Spooky Spice Cake Curse

by Addison Moore

  Mayor Nash belts out a hearty guffaw as he looks to Everett and me.

  “Isn’t she the best? I just love it when she plays hard to get.”

  Carlotta’s eyes bulge. “I’m going to be awfully hard for you to get—beyond the grave.”

  My shoulders pump. “Actually, you might be just as accessible to him that way.” True as gospel.

  “Hush, Lot,” Carlotta hisses. “You-know-who is here. And unless you want another body to hide, you’ll help me lose the clown.”

  “You’re right. I can’t have a homicide on my hands tonight. I’m short one of my desserts.” I’m only half-kidding. Since every dead body I’ve found thus far had one of my desserts on them, I would be remiss not to mention it.

  Everett leans my way. “Noah does hang around at the bakery quite a bit. Just making a note of it.”

  A tiny smile wiggles on my lips. “You are dangerously handsome when plotting a murder.”

  “If plotting his demise makes you this excited, wait until you see him in the morgue.”

  A dark laugh strums from me. “You are terrible, Judge Baxter.” I bite down over my lip. “Terribly seductive.”

  He brushes his lips to my ear. “We should lose the clowns.”

  Mayor Nash glances at his phone. “We still have a couple of hours before the big game ends. Just enough time for dinner and dancing before we race off for some Honey Hollow High football.” He winks over at Carlotta. “Don’t worry about dessert, Shmoopie. I’ve got something extra sweet cooking at my place just for you.”

  Duke roars so loud Everett straightens and puts away his sunglasses. I’m guessing to better see the exits.

  I lean toward Carlotta. “Listen, Shmoopie. Maybe you better take care of things before that dismemberment you were talking about takes place and we have a bloody situation on our hands.”

  “I can only do so much, Lot. Dukey loves me something fierce. If Harry loses a limb today, then so be it.”

  Duke growls out a bark. “I’m craving eyeballs.”

  The soon-to-be blind mayor chuckles as he flags down a waitress and orders another steak special for himself.

  “Make that two,” a deep voice rumbles from behind, and we find Noah Fox with his badge on his lapel looking dangerously official.

  “Well played, Detective Fox,” I say as he drops a kiss to my cheek and pulls up a seat.

  Everett growls, “Not well played. What are you thinking, flashing your badge like that? Clearly you needed better instructions.”

  “Wait a minute.” I squint over at my handsome husband. “What’s going on here? Why do I get the feeling you’re the one that gave Noah his instructions?”

  The waitress comes by and sets down several glasses of water, and Noah quickly snatches one up.

  “Because he did.” Noah slides the water my way.

  Everett’s chest expands. “I ran into Cordelia Hamilton and her attorney today at the courthouse. She was taking care of some business that has to do with the estate. I said hello, and she mentioned that now that Ichabod’s will was settled, she would be celebrating at the very place they met all those years ago, the Midnight Mash.” He points to the floor. “And I let her know that I was taking my wife out for a good time at that very establishment, seeing that our daughter banished us from attending the homecoming game. She said she looked forward to saying hello.” He shakes his head at Noah. “I thought dragging you along would be the right thing to do, and now I’m not so sure.”

  Noah’s dimples flicker as he looks my way. “Everett said he knew you’d figure out where to find Cordelia, so he thought he’d cut you off at the pass. He floated the idea by me, and I agreed.”

  “I didn’t float the idea by anyone,” Everett says curtly. “I was simply letting you in on my plans after you called and asked if it was okay to take my wife out for a date.”

  Carlotta slaps her hands together, loud as thunder. “Would you look at this, Dukey? It’s another date night fight in the works.” She shakes her head. “I wouldn’t bet against Sexy.”

  Noah’s chest bucks with a silent laugh. “I wouldn’t be so quick to part with your money, Carlotta.” He needles Everett with a look of rage in his eyes. “I might be down, but I’m not out.”

  “You are where it counts.” Everett leans forward a notch as he glares at Noah. “And for the record, it’s never okay to date my wife.”

