“I don’t know,” I say as Lyla Nell pulls away from me with a start and her eyes blink open as she looks right up at Everett. “Lyla Nell is so perfect and adorable. I think I want ten of them. Sleep is already a thing of the past, so why not invite more guests to the party?”

  A dark rumble of a laugh brews in Everett’s chest. “We’ll get right on that, Lemon. But let’s eat dinner first.”

  “Sounds good,” I say. “We’ll need to get our energy up because you’re going to take Lyla Nell and me out for a night on the town.”

  “A night on the town?” His left brow fishhooks into his forehead. “Which suspect and where?”

  “You know me well, Judge Baxter. Fern Cranston at the B&B. It’s the night of the Murder and Mayhem Festival and we’re going to dig into a little murder and mayhem ourselves.” A thought comes to mind. “I almost forgot to mention, I saw that mystery woman again the day of the taping.”

  “What?” Everett’s voice is sharp as he shoots Carlotta a look.

  “I didn’t see her.” Carlotta shakes her head, and if I’m not mistaken, her face goes pale at the thought of our mystery woman.

  “Don’t worry about a thing, Lemon.” Everett forces a short-lived smile my way. “I’ll go grab us some plates so we can have dinner.” He walks by Carlotta and whispers something. If I didn’t know better, it sounded an awful lot like handle it, or I will.

  It must have been my imagination. I’m out of my mind exhausted. I wouldn’t be surprised if I imagined these last three weeks altogether, but then I can’t imagine a moment without this tiny little sugar cookie cooing up at me with her big, beautiful eyes, her mouth rounding out in shapes as if she were struggling to tell me something, and her cute little balled up fists as she stretches her arms. I just love every last bit of her.

  “Smile for Mommy,” I whisper and her lips start to curve, but the smile never comes. A tiny gurgle comes from her, and it sounds like a laugh. But she’s holding that smile back like a well-kept secret.

  Candace Cottonwood had secrets according to Kit. Fern Cranston might just know what those secrets are, and if she does I’m going to squeeze them out of her.

  Murder and mayhem may be ruling the roost at the moment, but truth and justice are about to take over.

  Now all I have to do to achieve that is catch a killer.

  Noah

  The Murder and Mayhem Festival at the B&B looks to be a success by anyone’s measure.

  All of Honey Hollow seems to have shown up and then some, and every last soul is circulating around the glass conservatory—and I’m betting a few of the disembodied are in there, too. Tables line the entire periphery of the room as authors hock their wares, and there are plenty of people lined up to speak with each of them. I spot Fern with her red hair and outstretched smile, laughing at her table by the entry to the room.

  She’s my mark for the night, and I’m not going to miss it.

  The sound of classical music strums overhead and the smell of my favorite chocolate chip cookies sings to me like a vanilla-scented siren song.

  For the most part, the B&B is a quaint little inn with a handful of friendly ghosts to give it that quirky factor, which just so happens to be the heartbeat of this place. But once my father got hold of it, like everything else he touches, he turned it into a pile of hot pink rubble.

  Cormack and Cressida would be responsible for that bright, somewhat caustic hue. They have it on the floors, have splashed it on the walls, covered the outside of this palatial mansion, and even on the ceiling in some places. Out in front, in the grand mahogany entry, they’ve erected two larger-than-life floor-to-ceiling paintings of their likeness, and you can’t go ten steps without looking at yourself in a gilded mirror.

  A black velvet banner hangs along the back of the conservatory that reads Welcome to the Murder and Mayhem Festival, where homicide makes us happy.

  I frown up at the wording.

  I’m not sure homicide should make anyone happy, but at the end of the day I’m happy I’m getting a paycheck because of it.

  My eyes skirt the room and I see all of the usual suspects, Lottie’s sisters and their plus ones, Evie and her friends, my dad and Miranda helping out at one of the tables, and even my brother Alex is here with his new girlfriend, Serena Digby. Serena was our birthing instructor a few months back. She’s also transmundane like Lottie—and just like my mother come to find out, although my mother is slow to admit it.

  Mom is a beguiler to be exact.

