Ghosts Gone Wild: A Beechwood Harbor Ghost Mystery (Beechwood Harbor Ghost Mysteries Book 2)

by Danielle Garrett

  “Drea? Why?”

  I slipped the keys into the pocket of my jeans and then held out both hands. “I don’t know, Kimberly. I got the order this morning. Lizzie did the arrangement and is dropping them off at Drea’s hotel this morning. I didn’t even realize she was still in town. From what I heard, you parents jetted home the night of your funeral.”

  “Drea wouldn’t have gone with them. She hated traveling anywhere with our parents.”

  “Why?”

  “She would always say they were too hoity-toity. Private jets, first class lounges.”

  “Sounds like a real drag,” Flapjack added.

  “Knowing Drea, she’s hanging around here, working on her music,” Kimberly sneered. “That’s all she cares about. Even when we were planning my wedding, all she wanted to do was get back to New York and do some stupid show with her grungy friends.”

  “Sending flowers is one thing,” I continued, largely ignoring Kimberly. “But flying all the way back to see her? That seems serious.”

  Kimberly crossed her arms. “He’s not interested in her, if that’s what you’re thinking. Drea could not be further from his type.”

  I cut a glance at Hayward and thanked my lucky stars that she hadn’t been downstairs to see the lavish arrangement. It was better for everyone if she could hang onto the idea of a small, throw-together bouquet wrapped in cellophane.

  “As for why he’s back, there are half a dozen reasonable explanations now that I think about it. He’s a marketing expert. For all I know, he was out picking up new clients while I was planning the wedding!”

  It was a paper-thin theory, but I was going to let her have it.

  “Who do you think he was texting the whole time?” I asked no one in particular.

  Flapjack swished his tail. “The sister-in-law.”

  Hayward, Kimberly, and I all pivoted toward the cat. “How do you know that?” I asked.

  “He set his phone down when he reached for his wallet. I saw it right there on the screen.”

  “Since when can you read?”

  “I’ve always been able to read. Cats are highly intelligent creatures, thank you very much.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Of course. How could we forget? Although I seem to remember that back when you were alive, you had a habit of getting your head stuck in Pringles tubes.”

  Kimberly snorted.

  “Well, what did it say?” I pressed.

  Flapjack looked at Kimberly for a moment. “He was telling her that he was in town and on his way to her hotel.”

  I gulped.

  Kimberly bristled but made a show of tossing her hair. “I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation.” She inched toward the door. “In fact, I think I’ll go see what’s going on.”

  She slipped through the glass and we all watched as she floated across the street. My heart went out to her. I had a bad feeling that she wasn’t going to like what she found at the hotel.

  No sooner than Kimberly left, Lucas appeared. He knocked on the front door with his elbow as both hands were wrapped around coffee cups. I smiled and rushed over to answer the door.

  “Right on time,” I said with a smile as I took my cup. “I just chugged the last few gulps of my first one of the day.”

  Lucas chuckled. “Why am I not surprised? You about done here?”

  I turned and considered the mess on the workbench—bits of stems, leaves, and pieces of ribbons. “Just about.” I took a sip of the creamy foam on the latte and then set the cup aside and started sweeping the trash into the large can. “Still planning on going to the post office to ask about our mysterious Dr. Padget?”

  Lucas went to get a broom from the corner. “Actually, I’ve got a better plan.”

  I dumped a handful of debris into the trash and looked over at him. “You do?”

  He flashed a self-satisfied smile. “That’s right. I might not have the gift, but I still have skills.”

  “All right, all right, Mr. Skillz. What exactly did you do?”

  “I called the number and set up a meeting.”

  “Wait, what? You actually talked to him?”

  “Yep. I pretended that I had a ghost extermination—” He paused and looked around the room, cringing. “Sorry to any, uh, ghosts present.”

  “None taken,” Flapjack replied with a wry tone.

  Hayward tipped his chin.

  I rolled my fingers. “They’re fine. Tell me what he said!”

