“Jared,” she called out weakly, rooted to her spot.
He didn’t hear her. He was too far away.
She cleared her throat and called out again. “Jared!”
This time his head snapped in her direction and he broke into a run. He was at her side within seconds, and he put an arm across the front of her body to keep her from rushing forward.
“Son of a ... .”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Harper said drily. “I think I need to sit down.”
MEL WAS THE FIRST ON the scene, followed closely by the county medical examiner’s van. Whisper Cove was too small to have their own coroner, so they had to contract with the county for services. Thankfully, they didn’t have to wait long today.
“What do we have?” Allison Ryan, one of four pathologists the county employed, asked as she snapped on a pair of rubber gloves.
“Jessica Hayden,” Mel volunteered from his perch close to the woman. He was crouched low so he could look over the body from a fresh vantage point, and he appeared uneasy. “We were looking to question her in the disappearance of Zoe Mathers.”
Allison’s expression shifted. “I see.” She took a long moment to scan the immediate area. “No little girl?”
“No. We’ve looked. She’s not here.”
“Well, I guess that’s something.” Allison carefully slipped her hand into the still-fluttering hair and pressed her fingers against the woman’s neck. “Just making sure,” she said when Jared shot her an agitated look. “That’s part of my job description.”
“Do you think we didn’t check?”
“No. I still have to check myself. I’m sorry if you don’t like that.”
“Whatever.” He moved his hands to Harper’s shoulders and gave them a light rub, which wasn’t easy given the size of her heavy parka. “Do you have a cause of death?”
“Are you kidding?” Allison’s eyes flashed. “I just got here. I actually have to look at the body before making a determination.”
“She was struck in the head,” Harper automatically offered. “I’m guessing by that huge rock.” She pointed toward a huge stone located about two feet from the body.
“What makes you say that?” Allison asked. “And, oh, who are you?”
“This is Harper Harlow,” Jared automatically answered. “She’s my girlfriend and she was with me when the discovery was made.”
Allison narrowed her eyes. “Since when do police detectives take their girlfriends to murder scenes with them?”
“Harper has a special skill set,” Mel interjected. “She’s the reason we knew to look in the park in the first place.”
“Uh-huh.” Allison stared so hard at Harper it made the ghost hunter uncomfortable. “I think I’ve read stuff about you in the newspaper. You were the one who was almost killed by the guy who came back from the dead, right?”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Jared exploded.
“I’m simply trying to understand what she’s doing here.”
Harper was too cold to continue playing games. “I can see ghosts,” she volunteered, ignoring the wild look in Mel’s eyes as he fanned his face behind the medical examiner. “I run a ghost-hunting business where we try to help displaced souls cross over. I saw Jessica’s soul last night, although she disappeared quickly. It didn’t sit well, so we came back this morning to look for her ... and found this instead.”
“I see.” Allison flicked her eyes back to the body, moving her hands to the back of Jessica’s head before speaking again. “She was definitely struck on the back of the head. I don’t know that I can say it was with that rock, though.”
“There’s blood on the rock,” Harper volunteered. “I saw it when we were waiting for you.”
“Oh, well, then maybe it is the murder weapon.” Allison brightened considerably. “That will save time, huh?”
Harper slid Jared a sidelong look and found him watching her with unreadable eyes. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“You obviously have something on your mind.”
“I just find you adorable. I like that you’re your own person and aren’t embarrassed to say whatever comes to your mind.”
“Yes, I’m a wonder and a joy,” she drawled, rolling her neck and turning to her left when she caught sight of a uniformed officer. “Isn’t that David Packer?”
Mel turned to look and nodded. “Yes. We sent him to search the area on the other side of the park for Jessica’s vehicle. We’re hoping to get lucky there, because otherwise, we have no idea where her car is. That’s a loose end I don’t like.”
“We have a lot more loose ends than that,” Jared argued. “None of this makes any sense.”
“Well, at least we have another direction to look in.” Mel straightened and focused on David. “Anything?”
“We didn’t find her car on the access road on the far side of the park,” David replied, fighting to catch his breath. “We did find it at the library, though. It was just sitting there, right out in the open.”
“Seriously?” Mel started to move. “Show me.”
They left Allison to do her thing with the body and hurried to the sidewalk. Whisper Cove wasn’t large, and the library was only two blocks away. Harper’s heart was pounding as she fought to keep up with Mel’s long strides.
“Did you look inside?” Harper asked, the cold air causing her lungs to hurt. “Did you look in the trunk to make sure Zoe isn’t there? If she was there all night, she could be frozen.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Mel chided. “All we have is a car so far.”
They remained silent until they arrived at the vehicle in question. Immediately, Mel and Jared split, with each taking a different side of the vehicle.
“It looks clean,” Mel noted, shielding his eyes from the limited sun. “Zoe definitely isn’t in there.”
“No, but her hat is,” Jared said, pointing toward a spot behind the passenger seat. “She was wearing a hat with cat ears, right?”
Harper nodded, her stomach twisting as she looked over his shoulder. “That’s too small to be an adult’s hat.”
