Murder in the Mix Box Set

by Addison Moore

  Everett’s lips curve at the tips. “Have I mentioned I’m having a pole installed in my living room next week?”

  “I guess you’ll need someone to break it in for you.” I couldn’t resist, but judging by the hurt look in Noah’s eyes, I probably should have.

  Everett nods my way. “I’m free the rest of the week if you need anything.”

  “Oh right, maybe we could squeeze that trip to Connecticut in? I’d love to have you come with me.”

  Noah looks to the two of us. “What’s in Connecticut?”

  “Romantic getaway,” Everett offers without missing a beat. “Tomorrow works best, Lemon. How’s that for you?”

  “Perfect. I’ll be ready to leave about eight. That gives me plenty of time to get the bakery going for Lily.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” He looks to Noah and nods. “Tell Britney I said hello. I’ll see you later, Lemon.” He takes off, and my discomfort level goes up a dozen notches. Funny how being left alone with Noah never bothered me before.

  Noah steps in close, and his leaf green eyes bear hard into mine. “I saw you whispering to yourself up there, Lottie.” Greer! “I could tell your nerves were really jangled. I don’t want to see you putting yourself in these uncomfortable situations.” His shoulders sag, his expression suddenly downcast. “And I certainly wouldn’t want you to swing around Everett’s living room.” His eyes close for a moment. “I guess I did this to myself, didn’t I?”

  Sometimes in life there are no words, and this is one of those times. I give a meager circular nod and shrug.

  “Britney’s stalling to sign the papers. But the divorce is still in motion. It’s just a matter of time. Maybe one day in the future you’ll give me another chance.”

  Meg pops up behind me and laughs in Noah’s face. “You know what they say, if wishes were horses, beggars would fly! Now fly away. Scat! You’ve already done enough damage around here. Nobody breaks my sister’s heart and gets away with it.” She leans in and gets her face within inches of his. “I hope it hurts.”

  Noah presses out a sad smile my way, and my heart breaks all over again. “It does.” He takes off and leaves without another word.

  Chapter 13

  If Vermont is experiencing violent, windy conditions, then what’s happening in Connecticut is nearing downright cyclone levels.

  Everett holds my hand tight as we head into an unassuming office building set in an industrial park filled with unassuming buildings that have no more appeal than a stack of boxes scattered around a ten-block vicinity. I made sure Greer came along for the ride—not that she needed the lift. I’m sure she could have hopped state lines a heck of a lot sooner than we ever could, but I wanted the security of knowing she was with us in spirit as it were.

  It turns out, the woman we drove hours to see, Morgana Harold, did indeed have an opening in her schedule. Everett was wise enough to call this morning before we made the long trek over and put us down for a two o’clock appointment.

  “Morgana Harold, Private Investigator,” I read off the plaque before we head on in. I turn to Everett and shiver. “I’m nervous! I’ve never done this before. What if we’ve got the wrong woman? What if she’s never heard of the transmundane community before? What if she’s not even supersensual? What if she’s just a really good detective?”

  Everett’s lids hood low as if my meltdown has somehow triggered that happy place that lives somewhere underneath this gruff exterior. But Everett doesn’t say a word in response. He merely leans in and lands his mouth to mine until all of my worries melt away.

  “Boy, you know just how to relax a girl.”

  “I’ve got a few other tricks that are far more efficient.”

  “That you’ve utilized in an office building? Wait, don’t answer that. I’m pretty sure your tried-and-true methods would demand we take our relationship to the next level.”

  Greer hops up and down clapping up a storm. “Next level! Next level!”

  Everett grumbles out a dry laugh because no thanks to our handholding he heard the impromptu cheer.

  I shake my head up at him. “Why do I get the feeling the girls you’re involved with never really discuss taking things to the next level—they just happen spontaneously like nuclear fission and supernovas?”

  “You’re on the right explosive track.” He opens the door, and we set foot into a spacious office, clean and bare bones, white walls, and honey wooden floors. A petite woman with heavily outlined eyes and a waterfall of black glossy hair greets Everett with a smile.

