by Krista Davis
Casper, the Weimaraner, buddied up with Trixie like they were old pals. Emboldened by the presence of Casper, Trixie joined him in sniffing the mysterious extra heads of the yellow lab, who waggled happily at all the attention.
Flames from the bonfire licked up at the velvety night sky. In the mountains, the stars always seemed closer, and tonight was no exception.
In the distance, a glow-in-the-dark skeleton walked a large dog wearing a glow-in-the-dark dog-skeleton outfit.
Eva had turned her attention to Mallory, who clung to Felix, laughing and flirting.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“If I had known she was going to be here, I never would have come.”
“If it’s any comfort, I gather she’s not part of the Apparition Apprehenders.”
Zelda joined us. “If Mallory is with Mark, would someone please explain to me why she’s flirting with my Felix?”
Eva gave a jolt, spilling her cider. “With Mark?”
“Didn’t she say they were an item?” asked Zelda. “They wrote that book about Wagtail’s ghosts together.”
“Ughhhh.” Eva closed her eyes and pressed a palm on the top of her head. “I am so stupid.”
“I don’t get it,” said Zelda.
Eva adjusted her glasses. “Once upon a time, Mark and I were a couple. When he invited me to join this group we exchanged e-mails and talked on the phone, and it”—she sighed hard—“it seemed like old times again. He was charming at dinner, but now I see why he wanted to include me. That devil.”
I shot Zelda a questioning glance.
She shrugged.
Eva caught our moment of confusion. “Sparks! Fireworks! If Mallory and I engage in a cat fight it will boost the ratings of the show.”
Now I saw where she was coming from. I would have been furious, too. How dare he dupe her that way? “But wait—Mallory isn’t part of the show.”
Eva peered at me over her glasses. “Then what is she doing here? Why is she hanging around? No, no, Holly. It’s the same reason Mark put Brian and me together. He knows we’ll have some disagreements.”
“What if you don’t?” asked Zelda.
Eva snorted. “Impossible. Brian always pulls childish tricks. I’m bound to catch some of them.” She eyed Mark. “But two can play this game.” Eva smirked at us. “Give me a few minutes, Zelda. I’ll lure Mallory away from Felix so you can move in on him.”
Eva strode toward Mark and Grayson.
“I like her!” Zelda fluffed her hair. “Now all we have to do is fix you up with someone.”
“No, thanks. I’ll sit this one out.”
“Aww, pining for Ben?”
It was my turn to snort. “That relationship is dead in the water.”
“How can that be? He asked you to marry him.”
“In a text, Zelda! That’s not a real proposal. Besides, once I decided to move here, he was so miffed that he acted like I was already gone. I’d hardly call that love.”
“Look, look,” Zelda whispered.
I couldn’t tell what kind of magic Eva had worked, but sure enough, Mallory abandoned her grip on Felix to hurry toward Mark and Grayson.
Zelda was already moving in on Felix. I chuckled to myself, happy for Zelda. I hoped Eva was wrong about Mark’s motivation for including her, though. Inviting her so she and Mallory would spat seemed even worse than a texted proposal. I returned to my job of handing out cider.
“Wow! Great costume!” Felix’s friend was as animated as a kid who’d eaten too much candy on Halloween. A little on the tubby side, he held a half-eaten chocolate bar in his left hand. He straightened his baseball cap that said I’d rather be ghost hunting, leaned toward me, and reached out his beefy hand. “Brian Anderson. Holly, right?”
“Right. Are you enjoying Wagtail?”
“Sure am. What a dinner! Luciano is pulling out all the stops for us. And everybody has been so nice. Like they’re excited to have us here.”
I filled a cup of cider for him. “They probably are. It’s not every day that someone makes a TV show in Wagtail. What do you think of the ghastly old hotel?”
Brian accepted the cider. “I can’t wait to get inside that place.”
“Does Casper go with you?”
