Bizzy shakes her head, a sly smile sending her lips north. “I did a little research. Ambrosia Whispers was a troublemaker with a capital T. Her social media pages are rife with accusations and name-calling. And she has a rabid following. Her fan page is called Ambrosia’s Armed Forces. She has at least fifteen thousand members. She runs giveaways and gives early chapter teasers for her upcoming books. Jessie posted a notice of Ambrosia’s death all over the internet, and there’s a lot of grieving going on there tonight. It looks as if her fans will be holding a vigil soon at Honey Lake.”
“Ooh.” I perk up at the thought. “They say the killer likes to return to the scene of the crime. Who knows, they might just show up. With your ability to pry into people’s private thoughts, we might just nail this person in no time.”
“I wish it worked that way. But you never know.”
Jasper and Everett step into the bakery, and Bizzy is quick to wrap her arms around her fiancé.
I make my way around the counter and do the same with Everett.
He’s looking sharp, smells like all things woodsy, and happens to be shooting those heavily lidded bedroom eyes of his my way.
“Hey, hot stuff.” My teeth graze over my lower lip. “What are you up to?” I give his slick silver tie a quick tug. Judging by his fancy suit, I’d say he was off to do some serious criminal justice, but then I’ve seen Everett dress the same to have pizza, so I can never be sure.
“I’m headed to the courthouse.” He lands a warm kiss to my lips and my insides sizzle. “But first, I’m dropping Jasper off at the sheriff’s department. I’ll probably pop in and see what Noah’s thoughts are on the case.”
“I think I’d better send some cookies.” Noah’s favorite chocolate chip cookies have always made him feel better. Here’s hoping their sugarcoated superpowers help heal his heart—at least a little.
Jasper looks my way. “Bizzy is worried about Georgie. And I get that. But I want to assure you both she’s not really a suspect. In fact, I’m heading down to see if Noah’s cleared her just yet.” He casts those silver peepers Bizzy’s way. “There’s no need to look into anything. I’m sure the sheriff’s department has this under control.”
Everett lifts a brow. “Lemon? Do you think you can sit this one out?”
I offer Jasper a sorrowful shake of the head. “I’m sorry. There’s not a chance.”
Jasper closes his eyes a moment. “In that case, both of you stay safe.” He dots a kiss to Bizzy’s cheek. “Call me.”
“I will.” She bats her lashes up at him. “And I will stay out of danger. I’ll be with Georgie and Carlotta—and Lottie, too.”
Jasper sighs. “Why doesn’t that make me feel better?”
Everett ticks his head. “Because you’ve met all the players.” He takes me by the hand and leads me away a few steps.
“Lemon, in no way do I want to tell you what to do, but I strongly suggest you stay away from any potential suspects. That woman was brutalized in a violent way. That tells me the killer is impulsive, volatile, and completely unbalanced. You’ve got a little bit of a reputation as a very effective detective.” He nods his head toward Bizzy. “So does she. I’d hate for the two of you to walk around with a target on your backs.”
I shrug. “If the killer was smart, they’d leave town.”
“Nine times out of ten you outsmart them, Lemon. But not before you find yourself in a pickle. Be careful.” He leans in a notch, those hypnotic eyes bearing hard into mine. “Evie’s having a sleepover at the house tonight.”
“Ooh,” I squeal without meaning to. “It sounds as if I’m having a sleepover, too. Are you up for a repeat performance of that acrobatic routine you pulled off last night?”
“I don’t do repeats. I’m bringing all-new fresh and original material. Be warned, there might be some aeronautics involved. And you won’t believe the landing I’ve got set for you.”
“You just terrified my girl parts.”
He dots me with a kiss. “I’ll find a way to make it up to them.”
I load Everett up with enough cookies to feed the entire force as he and Jasper take off.
Alex strides in, and for a second I think it’s Noah as he makes a beeline for Macy, so Bizzy and I follow suit.
“Alex,” I say and he gives me a quick embrace.
