A Ghostly Secret

by Tonya Kappes

  “It’d only be a fifty-minute drive.” I tried to make it sound better than driving the curvy roads and driving through Lexington to get there.

  “See. We’ve got it all worked out.” There was a satisfied look on Jack Henry’s face that I was going to take a mental picture of because I could tell it wasn’t going to be that easy.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Nothing?” Mazie’s nose curled, her head slowly rolled back on her neck as she pushed the million photos across Charlotte Rae’s desk.

  “Not a single person.” Rachael and Betsy had looked at the photos carefully for the past couple of hours. My eyes were beginning to blur and I needed a break.

  I couldn’t rule out that my eye blur wasn’t due to a wine hangover from last night’s date night with Jack Henry and possibly the last date in a few weeks. He’d given me promises of coming home when he was off work or not in classes with the state police, but I wasn’t holding my breath. Jack Henry was an all-in kind of guy. That was one thing I loved about him. He did a job and he did it to the best of his ability. His love was no different.

  Before he dropped me back off at the funeral home, I’d assured him that I was going to be right there. After all, what man wanted to date the creepy funeral home girl. The name I was affectionately called by the high school bullies, to which Jack Henry pointed out that we weren’t in high school anymore and the woman I turned into was the best thing that’d come out of Sleepy Hollow.

  Needless to say, his sweet words and sexy smile gave him a pass to go follow his dreams.

  “I’m sorry to say that I’m at a dead end.” I looked between Rachael and Betsy. Mr. Whiskers meowed and went to curl up by the vent where the heat was pumping out.

  It’d turned unseasonably cold overnight. Pretty much matched how I felt in my heart.

  “I’ve never had this happen with a Betweener client.” I tried and tried to make excuses, but there were just none to make.

  They ghosted away.

  “What did they say?” Mazie asked.

  “They left.” I gathered up all the photos in a pile and took one last look at the dry erase board before I took the eraser and cleaned it off. “I’m sure they’re going to tell their other friends that I’m not a good Betweener.”

  “Huh?” Mazie snarled.

  “Remember how Ruthie Sue Payne was the biggest gossip in Sleepy Hollow before she was murdered?” I reminisced about the good ole Betweener days. Mazie nodded. “Apparently, she’s just as big of a gossip in the afterlife. That’s how murdered ghosts found out about me. Not Betsy. She said Charlotte told her.”

  Then it hit me. If Charlotte Rae believed in me enough to send clients, there had to be something I was missing.

  “I’m going to go tell Kay what we found out about Rachael.” Jack Henry hadn’t given me permission to tell anyone anything about that part of the case, but I felt at least Kay should have some sort of closure and maybe that was enough to get Betsy and Mr. Whiskers to cross over.

  At least I hoped so.

  Mazie had to work the rest of the day at the Sleepy Hollow Library and I’d taken a call to pick up a body from the hospital. Natural death of old age. At least I’d be spending the next week doing a funeral instead of wallowing in self-pity from Jack leaving.

  When I pulled up in front of Kay’s house, my stomach dropped. Betsy and Mr. Whiskers had gone with me. Both of them sat in the front, but Rachael was nowhere to be found. Maybe my plan was right. I’d tell Kay about Rachael and then I’d leave in hopes of seeing Betsy cross over.

  “Emma Lee,” Kay stood at the door. She looked a little more rested and she’d fixed her hair. “I wasn’t expecting you. Do you have some news about the killer showing up?”

  “Actually, I do.” I gestured to the door. “May I come in?”

  “Yes. I’m so sorry.” She shook her head and smiled. “I guess I was so stunned to see you here.”

  She moved back and let me step in.

  “What’s going on?” I asked when I saw the stacks of brown boxes.

  “Last night was an eye opener for me.” She used the big roll of packing tape to strap across the box edges and used a pair of scissors to cut it. She ran a flat palm down the seam of the tape. “I think it was actually closure for me. I’m not sure who would’ve put Betsy in the barn, but there is some comfort in knowing after all these years she not still searching for me. I can move and even though I’m an old lady, I’m still breathing and can make something out of the rest of my life.” She looked around, shaking her head. “I’ve stayed here all these years waiting for her to show up on my doorstep.”

