Now Clover paused. His eyes narrowed and he appeared to consider my red-headed cousin.
“Who told you I had anything to do with those?” Clover was answering Lark but looking at Dorian, just as if he knew the answer to his own question. Then he decided not to bother blustering. “Yeah, so I’ve been involved. What of it?” he demanded.
“My brothers were interested in the black opal trade,” Dorian explained.
Clover might actually have paled. Some of his cockiness dissipated.
“Assistant! Where are you!” Clover bellowed. The much-tried assistant appeared out of the nice tent and came rushing over. Clover whispered something in his ear and the assistant looked fearful.
The assistant shook his head and said in a shaky voice, “We’ve had no dealings with the Deadly brothers, especially about opals. I only trade in them as a passing fancy. The money isn’t great and hasn’t been for a while.”
Dorian nodded slowly. I couldn’t tell if he was convinced or not.
“So you never saw them here?” Pep asked.
“No, I didn’t. To trade with or otherwise,” said Clover.
“Prove it,” I told him. “Who have you worked with on the opal trade? You must have a list, or records of some sort.”
Clover hesitated for a moment, then caught Dorian’s eye and clearly thought better of protesting. “I’ll be right back. Don’t steal anything!” He disappeared into his fancy tent.
The wind was getting steadily colder, so that every time I breathed in or out my lungs hurt. When I gazed around at my companions, I saw that for once Joel wasn’t doing anything odd or embarrassing. Instead he was glaring ferociously at the assistant. After a few moments of silence everyone else noticed too, including the assistant himself.
“W-what?” he whispered.
Joel stepped forward. “What’s your name?”
“I can’t tell you,” said the assistant.
“Whisper it to me,” said Joel.
The assistant hesitated and then did so. Joel nodded. “You have to take pride in what you do. Otherwise don’t do it. Don’t let this Clover character push you around.” Joel nodded in satisfaction at having imparted such wisdom. The assistant looked so surprised that he nodded as well.
Dorian didn’t say anything as Joel stepped into the background again. Amazingly enough, the assistant did square his shoulders and look more confident after the exchange.
Eventually, just when I thought I couldn’t bear the cold any longer, Clover came striding out of his tent with a black ledger in his hands. He opened it and invited us all to look at his notes as he leafed through the pages, which said nothing about the Deadly brothers and a lot about opals in general. “Don’t go stealing any of my secrets or my customers,” he warned us.
I rolled my eyes but agreed that I wouldn’t.
“What about vampires?” I asked him. Clover frowned, not so much surprised as confused.
“What about them? They exist. You have a problem with the Root. I don’t have a problem with them,” he felt the need to add.
“Do you know any? Is your assistant a vampire, by any chance?” By this time the young man had gone to fuss with Clover’s supplies and was out of earshot. Clover himself scoffed at the notion.
“Are you kidding me? I know vampires, but he definitely isn’t one. I don’t associate with that lot,” he insisted.
“Because if you take advantage of them they’ll kill you?” Lark suggested.
Clover glared at her but didn’t argue. “My assistant isn’t a vampire. If he were, he might actually be useful.”
We were clearly not going to get anything more out of Clover, and we all wanted to get back inside to warm up. Even Dorian with his massive black coat looked cold. But the assistant came back into sight just before we left, and I noticed that he was still standing a little straighter. I wondered how much of Joel’s advice would stick.
“What are you three up to for the rest of the evening?” Dorian asked as we hurried back toward the front door.
When Pep told him we were going to help Meg get costumes organized, he smiled. “Can I help?”
“You want to help with costumes?” Pep asked, incredulous.
“Certainly. You have a big party coming soon, don’t you? I’m going to need something to wear,” he said. Joel’s face was schooled into a carefully neutral expression.
“I suppose,” Pep stammered, unsure how to react.
In the end we all went to help Meg. She was thrilled with the assistance and it did cheer her up.
We didn’t finish in the costume room until very late. As I was finally on my way to bed, I found myself wondering where Grant had been all evening. Even though for once he wasn’t traveling, I wasn’t seeing much of him. I missed him terribly.
As I walked down the old corridors on my way to bed I caught a glimpse of Cookie’s apartment window, and just at that moment a light went off. I thought I might be imagining things, but then I was distracted.
“Hey,” a voice said from behind me.
I nearly screamed.
Turning on my heel, who should I see but Grant, as though to think of him was to conjure him.
As usual he looked splendid, dressed tonight in dark blue jeans and a black coat with navy trims.
“Hey,” I said.
He stepped forward, looking more relaxed than usual. “Sorry to startle you,” he said.
“It’s all right,” I said. “I live in a haunted house. You’d think I’d be used to it.”
He smiled, flashing white teeth. “You were just on your way to bed. I didn’t think you’d still be awake, but when I saw so many lights on I thought I’d check.
I told him what we’d been doing.
“Dorian is fitting in well, I see,” he said.
“Some think he’s fitting in better than others think he is,” I told him dryly. Lark and Pep had been fine with each other for the rest of the night, but I knew them well enough to sense the tension still simmering under the surface.
“I can believe that,” Grant agreed.