  “Here to solve a mystery?” Her ridiculously long lashes bat heavily his way. “I just might be the answer.”

  I clear my throat. “As much as I’d like to help you make his day, we have an appointment with Morgana Harold at two,” I say coldly to the nymph just begging to take a bite out of my man. I back up just a notch. Everett is nobody’s man. He’s like a government monument gifted to the public. He just sort of belongs to all women. I can’t help but frown. I’ve never been good at sharing.

  She flicks a finger toward the door to our right, and we head on in to find a woman about my age. Her cherry-colored hair is free-flowing every which way, and a pair of wire-rimmed glasses is sitting at the base of her nose. She has an exaggerated look about her, large eyes, overdrawn lips. She reminds me a lot of an old teacher I once had who used to entertain us with her wild imagination. Let’s hope that little bit of my scholastic history doesn’t repeat itself.

  She stands and opens her mouth as if to introduce herself, but her eyes snag on Greer, and she takes a moment to inspect my phantom friend.

  “You can see her!” I squeal as I look to the paranormally gifted PI. “It’s true. You are just like me. I’m Lottie Lemon. This is my friend, Everett, and the deceased is Greer Giles.” I’m a bit hasty with the intros, but I’m so darn excited I can’t help it.

  Morgana gasps and seals the door to the office and speeds back to her seat. She does a quick inspection of the three of us before her gaze lands on Everett.

  “What about you, big boy? Are you seeing the other side, or are you just liking what you see?” She rocks her shoulders his way as Greer takes a greedy seat on his lap.

  “Hey! I’m here,” I say, incensed, as I look first to Morgana and then to Greer. “And that goes for you, too.”

  “I’m so sorry.” She shakes that wild mane of hers, and I half-expect a moth to fly out of it. “I don’t know what came over me. It’s almost as if I was under his spell.” She gives a throaty laugh his way as if it were some private joke between them.

  “My God, we’re not witches, are we?” Carlotta insisted we weren’t, but after that more than mundane, transmundane meet-up, it’s clear Carlotta knows a whole lot about nothing.

  “Not witches.” She pulls down her navy sweater as she settles down from the hormonal conniption Everett seems to incite wherever he goes. “We are”—she squints over at me—“what do you think we are, and who sent you?”

  “I was told I was transmundane, something more specifically referred to as supersensual. Everett here is the only one I’ve involuntarily told about it. My biological mother knows about it. She’s got it, too. In fact, we just held a meeting of a local chapter at my bakery back in Honey Hollow.”

  She makes a face like she might be sick. “I find those coffee klatches to be useless if you ask me. But then, I’ve always been on another level.”

  “Lemon is on another level, too.” Everett lobbies for me, and I think it’s sweet. “She can see and hear them.”

  “That’s right,” I add. “And my extraterrestrial visitors have recently gained the ability to move objects, thereby wreaking havoc in the material world.”

  Her eyes pop twice their size. “You don’t say. I can see and hear them, too. Lucky for me, they’re not interfering in anything in the natural. What’s the frequency in which you’re seeing the other side?” She leans in hard as if everything hangs in the balance.

  “One per month, pret
ty steady now.”

  “Wow!” She leans back hard in her seat as if to get as much distance between us as possible. “Do they call you Bad Luck Lucy back in Honey Hollow?”

  Both Everett and Greer chuckle, and I give his hand a quick squeeze as a punishment.

  “No, but they often call me a suspect. I’m finding bodies, lots and lots of them. At the rate I’m going, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the people at Guinness weren’t chasing me down.”

  “One a month,” she muses. “And they’re all connected to a corpse?”

  I give a solemn nod.

  She shakes her head as she gazes off to the corner. “Am I ever glad you’re clear in Vermont. You might just give me a run for my transmundane money. Have you thought of becoming a private investigator? You’d make a killing at it—for lack of a better term.”

  “No thank you. I’m a baker.”

  Greer huffs at the thought, “And a darn good one, too. She put me out of business in less than one month.”

