Sleaze on the Beach Read online

  “And the cash,” Kane added.

  “Yes, and the cash.” She pushed her front door open. “Presto, we’ve got the tuna. Here kitty, kitty. You want me to cook it?”

  “Okay, first of all, you need to stop with that here kitty kitty stuff. Second, I’m a cat. Just unwrap the fish and toss it in my bowl.”

  “You call me salty, but that cat is brutal,” Kane said. “I like him.”

  “Let’s go for that walk. I really want some cheese sticks.”

  “I don’t know how you keep your figure eating the way you do,” Kane said. “Most women I’ve known have obsessed over their figures, but you just kind of do what you want. And it works out for you.”

  “Does Blossom obsess over her figure?”

  “Not really,” Kane said with a shrug.

  “Exactly. It’s a witch thing. Magic metabolisms are one of the perks.”

  They left Presto with his fresh tuna and went out through the patio door. A cool breeze had begun to cut through the night air, but it was still mostly pleasant. It was normally pretty hot in Clownfish Cay, even at night, but the storm had brought in cooler temperatures.

  Starla and Kane were about halfway to the place on the beach where there was a small boardwalk that led to a few bars and restaurants when they saw a crowd gathered.

  “What’s going on?” Starla wondered out loud.

  “I don’t know. I’m going to check it out. Stay back,” Kane said and gave her hand a squeeze.

  “Dude, I swear to gawd that if you don’t stop telling me to stay back while you check things out, I’m going to put a hex on you.”

  “That sounded like a threat,” he retorted with an impish smile.

  “It was a promise,” Starla snarked.

  “Fine, okay,” Kane said and put his hands up in mock surrender. “We’ll check it out. Together.”

  They walked quickly over to the gathered crowd. The people parted when they saw Sheriff Kane.

  “Oh no,” Starla said.

  It was a body.

  “Folks, I’m going to need you to take a step back,” Kane said as he shifted into professional mode.

  Starla watched as a tall woman in a blue dress inched her way out of the crowd and left quickly. She’d seen her on the docks before, but Starla would have to ask Blossom about the identity of the woman.

  “You should go,” Kane said. “I’m going to put tape around the area.”

  “You don’t have any tape, Kane,” Starla responded. “I’ll get it from your car. I’ll grab your case too.”

  “Thank you, sweetie. I appreciate it.”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  Starla walked as fast as she could back to her house to get Kane’s things from his car. The dead man on the beach had a knife with a huge carved handle protruding from his chest. It was apparent he’d been murdered.

  She grabbed Kane’s case and supply bag with the tape from his trunk and slammed it shut. Starla made her way to where she’d left Kane.

  “Come over when you’re done?”

  “I will. I promise,” he said and kissed her on the cheek.

  Starla wanted to know more about the murder, but she didn’t want to get in Kane’s way. The easiest way to get him to give her some details was to go home and wait.

  “Maybe he’ll spill more if I ply him with food,” she said to herself.

  She wasn’t far from the restaurants, so Starla took a brief detour to a nearby diner to get a burger and fries to go for Kane. She also got those mozzarella sticks she’d been wanting.

  Bag of takeout in hand, Starla headed home. She avoided the beach and walked home along the street. There were even more tourists out and about than the night before. She thought it was good to see the island come back to life.

  Except, someone was dead. He hadn’t looked familiar, so Starla guessed he was a tourist. It had been a miracle that not one person had died during the storm, but now Clownfish Cay was going to have a reputation, thanks to a dead tourist on the beach.

  Once she was home, Starla put Kane’s takeout on the counter and took her cheese sticks into the living room. Presto was curled up on one end of the sofa.

  “Mind if I sit?”

  “Your house,” he said as he stretched out and flexed his paws.

  “So, do you have any powers?”

  “I’m a talking cat. What else do you want?” Presto asked and rolled onto his back with his paws halfway into the air.

  Starla couldn’t help but chuckle. “I mean, that’s impressive and all, but I was wondering if you could do spells or anything like that.”