Brian nodded vigorously. “He’s our ghost dog. Weimaraners are called ghost dogs because of the gray color of their fur. Sometimes in the dark, Casper looks kind of like a ghost. We even call him Ghost as a nickname.”
I laughed. “That’s an appropriate breed for a ghost hunter. Has he ever sniffed out a ghost?”
“Yeah! Dogs see things we can’t see. Or maybe they smell them. They don’t close themselves off to possibilities of another realm. They just react to what’s there. Casper is pretty good. He’s not much of a barker, but he senses things and alerts us to their presence.”
Brian reached down to stroke Casper’s back. “I wish you had alerted me to Eva’s presence,” he grumbled, looking toward the fire where Eva chatted with a group of ghost hunters.
Felix and Zelda had drifted over for cider.
“Don’t let Eva get to you.” Felix sighed, then said to me, “Brian had a little run-in with Eva last year.”
“Oh?”
Brian yanked at his ear. “Aw, she’s a pill. If I had known she was coming, I might have reconsidered.”
“No, you wouldn’t have!” Felix clucked at him. “There’s no way you would have missed out on this.”
Brian grinned. “Yeah, you’re right. But I would have known what I was getting into. Catch you later, Holly.”
The three of them wandered off to gaze at the old Wagtail Springs Hotel. Casper sprang ahead of them looking a bit ghostly as they left the glow of the fire. I was very pleased that Trixie chose to stay by my side. She was probably worn out.
We closed down at eleven. Oma and Rose helped me pack the food service items into the golf cart and rode back to the inn with Trixie and me.
After unloading, I headed straight to my grandmother’s private kitchen—not the tiny one in her apartment near the registration area or the professional restaurant-style kitchen for the inn, but the big kitchen next to the dining area. Off-limits to guests, it was our private retreat in the inn and doubled as a private dining and sitting room. When I was growing up, my parents had shipped me off to Oma and the Sugar Maple Inn every summer vacation. I had spent many happy hours in that kitchen.
Unless I missed my guess, Oma’s fridge would be packed with leftovers from breakfast and lunch. Trixie bounded ahead through the pet door that led to the kitchen. I pushed open the door to the dark room. My hand was on the light switch when Trixie growled at the ominous shadow of a person at the door that led to the garden.
Four
Metal scraped against metal. I could only make out the shape of a head and shoulders through the window in the door.
My first thought was that someone was trying to break in. My heart pounded, and I could hardly breathe.
Fortunately, my second thought set me straight. A guest had probably gone for a walk and couldn’t find an open door on the lake side of the inn. I had lived in the city too long. It was time to reset my thinking and realize that I ran an inn and that people sometimes did peculiar things like try to open a locked door instead of walking around to one of the two open entrances. At this hour, the front door and the registration entrance were both unlocked. Any guest could come and go as he pleased.
I flicked on the kitchen lights.
The shadowy head jerked up. In an instant it was gone.
I froze. A chill ran through me. Wouldn’t a guest have knocked, glad to be let in?
That could only mean one thing. The person must have had sinister reasons for trying to break into the kitchen. The only reason I could think of to enter the back way was to avoid being seen.
Casey! What if the intruder entered through the registration doors? I had to tell Casey. I phoned him from the wall phone in the kitchen and told him to lock the doors.
When I hung up, I peeked out to the main lobby of the inn where the front door led to Wagtail’s pedestrian zone. Quiet as a mouse. Still shaking, I darted to the door and locked it. Using the house phone, I called 911.
While I was on the phone, a blonde woman walked down the stairs. She appeared to be concentrating and didn’t notice me. She strode toward the cat wing but soon returned and passed me going in the other direction. Oma and Gingersnap greeted her warmly as they walked toward me. She must be a guest.
“What is going on?” asked Oma. “Casey says we have an intruder?”
“Someone was trying to break into the kitchen door. He bolted the second I turned on the light.”
Oma frowned at me. “You are certain about this? Maybe it was just a guest . . .”
“Then why did he run away?”
She cupped her right hand to her cheek. “This makes no sense. Anyone could walk in the front door at this hour. Why would someone break in the back?”
