Adventures of a New Year's Kiss: A Holiday Romantic Mystery (Funeral Crashing Young Adult Mystery Books)

by Milda Harris

  Kyle was waiting for me to answer his question, but instead I looked at him and said, "Kyle, I found the necklace."

  Kyle's face turned to one of complete joy and he grabbed my arms, drawing me into a kiss. I tried to stop him since I had a little more to say, but he was too intent on kissing me. Okay. I didn't try all that hard to stop him from kissing me and my disappointing news about the necklace could wait another minute...or two.

  I finally managed to pull away and immediately said, "Kyle. My necklace is on Scarlett."

  I was hoping that the aftereffect of my kisses might soften the blow of what I had just said. It didn't. Kyle looked totally shocked.

  "What do you mean it's on Scarlett?" Kyle asked.

  "I mean, she was wearing it when she collapsed," I said.

  "Are you serious?" Kyle asked.

  "Yeah," I said.

  "Do not tell that to the police," Kyle said.

  I nodded. I wasn't going to tell the police about it in the first place. Still, when Kyle said it, it made it a way bigger deal.

  "Have you talked to Kait about all of this?" Kyle asked.

  "I thought you didn't want me to," I said.

  "No. I said..." Kyle stopped.

  "I don't want to mess up her and Ethan," I said.

  After a moment, Kyle nodded. "But Suzie why did Scarlett take your necklace, go to where you work, and wear it right in front of you? And then she collapses? It doesn't make sense."

  "I know," I said and then asked what I'd been thinking all night. "What if she dies?"

  Kyle looked grim. "Hopefully that doesn't happen."

  Kyle usually didn't believe in hopefullys. I was pretty sure he was trying to comfort me. The problem was that it wasn't working at all.

  Chapter 6: Reeling

  School the next morning felt like a blur. I was stuck at Wired until late the night before because the police talked to me last. Luckily, my interrogation was brief and only lasted for about fifteen minutes. Officer Quincy just asked if Scarlett seemed okay when she talked to me or if I had seen anything strange. I replied as honestly as I could except that I didn't mention the necklace. I felt guilty about that, but it really didn't have anything to do with their case since I wasn't the one who caused Scarlett to collapse. Kyle waited for me while I talked to the police. It was sweet that he was worried about me. After I was done he walked me to my car and told me to text him when I got home so that he knew I was safe.

  I tried to meet Kyle before class most mornings, but he wasn't at our usual spot by the stairs. It wasn't a big deal. Although, actually, I was a little disappointed and thrown off since he had been so attentive the night before.

  I had nightmares all night about a dead Zombie Scarlett. I kept trying to get the necklace off of her decomposing neck and she kept trying to bite me. I so did not want to turn into a zombie too. Yeah. It was a great night of dreams. I was hoping that Kyle would kiss me and make me feel better so I could get the image of Zombie Scarlett wearing my necklace out of my mind.

  I was definitely on the verge of having another off day, but at least I made it to gym class on time. I automatically glanced over at Scarlett's locker, but of course she wasn't there. Ariel, Megan, and Sarah were though.

  They were talking amongst each other. They all looked up when I walked over to my locker. It sort of made me wonder if they were talking about me. No. If anything they were probably talking about Scarlett. It had to be all over school by now that she had collapsed at Wired. I hadn't talked to anyone yet, so I didn't know for sure, but this sort of thing seemed to get out everywhere fast.

  Claire walked in just as I opened my locker. I made sure to lock it now and it took me a few minutes. I really needed to get another lock. Claire seemed pretty cheery. Maybe she hadn't heard about Scarlett yet. She walked past me to her locker, smiling to herself.

  I started getting ready. It was weird how life seemed to go on after something horrible happened just like it had before. It felt like the world should stop, but it didn't. Mrs. Rowan would still mark me late for gym if I didn't get dressed and out to the pool on time.

  I made it out to the pool with a few minutes to spare. We sat on a bench in alphabetical order until class started and Mrs. Rowan took attendance. I took my seat at the end of the line. Ariel hadn't made it out to the pool yet. Her last name was right before mine. If she didn't hurry up, she was going to be late. Last I saw, she was texting on her phone as usual.

