Wrong Kind of Lights Out (Murder at Midlife, Book 3)(Paranormal Women's Midlife Fiction)

Wrong Kind of Lights Out Murder at Midlife Book 3 - a cozy paranormal mystery Coco Wright Sloan Creek Press, LLC Copyright © 2023 by Coco Wright All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. Contents Dedication 1. Chapter 1 2. Chapter 2 3. Chapter 3 4. Chapter 4 5. Chapter 5 6. Chapter 6 7. Chapter 7 8. Chapter 8 9. Chapter 9 10. Chapter 10 11. Chapter 11 12. Chapter 12 13. Chapter 13 14. Chapter 14 15. Chapter 15 16. Chapter 16 17. Chapter 17 18. Chapter 18 19. Chapter 19 20. Chapter 20 21. Chapter 21 22. Chapter 22 23. Chapter 23 24. Chapter 24 25. Chapter 25 26. Chapter 26 27. Chapter 27 28. Chapter 28 29. Chapter 29 30. Chapter 30 31. Chapter 31 32. Chapter 32 33. Chapter 33 34. Chapter 34 35. Chapter 35 36. Chapter 36 37. Chapter 37 38. Chapter 38 39. Chapter 39 40. Chapter 40 41. Chapter 41 42. Chapter 42 43. Chapter 43 44. Chapter 44 45. Chapter 45 46. Chapter 46 47. Chapter 47 48. Chapter 48 49. Chapter 49 50. Chapter 50 Afterword Acknowledgements Also by Coco Wright To houses at the beach, where I get some of my best ideas Chapter one I screamed. And it wasn’t that “eek there’s a mouse” kind of shriek of fear. And it wasn’t a squeal of excitement, like the kind you make when you see your bestie for the first time after they come back from a week’s long vacation. It was a full-throated scream of rage. Mixed in almost equal measure with frustration. Rage and frustration poured out of my mouth at full volume. It was the kind of scream that only comes when you discover that your good-for-hardly-anything-at-all ex-fiancé has broken into your apartment and is lounging around on your couch as if he owns the place. Which he almost did, seeing as how he tried to sell it out from under me to make a quick buck to fund his gambling habit when he hid the fact that my Grandma Alice had left this apartment and her bookstore to me in her will. But I digress. Given my full-throated fury, it shouldn’t have surprised me to suddenly see Alex also in my apartment, gun drawn. I hadn’t even heard him bounding up the stairs because my ears were filled with that white noise sound of blood rushing to my head. But Alex must have bounded, considering how quickly he joined us. I took a second to marvel that he wasn’t even panting. That’s the kind of shape he was in. “Put your hands up!” Alex shouted. Rolling my eyes, I lifted my hands in the air. “You don’t need to have your gun out,” I said to Alex. “There’s an intruder in your house!” insisted Alex. “This is kind of what guns and officers of the law are for. And I said put your hands up!” “They are up!” I cried, lifting them a little higher. “I’m not talking to you,” hissed Alex. Oh. Right. Of course. I lowered my hands as subtly as I could. I could practically hear Floyd, my magical talking cat, snickering at me as he wound his way around our legs and jumped up onto the counter that overlooked the living room. “Look,” said Chris. I couldn’t believe I was standing there, watching my ex-fiancé take his feet off of my couch and rest his elbows on his knees. He was still wearing his shoes, I noticed, adding ‘someone who puts their shoes on the furniture’ as one more thing to the list of things that made him a terrible and annoying person. Of course, that list was so long that ‘having no respect for me or my belongings’ didn’t even crack the top fifty. “Vanessa, could you please just tell this officer I belong here?” said Chris. “Knowing her name doesn’t make you any less of an intruder,” said Alex, continuing to point his gun at Chris, at the same time I shouted “But you don’t belong here!” Finally, Chris raised his hands. “Here, my hands are raised. Now can we please discuss this in a civilized manner?” I howled again. “Showing up unannounced and breaking into my apartment isn’t civilized!” “I’m Vanessa’s fiancé,” said Chris. “Ex-fiancé!” I interrupted vehemently. “I’d kind of put that together,” said Alex wryly. “And I can prove that I didn’t break in,” Chris continued, reaching into his pocket. “No funny business,” said Alex, narrowing his eyes at Chris and leaning slightly forward. I could practically see the fabric of Alex’s pants tighten around his muscular quads. You may find it strange that this is what I was noticing right in the middle of a terrible and fraught situation. My ex had just broken into my apartment, and the man I had been moments away from kissing now had his gun drawn. But boy oh boy, did Alex look hot when he was busy protecting me from an unknown assailant. Even if that assailant wasn’t unknown, and wasn’t being particularly assail-y at the moment. “I’m sure we’re safe,” I grumbled. “Chris’s pants are so tight he doesn’t look like he could fit a gun in his front pocket.” Chris’s lips quirked at me, one of his patented, lopsided grins that used to make butterflies take off in my stomach. “I’m glad you noticed,” he said softly, as if we were the only two people in the room. “Everyone who has ever seen you in those pants noticed,” I said, rolling my eyes heavenward. Perhaps one little butterfly had fluttered its wings when Chris looked at me like that. But that was just an old knee jerk response. Muscle memory. It didn’t mean anything. Chris finished reaching into his pocket and pulled out… a key. The key dangled from the end of a