“What did Heather say that was so offensive?” I asked.

  Paris sighed. “She was joking, but she said she was going to send Amelia to some European boarding school.”

  Amelia?

  “It’s not like Heather would even have that kind of power,” Paris continued with a scoff. “She would be her stepdaughter. I don’t think she’d even have any parental powers.”

  “I see,” I said, jotting the name down on a Post-It note. “And things were already a little frosty between Diane and Heather, from my understanding.”

  Paris barked out a laugh. “That’s one way of putting it.”

  “What can you tell me about Kurt, Heather’s ex-fiancé? Did he know about the wedding?”

  “Didn’t you already interview him? It should all be there in some report,” Paris said, a hint of irritation seeping into her tone.

  “Right. Of course.” I licked my lips. I couldn’t keep up the ruse for too much longer. “Um, just one more question, if you don’t mind. Have you thought of anything over the last couple of years, maybe something you wished you’d said or remembered at the time?”

  Paris went quiet for a long moment. “Nothing that would be helpful,” she answered quietly. “Mostly, I just miss her a lot. We were like sisters. She’d actually say that, you know. She’d call me her sister. Of course, that’s mostly because her actual sister was such a piece of trash.”

  I straightened. Heather had a sister? Why hadn’t she mentioned her? Or the stepdaughter? Or her own ex-fiancé? There were so many holes in the story that I couldn’t chalk it up to post-death memory lapses. Heather was deliberately holding major pieces of the puzzle back. The question was why?

  “Was there anything else? I really should be getting back to work,” Paris asked.

  “No, no. Thank you for your time. We’ll be in touch if there are any breaks in the case.”

  “Thank you,” she said and then hung up.

  I drew in a deep breath and set the phone down. The call left me with more questions than answers, none of which I was going to be able to pursue without speaking with Heather first.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I got caught up with the security system installation and forgot about the deal I’d made with Flapjack until after I’d said goodbye to Lizzie and closed the store down for the day. When I went looking for the cat, he was nowhere to be found.

  “You lose an earring or something?” Lucas asked.

  I jolted and spun around. “Jeez, you scared me!”

  “System is all up and running. Do you have time to go over the software part?” he asked.

  “Umm, sure, just give me two minutes,” I said before turning back to peek inside one of Flapjack’s favorite baskets. Even in death, cats couldn’t resist a good basket or cardboard box. “I lost track of Flapjack.”

  “Doesn’t he kind of come and go?” Lucas asked.

  “He does.” I stooped to check under the table. Still no sign of him. I straightened and blew out a puff of air. “All right, tell you what,” I said, “I’ll run over to Thistle and pick something up for dinner, and when I get back, you can show me the security system.”

  Lucas shrugged. “Works for me. I think I’ll grab a shower.”

  I grabbed my coat and keys and headed out the front door of the shop while Lucas headed upstairs to my apartment. The front door beeped when I opened and closed it, a new feature I’d have to get used to. At least until I tracked down my vandal and then turned off the system.

  Thistle was Beechwood Harbor’s miniature version of Whole Foods. It was the only local market in the small town and carried mostly natural products with a heavy emphasis on locally sourced items. They had a small soup and sandwich bar and a hot food bar with a few rotating entree selections. It used to have a coffee shack but their coffee was on par with the stuff you’d find in a convenience store, so most people bypassed it in favor of Siren’s Song.

  I picked up a basket at the front door and hurried through the store, grabbing a loaf of fresh-baked bread, a large container of homemade tomato soup, and a premade salad kit, and then circled back to the canned goods aisle to make sure I had Flapjack’s payment, in case he’d followed through and gone to fetch Heather for me.

  When I got back to the apartment, Lucas was still in the bathroom. I called out a greeting and went to drop the paper bag on the kitchen counter.

  “He’s been in there forever,” a voice commented from the living room.

  I glanced up as Flapjack launched himself from the top of the bookcase down to the back of the couch. He landed without impact and floated over the edge and into the kitchen. In life, he hadn’t been allowed on kitchen counters, but as a ghost, he got away with it.