  Lucas swiped the broom across the floor. “We have a meeting to discuss our options. Seven o’clock tonight. He gave me the address for his office.”

  “You do have the skillz,” I teased.

  “I got us in the door. You’re the one who’s going to have to figure out how to take him down.”

  My lips twisted into a frown. “Right. Minor detail.”

  Lucas laughed. “I have faith.”

  The bell on the front door jangled and I groaned. “Damn, I forgot to lock it up after you.”

  With one swoop, I cleared the rest of the trash away and brushed my hands clean on my jeans. “Be right back,” I said, leaving Lucas in the back room so I could get rid of whatever customer had wandered in.

  Officer Keith was standing at the counter. He smiled as I appeared and reached up to tip the brim of his hat. He didn’t have the accent, but I couldn’t help wondering if he was from the South. He had all the charming mannerisms down pat. “Hello, Scarlet.”

  “Jason! You’re earlier than I expected.”

  “Is this an okay time?” he asked.

  “Yeah, of course. How can I help?”

  Lucas joined me at the counter and the smile on Jason’s face faltered. He reached over the counter. “Officer Jason Keith.”

  “Lucas Greene,” Lucas said, accepting the handshake. When he released Jason’s hand, he draped his arm around my waist.

  “Wait a second,” Jason said, frowning at Lucas’s hand placement for a moment. “I remember you. You were here with the TV show a few months ago.”

  “That’s right. This trip is personal though,” Lucas replied, smiling down at me.

  He was clearly having way too much fun with poor Jason.

  “You said you had news about Kimberly?” I prompted, eager to get the pissing match over with.

  Jason straightened. “That’s right.”

  “How do you know that she was killed?”

  “The autopsy showed that she died from anaphylactic shock, triggered by her allergy to sesame seeds. The cake samples were the only thing in her stomach, so we had to assume that’s where the sesame seeds were from. Which, on its own, could be considered a tragic accident. Cross-contamination isn’t a capital offense. However, we had to follow the investigation through. We did indeed find sesame seeds in the filling of the cake samples we retrieved from Ms. Gardner’s hotel suite. Now, we did a thorough search of the bakery where the samples were prepared, but there are no sesame seeds or presence of sesame seeds. According to Matilda and Penny, they never use them in any of their baking.”

  “So, someone intentionally added them to the samples?”

  “It looks that way.”

  “Who knew about the allergy?” Lucas asked.

  “Close friends, family, obviously.”

  “Maybe it was an accident,” I suggested.

  Jason looked at me. “Unfortunately, the lack of sesame seeds at the bakery rules out an accident. Someone purposefully laced the cakes with the allergen.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  Jason nodded in agreement. “What I wanted to ask you was what you thought of Sonya Perez, the wedding coordinator. It’s our understanding that you had interactions with her over the course of the planning.”

  Kimberly’s voice invaded my head. She was jealous of me. Wanted Casper. Only cared about the money.

  “Scarlet?” Jason said. “Whatever you tell me is safe—it’s not going to get back to her.”

  “I like Sonya,” I finally answered. “I know she had
her … difficulties with Kimberly—”

  Flapjack scoffed. “Who didn’t?”

  “According to Penny, Sonya was the one who picked up the cake samples that evening. Based on that, we asked Ms. Perez if we could search her hotel room and rental car. She obliged us and in the process, we found a jar of tahini sauce, which, I’m not sure if you know, is essentially ground-up sesame seeds. Our working theory is that she stuffed some of the sauce into the samples on her way to deliver them to Kimberly’s hotel room.”

  “What did she say when you found it?”

  Jason shook his head. “She claimed to have no knowledge as to how or why the jar was there.”

  “But you don’t believe her?”

  “To be frank, I don’t know what to think. She seemed sincere to me, but the evidence is pretty damning. We’re testing the jar for fingerprints.”

