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  SILENCED BY A SPELL

  (A Lacey Doyle Cozy Mystery—Book Seven)

  FIONA GRACE

  Fiona Grace

  Fiona Grace is author of the LACEY DOYLE COZY MYSTERY series, comprising nine books (and counting); of the TUSCAN VINEYARD COZY MYSTERY series, comprising six books (and counting); of the DUBIOUS WITCH COZY MYSTERY series, comprising three books (and counting); of the BEACHFRONT BAKERY COZY MYSTERY series, comprising six books (and counting); and of the CATS AND DOGS COZY MYSTERY series, comprising three books (and counting).

  Fiona would love to hear from you, so please visit www.fionagraceauthor.com to receive free ebooks, hear the latest news, and stay in touch.

  Copyright © 2020 by Fiona Grace. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Jacket image Copyright Helen Hotson, used under license from Shutterstock.com.

  BOOKS BY FIONA GRACE

  LACEY DOYLE COZY MYSTERY

  MURDER IN THE MANOR (Book#1)

  DEATH AND A DOG (Book #2)

  CRIME IN THE CAFE (Book #3)

  VEXED ON A VISIT (Book #4)

  KILLED WITH A KISS (Book #5)

  PERISHED BY A PAINTING (Book #6)

  SILENCED BY A SPELL (Book #7)

  FRAMED BY A FORGERY (Book #8)

  CATASTROPHE IN A CLOISTER (Book #9)

  TUSCAN VINEYARD COZY MYSTERY

  AGED FOR MURDER (Book #1)

  AGED FOR DEATH (Book #2)

  AGED FOR MAYHEM (Book #3)

  AGED FOR SEDUCTION (Book #4)

  AGED FOR VENGEANCE (Book #5)

  AGED FOR ACRIMONY (Book #6)

  DUBIOUS WITCH COZY MYSTERY

  SKEPTIC IN SALEM: AN EPISODE OF MURDER (Book #1)

  SKEPTIC IN SALEM: AN EPISODE OF CRIME (Book #2)

  SKEPTIC IN SALEM: AN EPISODE OF DEATH (Book #3)

  BEACHFRONT BAKERY COZY MYSTERY

  BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A KILLER CUPCAKE (Book #1)

  BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A MURDEROUS MACARON (Book #2)

  BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A PERILOUS CAKE POP (Book #3)

  BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A DEADLY DANISH (Book #4)

  BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A TREACHEROUS TART (Book #5)

  BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A CALAMITOUS COOKIE (Book #6)

  CATS AND DOGS COZY MYSTERY

  A VILLA IN SICILY: OLIVE OIL AND MURDER (Book #1)

  A VILLA IN SICILY: FIGS AND A CADAVER (Book #2)

  A VILLA IN SICILY: VINO AND DEATH (Book #3)

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  EPILOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  Lacey rubbed her fatigued eyes and glanced down at her extensive to-do list.

  Who knew a supposedly low-key wedding took so much planning?

  So far, she’d decided on the theme—Rustic Romance—and a color palette of ivory and taupe. She’d picked the flowers—orchids, white roses, and dried hydrangeas—which Gina was now taking full ownership over. But whether she wanted gilded tableware, or burlap linens, or stain-finished banquet tables still eluded her.

  “I swear my to-do list is breeding,” she murmured to herself, tucking a dark curl behind her ear.

  Of course, this wasn’t her first time down the aisle. Indeed, it wasn’t Tom’s either. Because of their past histories, they’d both been very certain about not wanting an elaborate blowout this time around, and yet somehow there was still so much to decide. Decisions that would be infinitely more easy to make if Lacey addressed the elephant in the room, the unspoken question mark of her father.

  She glanced over at the envelope she’d received from him, his RSVP to her wedding invite. Weeks had passed since it had arrived, and she’d not yet built up the courage to open it. Just as she had with every step along the way in her search for her missing father, Lacey’s fear was her biggest roadblock. Learning the truth of his abandonment after all these years caused her more anxiety than her fantastical ruminations did—at least in her mind he could be a spy, rather than just a man who’d turned his back on his parental duties.

  Ever since the letter arrived, Lacey had been telling herself she’d open it tomorrow. But she kept pushing tomorrow back and back. She couldn’t stand the thought of him declining the invite and not being there to walk her down the aisle, missing a pivotal moment in her life just as he had her marriage to David.

  So the envelope had remained unopened, waiting, just so Lacey could cling onto that small sliver of hope that it said he was coming.

  Just then, Lacey heard a gentle knock on the door. She swiveled in her office chair. “Come in.”

  The door opened a few inches. A take-away coffee cup emerged through the gap.

  “Pumpkin spiced latte?” came Gina’s disembodied voice.

  Lacey smiled at her friend’s generosity. “Thank you!”

  But in the next instant, she became suspicious. Gina only ever bought her things to butter her up.

