6. Lottie

LOTTIE

“ E verybody freeze ,” Noah shouts as he bursts into the library with such ferocity that a nearby stack of mysteries nearly tumbles to the floor. His weapon is out, and yet he doesn’t seem to know where to point it.

Everett groans, “Do us all a favor and arrest yourself.”

“Lottie.” Noah puts his gun back into his holster, and before I know it, he pulls me into his arms and presses his lips to mine for an inordinate amount of time—a death-defying act on his part, considering my husband is within fighting distance.

Odd fact: I’ve been married to Noah before, too, and our divorce is all kinds of shades of gray. I might be a bigamist and not even know it, but in truth, it’s always felt right. I’d chalk that little bizarre tidbit up to my raging hormones, but I felt that way long before the twins popped up in my belly.

“Watch it, Fox.” Everett rips Noah away from me and gives him a hard shove in the chest. “What the heck was that about?”

“I’m just glad she’s safe.” Noah rakes his fingers through his dark hair. Both Noah and Lyla Nell have dark hair that turns red at the tips in the sun, eyes so green they rival a freshly mowed lawn, and dimples so deep you can curl up and take a nap in them.

Everett growls at him, “Her safety prompted you to plant one on her? I’m shocked you gave an excuse at all. Why don’t you focus on solving a few mysteries? Inter alia, the one your mother is embroiled in, or the one that just cropped up at our feet.”

“Lottie.” Noah gives a slow blink. “Do you really want to be with a man who inserts the words inter alia into a conversation?” He shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Lot. In fact, I apologize to both of you. I was at the office when I got your message. I finally got a DNA match on that naked Santa.”

Both Suze and I gasp.

“Who was he?” I ask.

“Wait,” Everett grumbles. “As much as I’d love to solve that mystery myself, there’s a body lying on the ground.”

“What?” Noah spins on his heels and stops cold once he sees the woman.

“That pink scarf was wrapped around her neck,” I tell him just as the Ashford Sheriff’s Department storms the tiny library, and soon a crowd pushes in around the entry as well.

I pull out my phone and quickly take a covert picture of the crime scene. There’s no way I’m not analyzing this later. I put my phone away and crane my neck that way again. Next to the poor woman lies a few half-eaten crepes with a swath of red lipstick at the edge of each bite. I take a step in that direction and notice a couple of small blue metal objects on the floor next to the body. From here they look like bobby pins.

Bobby pins? I glance back at Ursula lying there with her short, dark hair. I didn’t notice any bobby pins in her hair earlier, certainly not any that were baby blue.

“What’s happened?” Ivy Fairbanks, Noah’s partner in crime, stalks in. Ivy is a tight-lipped brunette who wears her hair in a bun so tight, her face is permanently pulled back into a skeletal grimace. Ivy has the hots for Noah, but since Noah has the hots for me, I’m on her list of people to glare at until the end of time. “You did this,” she snips my way. “I don’t need a road map to know you’ve caused someone else to bite the big one.” She cranes her neck past me. “Of course, there’s a plate of dessert scattered over the floor next to the deceased. Trust me, whatever poison you used, I’m going to have forensics track it down, and then I’m going to send in the hounds until we trace it back to you. This little killing spree of yours is over.”

Everett steps up and sighs. “The woman was strangled. I took the scarf off her neck myself.”

Ivy blinks to the ceiling. “Why didn’t you lead with that?” She takes off and both my mother and Carlotta push their way through the crowd.

“Oh, Lottie, not again,” Mom moans. “I should have listened to Wylie and had a private gathering for you in your home—a very small, small gathering away from the general public. I’d better go fix this.” She squints over at the body. “Oh my word! It’s Ursula! Oh goodness, her husband is here. I have to go find him.” She zips out of the room like a woman on a mission, and horrifically it’s the saddest mission of all.

“Wait just a Dundee, Dumbee , Dumbo minute,” Carlotta harps as she inspects the scene. “What’s that hokey scarf doing next to the deceased?”