  Suddenly, Starla found herself on the floor, looking up at the sofa. Her couch seemed massive, and Presto looked like a freakishly huge mountain lion. She tried to speak, but all that came out was a squeak.

  She looked down at her feet and they were tiny and pink, covered with fuzzy yellow fur. They were not human feet. Starla tried again to ask Presto what was going on, but it was nothing more than another squeak.

  Her heart began to race as the realization of what she’d become hit her like a speeding garbage truck on a hot July afternoon. Starla unleashed a string of curses that would have made a sailor blush, but it only came out as a series of fast, high-pitched pips and squeals.

  Presto looked on and laughed. “So, little mouse, are you convinced that I have a touch of magic in me?”

  Starla wiggled her tiny nose and thought big thoughts. Moments later, she was back to full size and human. “That wasn’t the slightest bit funny,” she said.

  “I thought it was hilarious.”

  “Nope. Not even a bit, but it could come in handy,” Starla said.

  “I knew you’d agree.”

  “You know what else?” she asked with a glint in her eye.

  “What?” Presto’s kitty voice dripped with sarcasm.

  “This,” she said, and Presto turned into a fat, pea-green frog.

  She laughed as he hopped down to the floor and began throwing himself around the room, croaking wildly. Starla let him flail and ribbit for a good fifteen minutes before she changed him back.

  When she did turn him back into a cat, Presto hissed and ran underneath Starla’s bed. “Guess you really are a cat,” she called after him with a chuckle.

  Starla settled in on the couch to watch a movie on her laptop while she ate her cheese sticks. Eventually, Presto forgave her and came back to sit on her lap. The two of them were snoozing peacefully when Starla was startled by a knock at the patio door.

  She panicked for a moment, but then remembered that Kane was supposed to come over when he was done with the crime scene. Without giving it another thought, she went to the back door and pulled the cord to open the blinds.

  It was a good thing she looked through the glass before opening the door. There was someone standing on the other side of the door, but it wasn’t Kane.

  Chapter Three

  Starla gasped and took a step back from the door. The man pressed his face against the door and smiled menacingly.

  “Get back from there,” Presto called out from behind her.

  The smiling man raised his hand and began to pound on the glass. Starla searched her mind for a defensive spell. She figured she could use a shield incantation to protect herself and Presto, or perhaps she should make a magical beacon to attract attention. Her mind scattered as fear took hold. She wasn’t normally such a shrinking violet, but something about the man and his sinister grin terrified her.

  Just about the time that Starla settled on using a shield, the would-be intruder turned from the door and ran away into the night. At first, Starla wasn’t sure what had made him flee, but then she saw Kane coming up the beach toward her house.

  He saw the man running from her back door and gave chase. Starla watched Kane disappear into the dark after the smiling man. She unlocked the door and stepped out onto her patio to watch.

  “Starla, get back in here,” Presto hissed. “What if he comes back around?”
<
br />   “Then we’ll turn him into a mouse or a frog. I can protect us. I was just caught off guard,” Starla said. “By the way, why didn’t you turn him into a mouse? Or does it only work on me?”

  “I tried.” Presto seemed at a loss. “Maybe I’m rusty from all the years of being stuck on mute. I don’t know.”

  Presto joined her on the patio to watch for Kane. Several minutes later, he returned, out of breath and red-faced. Once he was inside the house, Kane bent over with his hands on his knees. He stood there for a few moments, just taking deep breaths.

  “You okay?” Starla asked once his breathing had almost returned to normal.

  “I’m good, but I didn’t catch him,” Kane said as he walked into the kitchen. “I didn’t get a good look at his face either. Did you?”

  “I did,” Starla said, but she’d only seen him with his face pressed against the glass, smiling unnaturally. “But I couldn’t tell you what he looked like.”

  “That’s okay,” Kane said. He filled a glass from the cabinet above the sink with water and took several gulps. “Eyewitness reports are usually unreliable.”

