“Were you hurt? Was there a bomb planted inside the body?”
“I’m okay. Judging by the texture, it was just flesh. She must have been going through some process of rapid decomposition. When I let the fresh oxygen rush in, it must have set off a chain reaction.” I hopped around on one foot under the hot shower water while I wrestled with my wet jeans.
“Are you okay in there? Do you need a doctor? I could get someone.”
“Just battling my clothes.” I locked my elbow into the steel safety railing inside the tub enclosure to steady myself. “What is it with denim? Blue jeans are so soft and comfy, but the instant you get them wet, they turn into your nemesis.”
She was quiet for a minute. I thought she’d left me to shower alone when she said, “It’s a good thing your friend sent you a change of clothes. Her ability to anticipate your future needs is remarkable. I wonder how much she really knows.”
“I thought you liked Charlize? You told me she was a keeper. Now you think she knew the body was going to explode and also that I was going to be inside the blast radius?”
She snorted. “It sounds delusional when you say it out loud like that.”
“A lot of my life sounds delusional when you say it out loud.” I wrung out my clothes and passed them around the shower curtain. “Do you know if there’s a garbage chute in this castle? This outfit is officially retired.”
“Here.” She took the lid off the bathroom’s garbage bin and held it out. I dropped the ruined, wet clothes in with a damp thud. She looked down at the garbage bin and frowned. “There’s still stuff on these clothes.”
“There’s still stuff inside my nostrils.”
“Now my bathroom is going to be haunted. I specifically asked for a nonhaunted room.”
“Do you know what will make everything better?”
“Getting out of this castle.” She set the garbage bin down next to the toilet.
“Yes, but in the meantime, we could drown our sorrows in hot cocoa.” I was still peering at her from around the shower curtain.
She looked at me, her hazel eyes brightening. “I haven’t made cocoa for you since you were a little girl. I think there’s some mix powder with the coffee stuff by the tea kettle. Will you be okay in here on your own?”
“I’ll manage. Give me a few more minutes. I need to scrub myself from top to bottom with every type of soap you have in here. Twice.”
* * *
I emerged from the bathroom wearing one towel around my body and another around my hair. I was about to cheerfully announce that I was ready for my cocoa and a bedtime story when I realized we weren’t alone in the room. A dark-haired man in a gray suit stood with his back toward me, facing my mother. From what I could see, his lips were on my mother. She made eye contact with me, and pulled away from his embrace. He didn’t seem to have noticed my seminude entrance. I used my magic to toss myself the clothes from Charlize’s care package, and then ducked back into the washroom to get dressed.
When I emerged for the second time, Bentley was about as far away from my mother as he could get while still being inside the room.
“Detective,” I said coolly. The best way to speak to someone whose lips were recently on your mother is to pretend you hadn’t noticed his lips on your mother.
“Zara Riddle?” He glanced from me to my mother and back again. “Do you two know each other?”
My mother caught my eye and gave me a warning look. “No,” she said with a casual air. “We don’t know each other.”
He asked her, “Then what’s she doing in your room?” Bentley gave me a suspicious look. “Do you always hang out in the hotel rooms of strangers?”
“Rarely,” I answered honestly.
He looked at the bed that we’d made up on the couch. “What’s this for?”
My mother laughed and squeezed his bicep playfully. “Oh, Teddy B,” she said. “When that dreadful thing happened today, I invited this young woman to stay in my room so that neither of us had to be alone.”
He looked directly at her pendant necklace and nodded slowly. “That makes sense,” he said.
“No, it doesn’t,” I said. I glared at my mother. “What’s the point in deceiving him about our situation?”
Bentley continued to be transfixed by my mother’s necklace. He didn’t seem to hear me at all.
I kept talking as though he wasn’t even there. “He’s already chasing around conspiracy theories. He knows that things are not what they seem.”
She replied, “Why not let people believe what they want to believe?”
“Because it isn’t right.”
“Not even if it’s for their own good?”