“We need to open the trunk right now,” Jared insisted, tugging on the passenger side door. “It’s locked.”
Mel tried his side, but it didn’t open. “Stand back,” he ordered David, using the butt of his gun and smashing it against the window. The glass shattered into a million pieces, and Mel reached inside and hit the trunk button on the dash. “Go,” he ordered Jared, inclining his chin.
Jared didn’t need to be told twice. He raced to the back of the car and grabbed the trunk lid, internally praying he wasn’t about to see the worst thing in the world, and then shoved it open. To his immense relief, the trunk was empty. There was no little girl trapped inside.
“Phew,” he muttered under his breath, wiping his brow with the back of his hand. It was a true testament to his fear that he managed to work up a sweat in below-freezing temperatures.
“She’s not in there,” Harper said, relief positively rolling off her. “That’s good, right?”
“It’s better than the alternative,” Mel said. “We still have a problem, though. If Jessica had Zoe’s hat, where is she?”
“I don’t know, but this case is getting weirder and weirder,” Jared said. “None of this makes any sense.”
“Which is why we have to start at the beginning. I have no idea what’s going on here, but we’re missing something ... and it’s something important.”
Eleven
Jared took Harper to Jessica’s house, but only because he hoped she would be able to find their missing ghost. He ordered her to stay in the car long enough to force open the front door — he was legitimately worried there would be a body inside — but when he came up empty, he briefly allowed her to enter.
“Don’t touch anything, Heart,” he warned, keeping watch out the front window. “You don’t have much time. The state police are sending over a crime sce
ne unit, and they should be here in ten minutes. No offense, but I don’t want to explain what you’re doing here. It didn’t exactly go over well with the medical examiner.”
Harper couldn’t muster the energy to be offended. She didn’t have time. Instead, she cruised through the house — keeping her mittens in place — and tried to swallow the bubble of disappointment clogging her throat by the time she was finished.
“She’s not here.”
“That’s not unheard of, right?” Jared didn’t want her feeling down, so he carefully ordered her hair and smiled. “You’re the one who told me that new ghosts can’t always control their environment so sometimes they come and go at odd intervals.”
“I love it when you spout my ghost knowledge back to me,” she said drily, shaking her head. “You’re right, though. We can’t force her to show up.”
“Then there’s nothing you can do.” Jared flicked his eyes to the window to make sure the coast was still clear. “I called Zander. He’s on his way. He says he’ll keep you busy for the rest of the afternoon.”
“That’s a frightening thought,” Mel muttered, joining them. “The last time he promised to keep me busy, he made me go to this freaky store in the mall where they sold pink suits. He insisted I try one on.”
Jared tried to picture his partner in a pink suit. “That sounds like a pleasant afternoon. Please tell me there’s video ... or at least a photograph.”
“I threatened him with death if he tried,” Mel said, slowly moving his eyes to Harper. “I don’t want to kick you out, kid, but I don’t think you should be here when the state police show up. You’re going to be hard to explain.”
Harper realized that without the gentle nudge. “I’ll wait outside. Zander is on his way, right?”
Jared nodded. “You can sit in the cruiser if you want. It’s warmer there. That we can explain by saying we were having lunch when the car was discovered. It’s just ... .” He felt slimy suggesting that the state police would give them grief for bringing a ghost hunter to a potential crime scene, so he left the sentence hanging.
“I get it. You don’t have to worry.” She rolled up to the balls of her feet and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Zander and I have shopping ahead of us. I still have a few last-minute items I want to get. I promised him a mall trip. Now seems as good a time as any since we can’t do anything else.”
“And you’ll be safe at the mall.” Jared smacked a loud kiss against her mouth when she moved to pull away. “I’ll call you when I know more. The fact that Zoe isn’t here is a good thing.”
“No, actually, if Zoe was here and okay, that would be the best outcome available,” Harper corrected, refusing to let him gloss over the situation. “The fact that she’s not dead in this house somewhere — or in Jessica’s vehicle — is only good because the alternative is unbearable.”
“I can see you’re not in the best frame of mind right now. I don’t blame you. At least we have somewhere new to look.”
“I hope you find something helpful.”
“You and me both.”
ONCE HARPER WAS removed from the situation — Jared stood at the window and made sure she was safely transferred to Zander’s custody — the two police detectives broke apart and started searching the house. They were looking for any indication that Zoe had been present, however minuscule.
The state police crime team arrived shortly after Harper disappeared and immediately set out gathering fibers for later tests. The house itself wasn’t overly clean, but it was far from dirty. Everything seemed to have a logical place, and Jessica couldn’t be described as a hoarder.
“Anything?” Jared asked, walking into the home office and finding Mel on the floor going through files. “Please tell me she had a secret diary that laid out all her plans.”
“I haven’t found a diary.” Mel’s eyes never left the contents of the file he was perusing. “I did find this, though. It seems Jessica hired a private investigator two days ago.”
Jared perked up almost instantly. “Are you serious?”
