by Nicole Ellis
I immediately ran down the stairs, coming to a sliding halt at the entrance to the kitchen. Adam stood there, dragging Goldie away from a pan of lasagna that had fallen to the floor.
“I thought he was locked up in the family room.” I eyed Adam.
“He must have escaped when I got the vacuum out. That door doesn’t always close all the way,” Adam said sheepishly. “Sorry, honey.”
I shut my eyes for a moment then reopened them. Yep, half the lasagna I’d made was splattered all over the kitchen floor and cabinets. There was probably enough food left to feed everyone, but it was going to take a while to clean it all. I had half a mind to allow Goldie to take on the job, but decided that I didn’t need a sick dog added to the mix.
“I’m going to go upstairs to get dressed. I can help you clean it when I get back, ok? Please lock Goldie back up so he doesn’t eat it all.”
Goldie whined and strained against Adam’s grip on his collar.
“Sorry, buddy,” Adam said. “But you got both of us in trouble. Back to the family room you go.”
Goldie trotted along beside Adam as he led him back to doggy jail.
When I got back downstairs, my hair dried and dressed in clothes more appropriate for a birthday party, the floor was almost clean.
“Whoa. How’d you get it cleaned so fast?” I asked. Adam was on the floor washing off the bottom cupboards.
“He had some help,” came a male voice from the hallway leading to the garage.
My mom and dad popped out of the hallway, enveloping me in a big group hug.
“Hi, honey,” my mom said, squeezing me tight. “You look stressed.”
“Thanks, Mom.” I sighed. “I’ll be fine after Halloween.”
She waggled her finger at me. “Exercise will keep the stress away, remember that.”
“I know.” I smiled to myself. Once a P.E. teacher, always a P.E. teacher. “Hey, Dad.” I gave him a hug too. “It’s so great to see you both.”
They exchanged glances. I looked from one of them to the other.
“What? Am I missing something?”
My mother leaned forward to kiss my dad on the lips and he wrapped his arm around her waist. They both grinned at me. My eyes widened.
“You’re back together?” Part of me didn’t dare believe it. They’d been separated for almost half a year and the longer it had been, the more I’d lost hope of them ever reuniting.
“After spending five months in the basement, I realized that I couldn’t live without this woman.” My dad pulled her tighter to him and she blushed.
Adam came in and wrapped his arm around my waist. “Good news, huh?”
That was the understatement of the year. “Yeah.” I could barely speak, but joy welled up inside of me with the force of Old Faithful.
My mother broke away from my dad and clapped her hands. “No more time for lollygagging—we’ve got to get this house ready for a party.”
I smiled and went over to my list. Almost everything on it was already done.
“Adam, would you do me a favor and grab that straight-back chair out of your office? We’re one short.”
“On it,” he answered.
“Mom, can you please set the table?” I asked. Adam had already installed the extra leaves in our table, making it long enough for everyone to have a place to sit.
“Sure, honey.” She reached up into the cupboard and pulled down some plates and cups, then searched in the bottom cupboard. “Hey, Jill, where are Mikey’s cups? I swear they used to be in here.”
I sighed. “They were. Adam did some rearranging.”
“Oh,” my mother said knowingly. “I’m sure it was very helpful too.”
“Yeah. He’s been very helpful, lately.” We looked at each other and laughed.
She held her hand up to shield her mouth and whispered, “I’ll have to tell you about all the helpful things your dad has done since he retired.”
I pinched my lips together to try to keep from smiling and turned to my dad, who was standing at the edge of the kitchen looking confused by the conversation between Mom and me. “Can you please light a fire? It’s getting a bit chilly in here.”
He nodded and strode over to the wood fireplace. My mother carried out a stack of plates.
Adam came back with the extra chair and entered the kitchen, coming up behind me. “I’m so happy for you, honey,” he whispered into my ear.
Tears dripped down my cheeks and I turned my head to the side before I wiped them away. “Me too.”
The doorbell rang, and I opened it to find Desi’s family and my in-laws on the porch. Lincoln held a mountain of presents. Anthony and Mikey ran into the house and made a beeline for the stairs.
“Ella’s one—I don’t think she needs that many gifts,” I teased.
“Beth went a little crazy at the toy store,” he said. His wife elbowed him.
“I did not. There are clothes in there too,” she said defensively.
