Speaking of the dead, a trio of ghosts materializes before me, and their little cat, too. It’s Greer Giles, her boyfriend Winslow, their adopted daughter Lea, who’s about six and as creepy as they come with that machete swinging from her wrist, and their sweet cat Thirteen. All of them met some unfortunate fate, and all of them have been happily haunting my mother’s B&B ever since.
“Do something, Lottie,” Greer snips. Greer is a pretty brunette who was killed a few years back with a gunshot to the heart on Valentine’s Day. Last year, Winslow threw her a party to celebrate her very first death day. She’s still wearing the same white ruched gown she had on that fated night, and that red stain still sits on her chest like a necrotic rose. “Cormack and Cressida have turned this B&B into a shell of its former self. It’s garish and ghastly, and if their bad sense of style and poor decision-making skills keep up, we won’t be able to stick around for long.”
“It’s true, Lottie.” Winslow Decker, her two-hundred-year-old boy toy, nods. “It’s a budding bordello. I’ve never seen so much pink in my life. I say we place a moratorium on the acrid hue, for another year at least.”
“I rather like it,” Little Lea snips. Lea is forever six, has long stringy hair combed over her face, wears a dirty pinafore and scuffed Mary Janes, and has vowed vengeance over those who have slaughtered her family. She’s a spirited spirit who isn’t afraid to use that sharpened weapon in her hand.
Thirteen hops up and sits on top of my belly, and lucky for me, I can’t feel a thing. His black fur gleams and sparkles under the duress of the chandeliers up above. And as his mouth opens, tiny little stars spray from it.
“Don’t worry about a thing, Lottie,” he mewls. “We’ll do our best to frighten those women right off the property.”
“I’m not sure it will do any good,” I whisper his way. “They happen to own the property.”
His furry little head twitches. “Once we’re through with them, they won’t even ask for a refund.”
Here’s hoping.
Both Thirteen and Lea look sharply to their left.
“A mini bear!” Lea shouts.
“A koala,” Thirteen corrects.
“I can’t wait to chop him to bits.” Lea stalks off with her weaponry poised to do just that.
“I’d best warn the creature.” Thirteen sighs as he scampers off after her.
Greer sucks in a quick breath. “Do you know what this means? Oh, great news! There’s going to be a murder. This is perfect.”
Winslow nods. “I’m ashamed to agree. Death is never good PR, and all week Cressida and Cormack have been hounding your mother regarding good PR. The best we can do is cheer the Grim Reaper on while he hunts down one of the blonde biddies.”
“We can’t cheer anyone’s death,” I say as Verity stalks back into the room. “Not even Cormack’s or Cressida’s.”
“Let’s get this party started!” Verity whoops as the music dies down and a hot pink spotlight falls over her, as the rest of the room grows dim.
Bambi Bailey steps in close to her with a plate full of raspberry tarts and Verity snatches one from her.
“Don’t you dare try to step on my harmony,” Verity snips.
“Step on her harmony?” Winslow shakes his head and Greer nods his way.
“It’s probably some new slang way of saying she’s imposing on her spotlight,” she tells him.
I’m guessing Greer is right.
Verity chomps down half the raspberry treat as a crowd begins to gather around the two of them and the din of voices grows quiet as if they were expecting to be entertained, and I’m betting they will be. The tension between those two women is palpable.
Verity pumps a fist into the air. “Welcome one and all to the Love Your Selfie Soiree!” she bellows the words out as the room breaks out into cheers.
A couple of blondes trot her way, breaking their way through the crowd, and I can’t help but frown over at them. It’s Cressida and Cormack, the blonde ditzes themselves.
“It’s the Love Your Selfie fest!” Cormack steps forward as she addresses the crowd. “And don’t forget to tag the Rendezvous Luxury Resort in all of your social media posts! We have the exclusive Razzle Dazzle Day Spa, which features ionic footbaths, seaweed wraps, hot cupping, mud baths, and an espresso bar that stars a male barista we flew in from Italy that also happens to be modeling the latest in Italian silk boxers!”
The crowd breaks out into titters of approval.