“Lottie Lemon.” His dimples dig in, and I can’t help but note how alarmingly he looks identical to his brother. They’re both knockoffs of that Wiley Fox, but thankfully neither of them is in the business of ripping off widows. “Heard you’re taking a walk on the Baxter side. Good luck to you. Strangely, Noah doesn’t see this as a breakup. How did you manage that?”
“Please,” Macy says, wrapping her arms around Alex. “When she’s ready to divulge her secrets, I’ll be the first to know.” She rakes her fingers through her hair. “So are you ready to take me to your place?”
Alex’s lids hood low. “How did you know the tour starts there?”
“Because we think alike.” She gives a flirtatious bounce of the shoulders. “And I have a feeling I know exactly what you like, how you like it, and for exactly how long.”
“Goodbye,” Bizzy says, pushing her sister and Alex toward the door. “Try not to populate the planet while you’re at it.”
“Ooh!” Georgie hops out of her seat. “If you don’t want the kid, give it to me. I’ve been itching to have a do-over in the childrearing department.”
Macy waves her off as she and Alex take off, lost in one another’s eyes. And if you ask me, it looks like a hazard ready to happen the way they’re ignoring the ground beneath them.
Carlotta steps in front of me.
“Well, Lot? Whose first up on the suspect list?”
“What do you think, Bizzy?” I ask as I look her way.
Bizzy shrugs. “Jessie Lane knows who’s who in the author world, and she also seemed to know enough about Ambrosia. I think we grill her and get her to tell us everything she knows.”
I nod. “And if she doesn’t say it out loud, she might just think it.”
Georgie hoots and hollers. “We make quite the team. We need to think up a snazzy name for our investigative services.”
Carlotta lifts her chin. “The Supernatural Sleuths?”
Georgie ticks her head to the side. “I was thinking something more along the lines of Detecting Divas.”
“Sexy Spies,” Carlotta counters.
Georgie leans in. “Gorgeous Gumshoes.”
“Seductive Snoops,” Carlotta shouts, amping up her name game.
Georgie claps. “Amorous Agents of Justice.”
Bizzy looks my way. “How soon can we leave?”
“Give me five minutes.”
Here’s hoping Jessie Lane has the answers we’re looking for.
It’s not Bizzy and me with a target on our backs.
It’s the killer.
Chapter 5
It wasn’t all that hard to track down Jessie Lane.
She mentioned yesterday that she was going to run by the inn to pick up her things, as well as help my mother brainstorm about her cover. Although, I don’t know what they have to brainstorm over. Ambrosia made it clear beefcake was the order of the day. All my mother has to do is slap some bare-chested hottie on the cover and she’ll have a hit on her hands—theoretically.
Since Evie offered to look after our collective menagerie today, Bizzy dropped Fish and Sherlock Bones off at my place before they came over to the bakery. She said they were thrilled to be reunited with Pancake and Waffles. And, of course, Sherlock seems pretty happy to have a little extra canine energy with Toby around, too.
Bizzy followed me to my mother’s B&B in her rental car, and soon the entire lot of us walk through the foyer of my mother’s happily haunted home and are greeted by the friendly flock of ghosts in question.
“Greer!” Her name springs from me in a cheery tone as she and her haunted brood float on over. Standing next to her is her ghostly boyfriend, Winslow
Decker, their adopted, somewhat frightening, little daughter, Lea, and their pet cat, Thirteen.
Both Bizzy and Georgie are in the know when it comes to the supernatural state of this haunted hotel, and neither of them seems to mind, most likely because I highlighted the fact Greer and the gang were exceptionally well-disposed.
I take up both Bizzy’s and Georgie’s hands.
“Bizzy, Georgie, standing before you is Greer Giles who died just over a year ago, gunshot to the chest. I solved her murder.”
Greer nods. “Thank you, Lottie.”
“You’re welcome.”
Georgie bucks. “I heard her! I heard a ghost!” she howls at the top of her lungs and I swear someone in the grand room just broke out into applause.
I nod. “Greer is a brunette with long dark hair that looks as if it’s holding an entire constellation of onyx stars. She has glowing eyes, and glowing skin, and she’s as sassy as she is gorgeous.”
Winslow chuckles.