  "Attention everyone," Mrs. Rowan said.

  I saw Ariel run past her to the seat next to me. Mrs. Rowan frowned at her, but didn't say anything. She was lucky that Mrs. Rowan hadn't taken attendance yet. Ariel was definitely going to land in detention for tardies this semester if she wasn't careful.

  "I have some announcements. First, I have some very sad news. Scarlett York died last night..." Mrs. Rowan started.

  Mrs. Rowan continued, but I couldn't hear what she was saying because the girls started buzzing with gossip. Ariel even turned to me with a shocked look on her face, but when I didn't say anything she turned to the girl next to her. Everyone was totally floored.

  Mrs. Rowan kept trying to talk over the chatter. "If anyone wants to talk to a grief counselor, they will be available. "

  That's when my brain began to work again. Wait. Mrs. Rowan had announcements. I could not let her say anything about my necklace. What if someone in gym class tied my necklace to Scarlett? If there had been foul play, then I could end up being the prime suspect. I had already hidden that piece of information from the police.

  What I did next I can only claim that I did because I panicked. I got up out of my seat and jumped into the pool with a cannonball splash. It was so unlike me to cause a scene, but that's what I did. I stayed underwater for as long as I could hold my breath afterward, wondering if I'd dare to come up for air again.

  My head broke the surface. I took a deep breath, savoring the feeling of air in my lungs. I blinked the water out of my eyes. My classmates were finally silent. Everyone was staring at me. I knew my face was beet red.

  "Suzie Whitsett, what are you doing?" Mrs. Rowan was glaring down at me. "Get out of the pool and get back in your seat."

  I just stayed there, treading water, and staring at her. My mind was a complete blank. Everyone was looking at me. What should I do?

  "Suzie? Do you need to see the counselor? Is this about Scarlett?" Mrs. Rowan's glare changed into a pitying look as she realized that I might be having a mental breakdown.

  I sort of was, but my brain was working well enough to grab ahold of that idea. "Yes, yes, I think I need a grief counselor."

  That excuse made sense of what I had just done. Well, a temporary insanity plea might have made even more sense, but at least going to see the grief counselor would get me out of gym class. As an added bonus it would also get me away from the stares and whispers that were sure to surround me if I stayed.

  Forty minutes later I was waiting for the bell to ring so that I could leave the counseling office. There were people in hysterics. The office was overwhelmed. It was very surreal. I didn't know that Scarlett had so many friends. I had a pass to come back later on in the day if I felt I needed to, but I had no plans to come back. I was fine now. My panic had subsided for the moment. Besides, everyone else just made me feel even worse for Scarlett. It was so sad.

  The bell rang. I couldn't wait for the day to be over. Winter break could not come soon enough. I stepped out into the hallway, which was already crowded with students. I started to walk toward Chemistry.

  "Suzie!" Someone yelled from behind me.

  I kept walking. There were a few girls named Suzie in our school and it was never anyone calling for me. Then the girl yelled out my name again. This time I turned.

  It was Kait. "Suzie! I've been looking all over for you. You weren't at gym class, but Ariel said you were at the counseling center. Are you okay?"

  "I'm fine," I felt a little embarrassed. I was hoping that nobody I knew would see me at
the counseling office.

  Wait. Kait must have run to my gym class and then here. That was a little strange. We were going to see each other in about two minutes in Chemistry class. Did she need to talk to me alone and not in front of Kyle or something? But why?

  "Well, I'm on my way to Chemistry," I said instead of asking what was going on. Kait would tell me when she was ready. "We can walk together."

  "Great. I actually wanted to talk to you alone," Kait said.

  Just as I thought. "What's up?"

  "I heard Scarlett York collapsed and died at Wired last night," Kait said.

  "Yeah. I was there," I said, unable to meet Kait's eyes.

  I really didn't want to talk about Scarlett anymore. I was so upset about her and that necklace. At the same time, I was done. There was no way I could get my necklace back now.

