“This oughta be good,” Kimberly quipped from over Hayward’s shoulder.
Flapjack glowered at her, but continued undeterred. “Myra is a really nice lady, but let’s be honest, she’s a little out there. For all we know, she wandered off on her own. As for this Quinton guy— “
Hayward bristled at the name.
“—he probably left to get away from Gwen.”
“Flapjack!” I scolded. “First of all, Quinton was not trying to get away from Gwen. Second, Ruthie Jasson is possibly among the missing. And to say there is some weird paranormal stuff going on at the Barnes house would be an understatement, all right?”
The more I talked, the bigger the pit in my stomach grew.
“What is going on?” Hayward asked. “Where could they all be going?”
Flapjack shrugged one shoulder and started grooming himself. “I still think there’s a reasonable explanation. There’s no such thing as a ghost boogeyman. For all we know, they’re off having a party without us.”
“Gee, I can’t imagine why someone would leave you off the guest list,” Kimberly snarked.
“Enough!” I held up a hand. “I don’t have time to debate this with you all morning. I need to call Lucas and tell him about the change of plans and then get some work done. Now, Lizzie is going to be in the shop with me, so I want the three of you to play nice. No troublemaking. Hayward, I’m counting on you to keep these two civil, all right?”
“Yes, my lady.”
I rolled my eyes and closed the door.
Lizzie was already working on an arrangement when I made my way downstairs. The vase was bursting at the seams with flowers. The result was pretty, but would carry a hefty price tag. “Your coffee is on your desk,” she said when I closed the door to my stairwell.
“Thank you, Lizzie. That looks really good,” I said. “What order is that for?”
“It’s for one that came in last night,” she replied, nodding at the printer tray. I was part of a network of shops. Someone from the East Coast could order flowers from my shop and have them delivered locally. The orders printed automatically. I didn’t usually get a lot, but every little bit helped as I worked to establish myself in the region.
I blinked as she added another three roses. “You’re sure it’s not going to go over-budget?” I asked.
She paused and pushed the order slip over the counter. Sure enough, the final cost was well into the $200 range.
“Wow.”
Lizzie snorted. “I know! He must have really screwed up, huh?”
I smiled, a smart reply on the tip of my tongue, but it faded as I realized who had placed the order: Casper Schmidt.
I flipped the paper over and my heart dropped another inch. The recipient was listed as one Drea Gardener, still listed as a resident of the hotel they’d all been holed up in for the past several weeks as the wedding plans were finalized. Kimberly wasn’t content to sit on her hands back in New York, making decisions over video calls, emails, and phone consultations. No … she wanted—needed—to be right in the action and had managed to drag Casper and Drea and Sonya along for the majority of the ride. But why was Drea still in town? Mr. And Mrs. Gardner had already flown home. Why hadn’t she gone with them?
“You cannot leave me alone with those two all day!”
I winced as Kimberly descended from the ceiling and came into full view.
“Are they okay?” Lizzie asked.
I realized she was studying my expression and I forced a smile. “Beautiful. You’re getting pretty good at this, huh?”
“I’m trying my best,” she replied, taking a step back to consider the bouquet from another angle. She retrieved a large cut of ribbon and returned to her workstation to tie the shiny red fabric into an artful bow. If there was one area where she really excelled, it was in bow tying. My attempts always fell slightly short, ending up a little on the mangled side of things. With wedding season in full swing, I was willing to keep her on staff just for the use of her nimble little fingers.
“They are the most boring people, or ghosts, or whatever, that I’ve ever met!” Kimberly whined.
“Great job!” I exclaimed. “I’m going to get a few things from the office. Be right back.”
Lizzie nodded and continued fluffing and primping the florals.
I jerked my chin, indicating for Kimberly to follow me, and then marched into my small office. I closed the door, then turned and folded my arms as she floated through the wall beside me. “You can’t be down here driving me crazy all day.”
“What are you going to do? Iron me? Then you’d lose track of me and you already said you don’t want to do that.”