  Everett chuckles. “She’s sitting on my lap, isn’t she?”

  Greer starts to bounce with pride quite literally, and I shoo her away until she’s sitting on the edge of the desk like a good little ghoul.

  Morgana claps her hands. “And I was once a nurse, but after a majority of my patients began to bite the big one and I garnered the unsavory nickname as Noose Nightingale”—she rolls her eyes at that one—“I decided to go with the universe. Why fight it? I’ve always liked puzzles and riddles, and this is just that, supersized with a side of cold, hard corpses.”

  “Lovely,” I muse. “So, how many ghosts do you come across?”

  “About one every other month. I’m not quite at your level yet, but I hope to be soon. I’ve got a mortgage and three boys in private school. The bodies can’t fall fast enough, if you know what I mean. Obviously, not all of my investigative efforts come with a supernatural sidekick, but the fact I’m kicking the Hartford Homicide Division in the rear makes the family of those victims practically run in my direction. When someone you love is murdered, you want results, and I deliver them.” She slaps her open palm hard. “How about you? How many investigations did detectives close in on before you?”

  Everett’s chest bounces as he laughs silently. “Zero. This woman could shut down every homicide detective in the country. She’s that good.”

  “A supportive man.” She nods approvingly his way. “You’re quite the lucky woman, Lottie Lemon.”

  “I am.” My cheeks heat as I glance to Everett. “So, how did we come to be this way? Is this some ancient curse? Are we from another planet?”

  “Heaven’s no to all of the above. We’re just simply people who skew toward the supernatural. People have gifts. Some people are good at hospitality; others are practically savant when it comes to music. The brain warps and stretches in unusual ways.”

  I shake my head. “I’m not buying it. This runs through bloodlines.”

  “That’s true. And that’s why I think it’s a gift we inherit. Just like this brick wall of a building inherited his stunning blue eyes that make the girls swoon ten times harder. My theory is that it’s dying out. From what I gleaned at those useless meetings was that by and large this is a fading gift. You and I are anomalies within an anomaly. Two of my boys don’t have it. The middle one does. He’s a wily one, too, but as soon as he’s old enough, I’ll have him helping me out, teaching him the ropes. It’s all fun and games at the lighter end of the spectrum, an adorable kitten here, a playful puppy there. But if this shapes up for him like it did me, it’ll be raining corpses before you know it, and he’ll be smack in the middle of it.”

  “Why are we so good at solving cases?” The words burst out of me as if that were the only question I want answered, and in a way it is.

  She shrugs as if she hasn’t got a clue. “I suspect it’s a part of it. Our thirst for justice is like a fat man’s craving for pizza at midnight. It’s strong, and it must be satiated.” She nods to Greer. “So, what case are you working on now?”

  Everett looks my way and I nod, encouraging him to spill it, and he does.

  “Judge Shumaker”—she pounds his name into her keyboard and glosses over whatever pops up on her screen—“always look to the obvious. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that, but sometimes we can overcomplicate things ourselves. Did you check out the wife?”

  “Not yet. But I took pole dancing lessons from the nineteen-year-old he knocked up, and she said the wife caught them in bed.” I nod to Everett because I happened to share that salacious tidbit on the way over. “She said his wife was so angry she went to the strip club and badmouthed her.”

  Morgana caws out a laugh. “The little strumpet had it coming if you ask me. And then some. She’s lucky she wasn’t offed, too. I bet the wife did it. How did she do it? Poisoning? That’s pretty traditional for an angry spouse of the female persuasion.”

  Everett and I exchange a glance because that’s how Mr. Rutherford’s wife accidentally offed his mistress. The poison was really meant for him.

  “Stabbing,” Everett offers. “Nine times, upper torso, from the back.”

  “Oh no, no, no”—she shakes her head at the thought—“unless that nineteen-year-old or those other mistresses you mentioned he had were female wrestlers, there’s no way they offed him in a quasi-public venue with that much violence. That, my friend, was the work of a very strong man.”

