Page 43

I pull out my phone and check the Boo Crew schedule. “Gertie’s doing a panel called ‘Murder in the Boardroom: Corporate Crime for Cozy Writers’ tomorrow morning in Wild Adventures Hollow.”

“Perfect,” Georgie says, cracking her knuckles. “Nothing like confronting an embezzler in the jungle.”

Ree looks between us. “Are we sure about this? Maybe we should just let Dexter handle it.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Georgie asks. “Besides, Josie’s wearing protection.” She reaches over and gives Henrietta an encouraging pat. “The doll stays on until the killer’s in handcuffs, toots. Savvy’s orders.”

Just great. I’m going to interrogate a possible murderer in a fake jungle while wearing a haunted toy that has apparently already named her prime suspect.

I have to agree with Georgie, though. Where’s the fun in sitting this out? Even if Gertie Gloomwood really did help herself to seventy-five grand of somebody else’s money, and Belladonna was dangling that secret over her head like a guillotine on a fraying rope, confronting her might be more dangerous than fun.

But that’s never stopped me before.

Turns out, when you’re investigating murder at a cozy mystery convention, the biggest mystery isn’t who did it—it’s which secret was worth killing for.

CHAPTER 12

The last thing I want after a day of interrogating murder suspects is to attend the Country Cottage Inn’s Fright Night Spooktacular Annual Halloween Festival.

It’s a big to-do. All of Cider Cove seems to have shown up, cramming into the empty lot next to the inn for fake spider webs, bobbing for apples, and whatever pumpkin-themed chaos Bizzy’s cooked up this year. Half the town is up there right now. The other half is presumably at home, alibi-free.

Which is exactly why I’m heading straight to the beach in front of the inn with a hot apple cider and zero interest in any of it. I’ve hit my daily quota of screaming, and it’s not even from the haunted maze.

I’ve brought Fish and Chip, who are currently debating the merits of sand versus carpet as a suitable lounging surface, and a desperate need for normal human conversation that doesn’t involve blackmail, embezzlement, or creative murder methods.

Sand gets everywhere, Fish notes. Carpet has the decency to stay put.

Sand is a snack and a bed, Chip counters. Carpet is just a bed.

Henrietta’s doll head bounces against my chest as I trudge through the sand, her eyes catching the moonlight in a way that’s both creepy and oddly comforting.

Savvy insisted I keep wearing her for protection, and at this point, I’m not arguing with any potential supernatural intervention. When you’ve found as many bodies as I have, you take your talismans where you can get them, even if they come with a plastic pageboy haircut and a thousand-yard stare.

The beach behind the Country Cottage Inn is quiet this time of night as the Atlantic rolls in with all of its usual drama. The moon hangs fat and orange over the water like someone stuck a giant pumpkin in the sky, and the air smells like salt and autumn and that rare brand of peace you can only find a few solid miles away from cozy mystery authors with dark secrets.

I spot Bizzy sitting on a driftwood log near the water’s edge, wrapped in a chunky knit cardigan and cradling a mug of something steaming in her hands. Bizzy Baker Wilder, Ree’s daughter and one of my closest friends, with her dark hair, denim blue eyes, and a seventy-five-room mansion of an inn she inherited from some ridiculously rich earl way back when.

She can also read minds. While I’m limited to the internal musings of animals, Bizzy gets to listen in on people’s gray matter, too, and believe me, I’m not envious. As it happens, we’re both something called transmundane, further classified as telesensual. There are other supernatural anomalies under the transmundane umbrella, like seeing the dead and peeking into tomorrow, and for those reasons alone, I think Bizzy and I got off light.

Sherlock Bones sprawls beside her, looking pretty pleased with himself for reasons known only to dogs and possibly squirrels. Sherlock is Bizzy’s red-and-white freckled mutt with long pointed ears and a perpetual look of wonder on his sweet face. He likes treats almost as much as Chippy. Almost.

“Room for one more disaster?” I call out as I close the distance.

Bizzy looks up and screams. It’s a short, sharp sound that sends Sherlock scrambling to his feet and takes a solid year off the back end of my life.

I wasn’t startled, Sherlock woofs, circling back to the log. I was securing the perimeter.

Bizzy squints my way. “What in the name of—is that a decapitated doll head around your neck?”

I press a hand to my chest, right above Henrietta, and wait for my heart to climb down out of my throat. Getting screamed at by one of my best friends wasn’t on tonight’s relaxation agenda, but honestly, seeing as this is me, it seems about right.

“This is Henrietta,” I say, flicking the necklace. “I’m wearing her for protection.”

“Protection from what?” Bizzy blinks back, looking equally alarmed and amused. “Good taste? Basic human decency? The ability to sleep at night without nightmares?”

“Evil spirits, actually. Savvy says she wards them off.”

Bizzy stares at Henrietta, who chooses that exact moment to give a quick blink—one eye at a time. “Oh my word, it just moved.”