“Right,” I said.
Haywood had retreated to the small kitchen, giving Delia and me space. He was doing his pacing thing. I didn’t know how to bring up what I needed to bring up, which was also something I probably should have thought about before coming here.
Delia sat next to me and Avery across from us in a wing chair. She drew one leg up and sat on it. Tapping her fingers on the arm of the chair, she said, “This is all kinds of awkward.”
“It is,” I said, “and I’m sorry, but time is limited and we need some answers.”
“Are you with the police?” she asked.
I said, “No. We’re just . . .”
“Didn’t Miss Eulalie say you owned a potion shop? I’m sorry, but I just don’t understand why you’re here. This makes no sense to me. I think you should leave.”
“Did you kill your father?” I asked. “Haywood?”
Shock flashed in her eyes. “What? No!”
It was the truth, and I relaxed a bit.
“Who do you think you are?” She stood up. “Get the hell out right now, or I’m calling the police.”
Neither Delia nor I budged. I figured that if I was going to get any information out of her at all, that I was going to have to break some of my own rules. “Do you see that doorway right there?” I pointed toward the kitchen.
“I’m calling the police.” She pulled a cell phone from her pocket.
“Your father’s in that doorway,” I went on. “Glaring at me, I might add, though I’m the one upset with him.”
Her finger froze midjab. “Are you crazy?”
“She is,” Delia said, nodding. “Completely off the charts.”
I shot her a dismayed look. “Not helping.” Looking over my shoulder, I said, “Haywood, will you please assist me here? As you may recall, I didn’t want to get mixed up in this in the first place yet you wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
He opened his mouth. “Emmbberrree.”
Louella growled low in her throat and let out a sharp yip. I patted her head. Again, she didn’t bite. So either she’d grown weak from lack of food, or I was growing on her.
For some reason, I doubted it was the latter.
Avery slowly sank back into her chair, her gaze fixated on the kitchen doorway. “What’s going on?” she asked so quietly that I barely heard her.
“It’s a long story,” Delia said. “But—”
Avery cut her off. “I have time.”
“Your dad doesn’t.” Delia leaned forward. “He’s a ghost right now, but if he doesn’t cross over to the other side by midnight, then he’s sent to his grave for another year. He can’t cross yet, because his soul is unsettled. He wants to find out who killed him, and he went to Carly for help the night he was murdered. She’s been trying to figure out who killed him ever since, and that’s why we’re here.”
Avery’s eyebrows shot up. “If that’s not the biggest load of bull I ever heard, I don’t know what is.”
I looked at Delia. “Said out loud that way, it does sound a little bit like a Hallmark Halloween movie gone wrong.”
“It really does,” she agreed.
Glancing at Avery, I said, “It’s much more dramatic when you’re living with it.”
Avery stood again. “Look, I don’t know who you two are or what you want or what kind of game you’re playing, but it’s sick. It’s time for you to leave.”
Delia stood up, walked over to the fireplace, and waved Haywood over to her. As soon as he came closer, my head started pounding and I knew Delia’s had to be, too.
“Come here,” she said to Avery.
She recoiled. “What? Why?”
“Please,” Delia said on a sigh.
Reluctantly, Avery walked over. Delia faced Haywood. “When I count to three, Haywood, float into my body, okay? And stay there.”
Yes.
“Carly, as soon as he does, count to three. Hay, when Carly reaches three, you back out. Got it?”
Yes.
I wasn’t sure what she was up to. This wasn’t something I’d ever seen before.
Delia turned to the mirror, and positioned Avery to face it as well. “One. Two. Three.”
Haywood floated forward. In an instant, Delia’s image in the mirror faded away, replaced with Haywood’s ghostly one. His blue eyes went wide with wonder.
Avery fainted.
• • •
An hour later, Avery still had a look of shock haunting her eyes. We all sat on the floor around the coffee table, coffee cups in hand.