  I take a quick breath. “You’re right. And even though the perpetrator wasn’t facing Judge Shumaker, they must have felt confident they wouldn’t be overpowered or the knife could be used against them.”

  “Well?” She tosses her hands in the air. “Who are the male suspects?”

  “There’s just one,” I say.

  Everett nods. “Judge Kremer.”

  Chapter 14

  Judge Garrett Kremer happily agrees to meet up with Everett at Mooney’s Roadhouse, and after a rough ride all the way back to Vermont I’m feeling the need for a stiff one.

  “Tea, make it hot,” I say to the saucy looking waitress. “Chamomile, please.”

  The short woman with rainbow-colored hair averts her eyes as she takes off.

  Greer jumps into the booth between Everett and me. “I can’t believe it’s Garrett! Boy, did we share some steamy moments.”

  I suck in a quick breath as I look to the judge across from me. “You slept with Greer Giles, didn’t you?”

  “Lemon.” Everett taps my knee with his, but my full attention is on the man before us looking horrified as if he was just caught with his man parts in the nookie jar.

  “How did you know?” His blue eyes round out. He has a boyish appeal about him, but he’s older than Everett by a decade at least. His hair has gone silver far too soon, but that only adds to his handsome appeal.

  Everett leans in. “It’s true?” He looks equally stymied and angry.

  “Yes, it’s true. It’s old news. The girl’s been dead for months.”

  Greer gives my side a quick nudge. “Ask him how we met.”

  “How did the two of you meet?” I discreetly reach over and pick up Everett’s hand so he can listen in on any other pearls Greer might want to dispense. She doesn’t seem to mind the fact my arm is impaled into her chest.

  Judge Kremer gives a quick survey of the room. “Let’s just say she was coming around the courthouse and I bumped into her.”

  My mouth falls open. “You knew she was seeing Judge Shumaker and you still slept with her.” All pure conjecture on my part, but considering I’m batting a thousand, I went with it.

  “Not at first,” he says, incredulous, as he shakes his head at Everett. “Your girlfriend here really has some insight.” He smacks his lips. “What are you doing with a girlfriend, anyway? Are you getting soft on me?” He gives an obnoxious har har as if it were hilarious. Me thinks he’s trying to change the subject.

  Everett lands his elbow onto the table as if he meant business, and let me tell you there is nothin
g hotter than Essex Everett Baxter getting down to brass tacks.

  “Did Sterling threaten you regarding your affair?”

  I suck in another quick breath. “You’re married?”

  His eyes flit my way as the waitress sets down our drinks and quickly disappears.

  “I’m separated. It’s complicated.”

  “I’ve heard that before.”

  Greer grunts, “So have I sister. So have I.”

  Everett bounces his beer in his hand. “Geez. What were you thinking?”

  “I know, I know.” He stares down at the table as if he were ashamed—as he should be. “It’s one thing to step out on the missus, but to pull what I did with Sterling? It goes against bro-code.”

  “Bro-code?” I ask, ready to strangle this turkey for being so insensitive. In the least I should accidentally on purpose spill my scalding hot water onto his lap. Who knows? I might do all of female-kind a favor by disabling his most prized member.

  Greer scoffs at the greasy judge. “He’s not sorry. He once told me he thought I was hotter because I belonged to Shumaker.” She says belonged in air quotes.

  I gasp at the raunchy revelation. “Did you really think she was hotter because she belonged to Shumaker?”

  Judge Kremer inches back as if he just saw a ghost, and that ghost was me.

  Everett gives my hand a squeeze. “Lucky guess on her part. I get it, though.”

  Both Greer and I swing our heads his way.

  Everett nods as he looks to his old friend. I can’t help but note the low lighting here makes him look not only far more comely than should ever be legal but dangerous in a delicious way. After a long day in the car, I’d love nothing more than to take Everett back to my place and snuggle up on the couch. I’m sure Pancake and Waffles would love to play with him, and I’m feeling the urge myself.

  Everett taps the table a few times hard, his serious gaze never leaving Kremer’s. “So, where did it go wrong? Did he threaten you?”