New Release! POISONING AT THE PARTY by Beth Dolgner – Includes an Excerpt!

There’s a new fairy in town, and no one in Nightmare, Arizona, is happy about it. Olivia Kendrick learns why when she and Annabelle team up to help out at the annual Nightmare Fall Festival.

When Annabelle is found dead inside the corn maze the night of the festival’s kickoff party, the police don’t think it’s murder. Olivia and her supernatural friends at Nightmare Sanctuary Haunted House know better, and it will be up to them to catch the killer.

Even as Olivia closes in on the truth of Annabelle’s murder, her boss Damien seems further away than ever. Can Olivia convince him to explore his own paranormal power so the two of them can find his missing father?

Poisoning at the Party is book five in the Nightmare, Arizona paranormal cozy mystery series. This lighthearted series is about starting over, found family, and solving murders in a quirky old mining town with a secret supernatural community.

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CHAPTER ONE

The seatbelt tightened against my chest as Mama braked hard, her vintage red Mustang sliding just a bit along the dirt road before coming to an abrupt stop. A cloud of dust swirled around us. 

Beside me, Mama let out a shaky breath. She was staring ahead at the crest of the low hill that separated us from Nightmare Sanctuary Haunted House.

“Mama, what’s wrong?” I asked, turning slightly in the passenger seat and putting a hand on her arm.

Mama shook her head, her gray fluffy waves shifting with the motion. “I haven’t been here since we gave up looking for my sister. I’ve ignored everyone who lives and works at the Sanctuary for the past forty years, Olivia. Will they even want to see me after I abandoned them?”

I squeezed Mama’s arm. “You didn’t abandon them. Baxter asked you to take a step back from the supernatural world to protect Damien.”

“Baxter didn’t want Damien to know I’m his aunt,” Mama corrected. She had such a tight grip on the steering wheel that I wondered if I would have to pry her fingers off, one by one, once we finally got to the Sanctuary. Unless, of course, she decided she couldn’t go through with it and backed her Mustang down the narrow dirt road, all the way to the old gallows at the crossroads. “I could have kept up my friendships with the people here, while still keeping my promise to Baxter.”

“That would have been difficult,” I countered. “You would have still seen Baxter and Damien in passing, and it would have simply reminded Baxter and everyone else that you’re his sister-in-law. Everyone at the Sanctuary adores Baxter, and they’ll understand why you were willing to give up your connection to him and this place.”

Mama’s fingers relaxed slightly, and the car began to move forward slowly. When we reached the crest of the hill, Mama stopped again, but it was a much less violent experience the second time around. “Look at it,” she said breathily. She leaned forward and rested her chin on the top of the steering wheel.

Baxter Shackleford had been smart to open his year-round haunted house attraction in the old building that lay before us. Originally home to the Nightmare Sanctuary Hospital and Asylum, the looming stone building was gray and weather stained. The circular driveway in front of the recessed double front doors was cracked and overgrown, and the grounds were choked with weeds that went right up to the foundation of the building.

It was an incredibly spooky-looking place.

I had been working at the Sanctuary for more than two months, so the facade had ceased to give me goosebumps. Mama, on the other hand, hadn’t glimpsed it since the search for her missing sister, Lucille, had been abandoned more than forty years before.

And then Mama had abandoned her friends at the Sanctuary, at least in her mind.

“Damien’s inside there, and he’s not resentful toward you,” I pointed out. “And you’ll love Vivian. She’s so sweet.”

“She wasn’t here back then. She has no reason to dislike me.” Mama sighed. “You’re right. There are old relationships to renew and repair, and new friends to make. I can’t let my fear of rejection stop me.”

“That’s the spirit!” 

Mama chuckled as she pressed the gas pedal again. “You showing up in this town really started an avalanche, you know.”

“An avalanche in the middle of the desert?”

“Yes. It’s no more strange than the fact there are vampires sleeping inside that building right now.”

Mama had a point. She continued to look nervous, even after we parked and got out of her Mustang, and I knew it had nothing to do with the vampires. As we began our walk toward the front doors, I racked my brain to think of something comforting to say. Before I could come up with anything though, I heard someone shout, “Sue!”

I looked ahead to see two men coming toward us. One of them was Damien Shackleford, but he wasn’t the one who had shouted Mama’s name. Instead, it was Malcolm. I hadn’t even realized he knew Mama. 

Malcolm’s long, lean legs had a big stride, and he closed the distance between us quickly. I knew his broad smile was genuine, even though it looked slightly sinister in his gaunt face. It only made him look more like a walking, talking skeleton. 

Malcolm reached out and pulled Mama into a bear hug. She looked stiff at first, but then she relaxed and squeezed Malcolm tightly. “Still skin and bones, I see,” she commented, looking up at him with a mischievous smile.

“I don’t even diet,” Malcolm said candidly. He stepped back and turned to walk next to us. Damien had reached us, too, but he simply said hello. I couldn’t blame him: he had only found out Mama was his aunt a couple weeks before, so I was sure he was still getting used to the idea. He wasn’t ready for big hugs just yet.

“Lucille was such a friend to me,” Malcolm said to Mama. “I always enjoyed your company, too. I understood Baxter’s desire for secrecy, but I’ve missed our late-night talks.”

Damien stopped walking. “You knew? All this time, you knew Mama was my aunt?”