“She was strangled with it,” Everett says it low so the crowd that’s trying to press their way in won’t pick up on it.

“I knew it.” Carlotta claps her hands as she cranes her neck into the crowd. “There she is,” she screeches as Francine Dundee staggers her way over, and I can’t help but note that the woman’s face looks far more pale than usual. “Here’s your killer, Foxy! I bet she whittled up one of those knit disasters just so she could squeeze the life out of someone here tonight.” She presses her nose far too close to Francine. “Ten bucks says she was aiming for me, but she’s too cheap to spring for glasses!”

Francine chokes and gags just as Noah heads this way, and those baby blue bobby pins in her hair catch my eye,

“I didn’t do this,” she says as she glances to the body, then to the scarf, and her eyes grow wide, and if I’m not mistaken, the tiny curve of a smile quivers on her lips. “I have to go.” She shoots out of the library like a bullet and Noah nods to Carlotta.

“I’ll make a note of it,” Noah says before turning to me. “Lottie, why don’t you head out and check on Evie and Lyla Nell? Maybe get some water and take a seat? You shouldn’t be in here.”

“Now that I agree with,” Everett says, pressing a hand into my lower back as he does his best to steer me out of the room.

“Wait,” I say, turning to Noah. “That scarf? It was knitted by Francine Dundee, and those blue bobby pins next to her body? Francine has about a hundred spiked into her hair.” I press my lips tight for a moment. “As much as I hate to point the finger, I did witness Francine getting huffy with that poor woman.”

Carlotta claps up a storm and belts out a hoot. “Way to go, Lot. We’ll have Fran Fran in the can can by midnight and she’ll be doing the suspect shuffle until sentencing.” She does her best to land a high-five my way, but I promptly ignore it.

“Would you keep it down?” I cast a quick glance over my shoulder. “That poor dead woman’s husband is here somewhere.”

“What’s happened?” a deep voice bellows and we turn to see an older gentleman with a shock of white hair storming into the room and pushing his way past the sheriff’s deputies, and by his side is Agatha Reed, the redhead who I met earlier. In fact, I met her along with Ursula. They seemed like good friends.

“Oh no,” Agatha moans deeply and her expression grows panicked. “Please tell me she’ll be all right,” she shrieks. “Somebody do something,” she shouts and her face turns a bright shade of crimson. “Please, somebody help her!” She tries to dive her way through the wall of deputies, but a couple of them secure her and she screams all the way out of the room.

That older gentleman shakes his head at the scene. “Who the hell did this to my wife?” he riots. “I want answers, and I want them now,” he bellows and Noah pulls the man to the side as he walks him to the quieter end of the library, and soon enough it looks as if he’s consoling him.

“Poor guy.” Everett rubs my back as he says it.

“He deserves justice,” I pant out the words as my adrenaline surges.

“Good thinkin’, Lot.” Carlotta hops past me. “I’ll go round up the killer so we can get this show on the road. Mr. Sexy, why don’t you fill up a bathtub with water, and Foxy you get the toaster.” She takes off before we can stop her.

Sexy and Foxy are the nicknames she’s given to Everett and Noah. But then, half the female population calls Everett Mr. Sexy.

“Let’s go, Lemon.” Everett sighs. “Noah and Ivy have this handled. Let’s track down Evie and Lyla Nell.”

Everett ushers me right through the crowd and right out of the library and we’re about halfway to the conservatory when I spot an entire gaggle of ghosts flying this way.

“ Ooh , Greer and the gang are here,” I whisper. “I can’t wait to hear what they have to say. They might have a better idea of what happened.”

Everett grunts in the direction I’m looking in before glancing to the exit. “I see Meg and Sam. I’m going to ask if they’ve seen Evie. I’ll be keeping my eyes on you the entire time.”

He zips off just as the ghosts of Greer Giles and Winslow Decker zip right in front of me.