  A tear fell down her cheek. I looked around for a Kleenex.

  “I’d give you a tissue if I could find one.” The edges of my eyes dipped seeing her sad and Betsy trying to reassure her mother. “I do have a theory about Betsy’s death that might come as a shock to you and it actually opens up another cold case. I think they are related.”

  “Really?” There was a gasp of relief from her.

  “I think you might be a little shocked and a nice move away will probably be the best thing for you.” I watched as she brushed away her tears. “Remember when I asked you about Rachael Bemis?”

  She nodded. The tears continued to flow down her face. Now I was feeling bad for stopping by.

  “Well, I’ve gotten some information that she and Kevin had slept together while he was engaged to you.” I stopped when her face jerked up. Her mouth dropped opened. “She was from the Chicago office. She wanted to break the two of you up, so she snuck in and took Betsy to that barn. She was going to let her go, but that’s when Mr. Strauss set it on fire. He’d not even checked to see if anyone was in the barn or he would’ve saved her. This explains why she was bound and gagged.”

  “How do you know this?” The tears became sobs. “I’ve got to get a tissue.” She scurried out of the room.

  I reached out and opened the box that was next to be taped up. It wouldn’t hurt to help her.

  When I looked inside, there were some photos of Betsy. She looked so happy with her mom. There was one with a bouncy house. Another with some lizards. In the background, I could see it was from the mansion. Then it dawned on me. It had to be from the last party she’d thrown for Betsy.

  I couldn’t wait to tell Mazie that she found them. It was a great memory for Kay because Betsy was smiling in all of them.

  “She knew I was there.” Rachael appeared. “I remember. I went to the party and I pretended to be with the bouncy house employees. She recognized me.”

  “How did she recognize you?” I asked and took out several photos at one time.

  “There.” Rachael pointed to the photo. “There I am.”

  The bouncy house was the focus of the photo. Off to the side, Kay looked to be confronting Rachael.

  “She told me to come back and we’d discuss it that night. That’s when I took Betsy and later in the early morning, I showed up to talk to her. I was planning on telling her to leave Kevin and I’d tell her where Betsy was.” She rubbed her chest with her finger.

  “What happened when you came back?” I asked and when I saw something shiny in the box, I reached down and grabbed the necklace with the TV charm dangling off of it.

  “Excuse me?” Kay came back into the room.

  “Mommy didn’t mean to.” Betsy looked between Rachael and me. “Mommy loves me,” she cried out.

  “Umm. Nothing.” I planted a smile on my face and decided to leave. I had to call Jack Henry. I dropped the photo and the necklace in the box. Kay’s eyes followed the photo and she looked up at me, eyes dry as a bone. “Again, I’m just speculating that all that happened with Rachael Bemis because she’s still on the run.”

  “No. She’s dead. And you know it.” Kay reached for the scissors.

  I lunged toward them, but she was too quick.

  “Why don’t you have a seat and we’ll talk.” By the way she was pointing to the kitchen with the scissors, I didn’t th
ink there was room for negotiation. “I’m not saying that Kevin was right. We did need some time together. I wasn’t opposed to sending Betsy off to boarding school, but I certainly wasn’t going to play house here while he played sex games with little Miss Hussy in Chicago. Before Kevin left for that trip, he promised me he was going to break if off with her and when she showed up, I decided I’d do it for them. I had no idea that bitch stole my kid.”

  The Mama Kay persona wasn’t as appealing as it had been at first. The entire time Betsy begged her mom to stop talking. It was as if she’d known her mom’s secret this whole time. She stood in front of me in the kitchen with the scissors pointed at me. A good shanking wasn’t how I planned on joining Charlotte Rae.

  “We can go to Jack and he’d see this as a crime of passion. He’d totally understand. Besides,” I pish-poshed her hoping she’d fall for it, “the statue of limitations has passed. I don’t blame you. I’d have done the same thing.”

  I lied.

  A sigh of relief escaped me when I saw Jack Henry appear over her shoulder in her hallway. She looked behind her to see what I was looking at.