Malcolm didn’t look at all apologetic as he said, “Of course. You have to understand, Damien, that Baxter was afraid of what sort of supernatural abilities you might have inherited from Lucille. He didn’t want you asking questions about your mother, or what she was capable of, and your father thought it was best to cut ties with Lucille’s family.”

Damien grumbled something under his breath, and the only part of it I caught was, “…said the same thing.” Mama’s explanation had been very similar to Malcolm’s.

“Is everything set up for us?” I asked, anxious to change the subject.

“Yes,” Damien answered. “Vivian has been napping all afternoon, so she’ll have plenty of energy for the séance.”

We had reached the front doors, and Damien moved ahead to open one of them for us. He was wearing a black three-piece suit, looking like he was going to a funeral or a fancy party rather than a séance where we would, hopefully, communicate with the spirit of his mother.

Damien was also wearing his mirrored sunglasses, which meant his emotions were probably heightened, and he didn’t want anyone to see the telltale sign of his green eyes glowing.

I tried to give Damien a sympathetic look as I followed Mama through the door, but I was pretty sure he was glaring underneath his sunglasses. 

We paused in the grand entryway as Mama slowly turned a full circle. “It looks mostly how I remember it.” She pointed at the brass stanchions and red velvet ropes that were set up in the wide space, waiting for the tourists who would be lining up to go through the haunt that night. “Those are new, though.”

Mama’s gaze drifted to the wide stone staircase leading up to the old hospital rooms, which had been converted into sweet little apartments for many of the supernatural creatures who worked at the Sanctuary. Her nervous look had dissolved in the wake of Malcolm’s warm welcome, but it returned, and I was sure she was thinking about all the people who were up there and wondering if they would be as understanding as Malcolm.

“This way,” Damien called. Instead of going upstairs, we were going down. Damien led us to the basement, which I had only been in a couple times before. I knew the vampires—Mori and Theo—had their windowless apartments down there, and there were guest rooms for visiting vampires, but I didn’t know there was much else to find in the basement except dusty old props for the haunted house.

We turned left down a hallway at the bottom of the basement stairs, and Damien stopped and knocked on the first door we reached. 

“Come in!” called a feminine voice from inside.

Even as Damien reached for the door handle, the door opened, and we saw Vivian’s husband, Amos, framed in the doorway. While Vivian was petite, Amos was big and broad. He waved a muscular arm. “We’re ready!”

I introduced Mama to Amos, then turned to see Vivian sitting at a circular table covered in a burgundy cloth. There were wooden folding chairs positioned around the table, and a light fixture above emitted a soft golden glow from a frosted glass globe. There was one cabinet against the wall, but the rest of the room was bare, and the corners were filled with shadows.

Vivian stood and walked over to Mama, her hand extended. Her long dark hair was pulled up in a green bandana that paired beautifully with her cropped jeans and green cardigan. As Mama shook Vivian’s hand, she thanked her for facilitating the séance.

“We all want to find Baxter and bring him home safely,” Vivian said earnestly. “If we can get some answers about Lucille, too, then it might help us in the search for Baxter. It’s all tied together.”

Vivian motioned for us to sit around the table, and I wound up between Damien and Mama. So, when Vivian told all of us to take hands to form a circle, I could feel the way my cheeks warmed. I slid my hand into Damien’s, wondering where I stood with him. 

For that matter, I wondered where he stood with me. He had started to open up to me, and I no longer thought he was the biggest jerk in the world, but every time I felt like we were making progress in our friendship, he would close himself off again. I didn’t like the back and forth. It was confusing.

And, sitting there holding hands with him, it was also really awkward.

“Now,” Vivian said, “I want all of you to focus on Lucille. Damien, you have memories of your mother, even if they’re from when you were a baby. They’re in your mind, still, and you can call them forward if you concentrate. Olivia, I understand you’ve seen her picture. Sue—”

“Everyone calls me Mama, honey.”

Vivian smiled. “Mama and Malcolm, you two should focus on your memories of Lucille.”

After a few moments of silence, during which I focused on the green eyes and soft smile I remembered from an old photo of Lucille, Vivian lifted her chin and spoke toward the light fixture. “Lucille Shackleford, I am here with your son and your sister. Their friends have come, too. We ask that you please come sit with us. We wish to communicate with you, in whatever manner you prefer. I understand you were a psychic medium, like me, so you already know the tools available to you for communication. Please, Lucille, join us.”

I felt a shiver work its way up my spine as the room began to grow cold. Beside me, I heard Damien suck in his breath, and I knew the chill wasn’t my imagination. 

The light began to pulse slowly, then it went out completely, plunging the room into complete darkness.

We all must have been holding our breath, because I couldn’t hear anything. As I sat there in the dark and silence, I began to see a soft glow. It became brighter as it moved toward the table.

Then, I realized it wasn’t one glowing object, but two. The ghosts of Butch Tanner and Connor McCrory, the outlaw and the sheriff who had killed each other in a shootout during Nightmare’s Wild West days, had arrived.

Tanner and McCrory floated to Vivian’s side, and in the ghostly glow they emanated, I could see Vivian’s frown. “I wasn’t trying to summon you two.”

“Begging your pardon, ma’am,” McCrory said, lifting his black cowboy hat as he nodded politely at Vivian. “We know you’re looking for Missus Shackleford. She asked us to come speak to you on her behalf.”