I didn’t want to offend her, but the truth was that she had created an unsupervised lobby when she remodeled and moved the registration desk to the side entrance. “Oma, do you think it might be time to put a camera on the front door so the clerk in registration can keep an eye on it?”
She sank onto a bench. “No, no. This should not be necessary. We are a small operation. During the day Shelley is working in the dining area and keeping an eye on things. Maybe we should hire someone to be the concierge from five to midnight?”
A knock on the front door spooked us. I peered out the sidelight and recognized Dave Quinlan—Officer Dave to locals. I opened the door. “That was quick!”
Dave had served in the navy and it still showed in his posture. His police uniform fit perfectly, suggesting that he made time to work out. “This time of night, I hang around the pedestrian zone because that’s where the action is. What’s up?”
I filled him in, ending with, “You didn’t happen to see anyone running away from the inn, did you?”
“Can’t say I did. Let’s have a look at that door.”
I led him into the kitchen. Oma and the dogs followed us. He unlocked the door, turned on the outdoor light, and pulled out a flashlight, which he shone on the lock.
“Ladies, I recommend installing a deadbolt.” He flashed the light toward the stone terrace outside. His eyebrows rose but his mouth pulled into a grimace. “Not much to see. No footprints. This stone wouldn’t show much unless it was snowing or muddy.”
He stepped inside, and I locked the door behind him.
“I’d leave the outdoor light on back here at night. Someone could break the bulb or unscrew it, but if you’re right, and he didn’t want to be seen, it might be enough to discourage your would-be intruder.”
“Why would anyone want to sneak inside?” asked Oma.
“Oh, Liesel. You’re not new to this. Most people who travel carry cash. You have any particularly flashy guests right now?”
“No,” she said. “No one like that. A ghost hunting team—”
Dave flicked his eyes toward the ceiling. “Oh, swell.”
“You don’t believe in ghosts?” I asked.
“Can’t live in Wagtail without experiencing some weird stuff. I’d say I’m on the fence. But there’s something about Howloween that makes people kick up their heels and play pranks. That’s more work for me.” He groaned.
Oma still frowned. “We have two guests who are not part of the ghost team—a businessman and a sweet lady.”
“Is that the woman who just walked by?” I asked.
Oma nodded.
“I’ll take a hike around the outside of the inn whenever I’m down this way,” said Dave. “Call me if anything else happens.”
I locked the front door behind him. Gingersnap and Oma went to tell Casey what had transpired, but Trixie and I headed straight for a snack. As I had suspected, the fridge offered an amazing selection. I helped myself to turkey chili, which I promptly stuck in the microwave. I added a bowl of fruit salad, and grabbed some butter for the loaf of rustic bread I spied on the cornflower blue island.
A bottle of wine called my name, but I decided against it. I wanted to stay awake long enough to eat. One bowl was labeled turkey stew for dogs. “Turkey for you, too?” I asked Trixie.
I spooned a portion into a bowl and nuked it just enough to warm it. Trixie ate much faster than I did, then parked herself next to me and watched with hopeful eyes while I ate at the island. I broke off a few small pieces of the bread crust and popped them into her bowl. She ate them like a canine vacuum cleaner.
Twinkletoes shot through the pet door and screeched to a halt at the sight of us. Arching her back like a Halloween cat, she danced sideways for a few steps, then changed direction and flew out the pet door. Trixie scrambled after her. At least they were having fun.
Twinkletoes had shown up at the inn on her own before I adopted her. She was probably happy to be back where she had room to roam. My house in Arlington, Virginia, was tiny compared to the inn. Thanks to the booming real estate market there, I had rented it out for an amount that covered the mortgage and left me with a little stream of income.
After washing the bowls, I took Trixie outside for a quick stop at the doggy bathroom. Back inside, I spied the blonde woman pacing the second floor hallway. I considered asking if she needed something but she disappeared into a room.
We trudged up the stairs to our quarters but Trixie had stopped bounding ahead of me. We had both run out of steam.