“And then there’s Winslow Decker.” I offer him a quick wink. “He’s her two-hundred-year-old boyfriend who doesn’t look a day over thirty. He was a pig farmer on the land right under the B&B. He’s a cutie with his dark blond scruff, boyish face, and dimples. Oh, and he dresses about as dapper as a farmer can with a white buttoned-down shirt and spaghetti thin bowtie. His rugged jeans have seen better days, but he wears them well.”
Greer licks her finger and presses it to his bottom as she makes a sizzling noise.
“That’s right, ladies.” Greer bumps her hip to his. “This sexy specter is mine all mine.”
Little Lea raises the blade in her hand. “I’m next, Lottie!” Her voice comes out dark and deep, and those of us who are still living shudder.
“That’s Lea,” I say. “She’s about six. Stands at three and a half feet tall, has her shoulder-length hair combed over her face, wears a dirty pinafore and scuffed Mary Janes, and wields a machete in her hand. Her family was slaughtered over this site and she’s still trying to drum up some revenge.”
Georgie tosses up her hands and screams before hiding behind Carlotta.
“It’s okay, Gray,” Carlotta whispers. “I scream a little on the inside each time I see her myself.”
Lea belts out a harrowing cackle.
I take a breath. “I do believe she enjoys this.”
Thirteen’s fur electrifies a brilliant shade of lightning white before reverting back to its natural ebony state.
“Do tell them how handsome I am.” His whiskers twitch in time with his ears.
“Come here, you,” I say and he leaps right into my arms. “And this is Thirteen, a beautiful black cat if ever there was one. He might have used up his nine lives, but he’s got one fantastic afterlife. I’m not sure why these four fantastic phantasms get to hang around and others don’t, but I’m not complaining.”
Lea slashes the air with her weapon. “We’re not either. Now that we can eat, there’s a little cheer in our otherwise dreadful lives.”
Thirteen swipes at her. “Dreadful? Speak for yourself. The rest of us are rather pleased with our deadly disposition.”
Lea roars like a lion, and Thirteen’s fur stands on end before they take off down the hall with Lea in chase.
Greer shakes her head. “Don’t mind them. Lea will have his tail chopped off in five minutes flat. It’s practically her bedtime routine.”
Bizzy gives a nervous glance my way. “It was nice meeting you all,” she says to the seemingly empty space before her.
“Yeah,” Georgie calls out from behind Carlotta. “If you’re in the mood to put on a good haunting, head over to room sixteen tonight.”
Bizzy shakes her head. “Georgie, you’re not in sixteen. That’s Macy’s room.”
“Precisely.”
A tiny chortle works its way up my throat. “It was nice seeing you guys. We’re actually here to speak with a friend of my mother’s.”
Winslow groans, “Word of warning, Lottie. There’s a naked man being burned alive in the conservatory. I had to leave. I just don’t have the stomach for that sort of thing.”
“What?” I barrel right through them as Bizzy, Carlotta, and Georgie follow suit. The conservatory is a large glass room that was added onto the B&B about a year ago. It’s been the pièce de résistance ever since. During the day you can see the evergreens right outside the glass walls. And at night the woods are backlit an ethereal shade of blue, giving off a fairy-tale appeal.
We’re about to crest the entry to the conservatory when Greer barricades it with her ghostly body and I pause.
Greer makes a face. “Let the record show, I tried to stop her.”
“Oh God,” I say as I walk right through the shivering spook, only to find a large black backdrop erected in the back of the room lit up with those over bright floodlights photographers use. I spot my mother first in what looks to be a flimsy black negligee as she places her hand above her eyes and squints our way.
“The conservatory is closed for a private party,” she shouts in her friendliest, albeit annoyed, voice. “Feel free to take your lunch in the dining room!”
“Mother!” I take a step deeper into the room, only to see a woman rising from a crouched position with a camera in her hand, but if that we’re the only malfeasance. “Is that…?” Lying on some kind of a mat is a bare-chested man that looks far too much like Noah Corbin Fox for it to ever be safe.
He hops to his feet, and I spot the gray in his hair, both on his head and his chest—albeit slightly wrinkly with a little loose flesh around the edges.
