Best Friends: Martina Spencer PI (Midlife Magic Book 5)

BEST FRIENDS Midlife Magic: Book Five Carolina Mac Copyright © 2023 by Carolina Mac BEST FRIENDS - 1st ed. ISBN 978-1-990882-09-08 All rights reserved The moral right of the author has been asserted. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the author is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated. Book Layout © 2017 BookDesignTemplates.com To the girls in the Real Witches club. Thanks for your inspiration and for sharing your knowledge. A good friend will always stab you in the front. ―OScar wilde 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 One Monday, September 5th. Labor Day. Thirteen Hickory Lane. Baton Rouge. Brad and I planned to spend the holiday doing nothing but sitting on our back deck drinking the odd cold beer and watching Backup play with his ball. After a long drive home from Las Vegas we both needed down time. Both of us had suffered simultaneous traumas in our lives. A domino effect in essence. It started with our temporary break-up and snowballed from there. After our first and our last fight as a married couple, I left Brad and headed home to Nevada. When I got there, my father suffered a heart attack and he died. In my absence, Brad suffered his own life-altering experience. He did things that ultimately led to his suspension from his lofty position as Chief of Violent Crime for the City of Baton Rouge. Stressful events for both of us to deal with, but luckily, we were back together and we had each other. Our time together in the Porsche on the drive back home was relaxing and restorative. We spent long hours on the highway hashing out how we wanted our lives to play out when we got back to Baton Rouge. We were starting over. A redo. The temporary glitch in our recent marriage had been caused by Brad’s rejection of my magickal powers. He was slow to believe witches existed and if he ever came to believe that they did exist, he was convinced he could never live his life married to one. Born a witch with powers inherited from my mother’s side of the family tree—my father was a mundane bank robber—I could not change what I was. Either Brad came to terms with it, or there was no point in us going forward. After being reunited in Vegas, we had talked it out for hours on end and forged a new agreement. We were not splitting up. Not ever. Brad had said to me in all seriousness, “I want to be married to you, Martina, and I’m not letting a little witchcraft scare me off. I work violent crime, for chrissakes. I’m not scared of witches.” When he came to Nevada to find me, he swore he was ready to accept who I was and work through it. We loved each other and wanted to be man and wife, so we had to put in the effort that was required to forge a permanent bond. Thing was, Brad was accepting me but he didn’t believe in witches or in the magick witches could do, so I planned to play it cool and ease him into my world. Nothing too spectacular until he was completely on board. The first thing on my list that Brad had to accept was Foley Morrow. Foley was my close friend who had been murdered before we could become more than friends. Foley had left me all his worldly goods, including his house where Brad and I now resided. A quaint Craftsman house that I had come to love. Brad loved it too. We shared the house with Foley’s ghost, my retired K-9 Backup, and Foley’s cat Gearbox. A nice cozy little family. What I wanted was for Brad to be able to see and hear Foley like I could. The way things were now, Brad thought I only saw and heard Foley because of my brain injury. That wasn’t the case at all. I could see and hear the recently departed. I had visions and premonitions. I could cast spells. And I was blessed with telekinesis. Some of my powers I rarely used, but they were lying dormant inside me all the same. I didn’t choose to be this way, but there it was. The temperature climbed during the day and by mid-afternoon it was far too hot to sit on the deck. Brad and I brought the dog in, and we retreated to the living room to enjoy the efforts of the hard-working air conditioner. Brad fetched two more cold ones from the fridge and poured mine into a glass for me. “This has been one of my best days ever, babe. Just lazing around and relaxing. No cares. I can actually feel my ulcer healing inside my gut.” I giggled at that one. “Hope that’s true. As soon as I stock up the fridge and pantry, I’ll get you back on your ulcer-friendly diet.” “Luckily we have lots of beer in the fridge,” said Brad. “That was a gift.” At the