  “What have you done?” Lacey asked, directing her question to the coffee-cup-holding hand of Gina.

  The door was pushed fully open to reveal the older woman. She was dressed in a long brown cotton dress and white apron, a lace-up bodice, and a white frilly bonnet perched on her gray hair. Pointy suede shoes poked out from beneath the folds of her skirt. She was in costume.

  Lacey groaned. Halloween was fast approaching, and she’d never been particularly fond of the holiday. The town of Wilfordshire, England, where she lived, on the other hand, seemed absolutely obsessed with it. Gina in particular seemed to think it was the best thing since sliced bread. She hadn’t stopped asking Lacey when she’d be allowed to dress up for work for weeks now. Lacey had felt like she’d been in a tug of war with a child rather than a sixty-odd-year-old woman.

  “Gina, we’ve talked about this,” Lacey told her best friend and employee.

  “I know, I know!” Gina interjected before Lacey had a chance to say any more. “No costumes until Halloween. But the decorations are going up in the High Street, and everyone else in town is wearing one.”

  She p
aced inside the office and thrust the coffee cup under Lacey’s nose, squinching her eyes to see if her apology latte would work.

  Lacey narrowed her eyes. With defeat, she took the take-out coffee cup from Gina. The gorgeous smell of ginger wafted into her nostrils.

  “So, what are you supposed to be?” she asked, scanning Gina’s costume from head to toe. “Some kind of peasant woman?”

  “I’m Violet Jourdemayne!” Gina exclaimed, as if the name ought to mean something to Lacey.

  “Who?” Lacey asked.

  Behind her red-framed spectacles, Gina’s eyes widened. “Only the most famous witch of Wilfordshire!”

  But before she had a chance to explain more, the office door suddenly swung all the way open. Boudica, Gina’s English Shepherd dog, had nudged it open, and she came trotting in. She was wearing a pair of red devil horns on her head.

  “Oh, Gina!” Lacey admonished.

  “What?” Gina replied. “She loves dressing up, don’t you, Boo?”

  Boudica completed a proud lap around Lacey’s small office like she was a pedigree at Crufts.

  “Besides,” Gina added, “I hoped once you saw Boudica’s costume you’d be more inclined to let me keep mine.” She grinned hopefully.

  The devil horns belong on her, Lacey thought, ruefully. Her friend was using the same tactic Lacey’s nephew back in New York City was so good at; pleading for forgiveness rather than asking for permission.

  “I haven’t exactly been given a choice,” Lacey said. “I’m not going to send you home to change, am I?”

  Gina hopped excitedly from foot to foot, looking triumphant. Lacey rolled her eyes lovingly.

  “Great!” Gina exclaimed. “Because I got this for you.” She handed Lacey a pair of black glasses affixed to an Albert Einstein wig. “And these for Chester!” She held out a pair of alien antennas.

  “Now you’re pushing it,” Lacey said, switching into her boss persona to nip this in the bud. “I’m putting my foot down now. I draw the line. I’m not dressing up, and I won’t have you dressing Chester up either. He’s not a toy.”

  From her place at the door, Gina pouted. But Lacey nodded resolutely. She found it hard to act like the boss of her own business sometimes, especially when her main employee was her best friend, so she put her attention on the latte in order to avoid looking at Gina’s forlorn expression. Spicy ginger danced across her taste buds.

  “Trust my luck to move to the one town in the UK that takes Halloween more seriously than back home.” She shuddered as she remembered all the gaudy Halloween parties she’d suffered through back in New York City, most of them at her sister’s instigation; Naomi really had a skill for finding the tackiest of events.

  “Wilfordshire had a lot of very famous witch trials,” Gina explained. “More than any other town in England. The first executions were here.”

  “How awful.”

  “That’s why it is such an important part of our history,” Gina continued.

  “So that’s why you’re dressed as a witch?” Lacey asked over the lip of her coffee. “As some kind of homage?”

  Gina puffed herself up proudly. “Violet Jourdemayne is the most famous witch around these parts. She was accused of making kids sick and was hanged from an oak tree in a field in Ippledean. After her death, the kids continued to get sick, so the villagers figured she was haunting the tree and set it ablaze. Apparently it took a week to burn.”

  “Uh-huh…” Lacey said, not believing a word of the story, beyond the fact of some poor woman being scapegoated and executed.

  Gina nodded eagerly. “Yes. And then from the ashes a magpie flew out. Violet’s spirit lives on. Now, whenever you see a magpie in Ippledean, you have to cross yourself.”

  Lacey grimaced. Gina wasn’t going to have much luck getting her to warm to the holiday with those kinds of morbid tales.

  “You know…” Gina said, “all the other stores are putting up decorations.”

  Lacey sighed.

  That’s what happens when you give an inch, she thought.

  “I don’t think we should decorate,” she told her employee. “All that tacky plastic stuff isn’t exactly in keeping.”

