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LOTTIE
My name is Lottie Lemon, and I see dead people. Okay, so rarely do I see dead people. Mostly I see furry creatures of the dearly departed variety who have come back from the other side to warn me of their previous owner’s impending doom. But the only thing I’m seeing now is a zombie staggering through my bakery.
“Carlotta, what is the matter with you now?” I ask a bit terse. But seeing that it’s Carlotta who I’m questioning, being terse with her is pretty much akin to being kind.
Carlotta is my biological mother, thus the reason she’s my doppelgänger, same caramel-colored hair, same hazel eyes—albeit she has more wrinkles and gray hairs, but for the record, I’m quickly catching up.
Her pale pink dress is covered with food stains—or more to the point, my pale pink dress is covered with food stains. Since she lives with me, she’s made it a habit to heavily borrow—aka steal—from my closet.
Her hair is frazzled, she can hardly walk a straight line, and the fact she has a gray braided wreath sitting on her head like a crooked crown doesn’t help with the endeavor. The fact that wreath is fashioned from a dead woman’s hair doesn’t exactly help the matter either.
“I’m tired of hearing my dogs barking,” she yowls as she lands on the stool in front of the counter and yanks off a shoe.
“Would you put that back on?” I say, swatting her on the arm with a kitchen towel. “Geez, it smells like a vinegar bomb just went off.”
“Ah, come on, Lot, you’re closing in an hour anyway. We’ve got to get these customers out of here somehow if we’re going to get those desserts delivered to Rizzo’s.”
“True, but I’m not in the mood to traumatize anyone either. Put the shoe on,” I say with the hint of a threat in my voice, and surprisingly she does as she’s told.
It’s a balmy Saturday in early June, and even though the bakery officially closes in a half an hour, I was hoping to close earlier than that.
Carlotta is right. We’ve got a delivery of my baked goods to make, but there are more than a smattering of customers still taking up residence here.
A few kids from the local high school sit in the corner, noshing on my sweet treats, gabbing on and on about the end of the school year that’s upon them.
My daughter Evie is a graduating senior this year, and I’m just as anxious and excited for the school year to come to a close myself.
Then there are my mother and two of her girlfriends seated near the window. And if I’m not mistaken, it looks as if they’re knitting. They’ve been here for close to an hour, but I’ve been so busy putting together the goodies to take to Rizzo’s this evening, I’ve hardly said hello.
I box up another one of my pineapple upside-down cakes to take down to Leeds, the dicey locale of Carlotta’s new business venture, Rizzo’s, and slide it next to her.
“Why in the world are you still wearing that wreath of mourning on your head?” I shake my head at the morbid reminder of Ninetta Rizzo. “You know it brings nothing but bad luck.”
It’s true.
Not one good thing has happened ever since Carlotta plopped the haunted wreath onto her noggin. In fact, Carlotta’s luck, not traditionally good to begin with, has gotten ten times worse—ten to the power of ten.
Not only was the braided wreath procured straight from a dead woman, but Carlotta won the wreath of mourning at the dead woman’s funeral.
The woman in question would be Ninetta Rizzo. And as fate would have it, both she and her sister, Rosa, were killed last month in a double homicide.
Anyway, I sort of cracked that case wide open and it’s all over now, so I’d rather not think of it. For some reason, a part of me believes the longer I think about old homicide cases, new ones seem to crop right up in their place.
“I wear it out of respect, Lot,” Carlotta harps. “I may not have liked Ninetta while she was alive, but she gave me my greatest gift, Rizzo’s Traitor’s-ville-oria.”
“It’s Rizzo’s Trattoria,” I correct. “And trust me when I say that place is turning out to be another Rizzo curse.”
The biggest curse of them all.
I haven’t said a word to Carlotta about the secret, and very illegal, casino in the back of the restaurant. Nor would I dare breathe a word of all of its dark dealings—or more to the point, drug dealings that were going on back there as well.
I’m just a hair away from catching whoever is pumping illicit substances through Honey Hollow and Leeds, and heaven knows where else—and with everything in me, I’m determined to bring them to justice.
Actually, I’m so determined, I’ve gone as far as to hire Jed Silver to help me catch the SOB who’s using Rizzo’s as a distribution center.
Jed just so happens to be the nemesis of my husbands, Noah and Everett.
Yes, husbands as in plural.