In my own little kitchen, I spooned shrimp supper into a bowl for Twinkletoes, slid into a nightshirt, and snuggled happily under the down comforter on my bed. Trixie turned in a circle three times before plopping next to my hip, and Twinkletoes soon bounded onto the bed and settled near my head.
* * *
The phone rang in the dead of night. I groped for it in the darkness and mumbled, “Hello?”
“Holly, is that you?”
My Aunt Birdie. I closed my eyes and lay back on my pillow. “Yes.”
“Dear, I need help.”
I rolled over enough to peer at the clock. “Birdie, it’s four in the morning.”
“I’m sorry. Have I inconvenienced you? I’ll just lie here in pain. What’s a better time to call?”
Aargh. Guilt surged through me. I sat up, rubbing my eyes. “I’ll call the ambulance.”
“No! Don’t do that! I’m in my nightie.”
“Aunt Birdie, I’m sure they’ve seen nightgowns before.”
“Not mine, they haven’t. And they’re not going to, either.”
I slid my legs over the side of the bed. “Okay, I’m on my way.”
“Thank you, dear.”
Grumbling under my breath, I pulled on jeans and a turtleneck, and grabbed a jacket and my purse, in case I had to go to the hospital with her.
Trixie and Twinkletoes followed me to the door. “You guys better stay here this time.”
I locked the door behind me and trotted downstairs through a silent inn. As I passed through registration, I told Casey where I was going just in case a trip to the hospital was involved and I wasn’t back by breakfast.
I fired up one of the inn’s electric golf carts and headed for Birdie’s house. Wagtail slumbered. A breeze scattered dried leaves, and the moon cast a strong beam through bare branches. Porch lights and a few pumpkins glowed in the night, but no lights shone in houses yet. Except at Aunt Birdie’s, where the windows were ablaze.
Two black witches’ brooms rested upside down on her front porch. Pumpkin-colored pillows created an inviting vignette on the white wicker settee until I noticed that a faux bat hung upside down in the black birdcage on the table next to it. Hu
h. I never knew Birdie had a sense of humor.
She had clustered pumpkins around a chair that held an elaborate flower arrangement containing sunflowers and wickedly wild grapevines that jutted out in odd directions. And right next to it, a faux skeleton perched on a closed coffin. His legs were crossed, as though he were simply taking a break.
I walked up the steps and it dawned on me that her door was probably locked. How ironic that I might now be the one trying to break in. I knocked as a formality, then tried the doorknob. The door readily swung open.
Birdie stood in her foyer wearing bright red lipstick that matched a chic dress. Years ago, she would have been called a handsome woman. Her face was attractive, almost beautiful, but the sour expression she always wore took it down a notch. She was painfully thin. The skin on her face clung tightly to prominent cheeks and a nose that might be a bit too pointed. A streak of white hair sprang from the middle of her forehead, emphasizing the darkness of the rest of her hair. Her complexion seemed too pale, and frighteningly close to being witchy.
“How nice of you to bother to come, Holly. I understand you’ve been in town thirty-six hours,” she sniffed.
“You’re up. And dressed. And your hair is done.”
“What? No hug?”
Was she kidding? I glared at her. “Is that a stopwatch in your hand?”
“Eighteen minutes. You’re going to have to work on that.”
Had she lost her mind? “No, I’m not. Because you are never going to pull a stunt like this again.” I pointed my forefinger at her. “If you do, then you can forget about me ever coming to your rescue.” What a moronic trick. A woman in her sixties ought to know better. Unless . . . unless she wasn’t thinking straight anymore.
“If your mother had taught you any manners, you would have come by to visit immediately.”
“Oh, but it’s good manners to wake a person in the middle of the night and haul her over here on false pretenses?”
She slapped a manicured hand to the base of her throat. “No one speaks to me that way.”
“Maybe it’s time someone did.” I turned on my heel and marched out, fuming. I didn’t look back until I reached the golf cart.