We’d explained everything to her the best we could. The hows and whys of being able to see ghosts. I told her of my dealings with the Harpies, and how we suspected Avery was Haywood’s daughter.
She said, “Haywood approached me out of the blue nearly six months ago and told me he’d been married to my mother.”
Six months. When the first blackmail letter showed up.
“That was a shock and a half,” Avery went on, “as I’d never known she’d been married at all. She’d been gone for more than a year at that point, and I’d never found anything in her papers that mentioned a divorce. Buried deep in a box in a closet, I did find a picture of her while pregnant with me kissing a man, but it wasn’t Haywood. But even more shocking than the divorce news was when Haywood said he suspected he was my father.”
“Hello, bombshell,” Delia said.
“Exactly,” Avery agreed. “I hadn’t ever doubted my mother’s story that my father was dead. She painted it as a tragic love affair kind of thing, and I had no reason to believe that she’d lie to me. I’ve been stressing about it ever since I found out. Why wouldn’t she just tell me the truth? Why keep me from my father, who by all accounts was one of the nicest men around? It doesn’t make sense, and I can’t help but think all the answers are in Hitching Post.”
“Why’s that?” Delia asked.
While we talked, Haywood paced the kitchen, listening. I had the feeling he was learning some new things today as well.
“She was very skittish about her time spent in Hitching Post in general. She didn’t like to talk about it. It upset her greatly.” Avery swallowed hard. “I don’t like thinking about that, but I always believed it was because my father had died tragically, leaving her to raise me on my own. That clearly wasn’t the case at all. Yet, something happened there that made her vow never to return.”
I recalled what Mr. Dunwoody had said about Twilabeth’s battle with depression. Did Avery know of that? If not, I wasn’t going to be the one to tell her. Her mama was dead. Let her rest in peace now.
“She was happy here,” Avery said. “She used to regale me with stories about packing her things and moving down here, starting life over. She bought this house, had me, and eventually became a law professor at the university. We traveled and had all kinds of adventures. She was absolutely the best mom ever. I miss her every day.”
“She sounds wonderful,” Delia said in a way that made me believe she was thinking of her own mama’s shortcomings.
Avery took a sip of her coffee. “She was.”
“Did you know about the blackmail letters Haywood had been receiving?” I asked.
“Not at first. He eventually told me about them. They infuriated him to no end. So much so that after my paternity test came back he left a note at the drop site instead of money.”
“Paternity test?” I knew only about the one that revealed Haywood was Tyson Ezekiel’s son.
“I have it if you want to see it. I asked Haywood to do it. I just wanted to be sure. Ninety-nine percent positive that Haywood is . . . was . . . is . . . my father.” She glanced hesitantly toward the kitchen. She smiled and rolled her eyes. “He wanted to tell the whole world. That’s why I was at the party. He was going to share the news about me . . . and about his own parentage.”
“You knew he was an Ezekiel.” It wasn’t a question.
“He told me when he found the box of Tyson’s letters in Rupert’s study. He was so ex
cited. Beyond. I have those too,” she said. “The letters. I took them when I broke in to the house the night my father was killed.” She winced. “I didn’t want anyone finding them . . . and making them disappear. Dad had showed me how to get in and out of the house unnoticed, as he’d been doing it since he found the study. Going there at night was the only way for him not to raise the suspicions of the other Harpies.”
So she and Haywood were Mr. Butterbaugh’s “ghostly” visitors.
Avery said, “He told Hyacinth, of course, but that was it. And why he told her, I don’t know.”
A moan came from the kitchen, and I looked back. Haywood was gesturing wildly until he realized I had no idea what he was trying to get across. Finally, he cupped his hands together, forming a heart with his fingers. “Love?” I asked him.
Yes.
“He loved her,” I said to Avery.
“I know,” she said, shaking her head. “But she’s . . .”
“A good actress,” I said.
Avery stretched her legs. “What’s that mean?”
