Ghostly Holiday (A Harper Harlow Mystery Book 11)

by Lily Harper Hart

  “She’s not here.”

  “That’s not unheard of, right?” Jared didn’t want her feeling down, so he carefully ordered her hair and smiled. “You’re the one who told me that new ghosts can’t always control their environment so sometimes they come and go at odd intervals.”

  “I love it when you spout my ghost knowledge back to me,” she said drily, shaking her head. “You’re right, though. We can’t force her to show up.”

  “Then there’s nothing you can do.” Jared flicked his eyes to the window to make sure the coast was still clear. “I called Zander. He’s on his way. He says he’ll keep you busy for the rest of the afternoon.”

  “That’s a frightening thought,” Mel muttered, joining them. “The last time he promised to keep me busy, he made me go to this freaky store in the mall where they sold pink suits. He insisted I try one on.”

  Jared tried to picture his partner in a pink suit. “That sounds like a pleasant afternoon. Please tell me there’s video ... or at least a photograph.”

  “I threatened him with death if he tried,” Mel said, slowly moving his eyes to Harper. “I don’t want to kick you out, kid, but I don’t think you should be here when the state police show up. You’re going to be hard to explain.”

  Harper realized that without the gentle nudge. “I’ll wait outside. Zander is on his way, right?”

  Jared nodded. “You can sit in the cruiser if you want. It’s warmer there. That we can explain by saying we were having lunch when the car was discovered. It’s just ... .” He felt slimy suggesting that the state police would give them grief for bringing a ghost hunter to a potential crime scene, so he left the sentence hanging.

  “I get it. You don’t have to worry.” She rolled up to the balls of her feet and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Zander and I have shopping ahead of us. I still have a few last-minute items I want to get. I promised him a mall trip. Now seems as good a time as any since we can’t do anything else.”

  “And you’ll be safe at the mall.” Jared smacked a loud kiss against her mouth when she moved to pull away. “I’ll call you when I know more. The fact that Zoe isn’t here is a good thing.”

  “No, actually, if Zoe was here and okay, that would be the best outcome available,” Harper corrected, refusing to let him gloss over the situation. “The fact that she’s not dead in this house somewhere — or in Jessica’s vehicle — is only good because the alternative is unbearable.”

  “I can see you’re not in the best frame of mind right now. I don’t blame you. At least we have somewhere new to look.”

  “I hope you find something helpful.”

  “You and me both.”

  ONCE HARPER WAS removed from the situation — Jared stood at the window and made sure she was safely transferred to Zander’s custody — the two police detectives broke apart and started searching the house. They were looking for any indication that Zoe had been present, however minuscule.

  The state police crime team arrived shortly after Harper disappeared and immediately set out gathering fibers for later tests. The house itself wasn’t overly clean, but it was far from dirty. Everything seemed to have a logical place, and Jessica couldn’t be described as a hoarder.

  “Anything?” Jared asked, walking into the home office and finding Mel on the floor going through files. “Please tell me she had a secret diary that laid out all her plans.”

  “I haven’t found a diary.” Mel’s eyes never left the contents of the file he was perusing. “I did find this, though. It seems Jessica hired a private investigator two days ago.”

  Jared perked up almost instantly. “Are you serious?”

  “I am indeed serious.”

  “Anyone we know?”

  “I don’t think you know him. I know him, though. Chet Masters. His office is in Mount Clemens.”

  “Does it say what he’s required to do for her?”

  “No, which I find suspicious.” Mel rolled his neck and pursed his lips. “Have you found anything?”

  “I did find one thing of interest.” Jared motioned for Mel to follow him through the house, not stopping until he reached the back door. He pushed it open and pointed at the locking mechanism. “What does that look like to you?”

  Mel leaned over so he could have a clear view. “It looks like someone tried to jimmy the lock.”

  “According to our friendly state police technicians, these are fresh grooves. They can tell because we haven’t had a big storm in the past few days, and if we did, the wood would be more weathered.”

