by Ani Gonzalez
"No one died in my house," Liam corrected. "At least not recently."
"Okay," Abby said. "That means we've only had three." She grimaced. "That's still too many. I hope we don't have more."
"Don't you think you're being a tad overdramatic?"
"Maybe." Abby glanced at the high school building. The day was cloudy and the school was cast in foggy shadows. It didn't exactly appear ominous, but it definitely didn't look welcoming.
"Can't you feel it?" Abby continued with a slight shudder. "Something strange, almost menacing? I sensed it as soon as we arrived."
Liam nodded. He felt it too.
"I mean, I've been in that building tons of times. I didn't attend the school, but I went for career day and we've played concerts there before. And now I'm scared to go inside." She shivered inside her coat. "I'd rather stand here and freeze my butt off. That's bizarre."
"Something weird is going on. I mean stranger than usual."
But Abby didn't laugh at the joke. Her face remained serious. "Yes."
"Do you really think it's Lorena?"
Now Abby laughed. "No. Lorena doesn't exist."
Liam was taken aback by the certainty in her voice. In Banshee Creek, even the most diehard nonbelievers started to have doubts, and Abby was far from skeptical.
"Well, none of them do, but still—"
Abby cut him off with a hand gesture. "No, I mean she really doesn't. I asked Cassie to do some research for me when I was writing the song. There was no Lorena Wills. She was never a student at the high school. There was no girl who died before or after the prom."
"But I remember..."
Didn't he? All the boys at school had tried the Lorena chant at one time or another. They'd never seen her, of course, but there had been something there...
Hadn't there?
Abby smiled kindly. "It was just a rumor, probably based on Stephen King's Carrie movie, which had just come out."
"She didn't exist at all?"
"Nope. Just like the Bunnyman down in Clifton. She's just a legend. She can't hurt anyone." She glanced up at the high school entrance. "The kid's death must be a coincidence."
"Must be," Liam muttered.
At least he really, really hoped so.
CHAPTER NINE
"CLAIRE DELACOURT has hosted fifteen cooking shows—"
"Fifteen?" Kat exclaimed. "That's a lot."
Cassie Jones frowned, clearly unhappy about the interruption. But really what did she expect? That was a lot of phantasmagoric dishes right there.
Cassie, Fiona, Holly, and Kat were in the PRoVE media room, a cavernous space filled with oversized screens and viewing chairs, crowded around a computer. Cassie sat at the console, typing into the keyboard. The room was where the town's resident paranormal investigators reviewed their video recordings looking for supernatural evidence, and edited their material.
But ghosts weren't the only entities subject to scrutiny in this room.
The paranormal investigations industry was surprisingly cutthroat, with new groups and shows popping up every week. To compete, Caine and his team kept track of what the other groups were doing, from their most popular excursions to what special effects they used in their shows. The PRoVE library of paranormal investigations shows was impressive, and it, of course, included the Celebrity Medium Files.
All of them.
Cassie had spent the past hour poring over the titles, picking out the ones relating to food. There were, Kat had been dismayed to find out, a surprisingly large number of them.
Claire Delacourt seemed to be quite the foodie.
"She does a lot of Halloween party shows," Cassie said. "Plus she did two 'How To Host Your Own Séance' specials for her network."
"But how many are baking shows?" Holly asked. "That's what we need to know."
"Ten," Cassie answered. "And several are competition shows."
"Any Christmas ones?" Fiona asked.
"No," Cassie said. "This will be her first."
"Well, that's disappointing," Kat said. "How about summer specials? Or beachy ones? Did she do any of those?"
Kat was still trying to figure out if Claire really hated coconut. Her last cookie batch had come out looking like The Gingerbread Walking Dead. Her coconut ball cookies were her best offering so far, so she didn't want to give them up.
Holly stared at her. "Why would she do a beach baking special? She talks to dead people."
"She can talk to dead people at the beach." Kat said. "People die everywhere."
Fiona laughed. "Who? Shark-attack victims? Dead pirates and their ghost parrots?"