I explained how Hyacinth had acted a complete and utter bitch to get Avery out of town. To protect her. “She believes he was killed because of his connection to the house. She didn’t want the same fate to fall on you.”
I suddenly wondered if that was why Haywood had been avoiding me as well. He didn’t want me to learn of his connection to Avery, afraid the news would leak and someone would come after her too. I turned and asked him.
Yes.
“Oh.” Her lip quivered.
Delia set her mug on the coffee table. “You mentioned that Haywood left a note for the blackmailer. What did it say?”
Sunlight fell across Avery’s face, making her eyes shine like emeralds. “He essentially told the blackmailer to shove it. That he wasn’t paying anymore, and that he’d spend the rest of his days tracking the coward down until he publicly exposed the bastard.”
“Whoa,” Delia said.
Whoa was right. “Did he suspect anyone?”
“He figured it was one of the Harpies,” she said.
“Hay, did you get any strange vibes from Doug Ramelle?” I asked.
He hissed, and I smiled. “He didn’t like you.”
Yes.
“This might be the strangest day of my life,” Avery muttered.
“Welcome to our world,” Delia said.
“If Doug was the blackmailer,” I theorized, “and he got your note, then I’d say that might be motivation to get rid of you. Especially if he thought your announcement that night was going to expose him.”
Haywood frowned. “Dohhd?”
“Doug?” Delia guessed.
Yes.
She was good, because I’d been clueless about that one. I explained how we suspected Mayor Ramelle had a gambling problem, and that the blackmail was to cover missing funds.
Haywood went back to pacing.
“Where were you when your dad was killed?” I asked Avery. “Did you see anything?”
“I was freshening my makeup when I heard the scream . . .” She swallowed hard. “I didn’t see anything.”
We were running out of leads. “I need to talk to Doug,” I said to Delia.
Delia nodded. “Then we should get going. It’s a long drive back.”
“Before I go,” I said to Avery, “just how do you know Patricia Davis Jackson?”
“I don’t, really. I only knew her through Haywood’s stories about the Harpies. She didn’t know who I was from a hole in the wall.”
I knew that to not be true on Patricia’s end. “Is it possible she knew your mother?”
“I suppose,” she said. “They lived in Hitching Post together.”
Haywood moaned, and when I glanced at him, he was giving me a questioning look. He wanted to know why I was asking about Patricia. “It’s complicated,” I said to him. “Did you know them to ever have a connection? Were they friends?”
No.
Strange.
“Haywood’s funeral is on Thursday,” I said to Avery as I stood up. “At the Ezekiel cemetery. I know you said you were never going back to Hitching Post, but maybe once more?”
“What time?” she asked, standing, too.
I woke up Louella and she didn’t even growl. “I’m not sure. I’ll ask Hyacinth and get back to you.”
“Thanks.”
Delia looked at Haywood. “Are you coming back with us?”
“Does he have to go?” Avery asked. “He has until midnight, doesn’t he? I mean, I can’t see him or anything, but I can talk to him. I didn’t get to say good-bye to him the other night before . . .” She sniffed. “He’s the only family I had left, and I barely got to know him.”
“He doesn’t have to go with us,” I said softly, “but it’d be nice to have him around if I have any more questions to ask him.”
Tears filled her eyes, spilled over.
Haywood’s too. He tapped an arm, mimicking pointing at a watch.
“You want just a little more time here?” Delia said.
Yes.
Oh geez. I was such a softie. “Okay. Then I guess I’ll see you sometime later?”
Yes.
“I’ll call,” I reminded Avery.
She wiped a tear, but the shimmer in her eyes remained. With the light coming in the window just so it reminded me of . . . My breath caught, and my knees went suddenly weak. I grabbed on to the back of the couch to keep from falling.
“What’s wrong?” Avery asked, grabbing my arm.
“Carly!” Delia rushed over. “Breathe!”
I gasped in air.
It couldn’t be.
Oh my Lord. It could.
It explained everything.