“Good grief.” Winslow sighs. “Let’s hope he’s not serving coffee in his skivvies.”
“Oh, he is.” Greer nods as if she were sure it was a fact.
The man in an ill-fitting suit, the same one I saw arguing with Verity when I walked into the room, makes his way to the front. He has dark hair, a wide forehead, an elongated face in general, and his body looks stiff with muscles.
“Let’s get this show on the road,” he bellows and Verity snorts.
“I never thought I’d agree with you on anything, honey,” she spits the words out and the crowd gives a little laugh. “Now, who is ready for the pearls of marketing wisdom I’m about to toss before swine?” She looks directly at Sugar when she makes the cloven-hooved jab.
The room breaks out into raucous cheers once again, and I spot Evie snapping a thousand pictures as she stands with her friends, her blonde bestie, Dash, and the two boys that Evie was dating in tandem up until last month, Conner and Kyle. But now Evie has settled on Conner, while Dash has scooped up Kyle. It’s a happy ending for all—although I hope not all that happy. At least nothing that would make a teenage boy all that happy.
The feisty redhead, Bambi Bailey, waves to the crowd. “And right after, I’ll be signing my tell-all, Bambi Tells It Like It Is! It’s chock-full of celebrity secrets and only the choicest gossip of you know who.” She points over to Verity, and the room breaks out into a riot of cheers and laughter.
“Enough!” Verity shouts. “This is my night—my party. I’m the one making a big announcement. How dare you step on my limelight. None of you are to buy this ridiculous book, you hear me?” she growls at the crowd and a hush falls over the room. “I’m getting a restraining order,” she bites the words out at Bambi before manufacturing a smile for the crowd. “Ladies, since we’re all here to celebrate me this evening, I have an announcement to make.” She holds up a raspberry tart. “Tonight, just for all of you right here, I’m debuting my exclusive new single. As you well know, I dabble in music now and again.”
“And you’re bad at it, too,” the man in the ill-fitting suit shouts and a gasp circles the room.
“Oh, Chad.” Verity looks fit to kill before bearing her fangs back at the women before her. “Ignore him, I do.” She holds up the tart. “In just a moment, you’ll all get to hear my new single, ‘Raspberry Dream’, live for the very first time!”
The room breaks out into a wild applause as my mother quickly hands Verity a cordless microphone.
“Protect your ears,” Chad, the man in the ill-fitting suit, shouts. “She’s liable to blow out your eardrums.”
Verity grunts over at him, “I won’t have your bad energy here. Get out of this room, and get out of my life. You’re a bore.”
“And you’re a whore,” he shoots back, and the room is right back to gasping. “You’re nothing but a cheap floozy.”
Verity sniffs before pushing the microphone to her lips, her left hand holding up the raspberry tart as music begins to seep through the speakers once again.
She begins to hum along and bob her head before leaning into the mic. “When you walked in…” she sings weakly before coughing and sputtering.
“Ha!” Chad barks. “And there you have it. The great song you’ll all pay ten bucks to download on your phones in the next hour. You’re nothing but a bunch of sheeple,” he bellows to the crowd.
Verity makes an awful groaning sound into the mic before clearing her throat.
“When you walked in…” Her voice comes out far m
ore strangled than before. “Raspberry…” She drops the mic and clutches at her throat, my raspberry tart still firmly in her hand as she begins to writhe and spin.
The room gurgles with whispers of concern just as Verity Prescott falls to the floor in a heap.
Mom jumps over and quickly checks the woman’s pulse before looking my way and shaking her head.
It looks as if the world will never hear Verity Prescott’s debut single.
Verity Prescott is dead.
Lottie
“Lottie!” a familiar deep voice shouts as Noah makes his way over to me as fast as he can. And on his heels is Detective Ivy Fairbanks waving her badge.
“Ashford Sheriff’s Department,” she calls out. “Back away from the body. There’s an ambulance on its way.”
Both Noah and Ivy quickly check Verity’s vitals before rising to their feet and shooting a suspicious look to the crowd.
“Lottie.” Noah pulls me in close. “Are you okay? What the hell happened? Did she choke?”