  I sighed. “I’m really sorry, Jason, but I’m not sure how much I can help. Sonya did make some questionable comments about Kimberly, mostly about how picky she was and how impossible she was to deal with, but I don’t think that’s motive enough to do something like this.”

  Jason nodded and tapped the brim of his hat again. “Well, thank you for your time. If you think of anything else, please call me.”

  “I will.”

  He left the shop after one more suspicious once-over of Lucas, and I went to lock the door behind him.

  “I can’t believe Sonya was the one who poisoned Kimberly,” I said, returning to the back room where Lucas had resumed sweeping.

  “Sounded pretty open and shut to me,” he said, not looking up.

  A sudden thought popped into my head, and then out of my mouth before I could stop it. “She wasn’t the one who delivered the samples to Kimberly that night.”

  “What?”

  “Drea was going to have dinner with Kimberly and Casper, at their hotel. She and Sonya met up and Drea took the cake samples to Kimberly.”

  Lucas paused. “You think the sister is the one who did it?”

  “I don’t know, but we have to find out.”

  Chapter 20

  Once I returned the shop to some semblance of order, Lucas and I went down to Thistle, the local market, and showed Drea’s picture to one of the regular cashiers. She recognized her but couldn’t tell us what she’d purchased. Lucas told the store’s owner he was doing a consultation for upgrading the system and within a few minutes had talked him into letting him take a look at his security setup. We walked out with a copy of the last months’ worth of security footage and Lucas ended up getting an order for some upgraded cameras and monitoring software.

  “Now that’s what I call multitasking,” he said with a victorious smile as we slipped back into his rental car.

  We grabbed Chinese take-out for lunch and went back to my apartment to watch the footage on Lucas’s laptop. The whole thing sounded really badass but in reality was slow and boring. Watching days and days of people filtering in and out of the checkout lines, even on high speed, was incredibly dull.

  I blame movies for giving me a fantastical view of stakeouts.

  The food was long gone and I was debating going to get some eye drops when Lucas finally lunged forward and stopped the recording. “There she is!”

  I leaned in, my knees bouncing nervously, and stared at the laptop screen. “It is her. And look”—I jabbed a finger at the screen—“there’s the tahini!”

  The video showed Drea unpacking a basket onto the small conveyor belt. A few bags of chips, some bottles of water, a loaf of bread, and then the huge jar of tahini. She glanced around nervously as she waited for the person in line ahead of her to remove his bags and exit the lane. The cashier smiled at Drea and appeared to attempt small talk, but Drea was closed down. Shut off. She took her bags and left. Lucas paused the video and then rewound slightly, stopping the footage at the first sight of Drea.

  “Check out the timestamp,” Lucas said, gesturing at the corner of the screen. “The night Kimberly died.”

  “Two hours before,” I replied.

  The truth sat heavy in my stomach, weighing me down. She was her sister.

  “Looks like your original theory may be right,” Lucas said.

  “I thought it was Sonya,” I said, staring blankly at him.

  “I mean the part about Casper and Drea being more than future in-laws.”

  “Oh.” My train of thought changed gears and chugged into reverse. Was that what had happened after all? Drea and Casper commiserated, maybe over a few drinks, on a night after Kimberly had thrown them out of her room or stormed off after an epic tantrum. One thing led to another, and they ended up in some kind of forbidden romance? It had all the makings of a made-for-TV romance with Kimberly starring as the villain, at least until she ended up dead.

  I winced. My investigation into her death had started as a way to help her get answers and move on. I was supposed to be helping her find peace. There was no way she was going to move on once she found out about this. She’d probably go on and haunt Drea right there in her prison cell.

  My gaze drifted back to the laptop and I stared at Drea’s image. At least she couldn’t hear Kimberly. Listening to her big sister’s berating for twenty to life would definitely qualify as cruel and unusual punishment.

  “What do we do now? Turn this over to the police? It still seems pretty circumstantial.”

  Lucas stood and paced the length of the room, one hand resting on the back of his neck. “We could try to get footage of Drea stashing the tahini in Sonya’s car. Clearly that was a frame job.”