I ground my teeth. “I’m starting to care less and less.”
Kimberly scoffed and tossed her hair. “Fine, then if I’m officially off of house arrest, I’ll go see what else is going on around town.” She started to go. Calling my bluff.
“Wait!”
“Why should I? You’re just going to stick me back upstairs with the stuffy one and the rude one for babysitters.”
“I have deliveries to make.”
“I’ll go with you!”
My eyes slid toward the door, thinking of the one arrangement in particular that I did not want her to see. Or even know that it existed. If she found out Casper was sending pricey flowers to her younger sister … well, let’s just say I’m pretty sure she’d find—and subsequently unleash—some major ghost firepower. In my experience, the angrier in life, the more dangerous a ghost could become on the other side of living.
“Kimberly, please—”
A knock sounded on the door.
I shot Kimberly a zip it look and opened the door. “Sorry to bother you, but someone’s on the phone. A Jason?”
I frowned. “Okay, I’ll uh—I’ll take it in here.”
Lizzie nodded and pulled the door closed.
“That your boyfriend?” Kimberly asked me.
“No.” I sat down at my desk. “He’s the officer that’s investigating your death. So shush!”
That did the trick.
I picked up the line. “Hello, Jason. What can I do for you?”
“Scarlet, I’m afraid there’s been some changes in the Gardner investigation. Would it be possible for me to stop by and ask you some questions this afternoon?”
“Of course. But, what happened?”
Jason sighed. “I was wrong when I said this investigation was a formality. It looks as though Miss Gardener was, in fact murdered.”
My eyes went wide and swiveled over to Kimberly.
Chapter 18
“Well, what did he have to say? For all your bossy demands, you still haven’t actually told me anything about what’s going on,” Kimberly said as soon as I hung up with Jason.
“You’re right.” I glanced at the closed door. Lizzie was probably fine, busy working on the arrangements for the funeral. It wasn’t that I thought she would dawdle. She was eager to prove her worth and was decently talented with floral arrangements. I could trust her.
“Yesterday at the station, Jason told me that he suspected the department was putting on a show. They were going through the motions of an investigation at the insistence of your parents. But, in his opinion, there weren’t any signs of foul play.”
“Then why am I still here?” Kimberly demanded.
“Not all ghosts are murder victims,” I replied. “I never said that was the only reason why some spirits are left behind. In fact, up until about five minutes ago, I would have bet money that the reason you’re still here is because of how things ended with Casper.”
“But now?”
My eyes shifted to the phone. “Jason—Officer Keith—is coming by with some further questions. He says there is enough evidence to suggest this wasn’t an accident or mistake.”
“So, that cake woman did kill me!”
“Penny! Her name is Penny! And no, I don’t think she did.”
Kimberly scoffed. “Well who else touc
hed the cake? You couldn’t possibly think Drea killed me. She’s the only one who touched those samples.”
My eyes rounded. “No! She wasn’t!”
Kimberly stilled.
“Sonya picked up the cake samples from the bakery. She was originally going to take them to you, but when she found out Drea was already heading that way, they met up.”
“Why would Sonya want to kill me?”
I shot her a look. “You really have to ask?”
“Yes! I do!”
Where was Flapjack when I needed him?
“The commission from my wedding was going to finance her business expansion,” Kimberly said, not waiting for me to try to stumble through an actual reply. “I overheard her on the phone one day, back in New York. I was early for an appointment and she was chattering away, her office door wide open, bragging about the massive commission.”
“That might be true, but according to what she told me, she wound up still getting the commission. The wedding was close enough that everything was non-refundable.”
Kimberly paused, letting it sink in, then shot up from her place at the edge of my desk. “Sonya killed me? With cake?!”
“Did she know about the allergy?”
“Of course! She was in charge of putting together the menu. She knew no shellfish, dairy, the sesame seeds. It was all on the ginormous questionnaire you have to fill out to be one of her ‘superstar’ clients.” Kimberly surged from one end of the cramped office to the other, pacing like a caged animal.