"She asks ghosts how they died," Holly replied, giggling. "In the case of shark victims, that is self-explanatory. Also, dead parrots tell no tales."
Her audience groaned.
"That is your most terrible joke ever," Kat grumbled.
"No, it isn't," Cassie retorted. "Not by a long shot. Now, pay attention. I'm going to pull up Claire's last Halloween baking special. The contestants had to make cookies." She punched a few keys and the largest screen in the room lit up. "It's not Christmas, but it's a good place to start."
Mussorky's "Night on Bald Mountain" swelled through the room, making Kat wince. Cassie quickly turned the volume down to a manageable level, and violins screeched as fanged cupcakes and witch-hat cake pops danced across the screen.
They all walked to the plush viewing chairs. Holly searched into her tote and pulled out a notepad and a set of colored pens.
This wasn't fun. This was work.
The soft leather wrapped itself around Kat as she sank into the chair. Who knew the PRoVE guys were such sybarites? Their viewing room was pure luxury.
"This is quite a production," Fiona noted, taking a large bag of candy out of her purse.
Holly followed her lead and extracted a large paper bag from her tote. Kat's stomach grumbled as the smell of popcorn hit her nose.
She'd been craving salty food all day. Come to think of it, she'd been craving it for a while. It must be all the cookies she'd been eating.
"Yes, it is," Cassie said, turning around. "Wait, you brought food? You can't have snacks here. Caine will pitch a fit. He loves these chairs more than he does his bike."
"I'm watching five straight hours of frosting and sprinkles," Fiona explained. "I can't do that on an empty stomach."
"I didn't have time for lunch," Holly whined. "Plus I've been eating sweets all day. I need something savory." She aimed a sidelong glance at Fiona's candy. "I don't understand how you can eat those. Aren't you sick of all the sugar by now?"
"Nope," Fiona replied, happily munching. "There's no such thing as too much sugar."
Kat heartily disagreed. By now she was sick of all things sugar and spice. She needed salt and flour and...
"Is that a bag of pretzels?" she asked, peering into Holly's tote.
"Sure is," Holly replied, handing it over. "Extra salty."
Cassie rolled her eyes. "Just don't get any crumbs on the seats."
Kat opened the pretzel bag happily and settled in to watch.
The contestants, all dressed in ridiculously cute sparkly pumpkin aprons, were being introduced. Most were professional pastry chefs out to make a name for themselves. One of them, however, was a curly-haired home baker with a pair of bright blue spectacles and a nervous laugh.
"I like her," Holly said, pushing her own pair of tortoiseshell glasses up her nose.
"You would," Fiona grumbled. "I like the hot Italian guy."
"Not a surprise," Kat said, grabbing a crunchy pretzel. "I like whoever brings out the coconut."
"That's the idea," Cassie said from her console. "Keep your eye on the prize." She eyed Kat's pretzels sharply. "And watch out for crumbs."
"Hush," Fiona said. "The judges are coming."
Kat focused on the screen. The first judge was a short, fat man wearing a black shirt and a gray fedora. At first she didn't recognize him without his trademark cartoon ghost, but she soon mad
e the connection.
"Jeff Santos," she exclaimed. "The Ghost Talk guy."
Cassie nodded. "That's why I chose this one. We can kill two birds with one stone."
The second judge was a handsome television actor who flirted outrageously with the home cook, making her blush.
"Why couldn't we get him for the cookie contest?" asked Fiona. "How did we get stuck with Santos and Delacourt?"
"Claire's from Banshee Creek and Santos insisted," Cassie said.
"Ha," Holly exclaimed. "Caine just didn't want the competition. Admit it."
"My lips are sealed," Cassie replied.
"Here comes Claire," Fiona said. "Wow, she looks good."
Claire did look fantastic in her signature black leather jacket and jeans, her long white hair swinging. Her heels were so high, she looked like she might fall at any moment. She shimmied her hips for the camera and waved a friendly greeting at the contestants.
"That's why they call her the Supermodel of the Supernatural," Cassie said glumly. "No wonder she's killing us in the ratings."
"You need tighter pants, Cass," Holly said.
"And more leather," Kat added.