  “Hold it right there, Kay.” Jack Henry stared down the sight of his gun. “Kevin and his housekeeper Lu came in to see me today. They told me everything.”

  “They can’t prove nothing,” she spat back at him.

  “The evidence is in the box along with Rachael Bemis’s necklace Kevin gave her.” I couldn’t help myself.

  Betsy and Rachael watched as the other officers had come in and taken Kay off in handcuffs.

  “How did you know I was here?” I asked Jack Henry.

  “I didn’t.” He wasn’t happy. “I came here to arrest her after Kevin Allen and his housekeeper came to tell me. In fact, Kevin had no idea what happened to Rachael. Last night after he told Lu about the vigil, she broke down and told him that she saw Rachael there and Kay told her to leave. Then she saw Kay digging in the garden. Me and a couple of my men went out there and found Rachael’s bones.”

  “Wow.” I was in bit of a shock. “I never imagined it’d go down this way.”

  Betsy and Rachael were in the corner hugging each other. Rachael looked as if she were comforting Betsy.

  “Let’s get you out of here.” Jack Henry held his hand out for me to take.

  “Can I stay for one second?” I held a finger up. Without having to explain I needed time with my clients, he knew.

  “Yeah.” He smiled. “But you’re going to have to give up this job when I leave for the state police because I have no idea who’s going to save you from all of this.”

  I laughed.

  When the coast was clear, I went into the family room looking for Betsy and Rachael. Both of them were standing over the box where I’d found the photos. Mr. Whiskers was rubbing himself on my ankles. I guessed it was his way of thanking me.

  “I guess this is goodbye.” Rachael dropped Betsy’s hand. She looked over her right shoulder. A bright white light appeared as a dot and quickly got bigger. “That’s my ride to the other side. Thank you, Emma Lee.” She bent down to Betsy. “I’m so sorry. All of this is because of me. If I could go back twenty years, I’d do it all differently.”

  She and Betsy hugged before she disappeared into the light.

  “How about that book you promised me?” Betsy’s little voice broke the silence that was left after Rachael had crossed over.

  “I’d love to.” I reached in the box and pulled out one of Betsy’s books. I sat on the couch and opened it. She snuggled up next to me.

  Before I could even get the first word out, a big rainbow appeared.

  Betsy gasped as I did too. Mr. Whiskers jumped up and hopped on. When he got halfway across the rainbow bridge, he turned around and gave a little meow before he darted over the bridge.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “How have you been?” Granny pulled one of the wedding dresses that suited her age off the rack of Southern Roots and held it up to her body looking into the full-length mirror.

  “I heard from Jack Henry.” I shrugged. My head tilted to the side to get a look at her. I gave her the thumbs down. She stuck it back on the rack and we started pushing and tugging on more. “He’s working long hours. He’d had a couple of ride-alongs already. He said it’s a lot of speeding tickets.”

  “He’ll not like it. Mark my words.” Granny nodded and pulled out another dress. She held it up toward Mazie to look at.

  Mazie shook her head.

  I’d been lucky that Mazie and I’d become friends. She’d been a lifesaver over the past couple of months while Jack was gone. We’d been to movies, cooked at the Inn, even taken a yoga class or two from Hettie Bell. It was time for me to make good on my promise to Granny to help pick out a dress for her crazy wedding to poor old Doc Clyde. I still didn’t think he knew what he was getting himself into.

  It’d been hard without Jack Henry, but not impossible. The fear of being alone the rest of my life had started to creep in. I wasn’t alone. Though I could tell by Jack Henry’s voice that he was having a great time. He liked learning about the drug trafficking on the interstates and he also got to have a drug dog with him on some of the ride-alongs. He talked on and on about it.

  “What about this one?” Granny snarled in the mirror.

  “Nah.” I took a couple of steps back and turned around.

  Southern Roots was an adorable clothing store. One side was just a boutique of clothes that a girl of thirty could fit into. The walls of the boutique were reclaimed wood and looked as if we were inside a barn. The floors were dark stained hardwood. There were chandeliers hanging from the ceiling with pearls and crystals draped all over them and hanging down.