“Well, if it isn’t my very first fan club.” Wiley flashes that killer Fox smile, unleashing those deep-welled dimples, and a choir of sighs emits from my right.
Carlotta and Georgie eat up every inch of skin he’s doling out as they barrel to the front of the room, whooping it up as if we had walked into a bona fide male strip club.
Georgie points to a crock pot in the corner. “Is that hot wax?”
Bizzy groans, “Good Lord, let it be a vat of beef stew.”
Mom gives a knowing nod to Georgie. “You better believe it’s hot wax. We’re doing a quick photo shoot in hopes to save my dying book. If it wasn’t for Jessie here, I’d just be standing here watching my hard work get flushed right down the toilet.”
“Jessie?” I perk up just a notch as I turn to the woman holding the camera. A burst of light appears in the space between us as Bingo materializes about head high before sinking slowly to the floor.
The portly piglet belts out a snort. “I’m just here for the food, Lottie. Good luck with the investigation.” She trots on through me and I sway on my heels. “And for the record, I’ve never tasted anything like your flag cake. If my nose is correct, your mother has enough of that whipped delight in the kitchen to fill a trough. Here’s hoping I’m the only swine in the vicinity.”
Nope. I see another animal just a few feet away.
I narrow my gaze on Wiley as both Carlotta and Georgie offer him a spontaneous massage.
Mom gets to the business of batting them away just as Bizzy pulls me close and navigates me to Jessie.
Bizzy leans her way. “How are you doing?” Her concern sounds genuine. At least one of us has our eye on the prize—winnowing down our suspect list. Unlike Carlotta and Georgie, who seem to have their eye on the boobie prize, taking selfies with Wiley’s bare chest.
Jessie rakes her fingers through her tousled blonde mane. She’s donned tight jeans and a clingy white T-shirt, which only elongates her thin, tall frame.
She blinks back as if she were surprised. “I just came to see your mother in hopes to talk about cover models and this happened.” She laughs as she holds out the camera in her hand. “Mirandy is determined to fix her flat sales asap. And I can’t blame her. Authors work hard to put out their books. They need all the pieces in place to make their marketing efforts run like they’re supposed to.”
My nose twitches. “It’s just Miranda. Mirandy Lemonade is her
pen name.”
Jessie waves it off. “Oh, I know. But it’s just easier for me to remember it that way. I’ve been working with authors for years and pen names reign supreme when it comes to communicating with them. You may have a hard time getting used to it, but she will. She’s a natural. And I read the book.” She dips her chin. “Your mama has one spicy imagination.”
Bizzy and I give an easy laugh.
I nod. “She’s made no secret of it.”
Jessie ticks her head to the side. “And good on her. If she keeps this up, she’s going to make a heck of a name for herself.”
“She’s making something,” I agree.
A yelp comes from our right, and we look to see Carlotta and Georgie dipping their fingers into the tub of hot wax while they dance around in what looks to be pain.
Mom unplugs the crock pot. “I think we need to let it cool.”
A pink ghostly aura trots back this way, and soon Bingo is standing before me. I casually rub my wrist against Bizzy’s so she can hear anything Bingo has to say, too.
“Lottie!” Bingo gives an adorable snort. “There’s an emergency!” A few more snorts escape her. “There’s not a crumb of flag cake left in the kitchen! There’s bound to be a riot. You must do something.”
Bizzy bites down on a smile as I nod to the hungry hog.
“I’ll get right to it.”
Jessie blinks my way. “What’s that?”
“I’ll get right to supporting my mother.” I expand a tight smile. “So you run a PR company, right?” I ask as I look her way.
Jessie shakes her head as she puts my mother’s camera down on a nearby table.
“No, actually, I’m really just a volunteer. I’m a bit author-obsessed. I’ve put together a few signings for them, and make sure things run smoothly. Ever since the whole indie movement, authors have been determined to make themselves a lot more accessible. It’s been wonderful for people like me who just love to interact with authors and other readers alike. I’ve met the greatest friends through all this. And to think it all came from my love of reading.”
“Oh, that’s great.” Bizzy turns her ear toward Jessie. “So what do you really do for a living?”
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