  “I got you some dinner,” Starla offered. “Let me heat it up for you.”

  “Thank you, sweetie,” he said and kissed her forehead. “I don’t feel right, leaving you here alone with some creep going around looking in your patio door.”

  “There’s always the guest bedroom,” she said as she popped his food container into the microwave.

  “Starla, baby, you don’t even have a bed in there.”

  “I know, but there is an air mattress around here somewhere. Or you could ride the couch.”

  “I think the couch sounds better, but I don’t know if I should spend the night.”

  “It’s getting pretty late. Are you on call?”

  “No, Deputy Willis has the on-call cell phone tonight. He joined me at the scene. I think he stays up all night even when he’s not on call.”

  “Then stay if you’re worried about me, Kane. There’s no reason for you to drive home unless you think you’ll be too uncomfortable on the sofa.”

  He let out a deep sigh. “Okay; I am pretty tired.”

  The microwave dinged and Starla retrieved Kane’s dinner. They sat quietly until Kane had eaten about half his food.

  “It’s a weird night on the island,” he said after gulping down a fry. “The dead guy on the beach was some sort of sleaze too. A couple of the people in the crowd said that he’d been making some of the women on the beach feel uncomfortable for at least a couple of days now. I’m not sure why none of them called me.”

  “They probably figured that if he wasn’t doing anything illegal, the police wouldn’t do anything.”

  “I would have done something,” Kane said.

  “I know. You’re a better man than most, though.”

  “You really think so?”

  “Yeah. That’s why I keep you around,” Starla said. “So, did anybody see anything? Did you get any leads on the dead guy?”

  “Someone said they might have seen a guy running away, but they weren’t sure,” Kane said. “I have to wonder if it was the guy looking in your back door.”

  “Great, we’ve got another murderer loose on the island,” Starla said. “I did see a woman dressed in blue leave the crowd quickly when we showed up. I don’t know if it means anything, but it did seem off.”

  “I trust your instincts,” Kane said. “I’ll ask around and see if anyone else saw her.”

  Starla went to the closet to retrieve bedding for Kane. She also gave him a toothbrush from a pack she had stored in her bathroom. While he was taking a quick shower and getting ready for bed, Starla made up the sofa for him. Her eyes kept drifting over to the patio door. The blinds were drawn so she couldn’t see out, but Starla couldn’t help wondering if the creepy man was out there again.

  Once she’d kissed Kane goodnight, Starla and Presto put an extra protection ward on the front and back doors while her familiar took care of the windows. Kane had offered to help, but he was still unsteady with his magic. He had a lot to learn. For Starla, it had been easier.

  That’s why the dream she’d had that night was so disturbing.

  The next morning when she awoke, Starla couldn’t shake the feeling of dread that had creeped its way into her bones during the night. Her bed looked as though she’d spent the night tossing and turning, but unfortunately for the troubled witch, her nightmare had her trapped in a hellish dreamscape. Then another dream pulled her out of those. Though it wasn’t as grotesque as the other dreams, it had frightened her even more.

  Starla tried to shake the memory as she made coffee, but the vision wouldn’t leave her. After she’d drifted off to sleep, Starla thought she’d been awakened by someone knocking on her closet door.

  Though it was peculiar, dream Starla had risen from the bed and asked, “Who’s there?”

  “It’s me, Starla. Let me in.” Juniper’s voice set Starla at ease.

  The closet wasn’t locked, so she didn’t know why Juniper hadn’t just walked on into her bedroom. It didn’t occur to Starla until she’d actually woken up that it was strange for Juniper to have been in her closet in the first place.

  In the dream, Starla turned the knob and let her best friend from Stone Church into her bedroom. Dream Juniper went to the bedroom door and closed it. She poked the lock button in the center of the knob and sat down on Starla’s bed.

  “Come sit with me, Starla.” Juniper said in a voice that was there but not quite.

  “Why didn’t you just come in?” Starla asked as she sat next to her friend. “Why did you have to knock?”