  I shake my head at that one. If I had to guess, I’d say my mother’s abilities weren’t all that strong because she couldn’t beguile my father into being loyal to her. But then again, he was sneaking around, so just maybe she used her powers to get rid of him. In that case I have to give her credit for using her powers wisely.

  Speaking of Lottie, she let me know about this mystery event unfolding at the B&B, so once I was through at the station I made a beeline over. The funny thing is, I had already planned on being here to talk to Fern Cranston. It’s just like Lottie to keep one step ahead of me.

  The refreshment table is to the right, and that’s exactly where I find the love of my life, standing at the helm of the dessert spread with both Lily and my mother by her side helping to dole them out. Lottie has Lyla Nell sitting in that baby sling strapped to her chest, and the baby looks cheerful and alert as she takes in the crowd with both her arms and legs wiggling.

  “All of my favorite ladies are here,” I say as I lean in and offer Lottie a kiss to her temple and quickly drop one to the baby as well.

  “Thank you, Noah,” Lily says with a wink. “I’ve always suspected you had a thing for me.”

  “Really?” My mother looks more than a little hopeful. “Why, I think you’d make a fine couple!” Her eyes grow wide. “In fact, Lily, why don’t you and Noah tour the room while Lottie and I pass out cookies?”

  Lottie shoots her a look that assures me she’s not ready to pass me off to anyone just yet, and I’d be lying if it didn’t warm me to know it.

  Carlotta steps up. “How’s it going, Foxy?”

  Lottie huffs out a dull laugh. “Suze is trying to sell him off to Lily.”

  Carlotta squints my way. “Watch it, Foxy. Lot’s got all those hot mama hormones coursing through her veins and she knows her way around a murder weapon or two. I’d be on my best behavior if I were you.”

  Lottie makes a face at her. “The only weapon in my arsenal tonight is this sweet little angel.”

  “Here, hand her to me,” I say, taking the baby carrier from her and landing it over my chest. “Hey, princess.” I smile down at Lyla Nell as she does her best to fly right out of this contraption.

  “Wow, Noah.” Lottie leans against my shoulder as we stare down at this tiny masterpiece together. Lottie put a bright pink bow in Lyla Nell’s hair and she looks like the living doll she is as she gasps and does her best to reach for my face. “She’s really responding to you.”

  “I’ve read to her enough, cradled her enough, I’d like to think she knows me by now.”

  Lottie gives my facial scruff a light scratch. “I think she loves you. I know she does. We missed you today.”

  “It feels good to be missed. But I did have a productive day at the office.”

  “Something new with the case?” Lottie’s eyes light up. She’s just as hungry to solve a homicide as I am, and that’s one of the things I love about her.

  “Yup. Did a little digging and discovered that Candace had a boyfriend back in college who accidentally”—I cup my hands around Lyla Nell’s little ears—“killed himself.”

  “What?” Lottie pulls me to the side. “Who was he?”

  “His name was Ben Jenson. You probably would have discovered this on your own. I was able to stumble upon it after a simple internet search. He was the drummer in a rock band. He was taking a few classes at Ashford University, and that’s where they met. Apparently, he fell off a three-story frat house rooftop one night at a party. He had enough amphetamines in his system for it to have been an accident. Friends and family say he wasn’t a jumper. Had everything going for himself. All he needed to do was clean up his act a little.”

  “Wow.” She gives a few blinks. “You know Fern is here tonight. She and Candace went to college together. I bet she knew Ben. I think I’ll bring that up when I question her.”

  I’d correct her and let her know I was about to do the questioning, but I think we both know I’d be wrong.

  “And I’d like to be there with you if you don’t mind.”

  Her lips curl into her cheeks as she inches back. “Noah, you’re the lead investigator. She might clam up in fear you’ll pin every murder in the last one hundred years on her. You’re an intimidating presence in the event you didn’t realize it.”

  “Fine, I’ll hang back, but I won’t take my eyes off you.”