  “So ... someone broke into the house recently.”

  “Pretty much,” Jared confirmed. “Now, in theory, it’s possible that Jessica accidentally locked herself out of the house and had to break in herself.”

  “Why does your smug smile tell me you’ve already disproven that theory?”

  Jared’s smirk widened. “Because I checked under the flowerpot out here — I mean ... who leaves a flower pot on the back porch through winter? — and there’s a spare key underneath it. Jessica wouldn’t need to jimmy her own lock.”

  “Someone else broke in.”

  “That’s my guess.”

  “Maybe that’s why she wanted Chet Masters. Perhaps he was going to beef up security for her.”

  “I think we need to pay him a visit to find out exactly what he was doing for her,” Jared said. “Jessica didn’t whack herself in the head with a rock. That’s pretty obvious. And yet Zoe’s hat was found in her car. We’ve yet to find anything else that suggests Zoe was ever in close proximity with Jessica.”

  “Someone was trying to frame Jessica, and killed her to do it,” Mel mused. “I don’t understand how killing her with a rock furthers that agenda, though. The killer had to know that was suspicious.”

  “Maybe things got out of hand.”

  “Maybe.” Mel rolled his neck until it cracked, thoughtful. “I think we need to have a sit down with Chet.”

  “I’m all over that.”

  HARPER AND ZANDER VISITED their favorite shops in the mall, which only took thirty minutes because everything they used to love had closed down thanks to a shifting economy. Still, they went to the candle store so Zander could buy a perverted snowflake candle as a gag gift for Mel, and then stopped in a different store so Harper could pick out a pretty hat for Shawn.

  Their next stop was the jewelry store, although neither of them were feeling in the mood to “ooh” and “aah” over trinkets when their minds kept wandering elsewhere.

  “What did you get Jared?” Zander asked as he studied a diamond watch with muted interest.

  “I was kind of thinking that he should be happy with the gift that is me,” Harper replied, earning a snicker.

  “That sounds like something I would say. I considered getting naked, putting a bow on myself, and letting Shawn unwrap me. It’s weird, though, it was like he anticipated that. He said he expected a gift that didn’t involve nudity. As if that’s really a gift.”

  Harper chortled, genuinely amused. “Oh, you guys are so perfect for each other.” She instinctively reached out and gave Zander’s cheek a squeeze. “I can’t tell you how happy I am that you guys found each other.”

  Zander’s lips curved. “I did a pretty good job finding him, huh?”

  “I think he did a pretty good job finding you.”

  “What about you and Jared? Which one of you found the other?”

  “That’s a good question.” Harper moved around the edge of the jewelry case and leaned over to look at a watch. This one was less ornate than the one Zander picked out, which was to be expected. “Do you think Jared would like this?”

  Zander shifted closer and followed her gaze. “It’s nice. Kind of boring, if you ask me, but nice. Since Jared is often boring — especially when it comes to his personal style — that fits. Although, this is pretty expensive. Haven’t you bought his big gift already?”

  Harper opened her mouth to answer, her cheeks burning, but no s
ound came out.

  “You haven’t bought his big gift yet?” Zander’s voice carried under normal circumstances, but now it was absolutely shrill. “Are you crazy?”

  “I didn’t know what to get him,” Harper admitted, sheepish. “I’ve never really purchased a Christmas gift for a boyfriend before. I mean, technically I purchased something for Quinn, but we’d only been together for a short time and we were young so getting him a sweater and calling it a day was perfectly acceptable.”

  “Yes, well, you’re a big girl now,” Zander snapped. “How could you possibly think that not getting Jared a gift was okay?”

  “I’m going to get him a gift.” Harper’s voice was unnaturally high. “I know I need to get him a gift. It’s just ... what am I supposed to get him?”

  “Why are you asking me?” Zander was furious. “I don’t know what to get him. I barely know what to get my own boyfriend. You can’t put your problems on me. Solve your own problems.”