  “I needed your help slipping through. You’re powerful enough now that you can use a little magic without even trying,” Juniper said.

  “That’s good, right?” Starla noted the concerned look on her old friend’s face.

  “Normally it would be, but there is something wrong, Starla. The magic on the island isn’t turning out the way the Elders thought it would.”

  “What’s wrong with Clownfish Cay? Why didn’t the Elders come here if there’s a problem?” Starla asked. “Why are you sneaking into my room at night?”

  “Everything in nature finds its level, Starla. That includes magic. The Elders thought that if they sent you and Damek to Clownfish Cay that, together with Orion and Blossom, you’d be able to create a place where the darkness couldn’t see or reach you. They thought you’d be able to get ahead for the light, but that’s not how it works. There is a dark force there, now equal to the good in the four of you. The Elders can’t send any more magicals to the island because they are afraid it will only make the darkness stronger. They can’t bring you home either, because they don’t want it following you. I’ve fought them on this, Starla, but they will not relent. For better or worse, Clownfish Cay is your home now, and it’s yours to protect.”

  “This is my home,” Starla said. “I miss you, but I’ve felt that for a while. I can protect the island.”

  “There’s one problem,” Juniper said gravely. “Every time you use your magic, you get stronger, but so does the darkness. You have to be careful. No matter how strong of a witch you were born to be, you have to practice restraint. They won’t tell me what it is, but I’ve heard whispering that the Elders are afraid that this new dark force is unlike anything they’ve ever seen.”

  “You said that nature and magic find their level, so it will be okay, right?” Starla asked.

  Juniper took her hand. “Eventually it does, but the enemy can do a lot of damage before Gaia sets things right. I don’t want you to have to go through that.”

  “Go through what?”

  Somewhere in the distance, Starla’s old grandfather clock struck. “I have to go, Starla. I’m out of time. Go back through the closet door to get home.”

  “But, I am home,” Starla said. But when she blinked her eyes, Starla realized she was sitting in her old bedroom in Stone Church. Juniper hadn’t come to the
island; she’d brought Starla through to her old house.

  The room was empty and quiet, but she could feel that there were people there on the other side of the veil. She longed to stay, but Starla was afraid to go against what Juniper had said.

  She looked around one last time before walking to the closet and stepping through its threshold. As she closed the door behind her, everything went black.

  “Starla!” Presto’s voice brought her out of the memory. “Starla, the coffee pot has been beeping for five minutes.

  “Oh sorry,” she said and scrambled to get a cup from the dishwasher.

  “Hard night?”

  “Yeah. I had a bad dream. Where’s Kane?”

  “He left you a note. I read it. He said he had to get into work early, but he didn’t want to wake you. He helped himself to toast and eggs. He washed the pan.”

  “That was nice of him. Anything else?” Starla asked.

  “Oh, and he wanted to know if he could make you dinner at his place. He said he’d call you at lunch to confirm.”

  “Thanks,” Starla said and rolled her eyes. “You’re a very good secretary.”

  “Hey, I’m nobody’s secretary,” Presto protested.

  “Well, then you’re just a snoop.”

  “You try being a cat with magical powers cooped up in the house all day. You’d get bored pretty quick too.”

  “Maybe you should go out and explore the island a little,” she said but then remembered the dream. “No, that’s not a good idea.”

  “Why?”

  So Starla filled him in on her dream. Before he could comment, there was an insistent knocking at the patio door. Starla’s heart dropped into her stomach and a trickle of cold sweat ran down her back.

  “Starla!” Blossom’s voice came through the glass. “Open up, witch. I want pancakes.”

  Starla breathed a sigh of relief. “Coming, Blossom.”

  “Oh my goddess! I had the best night ever,” Blossom gushed as Starla opened the patio door for her. “Damek is just the dreamiest.”

  “You sound like a teenage girl,” Starla laughed.

  “I feel like one for sure. I can’t believe he’s real.”