  I wondered if Kait was going to investigate Scarlett's death. If she was, I had a dilemma. Should I just tell her what happened with Scarlett and the necklace? She'd probably find out because she was pretty good at the whole sleuthing thing, but I was torn. If I kept knowing all of these dead people, I was going to end up as one of her suspects one of these days if only because the odds were against me. This time it actually looked really bad.

  "So, did you see anything? What happened?" Kait asked.

  I shrugged and told the truth. "I don't know."

  "The rumor is that she died of an aneurysm," Kait offered.

  "What? Really?" I finally looked up at Kait and met her eyes.

  This was news to me. But then why did Kait want to know about Scarlett's collapse? Was she going to investigate anyway? Did she think it might be a murder and not an aneurysm?

  "Yeah, really. That's the theory at least," Kait said. "I overheard her friends talking in the hallway. Two people in her family died from aneurysms."

  "Wow. I didn't know that," I said. "And you believe them? That Scarlett died from an aneurysm?"

  "Uh-huh. Well, for a second, I thought maybe there was another mystery for me to solve, but now I don't think so," Kait looked a little disappointed.

  "Are you sure?" I asked.

  Kait nodded. "Yeah, well, at least unless I hear something different after they do an autopsy. Sometimes people do just die. It's still sad."

  I felt relieved. Scarlett dying with my stolen necklace around her neck was not a good thing if she had been murdered. If Kait didn't think Scarlett was murdered, then she probably wasn't. That meant that I was safe from becoming a murder suspect. That was good because it was not how I wanted to spend my winter break.

  "Anyway, I was thinking of going to her funeral. Do you want to go with me?" Kait asked.

  I almost choked on my saliva. My breath caught. This felt too good to be true because I suddenly did want to go. If I wasn't in danger of getting framed for a murder I didn't commit, I wanted my necklace back. Wait. Would it be weird to steal my necklace back from a dead girl if she was wearing it at her funeral? Oh no. Last night's nightmare was about to come true.

  Chapter 7: Funeral Crashing

  Scarlett's funeral was only a couple of days before Christmas. I felt so sad for her parents and siblings. The holidays were a hard time to go through such a major loss. Kait wanted me to read Scarlett's obituary, but I just couldn't. It was depressing enough that I was going to her funeral to try to steal back my necklace. If I read about her passions and how her life was cut short way too soon, I might back out and I couldn't back out.

  For obvious reasons, I didn't tell Kyle that Kait and I were going to Scarlett's funeral. We hadn't talked about the necklace since the night Scarlett collapsed. I think he thought it was gone forever. I still wanted to get it back. I was afraid he'd think it was too morbid for me to take it back from Scarlett this way. It totally was, but I felt like it was my right to get it back. It was my necklace after all. Maybe I'd change my mind at the funeral. Maybe. Or I could just disinfect it really, really, really well.

  Scarlett's funeral wasn't crowded when Kait and I arrived. I expected more people from school especially after all of the craziness in the counseling center. If they were coming, they hadn't showed up yet. I was disappointed. I had been counting on more people. If I even had a chance of taking my necklace back then I needed the funeral to be packed. Now that it wasn't, I needed a distraction. Except for jumping in the pool during gym, I really didn't know how to create distractions.

  I glanced at Kait. I needed to tell her what was going on so that she could help me. She'd know what to do. The problem was that I should have told her in the first place, but I hadn't. Now I felt awkward about it, like I'd convinced her to come with me to do this, unknowingly. I reminded myself that Kait was the one that had asked me to come to Scarlett's funeral with her. I still felt guilty, but I had to suck it up and tell her the truth.

  "Kait, I have something to tell you," I said.

  Kait looked at me and then listened as I poured out every word of the mystery story of my necklace. I told her what I knew happened. Then I told her what I suspected. The only thing I left out was what Kyle said about Ethan. Ethan would need to talk to Kait directly about that if he hadn't already. I wasn't too worried about telling Kait all of this now anyway. I didn't need her to solve the mystery anymore. It had been solved. I just needed her help getting my necklace back from Scarlett.

  When I finished blathering on Kait said, "So, you want me to help you get your necklace off of the girl in the coffin?"