  Noah’s jaw redefines itself in anger. “I don’t see why not. The two of you are simply dating yourselves. This isn’t a real marriage, Everett. You know it, and I know it. Lottie is simply going along for the ride because she’s with you—at the moment.”

  I’m about to play the part of the referee when I spot a woman at the bar with long ash-blonde hair dressed as a witch, complete with a long pointy hat, little black dress, and, might I add, ultra-cute, thigh-high, patent leather boots.

  “If you’ll excuse me, it seems I have a date with destiny,” I say as I make a beeline for the bar and plop right into the empty seat next to Cordelia’s. Duke crops up on the other side of her and whimpers for the first time ever.

  “This was the wife of my sweet Ichabod.” He nuzzles his head to hers, and I watch in horror as the right side of her hair flattens out.

  I nod to the bartender dressed as a vampire.

  “What’s your fruity drink of the night?” I ask, trying to sound as If I’m here to have a good time—I am, but it just so happens my good time is laced with murder.

  “The Witch’s Heart,” he says. “A strawberry daiquiri with a touch of blackberries.”

  “Yes, please. Make mine a virgin,” I say, touching my hand over that little sugar cookie baking in my tummy.

  “Ooh, me too,” Cordelia says before he drifts away. “Make mine extra bad to the bone. Throw in a double shot. I’m celebrating tonight.” He takes off, and she winks my way. “How are you doing, Lottie? Everett said I might be seeing the two of you here tonight. Are you waiting for him to show?”

  “Oh, he’s here.” I hitch my head back to the table. “My ex is here, too, and it’s just a big mess. All the two of them do is bicker.” I shrug as if it really affected me. It doesn’t, but that’s beside the point. “Sometimes I think I’ve just about had it with men in general.” I figure this is the safest angle with her, considering she was tormented for years with Ichabod’s cheating.

  “I’m sorry to hear it.” She shudders. “You know, just between us women, marriage is a very hard thing. I know for a fact I’ll never get myself in that matrimonial pickle again. I’ve got everything I need without having to live under so many constraints. As horrible it sounds, I’m celebrating my freedom tonight as much as I am the reading of his will.”

  Duke whimpers again. “Ichabod may not have been perfect, but I’m sure he had a lot of love in his heart for his family. I know they’ll be well taken care of. Including Cordelia, even if she is the killer.”

  The oversized pup’s eyes throb with a glowing light as he looks lovingly to the woman by his side. It’s so very sweet the way Duke chooses to interpret the situation with Cordelia. It’s almost as if his love for Ichabod is flowing over to her. And it probably should. She was the mother of Ichabod’s children.

  The bartender slides the fruity drinks our way.

  “What kind of constraints did you have to live under?” I ask as I take a careful sip, trying to determine whether or not it’s a virgin indeed, and it tastes like the best smoothie I’ve had in my life.

  “The most suffocating constraints of all—not feeling loved, always having to turn a blind eye to my husband’s infidelity, having to put on a show at every high society function. You know, coming back to Honey Hollow really drove home the point of how much big city living disagrees with me. A part of me wonders why the Hearst family ever left Honey Hollow. Everything would have been different if they stayed.” She sighs. “Perhaps even my own husband’s heart. But I can’t disparage him alone. I mean, he was a product of his upbringing.”

  �
��I guess no matter how prepared anyone could be, going into a well-to-do family like that would be a challenge.”

  Duke barks. “And a good one. The Hearsts provided nothing but the best care for me. And nothing but the best was expected in return.”

  It’s nice to know Duke was well taken care of.

  “My brother tried to warn me.” She shakes her head as she gazes off toward the rows of bottles behind the bar. “But nothing could have prepared me for the reality of it.” She gives a quick glance around before leaning in. “I swear it was like being indoctrinated into a cult. No sooner had we come back from our honeymoon than I was debriefed on their expectations of me.

