Three Witches and a Killer: Wicked Western Witches Book 1 Read Free Page A

true the myth was but I did know that strange occurrences weren’t all that unusual in the canyon and the citizens of Shadow Crossing took full advantage of its reputation for being one of the spookiest towns in America. When it came to ghost hunters and Halloween tourists, Shadow Crossing ranked right up there with Salem and New Orleans.
    The town council loved it. Tourists meant money.
    This explained the off the wall names for most of the streets and businesses in Shadow Crossing. So what if our town square had one of the most bizarre names ever. As long as Specter Square brought in tourists dollars, the name was A-okay.
    Why not just change the name of the town to Spookville USA?
    Attracting attention didn’t seem like the smartest move to me, but as Mayor Cowpoke always said, hiding in plain sight is the best way to hide. Cowpoke was my personal nickname for Mayor Randall George, on account of his habit of wearing oversized cowboy hats and boots. Not that his attire was unusual for Wyoming, but for someone who’d never been closer than ten feet to a cow, it was a little odd.
    I suspected he was right though. If the public believed everyone in Shadow Crossing was just out to make a buck, we probably didn’t have much to worry about in the way of modern day witch-hunts.
    Stepping off the wooden plank sidewalk and onto the red brick road, I started across the street. Cutting through Specter Square was the fastest way to the city and county office building on the other side.
    Most of the buildings in town had an Old West look to them, including the building that housed the county offices. Our town square looked similar to many you’d find in small towns throughout the country, with the exception of pine trees and the bronze witch statue erected in the square to commemorate the valley’s first settlers. Oh yeah, and there was the huge cottonwood tree with the plaque announcing its use as a hanging tree during the town’s wild west days.
    The illusion of the 19 th century town quickly faded when I stepped through the glass doors of the Shadow Crossing Public Works building. Inside, it resembled something from the Roaring 20s. The floor was covered with black and white checkered tile and there was even a working elevator to take you to the third-floor. True, the elevator was ancient and a mite scary sometimes.
    During its slow progress to the third floor, it did a lot of squeaking and rumbling but I wasn’t going to let it bother me today.
    I had a killer to catch and to do that I was going to need some inside information. Who better to get that information from than the county prosecutor?
    The third floor hall had the same ugly tile as the main floor. Like the elevator, I ignored it.
    When I entered the Red Rock County prosecutor’s office, Sandy Jacobson looked up from the nail she was filing and painted on one of her fake plastic smiles.
    Sandy was phony from head to toe. She was one of those loose women that just irked me something fierce.
    “Well hello, Sadie. I didn’t know your father was expecting you today.”
    “He’s not. I thought I’d surprise him,” I told her.
    My words had a double meaning and she knew it. Sandy had been chasing my dad for years, but so far she hadn’t made any progress. I’d know it if she had, on account of the spell I’d put on her about ten years ago. If she started having an affair with my father, all that bleach blond hair of hers would fall right out of her oversized bobble head.
    Unless she was just wearing a tasteless wig, I had to assume Dad was still safely beyond her grasp.
    When I strolled into Dad’s office, I caught him, not so discretely, viewing race news on his computer. Race news, as in car races. Dad was fanatical about cars, which probably explained the names he’d picked for my sister and me.
    Because my sister was the oldest, Dad had been given full reign to choose her name and he’d decided on Daytona Blue. We called her Day for short. Mom put her foot