Ivy scoffs. “Please, Noah. That woman is holding one of Lottie’s cookies. It’s clear she’s been offed in some less than celebrated manner.” The feisty redhead glowers at me. “I am not amused, Lottie Lemon. And just to be clear, this is my investigation. And I expect you both to stay out of my way.” She stalks off just as a medical team bursts into the room, along with a bevy of sheriff’s deputies, and the crowd around us begins to hum with nervous chatter.
“Lottie, what happened?” Noah swings us out of the swarm of bodies entering into the vicinity.
“She was about to sing, I think. And the next thing we knew, there was a man heckling her.” I quickly scan the crowd until I come upon the man in the ill-fitting suit. “That’s him.” I point in his direction. “She called him Chad.”
Noah’s dimples dig in as his chest pumps wildly. “Okay, stay put. I’m going to go and talk to him, see if I can get a read on what the hell went on.”
Noah takes off just as Carlotta trots up. “Did you see it, Lot? Did you? Did you?”
I press a finger to my lips in an effort to quell her bizarre level of enthusiasm.
“Yes, I saw the whole thing unfold,” I hiss. “Everyone in the room did.”
“Not that.” She waves off poor Verity with an aggressive flick of the wrist. “The cute cuddly little chestnut that’s floating around like he owns the place. That little supernatural spitfire, Lunatic Lea, chased him right out of the room with her machete. I’m hoping he’ll come back in one piece so I can get some good cuddles in before bedtime. He’s a living, breathing teddy bear.”
“He might be a she,” I’m quick to point out. “But for certain, whatever it is, it isn’t living and breathing. It’s dead, Carlotta. Just like that poor woman lying over there with one of my raspberry tarts in her hand. Why does this keep happening to us?”
“I know, Lot.” She ticks her head to the side. “I often wonder how in the world we got so lucky myself.”
“Lucky?” I practically choke the word out, and the baby gives a kick to my ribs as if he or she were just as incensed as I am.
“Yes, lucky.” Carlotta doubles down on her lunacy. “If it wasn’t for one of your desserts being present in each and every one of these homicide cases, your little bakery would have been flushed down the financial toilet ages ago. The one thing new businesses are good at isn’t making a killing—it’s closing their doors forever. And your little hole-in-the-wall is making a killing the old-fashioned way. The sacrifices of those corpses have given the Cutie Pie life. With each death in Honey Hollow, the Cutie Pie Bakery and Cakery grows stronger and stronger. There’s not a marketing genius on the planet who could have come up with that deadly scheme.” She pats me on the back. “And don’t worry, Lot Lot. I just know your good luck is going to rub off on Foxy and Sexy, too.”
Foxy would be Noah, and Sexy would be Everett.
“Oh, my luck has already very much rubbed off on them,” I assure her with a nod. “You know, after both my house and Everett’s burned down, I was convinced that Hearst curse had fallen on me.”
Ichabod Hearst died back in October, and I was warned from the great beyond by my Grandma Nell not to meddle in that case or else risk Ichabod’s family curse reigning its terror down over me. And well, I meddled, because I apparently don’t have a stitch of common sense. But in my defense, I have an unquenchable thirst for justice that just had to get quenched.
Grandma Nell told me all about the Hearst curse and why the woman who set the curse on that family gave it to them. She was also transmundane and her powers fell under the category of a beguiler, a person who has the ability to charm, as in the ability to charm a whirlwind to come forth, objects to move at will, people to bend to your will, earthquakes, fires, and I’m sure an entire slew of things I’m not that familiar with.
“Anyway, I’m finally ready to admit I’m just plain unlucky. I’m my own walking curse.” I hold my belly as I sniff back tears. “I bet if I left Honey Hollow, it would break this horrible homicide streak we’re having. Thank God it’s just once a month and not once a week. I don’t think my sanity could handle it if the frequency increased.”
“You mean your bakery couldn’t handle it. Way to space ’em out, Lot. I’ll get Lily on the horn and tell her to start ordering more supplies for those tarts of terror. I have a feeling this will be your best seller yet. They look as if they’re smeared with blood.”
I take a moment to glower at her as she speeds off with her phone in hand.