  "Yes," I couldn't believe I was admitting to that. Wow. It was so creepy. I'd definitely need to disinfect my necklace, but I still wanted it back.

  Kait sighed and then nodded as she spoke, "Okay. It is your necklace and not hers. Otherwise I wouldn't do it."

  "I wouldn't do it either," I quickly said. "It just means so much to me."

  "I know," Kait said. "Because it's from Kyle."

  "And you can't tell him," I said.

  Kait smiled, "I'm good with secrets."

  I felt relieved. I knew Kyle would want to know how I got the necklace back. I vowed tell him when I was ready, "Okay. So, how should we do this?"

  Kait thought for a moment. "I think I have an idea."

  "What?" I asked after Kait didn't go on.

  "Well..." Kait said.

  "Am I not going to like it?" I asked.

  Kait laughed. "I'm not going to like what I have to do and I doubt you will either. You just need to make sure you grab that necklace."

  Eek. In my opinion grabbing the necklace was the hard part. How was I going to unclasp it exactly? My Zombie Scarlett nightmare popped into my head. No. I could not think about this. I'd worry about that when I had my opportunity. Until then, ew.

  Fifteen minutes later I was in position, pretending to look at a photo collage of Scarlett. Her family had put together a bunch of pictures of Scarlett from the time she was a baby until now. I'm sure it was very touching, but I couldn't focus on any of the pictures. My stomach was a bundle of knots and I kept picturing Zombie Scarlett sitting up in her coffin as I tried to take her necklace off. How was I going to go through with this? This was worse than the time I had to do a twenty-minute speech on Winston Churchill in World History class. My knees were shaking. Still, I had to look normal. I had to do this. Kyle. I had to do this for us. I needed to get that necklace back to restore balance to our relationship. I relaxed a little, but only a very tiny bit. I waited for the signal.

  The fire alarm went off. No, it wasn't original, but it worked. Everyone turned toward the exit doors. Some people walked out to be safe. Nobody was looking at the coffin. I didn't think. If anybody asked, I'd just say that I wanted to make sure that someone came and got Scarlett out too if there was a fire. I hoped nobody asked. I hoped Kait didn't get herself arrested. I hoped I didn't get arrested.

  It was now or never. I walked the last few steps to the casket. Then I leaned over it to grab the necklace from Scarlett's neck.

  "Please don't wake up, Scarlett," I whispered over and over again.


  I couldn't believe I was doing this. If it wasn't a stolen necklace and Kyle hadn't given it to me then there was no way I'd even think about doing this. It felt so wrong. The only thing keeping me from running out of the funeral was that Scarlett had stolen my necklace. If I didn't do this now, it would be buried with her forever instead of being with me, it's rightful owner. I couldn't let that happen to my necklace.

  I reached down and my hand hesitated just above the necklace. This was it. No. What was I doing? I looked at Scarlett's face. She looked so peaceful and not like a zombie at all. No. I couldn't do this. This was totally insane. I pulled my hand back from the casket.

  Even though my heart was hurting, I had decided. I'd have to let Scarlett be buried with my necklace because this wasn't me. I wasn't a grave robber for goodness sake.

  I took one last long look at my necklace. Kyle would understand and somehow maybe our relationship would go back to normal. Everything would be fine eventually and we'd forget about this. Still, I wished I'd at least gotten a picture of myself wearing the necklace. I wanted to remember every detail.

  Wait. I did a double take. The stone on Scarlett's necklace looked different. Scarlett's stone was a deep dark blue, like a sapphire blue instead of the black color of my meteorite stone. I had only gotten a glimpse of Scarlett's necklace before and the star was so similar that I thought it was the same, but it wasn't. The stones were definitely different. That meant one thing. Scarlett hadn't stolen my necklace.

  Chapter 8: Planning

  I felt like I was back to square one except at least now Kait was there to help me. I told her that Scarlett wasn't wearing my necklace after all. Kait totally understood even though she had risked getting into trouble by making the fire alarm go off. Uh-oh. Ethan probably wouldn't be happy about Kait continuing to help me with my mystery especially if it caused her to do things that she shouldn't be doing. Should I tell her that?