Witch Pie: A Witch Squad Holiday Special (A Witch Squad Cozy Mystery Book 4) Read online

  Witch Pie

  A Witch Squad Cozy Mystery

  M.Z. Andrews

  Witch Pie

  A Witch Squad Cozy Mystery - Holiday Special: Book #4

  by

  M.Z. Andrews

  Copyright © M.Z. Andrews 2016

  ISBN-13: 978-1973835592

  ISBN-10: 1973835592

  All characters herein are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the author except for the brief quotations in a book review.

  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

  Also by M.Z. Andrews

  About the Author

  1

  “What kind did you order?” Sweets asked excitedly, as she tucked one foot under her bottom and scooted back further into the booth.

  Jax looked down at the slice of pie in front of her, closed her eyes, and inhaled a deep whiff of the warm cinnamon and nutmeg scent. “Apple, doesn’t it smell heavenly?”

  Sweets nodded her head, dimpling her round cheeks as she smiled. “This whole place smells heavenly!”

  “What kind did you get Holly?” Jax asked the voluptuous blonde headed towards the table.

  “Cherry, of course,” Holly said, scooting me over so she could sit down too.

  “Ugh,” I groaned, pushing my black-rimmed glasses up the bridge of my nose. “I can’t stand cherry pie. I got chocolate cream.”

  “Mmm, you should have gotten the apple, Mercy. It tastes so good, and it’s nice and warm! You want to try a bite of mine?” my tiny pixie of a roommate asked me, breaking off a piece of her pie with her fork and aiming it towards my mouth.

  I held a hand up to stop the fork from getting within touching distance. “No thanks, Jax.”

  “I’ll try a bite,” volunteered Sweets.

  Holly shook her head and reached out to shove Jax’s fork away from Sweets’ mouth. “Don’t give it to her Jax. We’re putting this one on a diet.”

  Sweets put a hand on her rounded hip indignantly. “Uh! That’s rude.”

  “Sorry Sweets, but you need to watch your sugar intake. You don’t eat healthy food, all you eat is junk food – I’m worried about you. That can’t be very good for you.”

  “And you don’t work out,” said Jax, nodding her head, her black, wide-brimmed, witch’s hat bobbing with her movements. “You should start getting up early and going to yoga with me.”

  Sweets rolled her eyes. “I don’t do yoga and what is this? Pick on Sweets day?” she asked sadly.

  “Are they picking on you Sweets?” Alba asked as she pulled up a chair and sat down with us.

  “They think I’m fat,” she said sadly.

  Jax shook her head and put an arm around Sweets’ shoulder. “Sweets, we didn’t say that! We love you just the way you are.”

  Holly took a bite of her pie before agreeing with Jax. “We just want you to be healthy, that’s all.”

  I cleared my throat and readjusted myself in my chair, flipping my long, auburn braid over my shoulder. “What kind of pie did you get, Alba?”

  “Pecan. My Aunt Gloria makes an amazing pecan pie every year for Thanksgiving,” Alba said as she dug her fork into the gorgeous slice of pie.

  “I love this place,” Sweets said, having already forgotten about being offended.

  I looked around. What wasn’t to love about Bailey’s Bakery & Sweets? There was a brick hearth oven behind the counter that they made their famous bread in. The glass display case was chock full of amazing looking handmade candies, cupcakes, and pies. The smell of the bakery alone was worth the price of any of the treats – it was like what I imagined Mrs. Claus’ kitchen to smell like – warm, cozy, and delicious.

  And, of course, there was Mr. Bailey. He was a sweet old man with a shiny, smooth bald head and big white disheveled eyebrows that seemed to dance animatedly when he talked. He was round, a trait common to most professional bakers, I suspected, and a bit vertically challenged. But what he lacked in height he made up for in personality. When it came to personality the man was 7 foot tall and bulletproof.

  He seemed to take an immediate liking to the Witch Squad. Every time we made a trip in for a treat, he made it a point to stop by our table and visit. He made me wonder if perhaps he wasn’t a bit on the lonely side. Word on the street was that he was a retired wizard, but had begun a late in life second career as a baker to focus on his potion-making. We had been told that people came from far and wide to purchase one of the herbal remedies he baked with love into his loaves of bread.

  “Mr. Bailey this lemon meringue pie is amazing,” Sweets gushed as the old man approached our table.

  “Yeah, Mr. Bailey, the pies are on point as usual,” Jax gushed.

  Mr. Bailey clapped his hands together. “Oh, thank you, girls! I’m so glad you like them, and I’m happy you girls came to visit me again. Tell me, how’s college going?” he asked with a broad smile and a little wink.

  The five of us exchanged tiny smiles. We were all first-year students at the Paranormal Institute for Witches in the small town of Aspen Falls, Pennsylvania – an adorable town snugged up in the high elevations of the Appalachian Mountains. The residents of the town knew about the Institute, but it wasn’t something many people asked us about.

  “It’s been a busy semester,” Jax admitted to him. She wasn’t lying either. We’d solved a handful of crimes including four murders since we’d begun college and the last couple of weeks had been our first real break since September. I’d hardly had time to do what I was supposed to be doing in witch college, which was to learn!