“Bentley’s a smart guy, and he might figure out everything eventually, but he might go mad instead. Do you want to be responsible for pushing him into a full psychotic break?”
“Me?” My mother fluttered her eyelashes innocently. “Teddy’s a big boy. He knows what he’s getting into.”
“I’m going to tell him.”
She smiled a carnivorous smile. “Be my guest.”
I walked right up to Bentley, put both of my hands on his shoulders, and turned him so he was looking at me, not my mother and her glamour necklace. I looked him straight in the eyes.
“She’s my mother,” I said. “You’re dating my mother. Her name is Zirconia Riddle. And you know me. I’m Zara Riddle. Notice a connection between the names?”
“I knew that,” he said, but his pause told me otherwise.
“She’s my mother, and I’m her daughter. If you two get married, you’ll be my stepfather.”
He looked back at my mother again. “Who said anything about getting married?”
“Not me,” my mother said. “My daughter has a wild imagination.”
“Your daughter?” He looked at me. “Why are you here, Zara? Have you been threatening my blueberry muffin?”
I sighed. “This nice lady offered to let me stay in her room, since we’re all trapped here until you release us. When will that be, anyway?”
“I don’t know. This case is getting complicated. Someone broke into the coroner’s van.” He continued to stare at me. “Do you know anything about that, Zara?”
Busted. “Why would I know anything about that? Who would break into a coroner’s van? I hear people are dying to get in there, but come on.”
Neither of them laughed at my joke. Tough crowd.
“You’re not in trouble,” he said slowly. “But I wonder if perhaps you feel drawn to death. I recall you telling me over a couple of iced mint mochas that you feel a connection to the recently deceased. You’re sort of a ghost whisperer.”
“Detective Bentley, that sounds like a big stack of pancakes made out of crazy,” I said coolly. “You don’t actually believe in ghosts, do you?”
“I believe that there are people who believe in ghosts. What were you doing inside that van?”
Just trying to take some hair to make a voodoo doll for an exorcism. I said nothing. I glanced over at my mother. Feel free to change the topic any time. She gave me an amused eyebrow raise.
Bentley pressed on. “Did this ghost happen to whisper any secrets to you? Perhaps the name of her killer?”
“Wine,” I said. “Did you test the wine that she was drinking?” I knew the Department of Water and Magic already had the wine and was testing it.
His expression grew even more serious than I thought possible. “How do you know about the wine?”
I couldn’t say I’d seen it when we found the body, since the whole point of me calling the police anonymously was so that I could remain anonymous. I played dumb. “So, there was wine?”
“There was wine,” he said at a very low volume, glancing between me and my mother. “I’m only telling you two about this because I want you both to be careful. Especially you, my little blueberry muffin.” He bounced his eyebrows at my mother. “There may have been poison in the wine.”
My mother gasped and clutched he
r chest like an extra in Gone With the Wind. “Poison? In the wine?”
He nodded gravely. “The scientists at the new high-tech lab we’re using haven’t been able to identify the toxin,” he said. “But they are working on it.”
My mother fanned her face with one hand. “Sounds dangerous. What else can you tell us?”
“We traced the bottle to a store not far from here. We pulled all the bottles from the store and we’re testing them now before we consider issuing a recall. There haven’t been any other incidents reported, so in all probability, the corrosive substance was added after purchase.”
I asked, “Did you pull the credit card receipts from the store and identify the purchaser?”
He looked at me steadily. “The buyer paid cash,” he said. “It’s a tiny store, and they don’t have security cameras. In fact, it’s so casual, they have an honor basket in case you stop by when the staff is out running errands.”
“I love it when little stores do that,” my mother said. “Westwyrd is such a quaint little town. I like it even more than Wisteria.”
I waved for her to not distract Bentley from the topic at hand. This was the first solid lead we’d gotten.
I asked him, “Does anyone at the store remember selling the wine?”
He tilted his head to one side. “Are you asking on behalf of the ghost?”