I held up a hand. “We don’t know anything for certain. We have to wait and talk to Jason. I’ll tell him about your—our, suspicions, and let him figure it out. He’s the professional here. We’re just two spectators with a thin hypothesis.”
Kimberly crossed her arms. “Speak for yourself! I’m way more than some bystander in all of this. I’m dead!”
“All I’m saying is that we need time to get to the truth.”
“No, we don’t. I know it was Sonya. It makes complete sense. You know, she was always jealous of me. Constantly asking me where my clothing was from, complimenting my shoes.”
I rolled my eyes when she pivoted away from me again. “Isn’t that basically describing 99 percent of the Upper East Side’s female population?”
She spun, her eyes blazing. “It was different with Sonya. Do you know that she used to make coffee? For a living?”
She said that like it were the most absurd thing she’d ever heard of, as though she weren’t talking to someone who worked in the service industry.
“What if it was an accident?”
“The cake just fell into a vat of something that would be poisonous specifically to me?”
“Or, she didn’t know it would kill you. You said yourself that you didn’t know that your allergies were so severe.”
“So she was trying to make me sick, but not dead. Well that makes it much better, doesn’t it?”
I shoved up from the desk. “I’m going back to work.”
“You can’t!”
“I’ve told you everything that I know. Now, I have things to do. Officer Keith will be here this afternoon. So, why don’t you go back upstairs, play nice with the other ghosts, and I’ll come and get you when he’s here. You can eavesdrop all you want.”
Unfortunately, Kimberly wasn’t good at following directions. As I stalked from the office, she followed half a step behind and with Lizzie around, all I could do was swipe a hand at her as though she were some giant, talking mosquito.
“How’s it going on the Murrum funeral arrangements?” I asked Lizzie.
“You should have seen the way she looked at Casper!” Kimberly babbled. “You know, I bet that’s why she killed me. She thought that once I was out of the way, she’d have him all to herself!”
I stopped, wanting to point out for the dozenth time that she and Casper weren’t exactly the Ken and Barbie she wanted everyone to see. Nobody had missed his absence at her funeral, but sometimes I wondered if she’d blocked that out.
Then there was the order he’d placed, not knowing that I was fully entrenched in his departed fiancé’s afterlife.
I couldn’t tell Kimberly about the flowers. In fact, it would be best to get them out of the shop ASAP.
“The pew bows are all done,” Lizzie replied.
“Bless you,” I told her with a smile. “Tell you what—how about you tackle the local deliveries. We don’t want anyone waiting.”
Lizzie gave me a strange look. “You want me to do the deliveries?”
The last time she’d been behind the wheel, my van ended up in the shop and was released only once I’d maxed out the company credit card to pay the deductible.
“Uh huh. Sure, why not?”
“Well, I—”
“I trust you, Lizzie.”
She gave me a firm nod and went to the cooler to start pulling orders. Meanwhile, I swiped Casper’s order sheet from the workbench and folded it in half.
“I wonder if I should haunt Sonya,” Kimberly mused, still following me around the shop.
The cooler popped open and Lizzie came out, holding the huge bouquet set to go to Drea. Luckily, if she realized who the recipient was, she wasn’t letting on. “Looks like the next two after this are going to the Lilac B & B.”
A sob erupted from Kimberly’s mouth before she pressed both hands across it.
“That’s right,” I answered Lizzie. “Normally I would do it tomorrow, but since you’re going out, I’d say go ahead and load them up.”
She nodded and gingerly crossed the studio space, eying the large arrangement to make sure she didn’t crash into or trip over anything. I held my breath as she shifted the vase in order to free up a hand long enough to push open the back door. When she was gone, I ducked into the cooler to gather the accompanying arrangements.
When I crossed back to shut the cooler door, Lizzie returned.