“Where have you been all evening?” I asked him. I hadn’t wanted to be nosy, but all the things I told myself not to do with him went out the window when I was standing in front of him. I was all set to be the clingiest girlfriend imaginable. Okay, maybe not that bad, but still.
“I was at a dinner meeting. It wasn’t close by, and unfortunately it had been on my calendar for a while,” he said.
“How’d it go?” I asked.
He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “Can we find somewhere to sit? The library maybe. I know you’re tired,” he added as if he were afraid I’d say no.
A few minutes ago I’d been tired, but I’d come alive when I saw him. I led the way to the library, and when we got there Grant sank gratefully onto the couch. I took a seat next to him and he took my hand as if it was the most normal thing in the world. I practiced doing a happy dance in my head while keeping my features pleasant but not ecstatic.
He told me all about his business meeting. The names he threw out I didn’t recognize. To my surprise, once he got talking he didn’t stop. He liked to tell me random details about how the menu was laid out and how one of the individuals there had never been to the state of Maine before. The whole conversation was refreshingly ordinary. I hadn’t realized how desperately I needed to not talk about murder or Cookie’s arrest or anything else that was weighing on me.
Even now there was something about this case that was playing at the edge of my consciousness, that I couldn’t quite grasp and bring into the light. I knew that once I realized what that was we’d get a break in the investigation. Until then I was more than happy to sit here chatting with Grant.
We talked for a long time. He asked me how my evening had been and I told him. I told him as much as I could until my eyelids were drooping and I was starting to fall sideways on the couch. One of my worst fears was to fall asleep and drool. We both knew that when we were that tired it
was time for sleep.
Grant walked me to the stairs and then lingered. When we separated at last he smiled up at me. His eyes were the most brilliant deep blue.
“Meant to mention earlier but you were so distracting, your mom invited me to dinner. I’m tempted to get the note framed, but we’ll have to see how dinner goes first. Thank you for talking to her,” he whispered.
“She was good about it,” I told him. My mind was twisting and jumping. Of course she was good about it. Grant was a catch. Cookie said so and for once she wasn’t wrong.
“How’s your brother going to feel about it?” he asked.
My mind cast back to the other times when there’d been a man in my life. So my mind didn’t have to cast far. “I don’t care,” I told him stubbornly. Cam wasn’t going to mind. Why should he? He liked Grant.
“Then I won’t either,” he whispered warmly. For once winter in a spooky town felt brilliantly warm.
Chapter Twenty
Mom came to find me just as I was finishing some cereal for breakfast. “Chief Gray just called. Cookie can be picked up any time now, and she wants you to do it,” she said. “I would say leave her there, but she’d make such a stink . . .”
“Why does she want it to be me?” I asked. I didn’t need to ask why to the other part. Cookie loved to make a stink.
Not that I minded picking her up. Any excuse to get out of the house and investigate was a good one. Still, Cookie had had nothing earth-shattering to say when I’d gone to see her yesterday, and I was trying to focus totally on the investigation and nothing else, including encouraging my trouble-causing grandmother.
“I’d like to think it’s because she’s afraid of the rest of us,” said Mom wistfully. “But that’s probably more than I can hope for.” Then she turned and headed for a meeting she’d scheduled with the skeletons that morning.
After she left I was alone with Audrey. “What’s the meeting about?” I asked.
Audrey put a tray of muffins in the oven before answering. She liked to have baked goods ready on the table in case anyone wanted a snack. Once the baking was taken care of she turned to me and explained. “The chief said that the restrictions were going to end. He has finally realized that he can’t actually cancel the holidays. He himself has grandchildren, and they’ve made it perfectly clear that no one will forget if he doesn’t let us get back in business. That means the haunted house is going to reopen very soon.”
I sighed with relief. I had never especially liked working in the haunted house, but even so, when it was closed I kind of missed it. Everyone else on estate was frustrated by its closure too, and things would be less edgy once we could get back to work.
On my way out the door I ran into Mr. Blacksmith, the vampire who had replaced Mirrorz, our last butler, when Mirrorz had betrayed us to become the leader of the Root of All Evil. Mr. Blacksmith took his job seriously. He didn’t make mistakes at work, and he took it as a personal insult when any of us tried to do something for ourselves.
“Morning, Ms. Garbo,” he said. He was carrying a tray piled high with dirty dishes. He refused to call me Jane.
“Morning,” I said. “Where is that from?”
“Couple of places,” he said.
Then the thought struck me that he was the only vampire left around Haunted Bluff. All the rest had left to join the evil organization in the Bucket House. With their departure, only Mr. Blacksmith remained.
Based on what Ticker the ghost had told us, I had good reason to believe that the murderer of the Deadly brothers was a vampire. Was it something Mr. Blacksmith could be capable of? I didn’t think so. He didn’t strike me as the type of supernatural who would do anything that risked dirtying his clothing.
“Is everything all right?” he asked.
I blinked several times. “Of course. Why do you ask?”
“You have an expression on your face, almost as if you’ve just realized something,” he said.
“I haven’t realized anything that interesting. I promise,” I told him.
