At least, that was what he told himself as he locked away the small screaming voice inside his head, the voice telling him to leave. Because he couldn’t leave. Not now. Not when he’d made the discovery of a lifetime, a discovery that was going to make him rich and famous. Everyone had laughed at him. Told him he was crazy. Well, they wouldn’t be laughing soon.
Chapter 2
Three weeks later ...
Darius Witherspoon walked through the door of A Little Taste of Heaven for the last time six hours before the start of his Halloween Eve party. He didn’t have too much longer to live, but of course, he didn’t know that then. If he had, perhaps he would have conducted himself differently.
It was a little after four in the afternoon, the sun was setting, and the crows were flying home to roost. A cold wind had sprung up out of the north. The dried leaves on the sidewalk skittered and crunched under his feet like small bones, but Darius didn’t notice. Nor did he notice the plastic bats lurking in the dwarf evergreens in the planters outside the shop, or the zombie mannequins in the shop window, or the moms and kids in front of the counter, clamoring for ghost-shaped sugar cookies and devil’s food cupcakes, as he elbowed his way through the crowd.
He hadn’t been sleeping well. Even his sleeping pills hadn’t helped. He kept thinking he saw something out of the corner of his eye whenever he was in his living room or bedroom, but when he looked around, nothing was there. And then there was the other stuff. The stuff he was busy attaching explanations to. Explanations he desperately wanted to believe. The fact that the Berkshire Arms had gone all out with their Halloween decorations didn’t help. They were reminders. Avatars. The skeletons, the skulls were supposed to be fun, but they weren’t for him. Not at all. They called up the old and the dark, the tales told at night.
Darius shook his head. No. He had to get a grip. He had to stop acting like some hysterical schoolgirl. The dead stayed dead. They didn’t come back and hover. They didn’t move things around. They stayed where they were put. His wife was at the bottom of the Hudson. But what if she wasn’t? He should have stayed to make sure. No. If she wasn’t, if someone had found her body, he would have been notified by now.
He took a deep breath. Three more days and everything would be over. Three days and he would be famous. Three days and he would finally get the respect he deserved. He smiled, thinking of the expression on his partner’s face when he found out. The superstitious old goat. Always tut-tutting. Calling him a treasure hunter. Calling him unscrupulous. A grave robber. Telling him he would come to a bad end. As if he wouldn’t take advantage of the opportunity to rewrite history if it came along.
Darius put his hand on the small of his back and grimaced. His back was bothering him. All that digging and dragging, and let’s face it, Penelope was no lightweight. He needed to find a chiropractor up here.
Maybe he’d ask the old lady across the hall. She’d probably know. She was an interesting lady, with her stories about the crows. She’d even gotten him feeding them. He had to admit, he enjoyed doing it. It took his mind off other things, things it did no good to dwell on. He shook his head. He just needed a vacation. A change of scene. Maybe he’d go to the Canary Islands or Malta. Or Spain. Yes, Spain would be nice. He’d go right after the costume party.
Chapter 3
Bernie Simmons was sliding two more trays of ghost-shaped shortbread cookies into the display case and hoping that she and Libby had made enough of them when Darius came through the door. As she watched him weave his way through the crowd, she thought about how tired he looked.
Exhausted really. And anxious. And sad. And stressed. He looked worse every time she saw him, Bernie reflected. He was no longer the “natty suit and tie” Darius Witherspoon she’d first met. He seemed to be becoming less substantial. She guessed he wasn’t eating very much, because he’d certainly lost weight, his skin had acquired a grayish cast, and the bags under his eyes were taking over his face. Instead of a jacket and tie, he was wearing an old shirt, a pair of baggy jeans, and a beige barn jacket. There were smudges on his clothes. He looked as if he’d been digging in the dirt.
Bernie couldn’t imagine the stress he was under, not knowing whether his wife was alive or dead. The NYPD hadn’t turned up anything, and neither had the private detective Darius had hired and dismissed when it became obvious the man wasn’t doing anything except taking Darius’s money.
