“How adorable. Your first big fight as a threesome.”
“We are not a threesome. That sounds fifty shades of wrong.”
“That sounds fifty shades of delicious to me.” Something in the ballroom catches her attention. “I’d better get back inside. Little Lea was threatening to pull off a real decapitation tonight, and I hear screaming.” She floats right through the wall, leaving me all by my lonesome with no Noah, no Everett, and no real suspects—not that I care about that last part.
A thought hits me as that conversation with Keelie echoes through my mind.
“Oh my God. If I’m right, then Pastor Gaines wasn’t killed by any of the suspects.”
Thirteen runs in from the door that leads outside, heading this way in a dizzying array of otherworldly light as if he were malfunctioning.
“Lottie”—he runs in a circle around me—“do not follow that man anywhere.”
“That man?” My feet carry me down the hall toward the opened door, and I stick my head out in search of that man, whoever he might be.
And then I see him, just a breath away—and yet the truth still feels just out of my grasp.
“It’s you,” I say, stepping out into the icy Honey Hollow night. The sound of the Monsters Ball behind me dies off like a dream quickly fading.
“It’s me.” He sheds that ever-expanding grin as he closes the distance between us and I attempt to run, but it’s too late. He’s wrapped his arms around me with what feels like superhuman strength. “Gotcha.”
The phones drop from my hands as I struggle to break free.
He’s got me indeed.
Chapter 21
It’s dark. It’s cold. And it’s Halloween night.
Have I mentioned I’m in the arms of a madman being traipsed off into the woods below the Evergreen Manor? Coincidentally, I live on the other side of these woods. Country Cottage Road is just on the other side of this thicket, and I can practically feel the false security that my rental home affords.
How I wish I were home. How I wish I were having my toes chewed off by a swarm of snakes. How I wish I were anywhere but here—my body and mouth restrained by this entity who I’m not even certain is human anymore.
I bite down hard on his hand and taste blood.
“Now, now.” He laughs as he lands my feet to the ground, his chest pumping hard against my back letting me know it was too strenuous for him to go on like that. He’s getting weak. I can use that to my advantage. I glance to the thicket of evergreens we’re enveloped in as the dappled moonlight fills the gaps, looking for anything I can use as a weapon. We’re standing on a severe slope. One wrong move could send either one of us toppling down.
Thirteen appears, roaring and growling as if this monster could hear him.
I twist against his powerful hold on me and knock my forehead to his so hard I’m convinced I heard a skull crack—with my luck it would’ve been mine. I pick up a fallen branch no bigger than a baseball bat and hold it between us.
“Lottie, be careful!” Thirteen warns, but I’m too mesmerized by what I’m seeing.
The moonlight slices over his features, confirming my greatest fear. That dark hair, those dark laughing eyes, his perennial smile. Pastor Gaines, Stephen Heartwood, whoever he is—he’s alive and in the flesh.
“You’re not dead.”
A deep laugh rumbles from his chest. “Of course, I am. The coroner has my body.”
“No.” I shake my head. “He doesn’t. He has your brother’s, doesn’t he?”
He closes his eyes a moment before a small laugh erupts within him.
“You see, Lottie. This is exactly why I needed to come back. I knew you wouldn’t let this rest. If anyone at all were to foil all my hard work, it would be you. And that is why we have to die together.”
“You’re not killing me. But you killed Jack, didn’t you?”
His eyes grow large. “You know his name. I knew you were good and how I wish you weren’t. But you were already onto me, weren’t you? Do you want to know how I knew that? Those calls you had your boyfriend make last month to the references on my application with the church, they tipped me off. Because they were all me.”
“Last month, Amanda Wellington was about to go to the sheriff’s department because she knew something. She figured out you were a fake—and that you were nothing but a con artist and a thief, didn’t she? I bet you were thrilled when she died.”
“No. I loved her. And yes, she knew.” He shakes his head at the thought. “She had become dangerous to me, and if someone else hadn’t taken care of her, I would have been forced to. But I’m grateful that didn’t happen. I loved her. I did.”
My heart sinks. “But you knew your number was up so you concocted a plan to off yourself. And that explains why you came back to the bakery that day wearing entirely different clothes and didn’t seem to recognize me. It wasn’t you at all. You lured your poor brother there. And by the way, your brother had better fashion sense.” I shake my head. “I’m sure you think it’s a shame you didn’t have a chance to marry my mother and drain her bank account the way you did the others.”
“I wouldn’t have done that to your mother. I loved her, still do. She changed me. I’m not that man anymore. However, with you around, I would have had to pay for my sins regardless.”
“Then why kill your brother? Why didn’t you just kill me and be done with it?”
“Lottie!” Thirteen says it like a reprimand.
“Don’t you Lottie me. You knew he had a twin and you didn’t tell me?”
Thirteen bucks his head back. “I thought you knew!”
Pastor Gaines looks around, wild-eyed. “Who are you talking to?”
“A cat by the name of Thirteen. Sound familiar?”
He inches back, his face rife with disbelief. “I once had a cat by that name. How very strange.”
“Want to hear something stranger? It is your cat. He’s here to help solve your brother’s murder. And now that it’s done, he wants to see you behind bars.”