“Yes,” I said, going with the psychic story. “She simply can’t rest until her killer’s been found.”
Bentley seemed to buy my story. “The young woman working the cash register says she might be able to pick the wine buyer out of a photo lineup. According to her, it was a male, between thirty and fifty. I’ve got my team assembling pictures from the resort guests who fit in that range. It’s going to be a long night for all of us.”
My mother pouted. “Will you be working all night long? Can’t you stick around here a bit longer and keep me company?”
“Not unless I get a break in the case,” he said. “We have to get this photo lineup ready as soon as possible. We have a lot of people to sort through.”
She glanced my way, then took Bentley’s arm and steered him to face away from me. “Start with a man named Nathan Partridge. He goes by Nash.”
Bentley’s ears perked up about as much as a human being’s ears can perk up. “Did you see or hear something?”
“He’s the ex-boyfriend,” she said.
“Really?” He looked from her to me.
“Nash didn’t do it,” I said. “He’s a sweet, gentle soul.”
“But he is the girl’s ex-boyfriend,” he said.
I glared at my mother. Thanks for throwing Nash under the bus so you could spend more time with your boyfriend. Thanks a lot.
She ignored me as she walked Bentley over to the door. They began murmuring to each other in low voices. I turned around and went to the only room with a door—the bathroom—and shut myself inside it.
Poor Nash.
I should have let him leave when he had the chance. I knew Nash couldn’t have hurt Jo, let alone killed her, but what could I do? I sat on the edge of the tub and thought about what I knew. I had Jo’s spirit inside me, and I’d seen some of her memories. I had to have something to give Bentley, some other lead or clue.
After a few minutes, it came to me. I’d experienced that memory of Jo with her father, when she’d convinced him to get the Erasure Machine running to help pay off her debts. Given the fact the machine was destroyed in a fiery explosion, it was safe to assume the debts had never been paid. That meant the scary people in New York would still have been after payback from Jo.
I emerged from the bathroom, broke up my mother and Bentley’s smooching session, and told him my theory.
Bentley regarded me coolly with his steely gray eyes. “Thank you for the tip,” he said carefully. “I will make a note to check out all the scary people in New York city to rule them out as suspects.”
I let out an exasperated sigh. For the first time, I regretted stealing all the rainbow sprinkle donuts at Bentley’s favorite bakery. I could have used him on my side right about now.
“Not all the scary people,” I said. “Just the ones Jo Pressman was in contact with. If she owed them money, they were probably hounding her in some way.”
“Sure,” he said. “We are looking into her phone records and contacts. It’s standard procedure.”
“So, you’ll go easy on Nash?”
Bentley narrowed his eyes at me. “Why are you here, Zara?” He turned to my mother. “Do you know her?” His memory had been blanked again.
I retreated back to the bathroom to do some more thinking. Maybe there were more clues in Jo’s memories, or at least some names of the people who were after her for money.
Chapter 16
My sleep that night was fitful. Maybe it was from being overtired by the day’s activities. Maybe it was from dreaming Jo Pressman’s memories, in which I was kissing my buddy Nash on his ash-flavored lips. Or maybe it was the fact I was not in a bed or on a couch but in a hallway on the lower floor of a castle, huddled up next to the ice machine.
Every twenty minutes, my unwanted dreams about kissing Nash would be interrupted by the KERCHUNK of the ice machine dropping more cubes. A few times, I mistook the sound for that of the old-fashioned time card system we used at the library, and I was so confused, thinking I’d fallen asleep at work. The reality—that I was hiding out while my dead mother made kissy-kissy with Detective Theodore Bentley—was even stranger than my dreams.
I had just gotten back to sleep after a noisy ice drop when I was awakened again, this time by a person gently shaking me by the shoulder.
“Excuse me,” said a familiar male voice. “It’s four in the morning. Why are you sleeping next to the ice machine?”