  “Where’s Heather?” I asked him.

  “Where are my sardines?”

  “Ugh.” I rolled my eyes and unpacked the paper bag. I pulled out the can of sardines—the smallest one I could find—and placed it on the counter in between his two ghostly paws. “There. Now, where’s Heather?”

  He eyed the can. “Are you going to open it?”

  “Flapjack!”

  He scoffed. “I went to the church to talk to her, but she didn’t want to come back with me.”

  I planted one hand on my hip. “Why not?”

  Flapjack dropped a meaningful glance down at the still-unopened can.

  I groaned and jerked open a nearby drawer. “These are going outside, and they have a twenty-four-hour expiration period. Got it?”

  “Thirty-six,” he countered.

  I snapped the can opener blade into place and started cranking the handle. “Do you really think you’re in the position to barter with me right now? You didn’t even get Heather here. I have questions I need to ask her.”

  “That’s not my fault. It’s not like I could force her,” Flapjack replied calmly, his eyes not leaving the can.

  I popped the top and pitched the lid into the sink.

  Flapjack’s eyes fluttered closed and he inhaled deeply. “Ahh.”

  I tried not to gag. “Outside.”

  My apartment had an external staircase with a small landing at the top. I pushed open the door and set the can out on the railing. “There. Enjoy.”

  Flapjack floated past, his expression still dreamlike. “She said she’d come tomorrow,” he said on his way out.

  I sighed. “Why didn’t you lead with that?”

  Flapjack didn’t reply. I stood in the open doorway for a moment, watching him swirl through and around the can of sardines. It was only a matter of time before the neighborhood strays would happen upon the feast. Flapjack would be lucky if he got a full day of enjoyment out of the oily treat.

  “Are you hot?” Lucas asked from over my shoulder.

  I closed the front door and clicked the deadbolt into place. “No. I was putting fish out for Flapjack.”

  “Aha.” Lucas nodded but I think he still found the whole “my ghost cat likes to swim in dead fish because it smells good to him” thing a little strange.

  Not that I could blame him. It was strange to me even twenty-something years into the relationship.

  “I got soup and salad and stuff to make garlic toast,” I told Lucas, crossing through the apartment. “Give me fifteen minutes to bake the toast and we’re good to go.”

  “Sounds good.” He sank onto the couch and grabbed the remote off the coffee table. “You mind if I watch the game for a little while?”

  I pulled a baking sheet out from the drawer under the oven. “Nope. Go for it.”

  Moments later, the sound of cheering fans and sportscasters filled the room. “Oh, by the way, someone stopped by to see you. Claudia?”

  My hands stilled. “Claudia came here? To my apartment?”

  “Yeah.” Lucas craned around to look at me. “Is that bad?”

  “She’s that ghost whisperer, or hunter, I guess she calls herself.”

  “Oh! That’s why it sounded familiar. She just said she was a friend of yours.”

  I frowned. “Well, she lied. I spent maybe two minutes with her the other night. What could she possibly want from me?”

  “Didn’t you say she was writing a book? Maybe she wants to interview you for it?”

  I buttered the bread and sprinkled herbs and pre-minced garlic on top. “Well, she’s barking up the wrong tree.”

  Gwen and Hayward swooped through the front door just as I put the tray of bread into the oven and set the timer. Gwen wiggled her fingers at an oblivious Lucas.

  “Where have you two been all day?” I asked.

  Lucas turned but quickly connected the dots and went back to watching his basketball game.

  “We’ve been out window shopping in Pine Shoals,” Gwen replied, giving Hayward a dreamy smile. “We were talking about what kind of Christmas decorations we would put up if we had our own house. Then we went ice skating at their outdoor rink.”

  I was about to ask how pretending to ice skate was really any different than the normal gliding around ghosts did to get from place to place, but I decided against it.

  Flapjack charged through the door and made a beeline for the kitchen just as Gwen and Hayward sat down at the table. “There was another broken flowerpot this morning,” he said, glaring at the lovebirds. “Where were you two?”