  The Hearsts have certain rules you need to abide by, and that goes for every descendant, not just those that marry in. Everything is held to the strictest standard. No cursing, no ill treatment of others—now those were the rules I could get behind. But then, there was the don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy that pretty much opened up the door for the men of that family to do whatever they wanted with whomever they wanted. That’s part of the reason they forbid anyone even remotely related to the Hearst family to take part in those DNA ancestry sites. They’re terrified an entire slew of illegitimate Hearst children will come out of the woodwork. The only thing the family ever cared about was not tarnishing their reputation. Their reputation is their god. A lot of good it did them. They have that curse hanging over their head like a dark cloud. If I’m being truthful, that’s the real reason I never bothered to take on Ichabod’s surname. That curse was very real to me. And the irony of it is, the only people who never discuss it are those in the family.”

  “I’m sorry. That sounds like a very hard life.”

  “Oh, it was. But they were hard on Ichabod, too. He was young and free in his early twenties, shaking his stick at whatever moved and would grab it. His mother and grandmother were very tough on him for that. Especially his mother, Beatrice Hearst. She was evil as they come, and don’t for a minute think I’m just saying that because she was my mother-in-law. No, she was a real piece of work, that one. You ever hear that saying, the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world? She was very much rocking his cradle. It was made clear to him that he needed to marry a proper girl from a proper family before he could continue with his fun.” She closes her eyes a moment too long. “We met right here in this silly dive bar.” A sad laughs bounces from her. “Somehow my family fit into those parameters he was given. And he thought we’d have fun together. I thought we would, too. But when he started fooling around on the side, I was sorely disappointed to learn that his fun with me had firmly worn off. To be truthful, I don’t think Ichabod was the marrying type. Anyway, he had a girlfriend at the time we met—a woman by the name of”—she squints to the ceiling—“Cassie Mendelson.” She nods. “If he would have settled down with anyone he wanted, he told me once it would have been her.”

  My mouth falls open. “He told you that?”

  “A few years back when he heard she passed away. But I wasn’t hurt. By that time, I had already caught him with three different women. Anyway, it’s just an example of how much pull his family had regarding his life. And look where it got him?” Her eyes harden over her drink. “If he could see how his life ended, he would have changed things. Maybe he would have changed things as far back as his time with Cassie? Who knows? All I do know is that life doesn’t work in reverse. And neither does that curse.” She lifts her glass to me and takes a long swig.

  “And what are your thoughts on the curse?”

  A laugh bubbles from her. “You know, a part of me has always wondered if it was real. I doubted it at times as much as I believed it.” She shakes her head as she stares out vacantly to the wall straight ahead. “A part of me wondered if it was simply disgruntled people getting away with murder in the name of that deplorable hex.”

  “Which do you think was the case with Ichabod?”

  She glances to the exit a moment. “I can promise you, it was both.” She knocks back the rest of her drink before standing. “If you’ll excuse me, I told myself I’d dance the night away, and I’ve got some rug cutting to get to.” She winks as she takes off into the growing throngs of cleverly disguised monsters.

  I make my way back to the table with Duke by my side.

  Everett pulls up my hand and kisses the back of it. “Did you get what you needed?”

  “Maybe.” I quickly relay what Cordelia told me just as our food arrives.

  We get straight to the serious business of getting those steaks into our bellies with the exception of Mayor Nash. No sooner does he take a bite than Duke ravages every last morsel on his plate.

  “My food!” Mayor Nash bellows. “Where the hell did it go?”

  Carlotta’s eyes bug out a moment. “Why, you ate it. In fact, you ate it so fast you gobbled it all down in one big gulp. Not healthy, Harry.” She cuts him a bite of her own steak and hand-feeds it to him, much to Duke’s growling protest. “Now, now,” she says to the burly beast. “We don’t want to lose our temper.”

  Duke barks. “If I lose my temper, he’ll lose something a lot meatier—his heart.”

  Good Lord. Is it too early to buy Mayor Nash a Kevlar vest for Christmas?

  Note to self: Look into battery operated body parts.

  We finish up, and the entire lot of us heads straight for the Honey Hollow High football field. Everett, Noah, and I stand off to the side and watch as the Honey Hollow High Bees do their thing—or sting as it were.

  A supernatural spray of stars appears over the field just as Duke materializes before us and I gasp.