  “But you’re enjoying it?” he prodded.

  Sweets smiled broadly. Her chubby cheeks bubbled up into her eyes, giving her a cherubic look. “Yes, we are enjoying it!”

  “That’s good to hear. This really is the best time in your life you know.”

  “That’s what we hear,” Alba said gruffly.

  Mr. Bailey leaned towards us. “Can you girls keep a secret?”

  Jax’s eyes grew as she leaned into him. “Of course we can!”

  He looked around to see if anyone in the bakery was listening, despite the fact that the bakery was empty without us in it. “I was once a student of the Paranormal Institute.”

  We all pretended to be shocked.

  “You?” I asked him with mirth.

  He pointed at himself and nodded gleefully. “Me! This old man right here!” he wiped his hands nervously on his white apron and looked around again. “I’ve got a bit of magic in me to this day,” he bragged with a little wiggle of his head.

  “Mr. Bailey! We had no idea,” I lied. “When did you graduate?”

  Suddenly he seemed to want to rush off. “We won’t talk about that,” he said with a big smile. “That was so many years ago; I can’t count that high anymore. I better go check on my bread. You girls enjoy your pie, I’ll come check on you in a little bit.”

  We watched as he waddled off behind the counter.

  “What a nice man,” Sweets
said. “I would love to do an internship here someday.”

  “Why don’t you ask him if you can?” Alba asked her. “You’re a baking matchmaker, and he’s a baking potion maker. And he’s an alum of the Institute. Why wouldn’t he want to hire you?”

  Sweets shrugged her shoulders and tore her eyes away from Alba. “I’m going to. Someday. I’m just not quite ready. I’d like to get at least the first semester behind me.”

  I tore a piece of my pie off with my fork. “I don’t blame you. Life has been so hectic lately. I never know if I’m coming or going!”

  Holly leaned back in her chair. “Thank goodness for Thanksgiving break!”

  “Yeah,” I agreed, nodding. “How nice it will be to just sleep in for an entire week.”

  “Seven days off left. The thought just makes me giddy,” Jax squealed. “You’re all staying in town, right?”

  I looked around the table. No one seemed to be too excited. “Well, since my mom and brother are here, I figured I’d stick around. Where else would I go?”

  Jax nodded, licking the back of her fork. “Same. My whole family is in town – not that my mother will be cooking a big dinner or anything, but I’m not going anywhere either. How about you Sweets? What did you decide?”

  Sweets shook her head. “I’m going home for Christmas. My mom said that tickets to Georgia are too expensive, so I should just stay here for Thanksgiving. How about you two?” she asked, looking at Alba and Holly.

  “I’m flying home for Christmas too,” Holly said. “My mom has plans with some friends for Thanksgiving so she said I could just stay here.”

  We all looked at Alba. She shrugged. “I’m just staying here,” she said flatly.

  “What’s your family doing for Thanksgiving?” Jax asked.

  Alba ran a hand through the back of her short brown hair. “Probably what they always do. My Aunt Gloria cooks. My mom and grandma get in her way. Dad, Tony, and my brothers will probably work in the morning and get off early for dinner.”

  Holly furrowed her eyebrows at Alba. “They’ll probably do what they always do? You don’t know?”

  Alba shrugged one shoulder noncommittally. “Eh, I didn’t ask.”

  I squinted my eyes and peered at Alba closer. “You didn’t ask? Did you even call your family?”

  Alba looked out the window.

  Holly jumped at the opportunity to berate her roommate. “Alba! I thought you were going to call Tony and ask him to come and visit you for Thanksgiving. We talked about it!”

  Alba, who lived at home with her large extended family and her husband, Tony, hadn’t seen or heard from anyone back home since she left for college in mid-September. She’d spent the last month or so being upset about the fact that her husband hadn’t contacted her yet and we’d recently discovered that Tony wasn’t really that great of a communicator. But we thought we had convinced her that marriages took work and that she might need to be the one to make the first move and contact him. We were hoping she was going to invite him to come and visit her for the Thanksgiving holiday.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “We said you were going to invite Tony here!”

  Alba shook her head as she turned her attention back towards the four of us. “No, you guys said I should invite him out here.”

  Jax stuck out her bottom lip. “We all agreed,” she said quietly, more to herself than Alba.

  “Look, I appreciate the advice, but you don’t know Tony. He’s not exactly the most demonstrative of guys.”

  Holly looked confused. “What’s that mean?”

  Alba grunted and rolled her eyes then turned her face back towards the window.

  “What?” Holly asked, throwing her hands up in the air.

  “It means he isn’t really into showing his feelings,” I explained to Holly. Then I turned my attention back to Alba. “People change you know. Maybe you’d be surprised by how much he misses you. He’s probably just giving you some space.”

  “Yeah, absence makes the heart grow fonder,” Sweets agreed heartily while finishing off her pie. “Omigosh, that pie was to die for.”

  “Call him Alba,” I insisted.