It must be awful living with the uncertainty, Bernie thought. That is probably the worst thing of all. At least if his wife had killed herself in their apartment, he would have known. Which is an awful thing to think, but true.
Given what had happened, she’d expected Darius to stay in the city and cancel the party. Instead, he’d done the opposite. Two days after his wife had disappeared, he’d moved into the Berkshire Arms and told her he intended to stay there for a while—or at least until after the party.
“I admit I’m tempted to go home,” Darius had continued, rubbing his hand over a two-day growth of beard. “But sleeping in the bed I used to share with my wife . . .” He’d stopped talking, and Bernie had waited. He’d sighed. “There are just too many memories there. Anyway, Penelope would have wanted me to stay here,” he’d added, squaring his shoulders. “This was her dream come true,” he’d confided to Bernie. “She’d been begging me to get out of the city for years, and I’d finally agreed. We were going to make a new start. I was going to open a little shop up here. Just a branch of our store in the city. Nothing spectacular. At least that was the plan. I should have done more to help. I should have insisted she go see someone. I should have pushed harder. Then . . . maybe . . . she’d still be here.”
Bernie remembered he’d shaken his head again. “Funny how things work out. I should have done this years ago. Stupid. Just stupid.” He’d hit his forehead with the palm of his hand. “It’s the not knowing that’s driving me crazy.”
“It must be awful,” Libby had said to him.
Darius smiled weakly. “It is. It’s so unreal. I keep thinking that Penelope’s going to call or show up any minute. That she’s lying in a hospital bed, in a coma, somewhere and that she’s going to wake up. I know that’s ridiculous, because the police have checked for Jane Does, but I still can’t help thinking that’s what happened. I’d just like to know, you know?”
Bernie nodded sympathetically as Darius spread his hands in front of him and stared off into space, as if he was hoping his wife would find a way to communicate with him. Bernie and Libby exchanged glances.
“We’d be happy to give you your money back,” Bernie said, even though on the one hand, she wouldn’t be happy at all, but on the other hand, she would be ecstatic.
Darius shook his head. “Thanks, but Penelope would have wanted the party to go on,” he asserted, his voice growing stronger. “Halloween was her favorite holiday,” he added.
“So that must make this doubly hard,” Bernie said, taking Darius’s hand in hers and patting it.
Darius teared up then, and Libby and Bernie looked away, giving him a moment to compose himself.
“Anyway,” he said when he could speak again, “the invitations are already out.”
“I’m sure people would understand,” Libby began, but Darius held up his hand, indicating the matter was not open for discussion.
So that had been that. Bernie shut her eyes, thinking about the fit Libby had pitched when she first told her she’d taken the catering job for Darius’s party at the Berkshire Arms. Not that she blamed her. Not one single bit. Considering.
“I don’t care if they’ve gutted the place and done a major reno,” Libby had said when her sister had relayed Darius’s request to her. “The answer is no. I don’t care what they’ve done. That place will always be the Peabody School to me. I still have nightmares about that head rolling down the steps.” She had shuddered. “The farther away I am from there, the better I like it. And on top of everything else, this is going to be on Halloween Eve. A masked costume ball on Ha
lloween Eve. What are you? Nuts? Have you lost your mind?”
“Possibly,” Bernie remembered saying as she’d avoided her sister’s glance.
“And you didn’t think to consult me first?” Libby had demanded, puffing up like an angry cat. “Why would you do that?”
Bernie held up two fingers. “Two words, Libby. Sales tax.”
“Oh,” Libby said, deflating. “I forgot.”
“Well, I didn’t,” Bernie replied, although she would have liked to. She watched Libby groan.
“I guess we’re really not in a position to throw business away, are we? Not even this business.”
“No, we are not,” Bernie replied grimly. “Unfortunately. Although I wish we were.”