  “It’s a start,” I agreed. “Though, you’ll probably have to give another free consultation to land us the tapes. You sure your bottom line can take it?”

  He chuckled. “I got it.”

  “Good.” I pushed off the couch and went to the small coat closet opposite the front door. I pulled out a red jacket that was lightweight but added a layer of warmth to the tank top I’d been wearing all day at work. “Do you think we should talk to Drea? The police have already taken her statement, so maybe she’d be willing to talk to us. We could offer to help her.”

  “Help her do what?”

  “I don’t know. I’m flying by the seat of my pants here!” I pushed the closet door closed, frustrated.

  “Obviously.”

  I pursed my lips. “It’s what they always do in cop shows. Offer to help keep the bad guy from taking an even bigger fall.”

  “Problem is, we don’t have any leverage. She doesn’t have to talk to us and unless the police agree with our gut feeling, they probably won’t be too concerned with this either. Like you said, it’s all circumstantial.”

  “It was just an idea,” I replied, a little sour.

  Lucas flashed a half-cocked grin as he pulled open the door. “Well whatever we do, let’s just try to not get into a knife fight this time.”

  I laughed. “I can’t make any promises.”

  “You’re bad for my health, Scarlet Sanderson.”

  I quirked my lips. “Says the big, bad security guard. Isn’t your line supposed to be a little more danger is my middle name?”

  “Guess I missed that lesson in badass summer camp.”

  I gave him a playful thwap on the arm and went through the door. “Come on, Bond Lite.”

  It wasn’t hard to find Drea. She was sitting in the lobby of her hotel, scribbling into a notebook in between sips from the large glass of wine to her right. She was so engrossed in whatever she was working on that she didn’t look up until Lucas slid into the seat opposite her.

  “Excuse me?” Her eyes flew from Lucas to me and her expression shifted once again, her eyebrows lifting. “Oh, hello, Scarlet. What are you doing here?”

  Lucas kicked out the third chair at the small table and I sat down beside him, both of us facing Drea. “There’s something I need to talk to you about, Drea.”

  “Okay. If this is about the funeral flowers, I don’t have my checkbook on me but…” She was looki
ng back and forth between us, trying to figure out what was going on.

  “No.” I shook my head, wishing that was the largest of the problems on my plate. “I’m afraid not. I got a visit from one of the police officers working on the investigation into Kimberly’s death.”

  “Oh?” Drea’s eyes went wide.

  I watched her face, trying to catch any slight nuance that may give her away. “Have they told you the latest development?”

  She shifted in her seat, glancing around the restaurant. “Um, no. I’ve been in a little bit of my own world the last couple of day. Speaking of … how did you even know to find me here?”

  “Casper ordered a bouquet for you from my shop.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Ugh. I don’t know what he was thinking with that.”

  Lucas and I exchanged a quick sideways glance.

  I cleared my throat. “Were the two of you …”

  She waited for me to finish my question, then dawning filled her eyes. “What? God, no!” Drea shook her head and scoffed. “He was way off track. He’s just another self-important, arrogant a-hole in a power suit. New York is crawling with them.”

  “Not to mention the part where he was engaged to your sister…,” Lucas pointed out, somewhat under his breath.

  Drea shifted her gaze to him. “I don’t even know who you are.”

  “This is Lucas Greene.”

  She shrugged and raised her brows. “And?”

  I sighed. “Drea, listen to me, there’s no real easy way to bring this up, but we know what you did.”

  She was good. I had to give her that. She didn’t even blink. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “The police know that Kimberly was purposefully dosed with sesame seeds, one of the foods she was allergic to.”

  “She was my sister, I’m well aware of her many allergies.”

  “Of course,” I said with a sigh. “Well they turned the bakery inside out and tested for any chance of cross-contamination. They couldn’t find anything. The sesame seeds were added to the cake samples after they left the bakery.”

  Drea flinched. “Are you suggesting that I know anything about that?”