  “Sounds good. Why don’t you show Lyla Nell around? I’m going to sneak off and use the restroom alone for once and maybe take a short nap sitting on the toilet. Oh, and don’t forget to indulge in all the chocolate chip cookies you want. You know if I would have had the time to make these myself I would have thought of you while I did it, just like the old days.” She gives my cheek a little pinch as she takes off.

  “I won’t lie,” I whisper to the sweet babe looking up at me with wonder. “I miss the old days. But guess what? You make the new days way better. Are you up for a page-turning mystery or two? Let’s check this place out.” I turn around, only to find Everett standing there looking like a brick wall who isn’t about to move out of my way for anything.

  “I’ve got a job for you.” He nods toward the lobby, and I follow him out that way.

  “What’s up?” I ask as we step out from the noise and the chaos of the crowd where the air is cooler and my ears can relax.

  Lyla Nell bounces with excitement once she spots him. It’s safe to say she’s excited to see him, just as excited as she was to see me. We’re already confusing her as to who her father is, and I worry about what that might do to her. She should know definitively who that special man is in her life. I want that for her, no matter what the outcome. But I’d bet every dollar I don’t have that all the genetic arrows will point back to me.

  “Hey there.” Everett fishes her out and raises her in the air until a tiny husky giggle emits from her.

  “She just laughed,” I marvel and something in my chest loosens. “That was the most beautiful sound I’ve heard,” I say, brushing her cheek with my finger. An audible gulp comes from me because if there’s one person who can bring me to my knees emotionally, it’s this sweet girl. “I don’t want to miss a thing, Everett.”

  “You won’t.” He doesn’t look all that thrilled by the prospect either. “And that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” He cinches a smile that disappears just as quickly as it came. “I need you to do me a favor.”

  “Anything. Does this have something to do with the Morettis? You’ve got them blanketing Honey Hollow, and word on the street is, both the Canellis and the Lazzaris are running scared. They think a big hit is coming.”

  “It might be. I can’t control a darn thing.”

  “What’s the favor?”

  Everett glances over my shoulder a moment. “I need you to find out where Manny Moretti is hanging out. Where he’s laying his head at night.”

  “Why?” I give a wry look. “Are you putting a hit out on the guy you’re paying to protect you? That’s too many layers of deceit for me to unearth. What’s going on? Speak plainly.”

  “Nothing is going on. I just need to know where Manny has been hanging out. He’s keeping tabs on me, and I’m about to do the same. Got it?”

  “But it doesn’t make any—”

  “It doesn’t need to make any sense. You asked if you could help, and I’m telling you exactly how you can do that.” He glares over at the conservatory as if Manny were in it. “I appreciate this. Get on with it, Noah. The sooner the better.”

  He takes off into the conservatory with the baby and leaves me holding the bag. A metaphor for a lot of things in my life as of late.

  I head back in myself. It’s time to watch Lottie do her thing, and hopefully this night yields some answers for us both.

  As for Everett, he’s still a big walking, talking question mark. And it makes me wonder what he’s up to.

  Lottie

  The Honey Hollow Bed and Breakfast is a mere shell of what it once was—a hot pink, airheaded, tarred and feathered version to be exact.

  It’s not even called the Honey Hollow Bed and Breakfast anymore. It’s been redesignated as the Rendezvous Luxury Resort and Razzle Dazzle Day Spa, a horrific new name to go along with the horrific new interior and the horrific new owners.

  I’m about to head back into the conservatory when I spot an entire gaggle of happy ghouls, the very ghosts that take up residence here, along with Cluck Norris who seems to be a hit in their small circle of specters.

  The aforementioned circle of specters includes Greer Giles, a pretty brunette with an entire solar system of stars taking up residence in her hair. She’s still wearing the same white ruched dress she had on the night she was killed, and it still looks just as smokin’ on her. Next to Greer stands her two-hundred-year-old boyfriend, Winslow Decker. He once owned a pig farm on these very grounds. And next to him is their adopted daughter Azalea, aka Lea, and she happens to be holding their pithy black cat, Thirteen.

