Pumpkins and Potions
Page 55
“No!” He exclaimed. I rolled my eyes. I didn’t know why he was still attempting to deny it. He’d been caught red-handed, literally.
“George…”
“It wasn’t like that,” he said. “It’s not like I planned anything. Honestly, I saw red. Every man has his limits, even good old George Mansley.”
“And what was your limit?” Sage asked.
“She turned up here without fancy dress!” George said. His voice shook with fury even as he recounted it. “I opened that door and I couldn’t believe the cheek of it. To come here, knowing how important Halloween is to me, and not even put on a pair of cat ears or something. She was declaring war, you see?”
I raised an eyebrow. “War?”
“War against everything that’s right in the world,” George said. His voice picked up speed. Like most killers, he wanted to explain why he’d done it because some part of him was sure he was the good guy. “She declared war against you too Connie, against all of Mystic Springs.”
“She just didn’t like Halloween, man,” Peaches drawled. I wondered whether she even realised that she said man nearly as often as Ezra did, whether she knew that she’d picked up his pattern of speech. It was that that had first made me suspect them of being in a relationship.
The front door burst open and uniformed officers took in the scene.
“It’s ketchup,” I explained.
“Well, it is Halloween,” the female officer said with a shrug. “My colleagues are seeing to the victim upstairs. Who are we taking in for murder?”
“Okey-dokey, that’ll be me,” George said. He held out his arms in front of him and allowed the officer to cuff him. We all followed as she led him through the house and out onto the front lawn. The crowd waiting to come in snaked down the street, and they gasped and then cheered when they saw George. No doubt they thought the arrest was all part of the Halloween fun.
“Show’s over,” the officer called out. “There’ll be no haunted house here tonight.”
The crowd laughed.
“I did it for you!” George shouted towards them. “Whatever you hear, remember I did it for us, for Mystic Springs. For Halloween lovers!”
Someone in the crowd began a chant of George’s name, and others joined in. Before he’d reached the patrol car, the whole of the crowd was chanting his name, and he beamed with pride.
I shook my head and turned towards the others. Peaches reached for Ezra’s hand. He pretended not to notice and took a step away from her and closer to Sage, who looked him up and down and then floated over to me.
“Not tempted to hang out?” I teased.
“Nah. I’m used to men who worship the ground I float on,” she quipped, and we began the walk home.
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Mona Marple lives in England with her husband, daughter and pampered Labradoodle, Coco. She is fueled by coffee, books and has an unhealthy obsession with cacti.
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