“So? Is that what I should do? Haunt Sonya? Maybe I can learn to throw things, or mess with the lights.”
I pressed my lips into a thin line and continued ignoring her.
“Why aren’t you saying anything?” Kimberly prodded, following after me as I helped Lizzie get the arrangements loaded into the back of the Lily Pond van. “Helllloooo?”
I kept a placid smile in place, ignoring her pestering until Lizzie was behind the wheel, giving me a thumbs up through the driver’s window. She turned on the engine and I winced as the tires hit the curb. She’d put it in drive instead of reverse. Sweat beaded on my forehead, despite the cool mid-morning breeze.
Lizzie flashed another thumbs up—a double this time—and threw the van into reverse and backed down the driveway.
“Heaven help me,” I muttered, turning to go back inside.
“You done ignoring me now?” Kimberly barked.
I scowled at her. Before I could tell her just what I thought she should go and do, Hayward and Flapjack floated down through the ceiling. “Aha, there they are. The world’s worst babysitters.”
Kimberly huffed. “I’m sorry, did you just say babysitters?”
“She sure did, creampuff,” Flapjack replied.
I looked to Hayward. If he had blood in his veins, his cheeks would have turned a nice radish purple. I was sure of it.
“I’m terribly sorry, Lady Scarlet. I was—”
“Seriously?” Kimberly rolled her eyes. “What is with that whole milady routine? Give it up! It’s the twenty-first century!”
Hayward bristled, reaching up to keep his hat from toppling off his head. “Now, see here!”
“You’re lucky Scarlet hasn’t kicked your ghostly butt to the curb yet,” Flapjack interjected.
“Enough!” I yelled above the roar. “Stop it! All of you!”
All three of them went quiet, but turned to glare at me.
“Hayward. Flapjack. Upstairs.”
“Lady Scarlet, I—”
I raised a hand. “I’m not mad. I just need some space.”
&nb
sp; With a miserable nod, Hayward rose from the floor and soared up to the ceiling. The top of his hat disappeared but he stopped short when a tapping sound echoed through the space. I twisted around to look out over the front counter. “Son of a…”
Casper Schmidt was standing at the door.
Chapter 19
“What the hell is he doing here?”
I glanced at her. “Kimberly, take a deep breath for me.”
“I don’t breathe, remember!” She snapped, her voice soaring toward hysteric.
Casper had already seen me, there wasn’t a way I could slip upstairs and ignore him. “This day just keeps getting better and better,” I grumbled through a forced smile as I hurried to answer the door.
“Hello Mr. Schmidt. How can I help you?”
Casper came inside as I held open the door. “I didn’t realize you were closed today. I was supposed to—”
A loud chirp stopped him mid-sentence. He reached into the breast pocket of his suit jacket and retrieved a silver phone. Without apology, he frantically tapped out a message and a whoosh sound followed. He glanced up. “I had a delivery going out. I assumed it would be today.”
“He ordered flowers from you?” Kimberly said, floating closer to Casper. She twisted her head. “Why didn’t you tell me? Who are they for?”
“Um, yes, actually.” I refocused on Casper. “I’m normally not open on Mondays, but as it’s the busy season, I had to make an exception. Your order went out on the van about twenty minutes ago.”
He tapped another message and then looked up at me. “I got into town earlier than expected.”
“Right. Well, as I said, it will be delivered shortly.”
“What is going on?” Kimberly demanded. “Why are you here?” she screamed at him.
“Thank you.” Casper ducked his head and went back to typing frantically on his phone. He made his way out of the shop, barely breaking eye contact with the screen.
Kimberly followed him but stopped short of the door closing. When the jingle bell went quiet, she rounded on me. “What is going on around here?”
I sighed and went to lock up, feeling Kimberly’s frosty glare every step. “He ordered a bouquet of flowers for Drea.”
Ghosts Gone Wild: A Beechwood Harbor Ghost Mystery (Beechwood Harbor Ghost Mysteries Book 2) Page 14