  “This is why I didn’t want you guys to know about him. I didn’t want you all up in my business,” Alba complained.

  “We’re not trying to get all up in your business,” I assured her. “We just want you to be happy. And we can all tell that you’re not happy.”

  Holly nodded. “You got that right, sister. You need to smile once in awhile.”

  “You need to shut up once in awhile,” Alba grumbled towards Holly. Then, for just a moment, she broke character and softened slightly. “Look, I appreciate all the advice, but…”

  “I’ll ask Mom and Reign to host Thanksgiving at Habernackle’s,” I told her before she could finish. “We’ll have a big party, and Tony can come, and we’ll all hang out together.”

  Alba let out a heavy sigh. “Don’t you understand, Tony isn’t going to want to drive all the way out here just to go have dinner with all of us.”

  Jax swallowed her last bite of pie. “But you’ll never know if you don’t ask him,” she said softly.

  We all nodded.

  I pushed my plate towards the center of the table and rubbed my stomach. “I can’t believe how good that was.”

  “Mr. Bailey, the pie was amazing,” Jax hollered towards the kitchen.

  Mr. Bailey made his way back out towards the counter with a big smile on his face. “Good, good, good. You girls come back and see me soon, alright? This old man gets lonely, especially around the holidays.”

  We all nodded. “For sure,” Jax said happily.

  Mr. Bailey smiled kindly and then started back towards the kitchen when a thought hit him. He stopped and turned around. “The bakery is hosting a pie baking competition the day before Thanksgiving. You girls should come down for that, if you’re not busy. We’re giving out free samples. I do it every year; it’s a nice way to usher in the holiday season. You don’t have school that day, right?”

  Holly stood up from her chair and began stacking our plates. “We don’t have school until next Monday, Mr. Bailey. We have an entire week off.”

  Sweets took the plates Holly had just stacked and walked them to the counter. She looked at Mr. Bailey inquisitively. “What is the competition about?”

  “I’m looking for my next specialty pie!” he announced and pointed at a sign behind the counter. “Make a pie using your own recipe and submit both the pie and recipe. Three of the Aspen Falls City Council members will be judging. The winner receives a lifetime subscription to the treat of the month club. Which must be picked up, no mailing or delivery included.”

  Sweets’ eyes nearly popped out of her head. “What’s your treat of the month club?”

  Mr. Bailey threw back his head and smiled proudly as he walked around his counter. “See all those pastries in there? Every month I pick a new item to feature. This month it’s that beauty right there,” he said and pointed at a decadent looking chocolate cupcake. “That is my Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Cupcake.” He closed his eyes and kissed his fingers, exploding them in the air.

  “So the winner gets to have a free treat once a month?” Sweets clarified. “For life?”

  Mr. Bailey nodded. “For life! Or as long as I’m alive anyway.”

  Sweets beamed. “What kind of pie recipe are you looking for?”

  “Something new and different or a twist on an old variety. It’s going to come down to taste and my judge’s opinion!”

  “Can anyone enter?” Jax asked him.

  Mr. Bailey leaned on the counter as he looked at us excitedly. “Do you girls bake?”

  We all looked at Sweets who blushed sheepishly. “I bake,” she said shyly. “I’m a baking matchmaker.”

  His eyes widened. “Impressive! Very impressive. What’s your specialty?”

  “I don’t really have a specialty yet. Truffles are my favorite, though,” she admitted.

  “Truffles a
re my favorite, too,” he said, winking at her. “You should enter my contest! Here, take this,” he said and handed her a flyer. “It has the date and time.”

  Sweets looked down at it. Her face looked like it was about to burst with excitement. “Thank you, Mr. Bailey! We’ll see you soon.”

  The five of us headed towards Sweets’ car. “I’m entering that competition,” Sweets said excitedly. “And I’m going to win it!”

  2

  Sweets spoke of nothing else on the short drive to Habernackle’s Bed, Breakfast, and Beyond, my mother and brother’s small b&b and restaurant. “I already know exactly what pie I’m making,” she told us as she steered the vehicle down the street, gripping the steering wheel tightly. “My grandmother used to make it, it was amazing. I don’t think I’ve had it since she made it at the last Thanksgiving before she passed away. I was probably only eleven or twelve.”

  “What kind of pie was it?” Holly asked her.

  Sweets thought about it, swishing her lips to the side. “Mmm, well, she just called it Witch Pie. I don’t really remember what was all in it, to be honest. It had like a crunchy brown sugar pecan topping and a pumpkin and apple middle and a pie crust. It was kind of like an apple, pumpkin, and pecan pie all rolled into one.”

  “Might as well throw the kitchen sink in there, while you’re at it,” Alba grumbled from the back seat.

  Sweets ignored her and kept talking. “You girls just have no idea. It was amazing and unique. I just know it would win that award and Mr. Bailey would have to want to hire me for an internship if I won!”

  I couldn’t help but think that Sweets had a good plan there. It was sort of like an undercover job interview. “Well, I think it’s great, Sweets. I’m totally willing to help you make it!”