“I am indeed serious.”
“Anyone we know?”
“I don’t think you know him. I know him, though. Chet Masters. His office is in Mount Clemens.”
“Does it say what he’s required to do for her?”
“No, which I find suspicious.” Mel rolled his neck and pursed his lips. “Have you found anything?”
“I did find one thing of interest.” Jared motioned for Mel to follow him through the house, not stopping until he reached the back door. He pushed it open and pointed at the locking mechanism. “What does that look like to you?”
Mel leaned over so he could have a clear view. “It looks like someone tried to jimmy the lock.”
“According to our friendly state police technicians, these are fresh grooves. They can tell because we haven’t had a big storm in the past few days, and if we did, the wood would be more weathered.”
“So ... someone broke into the house recently.”
“Pretty much,” Jared confirmed. “Now, in theory, it’s possible that Jessica accidentally locked herself out of the house and had to break in herself.”
“Why does your smug smile tell me you’ve already disproven that theory?”
Jared’s smirk widened. “Because I checked under the flowerpot out here — I mean ... who leaves a flower pot on the back porch through winter? — and there’s a spare key underneath it. Jessica wouldn’t need to jimmy her own lock.”
“Someone else broke in.”
“That’s my guess.”
“Maybe that’s why she wanted Chet Masters. Perhaps he was going to beef up security for her.”
“I think we need to pay him a visit to find out exactly what he was doing for her,” Jared said. “Jessica didn’t whack herself in the head with a rock. That’s pretty obvious. And yet Zoe’s hat was found in her car. We’ve yet to find anything else that suggests Zoe was ever in close proximity with Jessica.”
“Someone was trying to frame Jessica, and killed her to do it,” Mel mused. “I don’t understand how killing her with a rock furthers that agenda, though. The killer had to know that was suspicious.”
“Maybe things got out of hand.”
“Maybe.” Mel rolled his neck until it cracked, thoughtful. “I think we need to have a sit down with Chet.”
“I’m all over that.”
HARPER AND ZANDER VISITED their favorite shops in the mall, which only took thirty minutes because everything they used to love had closed down thanks to a shifting economy. Still, they went to the candle store so Zander could buy a perverted snowflake candle as a gag gift for Mel, and then stopped in a different store so Harper could pick out a pretty hat for Shawn.
Their next stop was the jewelry store, although neither of them were feeling in the mood to “ooh” and “aah” over trinkets when their minds kept wandering elsewhere.
“What did you get Jared?” Zander asked as he studied a diamond watch with muted interest.
“I was kind of thinking that he should be happy with the gift that is me,” Harper replied, earning a snicker.
“That sounds like something I would say. I considered getting naked, putting a bow on myself, and letting Shawn unwrap me. It’s weird, though, it was like he anticipated that. He said he expected a gift that didn’t involve nudity. As if that’s really a gift.”
Harper chortled, genuinely amused. “Oh, you guys are so perfect for each other.” She instinctively reached out and gave Zander’s cheek a squeeze. “I can’t tell you how happy I am that you guys found each other.”
Zander’s lips curved. “I did a pretty good job finding him, huh?”
“I think he did a pretty good job finding you.”
“What about you and Jared? Which one of you found the other?”
“That’s a good question.” Harper moved around the edge of the jewelry case and leaned over to look at a watch. This one was less ornate than the one Zander picked ou
t, which was to be expected. “Do you think Jared would like this?”
Zander shifted closer and followed her gaze. “It’s nice. Kind of boring, if you ask me, but nice. Since Jared is often boring — especially when it comes to his personal style — that fits. Although, this is pretty expensive. Haven’t you bought his big gift already?”
Harper opened her mouth to answer, her cheeks burning, but no sound came out.
“You haven’t bought his big gift yet?” Zander’s voice carried under normal circumstances, but now it was absolutely shrill. “Are you crazy?”
“I didn’t know what to get him,” Harper admitted, sheepish. “I’ve never really purchased a Christmas gift for a boyfriend before. I mean, technically I purchased something for Quinn, but we’d only been together for a short time and we were young so getting him a sweater and calling it a day was perfectly acceptable.”
“Yes, well, you’re a big girl now,” Zander snapped. “How could you possibly think that not getting Jared a gift was okay?”
“I’m going to get him a gift.” Harper’s voice was unnaturally high. “I know I need to get him a gift. It’s just ... what am I supposed to get him?”
“Why are you asking me?” Zander was furious. “I don’t know what to get him. I barely know what to get my own boyfriend. You can’t put your problems on me. Solve your own problems.”
“But ... I don’t know what to get him.” Harper’s eyes brimmed with tears. “What if I get something too small and make him feel unloved? What if I get something too big and hurt his feelings because he didn’t spend as much on me? What if I buy eight things and he buys seven? It’s just too much pressure.”
“Oh, good grief.” Zander rolled his eyes. “You’re going to drive yourself insane if you keep this up. More importantly, you’re going to drive me insane. Go big. Trust me. You’ll never be able to top what he got you.”
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