  Gwen and Hayward both looked to me. “Is that true, Lady Scarlet?” Hayward asked.

  “No, it’s a lie. I made the whole thing up just so I could have an excuse to come in here and talk to you,” Flapjack groused.

  “Yes,” I told Hayward, “there was another one this morning. Who was on night patrol last night?”

  Gwen and Hayward exchanged a sheepish look.

  Hayward reached out and took Gwen’s hand. “It was my fault, Lady Scarlet. We abandoned our post early so we could watch the sunrise from the bluff over the harbor.”

  Flapjack smashed a paw into his face. “Worthless,” he mumbled into his fur.

  Hayward shot the cat a seething look.

  “Who’s in charge tonight?” I asked quickly, before the two ghosts could kick their bickering into high gear.

  “Margarita and Sturgeon,” Gwen answered.

  I frowned. “Shoot.”

  “What’s wrong, Lady Scarlet?” Hayward asked.

  “I was hoping to talk Sturgeon into running an errand for me tonight,” I told him. “You too, Flapjack.”

  The cat cocked his head. “Another one?”

  I fished into the bottom of the grocery sack and came up with two value-sized packs of tuna fish. I held them before Flapjack, smiling as his silver eyes widened. He followed the cans like they’d put him in a trance. “I bought a little extra treat for you, but it comes with some strings attached,” I told him.

  “Yeah, yeah, sure, I’ll be nicer to Hayward,” he said.

  “Well, that would be nice, too,” I said, smiling. “But actually, what I need you to do is go with Sturgeon to the police office near the Rosewood and go through their notes and the evidence associated with Heather’s murder. I need to know who they interviewed, who they ruled out as suspects—and why.”

  “I can trade places with Sturgeon tonight,” Gwen said. “To make up for last night.”

  I extended the can of tuna. “What do you say, Flapjack? Will you go with Sturgeon?”

  He nodded. “Deal!”

  Even with all the years of experience I had working with and around the spirit world, I still wasn’t quite sure how most of it worked. It seemed like every time I zeroed in on a possible explanation, a situation would arise and present an anomaly that blew my theory to smithereens. I’d largely given up on trying to make sense of certain things and just tried to use them to my advantage. For whatever reason, certain ghosts possessed specific powers, and within that scope of power there was a range of skill. Most ghosts I knew couldn’t even blow a feather across a tabletop. Then there were others who could pick up an entire chicken with no problem. Sturgeon was a weathered army sergeant and had seemingly carried his fortitude and toughness into his afterlife. He had the ability to move small, mostly lightweight objects. If he really concentrated, he could move heavier items, but it was taxing on him. Folders and files and even most evidence boxes were usually no problem, making him the perfect spy.

  All I could do was hope his magic worked again tonight.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Flapjack talked Sturgeon into accompanying him on the mission and the pair planned to leave from Lily Pond at midnight. The station would be less busy that time of the day—not a lot happened in a small town so late at night. A skeleton crew would be there holding down the fort and not likely to need access to the evidence room. Heather’s murder investigation would have long ago been boxed up and shelved with the other cold cases, left to collect dust for years, maybe decades.

  Lucas and I were dozing on the couch when Flapjack came into the room and announced it was time to leave. After his harrowing trek to the Rosewood Chapel earlier in the day, he insisted he wasn’t going anywhere ever again without a proper chauffer.

  Yeah, that was my life. An unpaid Uber driver for a dead cat.

  It was better if I didn’t think about it too long.

  I shook Lucas’s shoulder. “Hey, I’m taking off. See you in the morning?”

  He stirred awake and blinked a few times. “Where are you going?”

  “I told you, Sturgeon and Flapjack are going to the police station to look over the files on Heather’s murder.”

  To be fair, he’d already been nodding off when I’d relayed the plan.

  “I’ll go with you,” he said, dropping his legs off the side of the couch.

  “I promise, it’s going to be boring,” I told him. “I’m literally going to be sitting in the van, trying not to freeze my butt off while they go poke around.”

  Lucas paused midway through putting one sneaker on. “Sturgeon can carry things, right?”