  The cutest sweater hung from one of the displays in the front window that I’d noticed when Granny and I had come in. While Granny looked around, I decided to mosey up there and take a gander.

  Immediately, I saw a man standing next to my hearse. He was in a brown sheriff’s uniform and looking at my license plate. I ran out of the shop.

  “Hey. What are you doing?” I demanded an answer.

  “Is this your. . .um. . .” He looked down the hearse.

  “My hearse?” I asked and snarled. “Yes. Are you writing me a ticket?”

  “Are you picking up a dead body?” he asked back with a little sarcasm.

  I tugged the edges of my jacket up around my neck. I wasn’t sure if it was the cold weather or this man’s cold demeanor he was giving off.

  “No.” My brows furrowed.

  “Then yep. You’re getting a ticket.” He smiled. His dimples deepened and I noticed his bright green eyes under his curly blond hair. “You’re parked illegally. As the interim sheriff, I’m going to whip this town into shape.”

  I stood there unable to say anything. Jack Henry had been replaced.

  “Good day.” He nodded and I swear he winked after I took the ticket.

  “Who was that hunk?” Mazie came out of the shop. Both of us stared as the new man in town got into the Sleepy Hollow sheriff’s cruiser and drove off.

  Sneak Peak of Scene of the Grind

  Read on for the first chapter of Tonya’s newest mystery series, A Killer Coffee Mystery Series, with book one, Scene of the Grind. Readers are loving this new coffeehouse mystery where Tonya’s characters come to life on the page in the small-town cozy!

  Chapter One

  Drip, drip, drip.

  There is something about coffee that brings people together. And they don’t even have to like coffee. Is it the smell? Is it the comforting sound of the drip? I don’t know. All I did know was that my new coffee shop in the touristy lake town of Honey Springs, Kentucky, The Bean Hive, was opened for business.

  “Seven a.m.,” I muttered after I’d glanced up at the clock and drew my eyes back out the front doors of the coffeehouse located in the best spot on the boardwalk that ran along Lake Honey Springs.

  The boardwalk held fond memories for me since I used to spend my summers he
re with my Aunt Maxine. Maxi for short. For the past year my life was stalled in a little bit of what I’d call a fork in the road, so after hearing Aunt Maxi talk about all the revitalization of the boardwalk and not really knowing what to do, it sounded like a splendid idea to open a shop. At the time.

  The annual Honey Festival was in a couple of days and all the vendors and the new shops on the boardwalk were holding a grand opening. I’d already had the coffeehouse ready to open since when I moved to Honey Springs a few weeks ago, I made it a point to no longer sit around resting on my laurels, so I opened the shop a few days early. Which might not’ve been the best business plan since my only customers had been a few stragglers here and there. Mainly construction workers who were working day and night to get the shops ready for the big festival.

  The Bean Hive was located in the middle of the boardwalk, right across from the pier. It was a perfect spot and I was beyond thrilled with the exposed brick walls and wooden ceiling beams that I didn’t have to touch. Luckily, Aunt Maxi owned the place. The rent was a little steep, but I’d watched a few DIY videos on YouTube to figure out how to make the necessary repairs for inspection. I couldn’t be more pleased with the shiplap wall I’d created myself out of plywood painted white to make it look like real shiplap.

  Instead of investing in a fancy menu or even menu boards that attached to the wall, I’d bought four large chalkboards that hung down from the ceiling over the L-shaped glass countertop.

  The first chalkboard menu hung over the pie counter and listed the pies and cookies with their prices. The second menu hung over the tortes and quiches. The third menu before the L-shaped counter curved listed the breakfast casseroles and drinks. Over top the other counter the chalkboard listed lunch options, including soups, and catering information.

  On each side of the counter was a drink stand. One was a coffee bar with six industrial thermoses with different blends of my specialty coffees as well as one filled with a decaffeinated blend, even though I clearly never understood the concept of that. But Aunt Maxi made sure I understood some people only drink the unleaded stuff. The coffee bar had everything you needed to take a coffee with you. Even an honor system where you could pay and go.