Thirteen postures. “Now, I didn’t say that—but I do believe it to be true.”
“Ingenious, killing your brother with my gun.” Poor Ethel, who is still being held against her will in some lockbox down at the Ashford Sheriff’s Department. “You’re a fraud in every sense of the word. It’s not a surprise you didn’t even use your own gun.”
A dull laugh bounces out of him as he pulls something from his waistband and I can see it for what it is—Ethel’s carbine cousin.
“I had my own, Lottie, but once your mother provided it from seemingly thin air, it felt like fate.” He points it right at me. “I tried other ways to kill you, the tree, the brakes. I tried so many times to hurt you, but you proved impervious to my schemes.”
I suck in a quick breath. And all this time I believed it was Cormack.
Cormack, who all but kidnapped Noah tonight.
“Oh God,” I whimper. A thought comes to me. “Wait a minute. You married Noah and me—you married my sister and Forest.” I shake my head in disbelief. “Are you even ordained to do that?”
“It was perfectly legal. I assure you. Anyone can become an ordained minister. In fact, a copy of my certificate is on record at the church.”
“Yeah, under your fake name.” Great. Lainey and I have just been stiffed with marriage certificates that could have just as easily been plucked from a Cracker Jack box.
“Lottie?” someone shouts my name faintly from a distance and Pastor Gaines waves the gun at me.
“It’s time, Lottie. Say your final prayers. You’re about to meet your maker.”
“Thirteen,” I pant without daring to take my eyes off the gun. “Go back to the ball, find Carlotta, and tell her I’m in danger. Tell her where I am, and who I’m with. She’ll know what to do.”
“No,” Thirteen yowls it out with an attitude.
Pastor Gaines twitches his head to the left. “All right. Enough of this insanity. It’s not working with
me. But I will give you points for trying. Your mother always did maintain you had a remarkable imagination.”
I glance down at the surly cat who has suddenly decided to cop an attitude.
“What do you mean, no?”
His fur is glowing a dull shade of purple once again, and it looks majestic with the sparkle of dark stars that seem to be forever trapped in his fur.
“I mean no, Lottie. If I leave, he might kill you.”
“He might kill me if you stay.” My fingers grip over the stick in my hand. From my peripheral vision I can see Pastor Gaines squinting and bending over as if trying to get a better look in the direction I’m focusing my attention, and I take advantage of it.
I launch the stick in an upward swing as hard as I can muster and knock the gun right out of his hands. It flies off to the right and down the embankment before lodging against a boulder.
He shouts in pain as he grips his hand, and I take another upward swing with that stick and hit him hard and swift in the cookies.
Pastor Gaines lets out another cry, this time far more hair-raising than the last as he bends over to nurse his wounds. And then I go for the gold. I swing that branch as if my life depended on it and strike him right over the temple with all I’ve got. A sickening crack—the sound of a vase breaking is all I can relate it to—pierces through the night and Pastor Gaines falls to the ground with a thud.
Thirteen hops over his back and sniffs around his neck.
“Oh dear, Lottie. You’ve done it. It’s over. Justice has been served.”
“You don’t mean…”
“Yes, I do, in fact.” He lies down over Pastor Gaines’ back. “Oh dear, Stephen. What has become of you?”
“Lottie?” Everett booms from the top of the slope. Before I know it, his arms are wrapped around me and I point down to where Pastor Gaines lies motionless over a bed of pine needles.
“It’s okay. It’s over.” Everett dots a kiss to my cheek. “It’s all over now.”
And it is.
Chapter 22
Everett called the sheriff’s department, and the entire area was swarmed with deputies within minutes. Detective Ivy Fairbanks showed up and cleared me to head back to the party before I caught my death.
Everett and I hiked back up the hill and did just that.
It’s sweltering hot in the ballroom compared to the near frozen air of fall. Not to mention the fact Everett has an arm wrapped around my waist with a death grip. He’s vowed to stay with me until we find Noah.
Mom comes bopping up to us, dressed as a bride of all things—complete with veil and a round bouquet of blood-red roses.
“Oh, Lottie, you are adorable! How did you like those juicy apples I set on your porch yesterday? My horticulture club took a field trip to the orchard, and I thought of you. I’d like a fresh apple pie if you don’t mind.” She gives my cheek a pinch, and I don’t have it in me to tell her that I just killed her ex-boyfriend. Even if she wasn’t that into him those last few days, I don’t think the news would bring her any joy.
“The apples?” I guess it’s good to know she’s the one that gave me the apples and not Cormack. A part of me is actually starting to feel sorry for the featherheaded Featherby. I’ve accused her of so many horrible things. But then, she has successfully kidnapped my husband for the night, so I suppose we’re even.
“Oh, never mind the pie. How do you like my costume?” Mom’s shoulders bounce with glee. “I’m a bridezilla.” She gives a cheeky wink.
A tall man with a shock of white hair and one of those seductive phantom masks sneaks up behind her and wraps his arms possessively around her waist.
Mom jolts before turning and laughing. “You nearly gave me a fright!”
“I plan on giving you a real fright later.”
