached forward before he could stop me and brushed the bag aside.

And screamed.

There was pounding from every corner of the house as the rest of the searching officers came bounding into the kitchen, their guns drawn and pointing in my general direction. I gulped.

Jerry glared at me, his mouth tight. “It’s a false alarm. Holster your weapons and keep on searching every corner of this house.

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