  “But ... I don’t know what to get him.” Harper’s eyes brimmed with tears. “What if I get something too small and make him feel unloved? What if I get something too big and hurt his feelings because he didn’t spend as much on me? What if I buy eight things and he buys seven? It’s just too much pressure.”

  “Oh, good grief.” Zander rolled his eyes. “You’re going to drive yourself insane if you keep this up. More importantly, you’re going to drive me insane. Go big. Trust me. You’ll never be able to top what he got you.”

  Zander realized he made a mistake the second the words were out of his mouth. It was too late to take them back.

  Harper’s eyes widened to the size of saucers as she rounded on Zander. “You know what he got me.”

  “No, I didn’t say that.”

  “You do. You just said that I couldn’t top his gift. That means you know what he got me.” She grabbed his shirt, not caring in the least how he felt about wrinkles. “Tell me what I’m getting. Now! Tell me and then I can get him something appropriate.”

  Harper was the best friend Zander ever had. She was the yin to his yang, the cream to his coffee, the vinegar to his potato chips. No matter how much he loved her, however, he wouldn’t ruin Jared’s surprise.

  “No.” Zander calmly removed Harper’s fingers from his shirt. “I made a promise, and I intend to keep it. The only thing I can tell you is that you’re going to love it.”

  Desperation thick as a concrete wall washed over Harper. “What am I supposed to do if you won’t tell me?”

  “Follow your heart,” Zander instructed. “It won’t let you down.”

  Harper wasn’t sure that was true. “It allowed me to keep dating Quinn even though I knew he was a tool.”

  “You were close to breaking that off. You just don’t remember it because things changed when he went missing. Don’t dwell on that. You’re an adult now. You know how to give Jared exactly what he needs. Don’t forget that.”

  Harper scowled. “We’re going to fight about this like you wouldn’t believe when we don’t have an audience.”

  “I’m looking forward to it.”

  CHET, TWO DAYS’ WORTH of stubble on his cheeks, drank straight from a bottle of Maalox as he rested his feet on his desk and regarded Jared and Mel with a dubious look.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure, gentlemen?” he drawled lazily.

  “We need to talk to you about Jessica Hayden,” Mel replied without hesitation.

  Chet narrowed his eyes. “Who is that?”

  “Don’t play games,” Mel chided. “We don’t have time for it.”

  “We know she was your client,” Jared added.

  “Well, since you already know that, you should probably also know that I can’t talk about my clients because it’s a breach of trust.”

  “She’s dead,” Mel declared.

  Whatever he was expecting, that wasn’t it. Chet lowered his feet to the ground and leaned forward, suddenly keen. “Are you serious?”

  “No, we make it a point of lying about people being dead right before the holidays,” Jared drawled. “It’s how we get our kicks.”

  Chet slid him an annoyed look. “You’re the new detective around Whisper Cove, right? The one dating the ghost hunter.”

  The statement caught Jared off guard. “What makes you say that?”

  “I’ve seen you on the news recently, and in my job, it pays to watch the news. Your girlfriend was the one almost killed in the field. I saw you two on camera together in a few of the shots. She’s pretty.”

  “She’s not up for discussion,” Jared shot back. “We’re here to talk about Jessica, who was bashed in the head sometime yesterday afternoon and left in a park.”

  “A park?” Chet furrowed his brow. “That’s weird, right?”

  “What’s even weirder is that we were trying to track her down because we had some questions to ask her about the disappearance of Zoe Mathers,” Mel volunteered. “We need to know that she had no part in the kidnapping. If she did, we need to know who her partner was, because it seems to me, the partner is off the rails.”

  “And you just assume I have knowledge of this?” Chet was incredulous. “Why would I possibly want to participate in the kidnapping of a child?”

  “I don’t know. We need to know why Jessica hired you, though.”

  “How did you even know about our arrangement?”

  “She had a file in her office.”

  “Ugh.” Chet slapped his hand to his forehead. “I knew she was going to be a pain. Everyone knows you don’t leave a file laying around.”

