Page 28 of Secrets of the Forgotten Heir

I thought back to when I’d first met Eva and the way she’d stubbornly refused to let the puppy thief get away. That hadn’t been the only time she’d alerted me to something, though it was normally when I was on a stake out and our suspect had appeared while I’d drifted off to sleep. ‘Occasionally,’ I replied. ‘And she’s always right.’

Yanni bit her bottom lip. ‘Alright. Let’s go around the back, see if we can find another entrance.’

Before I could answer, Eva took off from the gate and started running towards the waterfront. ‘Eva! Hold on, wait for us!’ I yelled, exasperated. That damn dog!

She glanced back over her shoulder but she didn’t stop until she reached a little wooden gate that led directly into the back of the property.

We followed. Yanni rapped on the wood loudly. ‘Maybe they’re in the garden,’ she said and called again. When there was no reply, Eva barked again and nudged the gate firmly with her nose.

‘We get it,’ I murmured to her.

Yanni nodded. ‘Fine, let’s go in.’ She pushed open the gate and stepped inside.

It was an incredible property. To the left was the three-storey house with the entire back wall made of glass. Manicured lawns, which included a vegetable patch and a fountain, were in front of us and to the right the ground sloped down towards soft sand and glittering blue water. A wooden jetty jutted into the sea where four large boats bobbed lazily on the tide.

Eva darted ahead of us straight for the jetty. I broke into a run as I tried to keep up. ‘Eva, calm down. What is it? What’s got into you?’

She raced across the wooden slats, only stopping when she reached the largest boat. She lifted her paws up againstthe ladder and whined, then looked back at us with sad, soulful eyes. ‘This doesn’t feel good,’ Yanni said, striding to keep up.

I climbed the ladder, unsure which way to go next on the massive boat. The decision was made for me because I spotted immediately what had caught Eva’s attention. A person was lying unmoving on the deck only a few feet away from me.

It was Warren Storcrest.

And he was definitely dead.

Chapter Eighteen

Yanni called in backup, which came in the form of Dove, a petite bird shifter who’d been a couple of years below me at school, and a coroner who looked at least three hundred years old. He may very well have been.

‘Hi.’ Dove gave me a friendly smile and offered me her hand to shake. ‘Nice to meet you, Beatrix! I’d actually made you some cupcakes as a “welcome to the team” gift, but they’re back at the office.’ She grimaced. ‘No one wants cupcakes with a side order of dead body.’

I smiled. ‘That was the right decision. And I’ll totally eat some later when my stomach has stopped roiling.’

Dove nodded. ‘I hear you. Dead bodies always make my tummy feel wobbly.’

‘Yeah. They’re not my favourite thing.’ There was so much blood, and the corpse had me flashing back to the still forms of my parents. No, dead bodies did not make me happy.

‘A single bullet wound to the back of the head,’ Yanni muttered. ‘With a silver bullet. Whoever did this either sneaked in so Warren didn’t see them, or it was someone he trusted enough to turn his back on.’

‘I can’t believe there’s been amurderin Witchlight Cove.’ Dove let out her breath in a sharp whistle. ‘Usually the dead bodies we go to are the old dears who’ve passed in their sleep. And after the goings-on yesterday at the fayre, too! It feels like the place is going to pot – I dread to think what might happen next.’

‘We don’t need to think about what happens next, we need to deal with what we’ve got now,’ Yanni barked reproachfully. ‘We need to comb the area, see if there are any clues.’

By now we were all wearing bootees over our shoes and had snapped on gloves. We’d tied back our hair, and Yanni had asked Eva to move away from the scene so it wasn’t contaminated with the golden strands that frequently fell from her coat. Reluctantly, Eva had agreed.

‘It looks like there was a party here,’ I said as I moved towards the front of the boat. I was sure it had a proper name like hull, or deck, or something like that but I’m not – and never will be – a boaty person. But this was clearly where someone had been entertaining: there were several empty bottles of wine and glasses littered about.

‘The murderer’s fingerprints could be on one of those, couldn’t they?’ I asked.

‘Yes – along with those of half the other people in the village. Including mine,’ Dove replied with a grimace.

My eyebrows rose in surprise.

‘Warren always holds a big party on the night of the fayre,’ she explained. ‘I was at school with his daughter, Jennifer, so I usually get an invitation. I didn’t stay for long, though – I was too busy and Samuel isn’t good with crowds. He’s my husband,’ she added.

‘Warren held a party even though he’d been taken into hospital?’ I asked incredulously.

‘He’d already paid for the caterers and entertainers,’ Dove said. ‘He’s really sensible with his money. There’s no way he would have been happy letting all that go to waste.’

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