“Me too,” her sister said. “If Michelle—” Libby began, but Bernie cut her off before she could continue.
“I know,” Bernie said, not really wanting to hear yet another rant about how their father’s fiancée’s coffee and bake shop was cutting into their business.
“I was just sayin’ . . . ,” Libby said.
“I know what you were going to say,” Bernie replied.
“No, you don’t,” Libby challenged.
“Yes, I do.” Bernie remembered she’d crossed her arms over her chest. “You were going to complain about Michelle’s shop again.”
“So what if I was?” Libby said, sulking. She sighed. “But I guess we don’t have a choice, do we?”
“Not with our current bank balance,” Bernie answered.
If they didn’t pay their sales tax on time, they’d owe the state even more because late payment penalties went up really, really fast. Postponing Peter to pay Paul was how small businesses got themselves into bankruptcy court, and Bernie was damned if that was going to happen to them. Her mom had started A Little Taste of Heaven, and it wasn’t going to go down on her and her sister’s watch. She’d been thinking about that as she watched Darius weaving his way through the crowd.
“We need to talk,” he said.
Chapter 4
Bernie looked at the crowd in front of the counter and looked back at Darius. “Can it wait for a few minutes?” she asked him. “Like ten?” She’d sent Googie, her second employee, out to the store for an emergency napkin run, so at the moment they were short staffed, but he’d be back very soon.
“No, it can’t,” Darius snapped. “I have things I have to do.”
“Don’t we all,” Bernie muttered.
“What was that?” Darius demanded.
“Nothing.” Silently, she repeated, The customer is always right, three times. “What can I do for you?”
“I want to give you something,” he told Bernie.
“Okay,” she said, wondering what the something was. “Like a present?”
Darius gave her a wintry smile. “I guess that depends on your point of view.”
“I guess I’ll find out, then, won’t I?” Bernie replied, then nodded to Amber, her other employee, and mouthed, “I need five minutes.”
When Amber nodded back, Bernie, ignoring the baleful looks of her customers, poured some freshly brewed Guatemalan coffee into two mugs and added cream and sugar, then got a couple of scones out of the display case. She was carrying it all over to one of the small café tables she and her sister had recently installed in A Little Taste of Heaven when Darius shook his head.
“In your office,” he said, taking a mug of coffee and a scone from Bernie’s hands.
“Fine,” Bernie replied, then led the way. “Are you ready for tonight?” she asked, making small talk.
“Got my costume all set,” Darius said. He laughed. “All I have to do is shave and clean the dirt out of my fingernails.”
“What are you going as?” Bernie asked.
“You’ll see,” Darius replied. “And you and your sister? Are you ready?”
“We’re ready. Libby is loading up the van as we speak,” Bernie said. They had already made one trip up to the Berkshire Arms this morning and were planning on doing their second and last trip in a half hour. “So,” she said when she and Darius had stepped inside the office. “What’s up?”
Darius put his coffee mug and scone down on the desk, reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a white envelope sealed with Scotch tape, and held it out to Bernie. “I want you to take this and put it in your safe until the party is over,” he said.
“And then?” Bernie asked.
“And then I’ll come and get it,” Darius told her. “But if by chance I don’t, I want you to open it up.”
“Why won’t you come and get it?” Bernie asked as she noticed a slight tremor in Darius’s hand. She was fairly certain it hadn’t been there before, or maybe she just hadn’t noticed it.
“I will,” Darius replied. “I just like to cover all my bases. I’m a great believer in insurance. If you have it, you won’t need it.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Bernie said. It sounded like something her dad would say. “So what’s in the envelope?” she asked. To her eyes, it looked as if it contained a document of some kind.
“Papers,” Darius told her.
“They must be pretty important papers,” Bernie observed after she’d taken a sip of her coffee. Not bad, if she did say so herself. Certainly better than Michelle’s or the new coffee place that had opened last month. Maybe they needed to run a special on coffee, she reflected. A dollar for a small cup, a dollar and a half for a large one. Or start a reward program. Something like that.