"No way," Cassie said. "We're scientists and scholars, not blundering showbiz people."
"Get real," Holly scoffed. "You have a television show. You and Caine have your Mulder-and-Scully schtick. You have fans. You are so in the entertainment business."
Cassie shook her head. "Those are just trappings. We do science and history. She," Cassie pointed at the screen, "flips her hair about and talks to glowing specks of dust."
"She's good at the hair-flipping, though," Kat noted enviously.
"And, hopefully, she's just as good at judging cookies," Cassie said, turning up the volume. "Now be quiet."
They settled down to watch. The challenge was candy-themed cookies, with each contestant choosing the candy while blindfolded. One lucky baker got the peanut butter cups, and another the purple candies. The home cook, however, ended up with licorice and didn't even bother to hide her dismay.
Holly winced. "Bad luck."
Kat nodded. Noticing with dismay that no one had drawn coconut.
"Remember," Claire twinkled. "You can't just use it for decoration. We need to be able to taste it."
The home cook smiled weakly and walked off with her sticky black strands.
"Claire is evil," Holly said. "I kind of like that."
"Or maybe she likes licorice," Kat mused.
"Aren't those the same thing?" Cassie asked.
They all laughed, then quieted down as the contestants got to work.
They didn't watch the contestants, however, they watched Claire. They probably should also focus on Santos, but he was too boring. Whereas Claire made frequent comments about the proceedings—someone used shortening instead of butter and someone else used rosewater—Santos was mostly quiet. Holly was busy taking notes on the comments. She already had several pages.
Claire seemed to know her stuff. Kat wasn't sure if that was good or bad. Knowledge could be a very dangerous thing...
"Look, Kat," Fiona exclaimed, dropping her candy. "Aren't those coconut flakes?"
Kat squinted at the screen. The home baker had boiled the licorice, turning it into syrup, and she was now soaking something in it.
"Yes," Kat shouted, raising a triumphant fist in the air. "It's coconut!"
The camera turned toward Claire, who was wrinkling her nose. "Coconut and licorice? I don't think so."
"You don't like coconut?" the handsome actor asked.
"I loathe it," Claire answered.
"It's my favorite," the actor said, with a blinding smile. "I can't get enough of it."
Kat slumped back in her chair. She was going to have a chat with Caine when this was done.
The home cook's coconut-licorice fuzzy spider cookie was deemed good enough to make it to the next round, but the winner was a pecan-and-toffee-covered werewolf creation. Kat filed that away for future reference. Sure, werewolves weren't very Christmasy, but maybe she could do a spiky reindeer face.
Oh, who was she kidding? Her reindeer would turn out like mutant hedgehogs. She had to think of something else.
"This was a great idea, Cassie," Holly said, as she put her notepad away. "I now have a good notion of how this is going to go. Thanks."
"You're welcome," Cassie said, putting on the next show. "This one has cake pops instead of cookies, but it may still be helpful. Santos is also in it."
"I can't believe you put in this much work, Cass," Kat said. "It must have taken days."
"Oh, I didn't do it," Cassie replied. "This was all Jonas."
"Jonas?" Kat asked. "Is that—"
The kid who'd died in the high school.
"Yes," Cassie said sadly. "He was really interested in Claire Delacourt. He tracked all her appearances and shows and made a huge spreadsheet. That's how I was able to pull up her cooking shows. He had everything, even her YouTube beauty videos. It takes her three days to dye her hair. Can you believe it?"
Kat, who was no stranger to hair tint, could totally believe it. But that wasn't her concern right now.
"Why was Jonas so interested in the Celebrity Medium?" she asked.
Cassie shrugged. "He was probably trying to debunk her. Jonas was out to debunk everyone." She shook her head sadly. "That's why he wasn't a very popular guy."
CHAPTER TEN
"JUST ONE dance," Abby sang. "Just one turn. What could it cost? What could it hurt?"
Liam felt a shiver run down his spine as Abby's voice echoed through the gymnasium. The Space Cowboys had done a beautiful job with the song. It was eerie and sad and extremely catchy.