Lily, the woman she’s talking about, is my right-hand gal at the bakery. And it’s true, she does like to be notified right away when one of these carnal catastrophes takes place so she can accommodate the anticipated orders, and sadly it will be a boon for the bakery.
Cormack and Cressida run up, both clad in the same obnoxious hue they dared to color the floor in.
“Do something, Lisa,” Cormack growls.
Fun fact: for as long as I can remember, neither of these nitwits has cared to get my name straight.
Cressida leans in with her pale eyes squinted over at me. Both women are blonde, petite, tall, and far too wealthy for their own obnoxious britches.
“You did this, didn’t you?” Cressida snips. “You did this just to spite us because you can’t stand the fact your mother handed over the reins to this dump to a couple of competent businesswomen and not you.”
My mouth falls open and I gag on a river of words I can’t seem to get out.
“You stole this place from my mother,” I seethe. I choose to leave out the fact I’m a competent businesswoman myself. “And I’m here to buy it back. Name your price, I’ll make sure you get it.” When Grandma Nell passed away, she left me half of Honey Hollow and then some. I have plenty of money to throw at these two nitwits. And believe me, I’d love to wrap that money around a brick as I toss it at them.
Cormack pushes Cressida back. “It’s not for sale.” She flashes a greedy grin my way. “This is our baby now. And your mother works for us.”
“As do I,” a rather deep female voice chirps as Suze Fox, Noah’s peach of a mother, steps up between Cormack and Cressida.
She has donned some sort of a pink frock, too, and that sinister smile on her face lets me know she’s very much on their side. Suze is a large-boned woman with short vanilla-colored hair that swoops across her eyes in the front.
Back in December, I discovered that Suze might be transmundane. However, she doesn’t seem to be supersensual like me. Instead, I think she might be the aforementioned beguiler with the supernatural ability to charm. Not that Suze has any charm. Regardless, the beguiler’s charm has more to do with charming objects and forces of nature to work in his or her favor. I really don’t know much about it, though. Suze won’t admit to anything.
Suffice it to say, she doesn’t care for me too much in general.
I spot Noah glancing this way before leaving the man in the ill-fitting suit and making a beeline my way.
Th
e man in the suit, Chad, has his hands deep in his pockets as he looks over at Verity’s body with tears swelling in his eyes. Interesting how he’s gone from heckler to mourner all in a single bound. But I can’t judge him. I’ve been angry with people before, too. Although I’ve never been that big of a jerk. At least I hope I haven’t.
Noah nods to his mother and the two blonde nitwits.
“What did I miss?” His words come out rough as he wraps an arm around what’s left of my waist.
Suze gives a quick sniff. “I think you’re missing the point of all these lessons the universe is trying to show you, son. This woman has been nothing but a lemon indeed in your life. She’s burned her life to the ground, and that of poor Essex’s. And don’t get me started on the killing spree you’ve allowed her to carry on with. But now that she’s cost you your job at the force, I’m sure she’ll be behind bars soon enough herself.” She narrows her eyes on me. “Your homicidal free ride is over, Lottie. Once you have that baby, I’m sure the proper father won’t mind raising it on his own. That is, if he isn’t doing time right along with you.”
“Enough, Mother.” Noah pulls me in close. “I won’t have you disparaging Lottie that way. In fact, if any of you have something demeaning to say to her, I’m warning you now to stay away or you’ll have to deal with me.” He looks to Cormack and Cressida. “And her name is Lottie. Get it straight.”
Both Cormack and Cressida choke and sputter—mostly Cormack because she’s got the hots for Noah something fierce, and I truly can’t blame her. Cressida is still pining for Everett, and Lord knows I can’t blame her either.
Noah whisks me away a few steps as we observe the room together. Those two women I saw earlier having heated conversations with Verity are standing together, whispering between themselves, the blonde, Sugar, and the plain brunette with the red wool sweater and matching mittens. And just beyond them I see Bambi Bailey weeping and gnashing her teeth and all the while taking pictures of herself with the body positioned behind her.
Murder in the Mix Boxed Set 28-30: Cozy Mystery Page 49