Darius smiled. “They are. Would you believe these papers contain the secrets of the universe? I don’t want the dark forces to get them.”
Bernie laughed. “Naturally, you don’t. I know I wouldn’t want to be responsible for the end of the world. Seriously. What’s in the envelope, and why do you need me to take it? For that matter, why do you think you won’t be coming back to get it?”
Darius took a bite of his scone. “Nice,” he commented as he brushed a few crumbs off his shirt. Then he answered Bernie’s last question. “I guess I’ve just gotten paranoid, what with my wife disappearing and all.... Do me a favor. I know I’m probably being crazy, but could you just humor me?”
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Bernie asked Darius. “Do you need me to call a doctor?”
He realized his hand was on his chest. He could feel his heart hammering away. He dropped his hand to his side and faked a laugh. “I’m fine.”
“Because you have a funny look on your face,” Bernie told him.
Darius forced out another laugh. “A back spasm. I must have pulled a muscle,” he lied. He wasn’t going to tell Bernie or Libby, or anyone else, for that matter, what was going on. To do that would make it real. He lifted up the envelope. “Please take it. I know I’m being silly, but it’ll make me feel better.”
“Fair enough,” Bernie said. Really, how could she say no to a grieving husband? She took the envelope and put it in the safe.
She and Darius chitchatted for a few more minutes, agreeing to meet up at the Berkshire Arms to firm up some last-minute details later in the day. Then Darius took off, and Bernie went outside to help Libby finish loading up. They were almost done when their dad’s fiancée, Michelle, pulled into A Little Taste of Heaven’s parking lot in her brand-new Infiniti. Bernie wondered how she could afford a car like that, while she and her sister were driving around in an eleven-year-old van, as Michelle parked next to them and rolled down her window.
“I’m collecting your dad,” she chirped in her annoying Barbie doll voice. “He agreed to help me give out cookies at my shop tonight.”
Bernie felt a stab of jealousy as she forced a smile. She’d asked her dad whether he wanted to stand in for them this evening and give out cookies at their place, but he’d said, “Thanks, but no thanks,” which was why her two employees, Amber and Googie, were holding down the fort instead.
“I knew you wouldn’t mind,” Michelle said. “Especially since you two will be off working. Have fun.”
“We i
ntend to,” Bernie lied.
“Good. I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Michelle said, flashing Bernie a smile, a smile that made Bernie wonder for a brief moment if Michelle was responsible for their getting the gig at the Berkshire Arms. Now I’m the one being paranoid, Bernie thought as she watched Michelle get out of her vehicle and saunter over to the side door, the door that led up to the Simmons’ flat.
“I don’t think those jeans could be any tighter,” Libby sniped once the door had closed behind Michelle. She could hear the tapping of Michelle’s heels on the wooden steps as she made her way up to the second floor.
“Well, she does have a nice ass,” Bernie remarked. “I’ll give her that. Do you think that’s why Dad likes her?”
“That and the fact that she’s younger and she laughs at his jokes.”
Libby bit her lip. “The fact that she could be our stepmother is too depressing to contemplate.”
“I know,” Bernie said. “Which is why I’m not thinking about it,” she lied.
“I wish I could say the same,” Libby said. “We have to do something.”
“Like what?”
Libby shook her head. She didn’t have a clue.
“Exactly,” Bernie told her. “I’m just afraid that the more bad things we say about her, the more defensive Dad is going to get, and that will make things even worse.”
Libby clicked her tongue against her teeth. She knew her sister was right, but there had to be something they could do, a sentiment she repeated out loud.
“I’m working on it,” Bernie told her.
“Well, work faster,” Libby said.
Bernie sighed. “I’m doing the best I can.” Then she looked at her watch. It was time to get going. Even though all the food was prepared, they had a lot of setup work to do before the party got started.
A Catered Costume Party Page 2