My chest bucks with disbelief. “Excuse me?”
Mom waves me off. “It’s just Topper. Don’t worry, Lottie. We’re not serious. We’re just fooling around.” She dances off with him as if they were a two-person conga line, and soon enough bodies are attaching themselves to that crazy train.
“Just fooling around?” I look to Everett. “That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”
“I wouldn’t worry about her too much. Let’s get Noah.” Everett takes me by the hand as we begin to weave through the haunted looking crowd.
Everett and I look high and low for Noah and finally give up. I lead him to the back of the facility where we pick up the phones I dropped earlier, both mine and Noah’s, and a thought comes to me.
“Call Cormack. Tell her that wherever it is she’s hauled Noah off to, it’s time to bring him back to his wife.”
At least I hope I’m Noah’s wife. I’m not sure I quite believe anything that man said. You can bet I’ll be charging over to the Honey Hollow Covenant Church looking for that certificate of ordination. It will break my heart to have to tell Lainey that the pastor who married her was a fake.
“Good idea.” Everett whips out his phone and calls, but she doesn’t pick up.
“Figures. She’s knee-deep in a Fox, and there’s no way she’s wasting a single second of it.” I guess that’s better than my Fox being knee-deep in her. Noah would never do that to me in a million years.
That long line of cheats from my past comes back to haunt me.
Like I said, Noah would never do that to me in a million years—I hope.
Meg runs up with her dark hair ratted all the way to heaven and heck and a pair of bright yellow contacts in her eyes with a line for a pupil. Her outfit looks like something Wonder Woman might wear if all her uniforms were at the laundromat. Both her red metallic bustle and her bikini bottoms are dotted with blue and white stars. She’s wearing flesh-toned tights that make her legs look rubbery, and it all has a nightmarish appeal that I think she’s actually going for.
“You look great,” I say, but she’s too busy looking behind us and waving someone over.
Hook runs this way and wraps his arms lovingly around my sister’s waist, but he doesn’t even say hello to Everett and me. In fact, he looks darn right distressed. He’s wearing a baseball hat and a raglan jersey with the word COACH printed across it in all capital letters.
“What’s the matter, Coach?” Everett pulls me in close as if he wanted to protect me.
Lainey traipses up in that confining costume she’s ensconced herself in. She’s holding the hat that’s supposed to be the top of her peppermill. Her bulbous stiff dress looks adorable on her and even gives me a sneak peek at what she might look like one day when she’s with child. A part of me wants to ask if she’s with child now.
She grabs ahold of my hand. “Lottie, I’m sorry. Forest is down the road at the corner of Crest Field and Country Cottage Road. He says you need to come quickly.”
Before I know it, the five of us are in Hook’s truck as he speeds us down the twisted road in haste and parks off the shoulder.
The entire area is inundated with people. There is a fire truck, an ambulance, and at least a dozen patrol cars.
Everett and I jump out of the truck and he navigates us into the heart of the melee.
Up ahead there’s a small sports car smashed against a sturdy old oak and it doesn’t look good for the driver. Medics swarm both sides of the vehicle, shouting to one another as if time were of the essence.
“Everett, what’s happening?” My adrenaline kicks in hard, and I can’t breathe.
“I don’t know, Lemon. But we’re about to find out.” He points to my brother-in-law, Forest, who’s headed this way. Forest is a fireman, and he’s got his yellow pants on and his white T-shirt is covered in what looks like crimson grease.
“I’m sorry, Lottie.” Forest shakes his head. His eyes are glossy with grief. “We’re doing everything we can for him. Cormack is going to be fine. Just some minor abrasions.”
“You’re doing everything you can for him? You mean…” I stagger toward the wreckage. The twisted steel is illuminated under the strain of the moon, and
just beyond that lies the blank darkness of the woods. I spot Cormack’s blonde mane resting as she sits in the driver’s seat. There’s a dark head of hair slumped to the side of the passenger’s seat as a group of firemen tries to pry the door open with the jaws of life.
“No,” I shout so loud half of them turn my way.
Everett collapses his arms around me so tight it feels as if he’s trying to press me inside of him.
“Lottie,” a still, tranquil voice, deep and startlingly familiar, echoes from the right, from the dark, dark woods and I propel from Everett and bolt that way.
“Lemon.” Everett chases after me, but he doesn’t have to run far because I freeze as soon as I get to the lip of the woods.
Standing before me in a spasm of shimmering light is the ghost of my gorgeous, sweet husband, Noah. A spray of stars spins beautiful and serene in what was once his earthly frame as he holds out a hand to me.
“Oh, Noah,” I moan at the sight of him before running over and collapsing my arms around his ghostly body in a firm embrace.
“Lottie,” he says my name sweetly, just above a whisper. That pained look in his eyes lets me know he’s less than pleased with this horrific outcome. “Everett will take care of you. He will love you as ferociously as I do. Lean on him. I love you, Lottie Lemon.” He takes a full step back just as Everett takes up my hand. “I love you both. Goodbye, Lottie. Goodbye.”
*Need more Honey Hollow? Pick up Pumpkin Pie Parting (Murder in the Mix 15) coming up next!
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