“I hear the haunted house is going to reopen and Mrs. Garbo is about to return,” said Mr. Blacksmith. He wasn’t usually so chatty. Then again, there wasn’t usually much to chat about.
“I hear the same thing. I have to confess, I kind of enjoyed the peace and quiet around here that having Cookie gone meant,” I said.
He smiled only slightly. “But did you now?” With that he turned on his heel and made for the kitchen.
I found myself smiling as I went to find my cousins.
Pep was alone in the gift shop, setting up for the haunted house. “I assume you heard the good news?” she asked when she saw me.
“If you mean that we’re reopening, yes, I heard,” I said.
“Yeah. I have mixed feelings about it. Really, though, I just missed it. I love working at this gift shop. I tried to imagine my life without it and I just couldn’t,” she said.
“Where’s Lark?” I asked, coming over to the counter where Pep was unpacking new merchandise and starting to help.
“I don’t know. I think she’s avoiding me, but I’m not sure why. She’d been grumpy lately,” said Pep. Her eyes slid in my direction as if she was hoping I could illuminate the situation, but I couldn’t help her. What I thought might be going on was not something I planned to share.
“I’m sure she’ll reappear soon,” I said.
As we worked in silence for a while, I thought about how a morning spent helping get ready for the haunted house would get me back into the spirit of the place. Then all I’d have left to do would be to find a dress for the holiday party.
And a murderer.
“Who do you think did it?” Pep asked.
My mind had been running through the possibilities. “It’s more than likely that we know the supernatural who did it, and yes, it must have been a supernatural. There are a lot of them to choose from, though. Mirrorz could be lying. Maybe it’s someone from Down Below. It could even be Clover. We just don’t know. If we believe Ticker and the murderer is a vampire, that gets even more complicated,” I said.
“I have no idea who did it,” said Pep. “Dorian seems confident that he’ll get revenge for his brothers, but it doesn’t look like it’ll happen soon.”.
We lapsed again into silence for a while, except the clock ticking in the front hall and the sound of the wind swirling around the mansion.
“What do you think of Dorian?” Pep asked after a while. She was careful to avoid looking at me as she said it, making herself very busy trying to untie a well-wrapped package.
“I think he’s fine. He clearly loved his family. He’s hard to read, though,” I said.
“Do you like him?” Pep asked.
“Well, I haven’t really been thinking about it in that sense,” I said. “He isn’t against us necessarily, but I’m not sure he’s on our side, either. At the very least, we don’t want to anger him. Given how powerful his family is, we don’t want to be on his bad side. But he’s been fair and decent for the past few days. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that. Yes, I do believe I like him,” I concluded.
Pep continued quietly with her boxes. I waited for her to offer her own opinion, but there was nothing coming out of her. Tired of waiting, in the end I asked, “What do you think?”
She shrugged. “He’s okay, I guess. He isn’t what I expected, either.”
“You had expectations for him?” I asked.
“What I mean to say is that when I first met him I made a snap judgment. I didn’t think I liked him at all. In fact, the only impression he made on me was negative. Maybe I was in a bad mood at the time. Now that he’s spent some time with us, I like him much better,” she said.
I didn’t say anything. I’m not a total idiot, and I knew where this was going. Pep was the only one who didn’t.
A few minutes later, after we’d worked quietly again for a while, she murmured to a small snow globe with a glowing witch inside, “I like him
much better.”
In the afternoon I left the sanity of a Haunted Bluff without Cookie to go retrieve The Madness herself. She, at least, would probably appreciate the nickname if she were ever to hear it, which she wouldn’t.
The drive was slightly treacherous because a light dusting of snow had started to fall, lest we forget that the weather was going to turn more sinister with each passing day.
My grandmother came galloping out of the police station before I had even left the car.
“Don’t you need supervision to leave?” I whispered before I saw Chief Gray following her out the door.
“Are you kidding me? They’re practically kicking me out,” she whispered back.
“Can’t say I blame them,” I murmured.
“Hi, Jane. Thanks for coming to get her.” The chief looked sheepish but was trying to mask it under a cloak of authority.
“Of course. Glad everything was cleared up,” I said. “Sorry there was so much trouble.”
“We caused you trouble, not the other way around. We did have reason to believe . . .” he trailed off.
“Mrs. Gray gave him a talking-to,” said Cookie. Then she turned to the chief and said, “You and your wife must join us for dinner sometime. She really is a lovely woman.”
“We’d like that very much. I hope your night in jail wasn’t too awful,” said the chief.
“Not at all,” said Cookie. She gave him such a big smile that he actually relaxed a bit, looking the tiniest bit confused at the same time. He clearly wanted this conversation to end even more than I did. Only Cookie looked happy to stay and chat.
“I’ve heard your wife bakes a lot,” said Cookie.
“That she does. Very proud of all the delicious food she makes, as you can imagine,” said the chief. “Anyway, I’d better be going. There’s still a murderer on the loose, and with the town trying to get back to normal we’re busier than ever.”
Before Cookie could prolong the conversation any further, the chief spun and hurried away.
Cookie looked after him with her nose high in the air as if she were sniffing it, then turned to me with an evil grin. “What did I say?”
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