“Lottie, what’s happened?” Winslow looks equal parts alarmed and equal parts amused. “You’re no doubt at the nexus of this chaos.”

I make a face at the two-hundred-year-old looker. It’s true. Winslow has been dead for about that long, but oddly, his ghost doesn’t look a day over thirty—because that’s when he kicked the bucket. Winslow is tall, tan, blond, and has a fashion bias for denim overalls, which makes sense considering he was a pig farmer on the land this haunted mansion is settled on.

“I’m sorry to inform you I had nothing to do with the chaos that’s ensued,” I say rather indignantly and both babies give me a swift kick to the ribs because evidently, neither of them thinks it’s true either.

Greer belts out a bold laugh—mostly because she knows I can’t punch her in the face. Greer is a stunner, and she just so happens to be my contemporary. She was killed a few years back, and she’s still wearing the white ruched gown she bit the big one in. There’s a crimson stain over the front of her chest, and if you squint, it sort of looks like a corsage. Her hair is dark, her features are model-esque, and she was once a mean girl who’s now as nice as can be—with the exception of the fact that she’s laughing at me.

Fun fact: I caught the killer who mowed her down and brought them to justice, too.

“Oh, Lottie,” Greer trills, and a sea of ebony stars sparkles in her luminescent flowing locks. “We all know that trouble follows you wherever you go. Wiley was just telling your mother that last night.”

He would.

Winslow nods. “It’s a wonder you got an invite to the party, let alone were included as one of the stars of the show. So what’s happened here?” He frowns past me. “Once the conservatory drained, we took advantage of the buffet and those crepes of yours really are to die for.”

I make a face at him for even going there. If only he knew that someone did, in fact, die for them. Sort of.

And as for that whole ghosts-getting-to-nosh-on-my-sweet-treats thing, well, as my supersensual powers grew, so did the abilities of the ghosts that were near me. They can now gobble down whatever delicacies they want. Don’t ask me where they put it.

But since I’m at the stage in my life where I think about food and gain ten pounds, let’s just say I’m not afraid to die when my time comes, and when I do, I’m hitting every bakery in all of Vermont.

“There’s a body ,” someone warbles and I turn to see Little Lea stalking this way. Lea is Greer and Winslow’s six-year-old adopted little girl. She’s forever six, has been dead for far too long, and has come back to haunt the very site where her family was slaughtered. There’s a warped sense of revenge in there somewhere. She’s about three feet tall and has long stringy hair that covers her face so you can’t tell if she’s coming or going. She wears a dirty pinafore, along with a pair of scuffed Mary Janes. If all that wasn’t terrifying enough, she’s got a machete that dangles from her hand as if it were an appendage—ready to issue the aforementioned revenge. And zipping up by her side is their black cat named Thirteen.

“There’s a ghost of a polar bear in there, too,” Thirteen is quick to inform us. “His name is Petey and he’s good and ticked at whoever did this to that poor woman.”

“How in the world did that woman have a polar bear?” I ask. All I know about the dead that come back to help solve the homicides is that they’re the ghost of whoever the deceased loved the most. “A polar bear isn’t exactly a domesticated animal.”

Thirteen twitches his whiskers my way. “How should I know? This is your investigation, Lottie. My job is to make sure guests of this inn are adequately frightened.”

Little Lea nods. “And judging by the horror flick playing out, you, Lottie Lemon, are trying to steal our ghostly thunder!” She turns and flies back to the library and this time the other three follow.

I head back to the library myself and spot that furry white polar bear right next to Ursula Wingate’s body.

The hairy beast points his snout her way before standing on his hind legs and towering over everyone in this room. He tips his head back and belts out a horrific moan that starts out like a whimper and ends with a menacing growl.

That lumbering beast is furious, and judging by that lethal look in his eye, he wants justice for Ursula and he wants it now.

I not only want the very same thing, but I’ll make sure she gets it.