“Mackenzie, I have a baby,” I say, and I can’t help but laugh because the absurdity of her expecting me to operate on her schedule is almost charming in its delusion.
“Babies sleep.”
“Have you met Ella?” I nod to the baby in question who laughs and happily claps her hands like I just told the best joke ever.
And I may have.
“Babies also eat, and cry, and require an alarming number of outfit changes,” I’m quick to inform her—and maybe Ella, too.
Emmie sweeps in from the direction of the café, carrying a tray of the most gorgeous cookie bars I’ve ever seen. They’re layered like the flag—red velvet on the bottom, cream cheese frosting in the middle, and a blue sugar cookie top, all cut into perfect squares and decorated with tiny fondant stars. The tray itself is wrapped in blue gingham, and the whole presentation screams summer party perfection.
“Stars and stripes dream bars,” she announces, setting them on the refreshment table near the entrance. “Made fresh this morning.”
“Oh wow, those look incredible,” I say, hardly able to look away. Emmie has been hypnotizing me with her sweet treats for as long as I can remember. I, on the other hand, have been traumatizing her with mine. Which partially explains why I don’t bother going near a kitchen. If I had my way, I’d turn my kitchen into a library.
“Those look like three thousand calories,” Mackenzie counters, eyeing the tray with a suspicion usually reserved for explosives.
“That’s the dream part,” Emmie says sweetly. Too sweetly. She’s doing that thing where she smiles but her eyes promise violence. “Would you like one, Mackenzie? Or are you still on that cleanse where you only consume your own bitter thoughts?”
I press my lips together to keep from laughing. There’s a special kind of hostility that only exists between women who were once best friends, and watching Emmie and Mackenzie navigate it is like watchinga tennis match played with grenades. Usually, we’re much more civil to each other. Or at least Emmie and I are much more civil to Mack, but well, I may have sent a flurry of texts to Em last night venting about the fact Mackenzie more or less held me hostage at my very own inn.
The three of us used to be inseparable—Emmie, Mack, and me. We had sleepovers and inside jokes and matching friendship bracelets that we wore until they literally fell apart. But somewhere around freshman year, Mackenzie decided being mean was more interesting than being kind, and the friendship fractured like glass.
The bobbing-for-apples incident didn’t help either. It was Halloween, and I was thirteen years old. And, well, Mackenzie held me underwater until I saw stars. I should have drowned. Instead, I came up gasping and very, very different.
It turns out, I’m something called transmundane, further classified as telesensual, which is a fancy way of saying I can pry into most people’s gray matter and hear what they’re thinking. Animals, too. It’s been a gift and a curse, though right now, with Mackenzie’s thoughts screaming at me about how she’s going to make me regret ever existing, it’s leaning heavily toward a curse.
Oddly enough, Emmie’s husband Leo shares my supernatural quirk, which made for some interesting conversations when they first started dating.
“You, Bizzy Baker, are going to help me clear my good name,” Mackenzie says, and it’s not a request.
“Am I?”
“Yes. You are.”
She’s very bossy for someone who just pulled a knife out of a corpse,Fish notes.
I’d like to point out that we’re all very uncomfortable with this level of aggressive energy,Biscuit Gravy adds.Also, are there more snacks? Because aggressive energy makes me hungry.
Huxley appears in the doorway, all legal eagle polish and expensive cologne, his wool suit somehow immune to the heat that’s making everyone else wilt. His smile is pure sunshine, and it’s the kind that used to get him out of trouble when we were kids and still works now that we’re adults.
“There’s my lovely wife,” he says, moving toward Mackenzie. And I marvel at the fact there was zero sarcasm in his voice when he said those words. “How about I clear your name?” he asks.
She turns to him, and for a second, her expression softens. Then she remembers she’s Mackenzie Maniacal Woods and the steel slides back into place.
“You’re my counsel. I need an actual detective to hunt down the real killer and clear my name—our good family name.”
“And that’s why Jasper is on the case,” Huxley reminds her, shooting me an apologetic look. It’s rare that he apologizes for anything Mackenzie does, but when it happens it sets off all sorts of red flags. This is obviously worse than it looks.
“There’s a reason Jasper is the lead homicide detective in Seaview County,” I add, hoping Mackenzie doesn’t get any funny ideas about including me either.
“You mean Detective Wilder?” Mackenzie snorts. “I said I need a real detective. You and I are solving this case, Bizzy Baker.” She crosses her arms. “There’s a meet-up with the inner circle today. Be at the Seaview Marina at three. No kids or pets allowed.” She shoots a dirty lookto the tiny offenders among us.
I swear Fish, Sherlock, and Biscuit Gravy all give an audible gasp.
The AUDACITY,Fish meows indignantly.
Ella just laughs. And something tells me, she’s going to have to keep her sense of humor intact if she’s going to deal with her aunt for a lifetime.