  “Lottie!” Greer shouts as I speed over to where they’re standing, just shy of the reception desk. Greer is a girl about my age who was shot a few years back. I’m not sure why Greer and the other ghosts are allowed to stay in Honey Hollow while the ghosts that help me solve crimes are whisked back to paradise not long after the perpetrator is caught, but I’m happy to report I don’t care what the reason might be. I happen to like the fab four poltergeists who haunt these shockingly pink halls. And I happen to count them all as friends. Heck, at this point they’re family.

  In fact, both Greer and Thirteen, the sweet ghostly black cat with stray miniature stars floating around his whiskers, helped me do just that—solve a case—and yet they still remain.

  Thirteen floats right out of Lea’s arms and over to me. “That little baby girl of yours is a sugared up dream. You don’t know how lucky you are to have a baby of your own.”

  “You can have her from the hours of nine PM to six in the morning.” I’m quick to give away my firstborn child in exchange for a little shut-eye. “I just took a solid nap on the toilet, and believe me it was bliss. If I hadn’t hit my head on the door, I would have probably missed this entire shindig.”

  Little Lea gives a maniacal laugh. “I would have hunted you down and removed your head. That’s enough to wake anyone.”

  Lea is forever six, wears her long brown hair combed right over her face, has on a dirty pinafore and a pair of scuffed Mary Janes, and the best part? She wields a machete in her hand, ready to avenge the deaths of her family members who were slaughtered right over these sacred grounds who knows when. I have a feeling Lea was a part of the slaughter, too, but we’ve never talked about that.

  I say let sleeping massacres lie.

  “Keep your machete to yourself,” I tell her. “I have a little girl of my own to live for. And unlike Thirteen, humans don’t have nine lives.” Not that he has them anymore either.

  Thirteen yowls, “And to think I used up all nine lives in record time. My mother always did say I was in a hurry to do everything. I guess you can add living and/or dying to the list.”

  Cluck Norris clucks up a storm. “How about we get a move on, Lottie? After we quiz the suspect at hand, Thirteen says he’ll show me where they keep the caviar and truffles.”

  “Figures,” I say. “Now that Cormack and Cressida are running this place into the ground, donuts and croissants have taken a backseat to pricier breakfast offerings. I bet they’re running in the red with this place and don’t even know it.”

  “What’s this?” a female, and I suspect a featherheaded woman, calls out from behind.

  I turn around to find not one but two featherheads in my presence. Both Cormack and Cressida are dressed head to toe in hot pink frocks along with what amounts to an entire jewelry store dangling off their necks and wrists.

  “See that?” Cormack winks to Cressida. “Linoleum here loves us so much, she can’t stop thinking about us.”

  Neither Cormack nor Cressida has ever bothered to get my name right. And at this point in the game, I couldn’t care less.

  “Who are you talking to, Lala?” Cressida sniffs as she looks past me. “Let me guess, the ghosts?”

  “Actually, I was,” I tell them and they both break out into cackles.

  Cormack sniffs. “As if they’d ever want to speak to you. I’m officially their best friend. Each night I leave out a fresh large pizza from Mangias in the kitchen for them, and each morning every last slice is gone.”

  “It’s true.” Greer is quick to attest to the yummy Italian exchange. “I wouldn’t say we’re best friends, but let’s just say we’re close.”

  Lea nods. “Cormack makes certain exchanges with us when she’s setting the pizza down. Last night she asked for one of us to scare the pants off the guest in room fifteen because he was threatening to sue over dirty towels. She said there would be a couple of meatball sandwiches along with the pizza for us if we complied.”

  I suck in a quick breath. “Cormack, are you bribing the ghosts to do your bidding by way of pepperoni and meatballs?”

  She shoots me a sly look. “I didn’t get this far in life without initiating a bribe or two. Just wait until I sic those ghosts on you, Lima. Big Boss will be back in my arms, where he truly belongs.”

  Greer gives a ghostly laugh that has the power to rattle the walls and does just that.

  “Don’t worry, Lottie,” Winslow reassures me. “There’s not enough pizza in the world for that to happen.”

  Greer clucks her nonexistent tongue. “But what I wouldn’t do for a fresh Maine lobster.”