  “Yeah, but don’t worry, he’s not going to take evidence out of the station. He’ll look it over with Flapjack and they’ll relay everything to me afterward. The cops won’t even know I’m there.”

  “No, no, that’s not what I was worried about,” he said. He put on the shoe and then the other and stood. “What if we could see what they’re seeing? Four sets of eyes will make the whole thing quicker, won’t they?”

  I perched on the edge of the couch and frowned at him. “I guess so. What did you have in mind?”

  Lucas dug in the messenger bag he used for a laptop case and came up with a small device that was about the size of a button. “Can Sturgeon carry this?”

  I nodded. “I think so.”

  “It’s audio and visual,” Lucas explained, pressing the small button into my hand. “With this, he can point the lens at whatever they’re looking at and we can watch from a monitor in the back of the van.”

  “Really? Oooh, I feel like an FBI agent or something!”

  Flapjack scoffed. “Yeah, you’ll be about as effective as Sandra Bullock in that beauty pageant movie.”

  “Hey!” I pointed at him. “She was a crappy beauty queen, but an excellent FBI agent. She saved all of those women!”

  Flapjack rolled his eyes. “You do realize it’s just a movie?”

  “Yeah? Well, so is Finding Nemo, so if you could avoid drooling every time you see it, that’d be great.”

  Lucas gave me a bewildered look and I smiled. “Sorry. Want me to translate?”

  He slowly shook his head. “No. No, I think I’m better off staying out of it.”

  I laughed and slipped the tiny camera into the pocket of my black sweatpants. “Let’s go downstairs. Sturgeon will be waiting for us.”

  Sure enough, Sturgeon, Gwen, and Hayward were all downstairs in the front of the flower shop. I hadn’t told any of them about the newly installed security system. Something in my gut told me that one of them knew more than they were letting on and I didn’t want to tip my hand. At least, not yet.

  “Good evening, Lady Scarlet!” Hayward said, jumping to attention when I stepped into the soft moonlight streaming in through the windows.

  “Hello, everyone. Are we all set?”

  Sturgeon nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Thanks for helping us, Sturgeon. I really appreciate it. I’m compensating Flapjack with fish. Is there anything you need or want that I could help with? I feel bad always asking but never giving anything in return.”

  Sturgeon waved me off. “Not necessary. A thank you is more than enough. After all, what else am I going to do tonight? You can only watch so much SportsCenter and M*A*S*H reruns, you know?”

  I smiled. “I can imagine.”

  Sturgeon looked at Lucas. “He still can’t hear any of this, can he?”

  I shook my head. “No. But he did give us this.” I pulled the button from my pocket and held it out. “Do you think you could carry it with you? We’ll be able to communicate back and forth and see whatever you point it at. Might make things a little faster.”

  Sturgeon reached out and pinched the tiny camera. He eyed it for a moment and then nodded. “Easy enough. Which way do I point the thing?”

  I leaned over and showed him the side that had a logo etched on it. “That’s the back.”

  “Got it. We’ll have to wait for someone to open a door. I won’t be able to take this through the wall.”

  “Oh, shoot. I didn’t think about that.”

  Lucas looked at me expectantly.

  “He can’t go through walls with the camera,” I explained. “One of us can go and open the front door. Do you think you’d be able to get into the evidence room with it?”

  Sturgeon shrugged. “Only one way to find out, ma’am.”

  “Fair enough.” I pulled the delivery van’s keys from the basket under the register and jingled them. “Let’s ride!”

  The Pine Shoals police department was the one assigned to Heather’s murder. We’d worked with—or, rather, around—them in the past, and it didn’t take Sturgeon and Flapjack long to locate the storage closet with all the documents. Sturgeon hit the lights and the picture came into view on Lucas’s laptop screen. My delivery van wasn’t exactly on par with the vans shown in FBI movies or TV shows. I didn’t have comfy chairs and six screens rigged up with speakers. Heck, I didn’t even have decent snacks. Lucas had the laptop propped on the dash and a small microphone clipped to the air freshener tree dangling from my rear-view mirror.

 

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