  “Oh no,” I moan. “Duke is out there, and he’s”—I give a few hard blinks—“taken the ball!”

  Noah grunts, “He’s running it down the field.”

  Everett leans in. “And oddly enough, it looks as if the Honey Hollow defense is doing it.”

  Duke scores the winning touchdown, and the crowd explodes with approval.

  A laugh bucks from me. “And just like that, the Honey Hollow Bees sting their way to a win.”

  The crowd continues to go wild, and Evie shakes her pompoms with the best of them as the team brings home the victory.

  “That’s our girl,” I say as I covertly snap as many pictures of her as possible. There’s more than a slight possibility she’ll chop my hair off in the night if she finds the incriminating evidence on my phone, but it’s worth a couple of hacked tresses.

  Everett wraps his arms around me from behind. “You do realize that you’ve documented evidence that can be used against you in the court of a sixteen-year-old girl’s mood swings.”

  “Seeing her shine like this is worth the risk.”

  And seeing Duke out there floating above the field gives me an idea.

  I’m hoping it will be worth the risk, too.

  Later that night, Everett makes good on all those flirtations he was doling out like threats. I keep on the bunny ears, and he turns into a wild beast behind closed doors in the very best way. Everett lays down the gavel and serves up more than a little coital justice my way.

  But Ichabod deserves justice, too.

  And I’ll make sure he gets it.

  Chapter 14

  Just because Noah invited me to the homecoming dance doesn’t mean our presence would be appreciated there, so we plan on lying low and completely off of Evie’s homicidal radar.

  But as fate or the Hearst curse would have it, the dance is no longer taking place at the Evergreen Manor. A pipe burst and flooded the entire ballroom with three inches of water.

  Keelie’s sister, Naomi, who runs the Evergreen, said the flooring will have to be replaced and that it will take weeks to renovate. So my mother stepped in and offered up her conservatory, including the expansive outdoor patio for the chic shindig. And seeing that she and Principal Cokie Hickman are friends, the haunted venue was fast-tracked for approval.

  That’s exactly what has us standing in this cavernous glass room decorated with
enough fall leaves and orange twinkle lights to sink a battleship. Sure, it’s not the under the sea theme they were promised, but it’s a fall spectacular that has a magical appeal—not to mention that the entire student body was thrilled when they found out the event was being moved to a bona fide haunted house. Score one for Greer and the gang.

  But Evie is the unexpected star of tonight’s extravaganza. She may not be the homecoming queen, but since the haunted B&B belongs to her Glam Glam, the kids of Honey Hollow High all seem to want to be in her presence tonight, especially those of the male variety. But then again, that hip-hugging crimson dress with its crisscross strappy back might have something to do with it, too.

  I managed to dig out an old red dress of my own that’s off-the-shoulder and loose-fitting. I have to confess, it was a struggle to get it on, and this will most likely be its final foray into public life—with me as the owner, that is.

  The entire B&B is bustling with bodies. It’s elbow-to-elbow in here with both the living and the dead, and I’m pretty sure we’re breaking fire codes and a few metaphysical codes as well. Noah mentioned that’s why the patio needed to be opened all night—it’s the only thing making this forest of human kindling legal.

  Inside, it’s dimly lit, the music is thumping, and the scent of teenagers who have hosed themselves down with their respective colognes and perfumes congests the air.

  Greer Giles and Winslow Decker are out on the dance floor gyrating their glowing limbs with the best of them. And I see little Lea swinging from the chandelier while wielding her machete like a threat.

  Both Everett and Noah helped me bring over platters and platters of my sweet treats. The Honey Pot was catering dinner anyway for the event at the Evergreen, so Meg and Keelie set up a buffet in the dining room down the hall, but not many of the kids have gone for it. Instead, they’ve been noshing on my cookies and devouring my spice cake while seemingly having the best time of their lives.

  Everett’s chest expands as he glowers at something in the thick of the crowd, and I follow his gaze until I see Evie snapping her fingers high over her head while two boys fight for her attention. I recognize the two boys in question as Conner and Kyle, the same two boys who have been vying for her attention ever since she set foot in Honey Hollow.