"Completely inappropriate," Caine grumbled next to him.
"But really good," Liam said.
"Just one night," Abby sang. "Just one kiss..."
"She really wants to sing it," Caine said. "It's their next release and, of course, she wants it to do well." He scratched his head. "But I don't know. The guys are talking."
"About what?" Liam asked. "Surely they don't think—"
"Of course they do," Caine replied testily. "A high school kid, found lying dead without a scratch on him? They're thinking and talking and coming to all kinds of conclusions." He shook his head. "I can't let her sing that song."
"Jonas' death had nothing to do with Lorena's ghost," Liam said.
"You sound like Abby now," Caine responded. "She says we might as well blame Bloody Mary for it."
"Well, she's right," Liam said.
Caine made a face. "Can't she sing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Zombie Reindeer instead? It worked well for us last time and it will at least fit the theme."
"What theme?" A cheery voice said behind them. "The electrified undead ungulates holiday special? Is that what we're going for?"
They turned to greet Luanne, who was dressed rather professionally in a bright purple jacket and skirt, her perennial Madame Esmeralda tote the only thing giving away her profession.
"Like I said," Caine answered. "It works."
"What are you doing here, Luanne?" Liam asked. "Is the college admissions counselor using divination nowadays?"
Luanne laughed merrily. "He should. It would make it easier for the seniors. But, no, I'm working with the World History teacher on his medieval history unit. We're using tarot to explain notions of kingship, religious authority, and feudal relations. It's actually quite fun."
Liam grinned. "Sounds a lot more engaging than my high school history classes, that's for sure."
"So what can we do for you?" Caine asked. "Do you need our tarot posters? Gus got a really gory one featuring The Fool last spring. It's fantastic."
"Thanks," Luanne said, craning her neck to look around. "I'm actually looking for Sean. Have you seen him?"
Liam frowned. Luanne's boyfriend, Sean Stickely, was the town sheriff. Why would Luanne be looking for him around the high school? Something to do with Jonas' death?
"Nope," Caine answer
ed, looking concerned. "Haven't seen him around. Is he supposed to be here?"
Luanne waved her hand with an affected look of innocence. "Not really, I just expected..."
Caine's eyes narrowed. "Expected what?'
"Nothing," Luanne said, looking around shiftily. "So, where do the baking stations go? I'm supposed to help Amy—"
"Spill it, Luanne," Caine said, his voice sharp. "Why were you looking for Sean here?"
Luanne winced. "It's no big deal. I just had a jumper—"
"A what?" Liam asked.
"A card that fell out of my deck," Luanne explained patiently. "I was doing a spread for the baking competition—had all my cards laid out—when—"
"Wait, isn't that cheating?" Caine asked sharply.
Luanne drew herself up, looking offended. "Of course not, it's just guidance, er, meditation."
"Right," Liam said. "So what exactly did your meditation tell you."
Luanne let out an exasperated breath. "Well, it was going well. I mean, sort of. Chariot reversed and Moon upright are no one's idea of a picnic, but I already know I'm anxious about the contest, so that explains the Moon. I can't really see my own future very well, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to lose, so it's nice to have that confirmed." She smiled. "Bit of a relief, actually. Although I don't know why I'm getting all Major Arcana cards. That usually heralds a big change, something life-altering, and this is just a contest. Plus, Priestess reversed? What's up with that?"
Liam and Caine stared, dumbfounded.
The fortune teller glanced at Liam. "By the way, how's Kat doing? Any tiredness? Nausea?"
The question made Liam's head spin. What was Luanne talking about?
"You mean because of all the cookies?" he asked. "She's fine. I'm the one who's doing the taste-testing."
"Right," Caine said in a slow drawl. "Now, what about the jumper?"
"Oh, the jumper was the Tower." Luanne shook her head in exasperation. "Another Major Arcana, can you believe it? I guess the universe really likes baking competitions."
"Who doesn't?" Liam replied. "But what does it mean?"
"A jumper is a card that unexpectedly falls out of the deck. It can signal something that needs attention or an important piece of information that you missed." She shrugged. "It's the universe bringing something to your attention."