  “Perhaps she didn’t know she was going to die,” Jared suggested. “Speaking of that, if you know anything about this, now would be a good time to tell us.”

  “I don’t know anything about this particular situation,” Chet replied, exhaling heavily. “Trust me. If I knew she was going to die, I would’ve stopped it. I liked her. She wasn’t a pain.”

  “Why did she come to you?”

  “Because she wanted me to follow her ex-boyfriend,” Chet answered, causing Jared to wrinkle his forehead. “She was convinced he was cheating on her with another woman and she wanted proof.”

  “Why, though?” Mel queried. “They weren’t married. It’s not as if she could get extra money from him in a divorce if she proved infidelity. How would she benefit?”

  “I brought up the same concerns. She didn’t care. She wanted to catch him cheating. I suggested that perhaps her ego couldn’t take being dumped for no reason and she had to blame someone else, but she didn’t agree with me.”

  “I don’t suppose she gave you an idea of who he was supposedly cheating with, did she?” Jared asked, his mind busy. “Her mother never mentioned her suspicions about infidelity. Perhaps that was something Jessica came up with after that fact.”

  “I guess that’s possible, but she had a list of things that she found ‘funny.’” Chet held up his hands and made the appropriate air quotes. “She was a bit manic when she stopped in, gave me the impression that she’d been up all night making this list.”

  “When was this?”

  Chet checked his file and read back the date, allowing Jared to do the math in his head.

  “That would’ve been the day after Luke broke up with her,” he mused. “He said she took it relatively well, but it sounds like she was just saving face.”

  “Where did she want you to follow Luke?” Mel asked. “I mean ... where did she think he was meeting this girlfriend?”

  “She didn’t give me a specific place. She just wanted me to follow him after work every night for a week. She paid in advance.”

  “Did you follow him?”

  Chet nodded. “Three nights in a row, although I backed off when word started spreading about the kid going missing. I knew through my own research that he was the father and I didn’t want to get caught sitting outside his house.”

  “Yes, you’re a real paragon of virtue,” Jared drawled. “Did Luke go anywhere the nights you were watchin
g him?”

  “No. As a matter of fact, he went straight home and stayed in the house. I looked through a window twice, convinced he must be looking at porn on the internet or something. He wasn’t, though. He was watching Netflix and drinking beer.”

  Jared and Mel exchanged a quick look.

  “Who was Jessica convinced he was having an affair with?” Mel asked finally.

  “The ex. Ally Bishop.”

  “Oh, geez.” Jared pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. “We just made a really big circle.”

  Mel bobbed his head. “Yup, and I don’t like where this is headed. Not one little bit.”

  Twelve

  Harper bought the watch ... and a few other things. She didn’t leave the mall until her arms felt tired thanks to carrying heavy bags. Each time she purchased an item, she looked to Zander to see if it would be enough. To his credit, he managed to keep a straight face ... but just barely.

  When they returned home, Harper decided to carry Jared’s packages to the new house so she could wrap them in peace. Zander was fine with that, he had his own wrapping to do, and once left to her own devices Harper was able to allow her mind to drift as she wrapped.

  She thought it would be panic about Jared’s Christmas gift that took over her mind — and she was right to some extent — but it was more than that. Thoughts of Jared led to thoughts of Luke and Ally. At some point, Ally must have convinced herself that things would work with Luke. Even after he melted down about the pregnancy, all signs pointed to the fact that she thought he would get over himself.

  He never did ... and that had to hurt.

  It took Harper about an hour to wrap everything, and when she was done, she placed the items in a box in the front closet and tugged on her coat. She had an idea that had been forming, and she couldn’t shove it out of her head.

  With that in mind, she left a note for Jared on the counter and then pointed herself toward Luke’s house. She had two reasons for heading in that direction. The first was Jessica. If she was really as obsessed with Luke as some people seemed to indicate, there was every chance her ghost was hanging around his house so she could watch him. If she wasn’t there, though, it wouldn’t be a total loss. She had a few things to say to Luke, and she didn’t think she could keep them in much longer.