“Avery,” I said, barely able to get the words out. “Do you still have that picture of your mama kissing that man?”
“Yeah, why?” she asked.
My body trembled. “Can I see it?”
She looked at me oddly, but nodded. A few moments after darting down the hallway, she returned, a grainy color photograph in her hand. “Here.”
We all looked—even Haywood, who’d floated over.
“Is that . . .” Delia’s voice trailed off.
It was.
The man in the picture was Harris Jackson, and I’d bet my witchy senses that Twilabeth hadn’t been pregnant with Avery in the photo.
She’d been pregnant with Dylan.
Chapter Twenty-three
It had been a long car ride home, filled with bursts of chatter and long stretches of silence as Delia and I tried to process what we had learned.
It wasn’t too difficult to imagine how Twilabeth and Harris had met. It had to have been at the courthouse. He’d been a judge; she a secretary.
After that, however, everything was fuzzy.
I recalled Patricia’s panic at hearing Twilabeth’s name, and it made so much sense now. Twilabeth was tied to the biggest secret of Patricia’s life.
Dylan wasn’t her son. Not by blood, leastways.
Patricia had to have kept tabs on Twilabeth over the years, which was why she flipped out when Avery showed up at the ball. She recognized her as Twilabeth’s daughter.
Between the blackmail and Avery’s presence, Patricia had probably thought her carefully constructed world was starting to crash in on itself.
It reminded me of what I was thinking earlier, when my mama had threatened to kick ghostly booty . . .
There’s nothing fiercer than a mama protecting her baby.
Patricia’s vile behavior toward Avery that night at the ball had been an attempt to protect Dylan from learning the truth of his parentage.
I ached to think of how Dylan was going to react to the news, and I didn’t know how to tell him about it either.
I refused to keep secrets from him, but figuring out how to break this to him would take time.
Time I didn’t have right now.
Later. I’d think about all of it later.
Right now
, there were other things I needed to do.
Delia had dropped me off at home and promised to check in later. She needed to go to her house to take care of Boo, and then she was going to see if there were any ghosts wandering around town that she could help cross over before midnight.
I had my hands full with the one ghost I had left, but wished her luck.
Dylan had left a note on my kitchen counter that the warrants for the Harpies’ bank accounts were being processed that afternoon. I wrote him a quick note telling him to check the Ramelle account first. I didn’t mention anything about Twilabeth and felt guilty already.
I left Louella in the care of the cats while I went looking for answers.
The first stop was Potions. I’d walked in just as my daddy was getting ready to lock up for the day.
The herbal scents that usually soothed me did nothing. I was in too much of a panic, feeling like the answers I was looking for were right under my nose.
“I don’t have long,” I said, collapsing dramatically across the counter. I’d clearly been spending too much time with Eulalie. “I just need to know if Doug Ramelle was with you and Mama when Haywood was killed. Not just before . . . and not just after. But during.”
I appreciated that my father didn’t fuss over my distressed state. Instead, he pursed his lips, squinted his eyes, and searched the recesses of his brain. “He left for a bit to get a fresh drink. As he came back with one just as Patricia let out that scream, I didn’t think anything of it. Did he kill Haywood?”
“It’s what I’m trying to figure out,” I said, leaning up to kiss his cheek. “And you just connected another piece of the puzzle. Thanks, Daddy.”
“Be careful!” he yelled as I dashed out the door.
I put my sunglasses back on, then took them off again. I knew if I came across a ghost right now that I would have to help it.
Delia would be proud.
I went directly to the Delphinium from Potions, rushing along the Ring with determination in my step. I needed to read Doug’s energy. All I needed to know was whether he was guilty or not. If he was, Haywood would have an answer and be able to pass on.
If he wasn’t . . .
I couldn’t even fathom that, so I didn’t dwell on it.
The Delphinium was packed, and I squeezed my way through the crowded entryway and made my way back to the bar. It was loud, the lighting was dim, and something smelled fantastic.
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