“Why not?” I looked up into the face of either Chet or the stranger twin named Archer. “A person’s got to sleep somewhere,” I said.
He grinned. The attractive, dark-haired man standing over me was Archer, not Chet. The grin gave it away. Plus Chet probably would have bonked me on the head with the silver ice bucket that Archer was carrying.
“You did look peaceful,” he said.
I gave the machine a loving pat. “The interior may be cold, but this little guy’s side panel here is quite warm and cozy.”
Archer’s grin got even bigger. “My side panel is quite warm and cozy, too. Plus my front panel, and even my back panel.”
His flirty words ignited a fire inside me. I felt my resident spirit, Jo, take notice. She was excited to have the attention of such a handsome man. I was also enjoying the interaction, but not like Jo. She made my cheeks flush hotter than they’d ever been, hotter than a sunburn. I had to say something before I burst into flames.
“You’re kind of a flirt, aren’t you, Archer Caine?”
He looked surprised, or at least he play-acted that he was surprised. “You remembered my name.”
“I remember everything.”
He did a double take. “You do? Everything?”
“Sure. You took my shoes hostage. Then we were having a nice conversation, and when I turned around, you were gone.”
“Oh. That.” He looked relieved.
I pointed to his ice bucket. “Are you having a party, or are you preparing to illegally harvest someone’s kidney?”
He feigned horror. “That’s kind of a personal question.”
We stared at each other for a moment. I didn’t have a followup question. Accusing someone of harvesting organs at four in the morning kinda backs you into a conversational corner. I unwrapped my knees from the blanket I’d dragged down from my mother’s suite. Using the corner of the ice machine for support, I got myself up into a standing position.
“I suppose I should be getting back to my room,” I said.
Archer looked down at my bare legs. The shorts that Charlize had sent me were shorter than typical for a woman my age. I was showing a lot of skin—skin that was now tattooed with the nubby pattern of t
he hallway’s commercial carpet.
“Nice rug burn,” he said.
“That’s not rug burn,” I said. “I’ll show you rug burn.” The words were Jo Pressman’s, coming from my lips. She’d said those words to Nash, and a few other guys, too.
His eyebrows shot up. “You will?”
“Any time. Rug burn is one of my specialties.” I hugged the blanket to my chest with one arm while Jo made me use the other hand to twirl a lock of my hair flirtatiously.
He gave me a confused look. Either I’d gone too far for his level of flirtation comfort, or he’d sensed the change in my voice when the ghost had taken over. I cooled a few degrees and yanked my hand out of my hair.
Warily, he said, “I’ll keep your offer in mind.” He opened the hatch for the machine’s ice supply, watching me out of the sides of his eyes while he scooped cubes into the silver ice bucket he’d been carrying.
“You do that.”
He shook his ice bucket. “Now I’ve got everything to make iced coffee in the morning.” He gave it another shake. “Plus I’ve got a soft couch in my room if you need a place to crash.”
“Thanks for the offer, but I think my roomie should be finished with her boyfriend by now.”
“Oh?” He seemed genuinely interested. We were back to Turbo Flirter mode. Game on.
My hand shot up to my hair again and resumed twirling. “I bet when I walk in there, the poor guy will be a dried-out husk.”
Archer snorted in surprise. “Your roommate sounds like my kind of people.” He bounced his eyebrows suggestively.
“Maybe I’ll introduce you to her,” I said. “You’d make a fun stepfather.”
He stopped laughing. “I’m confused.”
I smiled at him while cringing inside. Jo was insatiable. Apparently, she used to flirt with older men by telling them about her adventurous roommates or offering to introduce them to her mother. I guess she had plenty more to say, if I let her. What if she took control of my whole body? I hadn’t minded a full takeover when ghosts wanted to pay my bills or weed my garden. But Jo’s favorite hobby could get me into the beds of strangers. Inside my mind, I shouted, Young lady, go to your room! It seemed to work, because she backed off and let me have control of my mouth again, even if I couldn’t stop the hair twirling.
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