  “I don’t mean like that,” Gina said. “I mean we need to get all the creepier items out on display. The china dolls, for example, should be front and center. And what about that battered rocking chair? And all those old leather-bound books? I could make quite a creepy window display if you’ll let me.”

  “I don’t want to lure people in thinking we’re some kind of occult store,” Lacey countered. “They might be disappointed once they realize it’s all about antique teacups and vintage lamps.”

  Gina put a finger in the air to indicate she had already thought of this. “Which is precisely why you should do a stock trip to Ippledean this afternoon. There are plenty of secondhand stores there, you’re bound to find some great oddities. Are you aware we don’t have a single piece of taxidermy in the stock room?”

  “For good reason,” Lacey said with a shudder. “Taxidermy is gross.”

  “It’s spooky,” Gina countered. “And people like spooky things on Halloween.”

  Lacey considered it. She might not particularly like Halloween, but if others did, she’d be remiss not to cater to them. Besides, she had too much wedding planning to be getting on with to quibble with Gina over a window display.

  “Fine,” she said. “You can decorate.”

  Gina punched the air triumphantly. She’d gotten her way twice today, and the store hadn’t even opened its doors to customers yet.

  “But nothing gaudy,” Lacey warned. “And I want it all taken down and everything put back to normal the minute it hits November. And if you put that alien thing on Chester’s head, I’m firing you.”

  Gina nodded eagerly, clearly happy to accept the terms. Lacey tutted and shook her head affectionately as her friend hurried out of the office to get to work, her devil dog trotting out after her.

  Finally alone again, Lacey swirled back to her to-do list. But as she did, she misjudged where she was placing her coffee cup. She dropped it, spilling scolding hot latte onto her jeans.

  Lacey jumped out of her chair with a wince, knocking a stack of papers. They fell to the floor, fanning out across the carpet.

  “That’s just perfect,” Lacey muttered.

  She dumped the cup in the trash can, then set about rescuing the papers from the puddle of ginger latte. As she began picking them up, she spotted the envelope from her father scattered amongst them.

  A wave of emotion washed through her, so powerful it overcame the pain of the hot coffee on her leg. She fell to her knees, grabbed the letter, and clutched it to her chest.

  That was too close a call, she thought, as tears filled her eyes. If the letter had gotten ruined by coffee, she would’ve been furious with herself.

  She removed the letter from her chest and peered at it through her misted eyes. It was the first time she’d really inspected it closely. It was curiously light, and her father’s handwriting was shaky. She wondered if he’d been emotional as he’d written her name. It was the name he’d chosen for her, after all, one that he’d freely added to the bottom of every Christmas and birthday card for seven years until one day, he’d just walked out on the family. Had it moved him, writing the name of his eldest daughter once again, for the first time in decades? Or was the shaking in his handwriting due to age? He would be in his seventies now, after all. He may well have developed arthritis, like many people did as they got older.

  Lacey’s heart started to pound. The near miss with the coffee made it suddenly crystal clear that she could not keep putting off this moment. The longer she left it, the more likely it was that the letter would get damaged or lost or ruined. She had to open it now. It was time to learn the truth.

  Her breath became ragged from anticipation and nerves. Before she got the chance to talk herself out of it, she grabbed the letter opener off the desk, flipped the envelope over,
and sliced it open.

  Then she took a deep breath and reached inside.

  The envelope was empty.

  Empty? Lacey thought with a frown. What the heck?

  She didn’t understand. What did it mean?

  Crestfallen, she turned the envelope upside down and shook it, on the off chance her father had mailed her some kind of abstract clue, like a feather or a petal. But nothing fell from it.

  Next she peered inside, checking to see whether anything had gotten caught in the corners or crevices. There was definitely nothing inside.

  With bitter disappointment, Lacey realized her father had mailed her a blank envelope. After all that emotional build-up, she’d been left with nothing.

  She sat back on the floor, perplexed and shell-shocked. Of all the millions of outcomes she’d imagined, this one had never crossed her mind.

  All that investigative work, she thought with frustration. For nothing!

  She couldn’t help it—she felt betrayed by her father all over again.

  In need of a supportive ear, Lacey pushed up from the floor and headed for the main shop in search of Gina. Perhaps the older woman would have some words of wisdom to comfort her in her moment of disappointment.

  She paced along the corridor, holding the empty envelope in her hands, peering at it intently, as if perhaps she could will an answer into existence.

  “Hey, Gina,” she said, passing beneath the archway onto the main shop floor. “I need to talk to you.”

  She looked up expecting to see her friend, but froze, aghast, as a wholly horrifying sight awaited her…

  Gina had completely covered the store in decorations.

  Lacey’s eyes widened with shock as she glanced from the tacky rubber skeletons dangling from the ceiling, to the big black spider silhouettes stuck to the inside of the windows.

  There were so many decorations, the only way Gina would have been able to carry it off was if she’d started decorating the moment Lacey had locked herself in her office this morning, long before she’d asked for permission.