“Hey, some of us would like to get inside. It’s pouring buckets out here,” Desi said, brushing past them, with Lina clutched to her chest. She removed her muddy shoes and placed them on the mat by the door and hung her dripping coat up on the coat rack. Then, she plopped herself down on the couch and my mom sat next to her, cooing over Lina. On the love seat, my father held Ella, bouncing her on his knee and singing a song he’d sung to me as a child. With the fire going and the rain pattering on the porch roof outside while my family communed, I felt warm, safe, and happy.
Mikey and Anthony bounded down the stairs, playing a game involving vinyl dinosaurs and lots of growling. I grinned. Tomàs was filling glasses with milk and water while Adam and I carried the food to the table.
“Dinner’s ready!” I called out. My family came to the table, sitting down together to celebrate my daughter’s birthday.
After we’d all eaten a helping, my mother put down her fork and asked, “Is everything on track for the haunted house? I’m looking forward to seeing it.”
Adam nodded. “I think so. Most of the construction will be done by tomorrow.”
I sighed with relief. I’d tried to stay out of the day-to-day logistics of the haunted house and to not step on Adam’s toes, but I’d been dying to know how things were going. Luckily, my mom had asked for me.
“That’s great that you and Jill have the opportunity to work together. John and I always enjoyed teaching at the same school,” my mother said approvingly.
Dad laughed. “Well, not always. Ann always wanted me to chaperone the school dances with her and I couldn’t say no because she’d already volunteered me to the rest of the staff.”
She shrugged and laughed too. “I didn’t want to get stuck there by myself.”
Tomàs cleared his throat. “So, we had something strange happen down at the station today.”
Desi looked up at him. “What happened?”
“A woman came in asking for me in regard to the Mindy Danvers case.” He eyed Desi and she squirmed. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
“Uh.” Her eyes met mine. “I don’t know?”
My heart hammered. Angela was already in police custody. Was it Lisa? Or Stacey? Would whoever it was have said anything to Tomàs about Desi and me asking questions? Tomàs had warned us in the past to stay out of active police investigations and we did our best to comply, but sometimes things just came up while we were doing everyday activities. At least that’s what I told myself.
“Her name was Lisa Aldane. Ring a bell?”
“She’s the leader of our MUMs group,” Desi said.
I nodded. “What did she say?” Had Lisa confessed?
“Apparently she’d talked to you two and decided she needed to come clean about the origins of the hats she makes.” He shook his head. “She seemed really worked up about it, but I don’t think it has anything to do with the investigation.”
“So did she confess?” Desi leaned forward, her eyes big.
I held m
y breath. It would be nice if this was all over.
He gave us a strange look. “No. All she said was she wanted us to know about her crocheted hat business.” His eyes narrowed in on Desi. “You wouldn’t know anything about why she felt the sudden need to confess something like that, would you?”
“Jill and I talked with her yesterday at the CPR class we attended. When we were in Mindy’s storage unit looking for the MUMs financial ledger, we came across some information about her business and we asked her about it. That’s all.”
The rest of our family had been quiet as they watched the exchange between Desi and Tomàs.
“You were in the dead woman’s storage unit?” Adam asked. Mikey’s head shot up, suddenly paying attention to the grown-ups.
Now it was my turn to squirm. “Well, the ledger wasn’t at her apartment.”
Tomàs’s eyes bulged so much that I thought they were going to fall out of his head. “Her apartment. You were in her apartment? Seriously?”
“It was official MUMs business. We didn’t go there to snoop,” Desi said.
He gave her a long look. “Ok, but try to stay out of the investigation. Someone killed that woman and I don’t want you involved with it.”
She nodded, but the festive mood had dissipated.
Adam rapped on his glass with the tines of his fork. “Is anyone ready to open presents?”
Anthony and Mikey cheered, even though the presents weren’t for them.
We cleaned up the table and gathered around the fireplace. I sat on the floor with Ella as Mikey scooted presents over to her to rip open. Anthony hovered anxiously over his cousins. When Ella struggled to open them, they were eager to help. Soon, she had a pile of open gifts next to her. Unsurprisingly, the boys became infatuated with a ball-spitting elephant toddler toy.
Adam checked his watch. “We’d better have cake soon if we want to get the kids into bed at a decent hour.”
Sure enough, it was almost eight, half an hour past Mikey’s bedtime.
“Time for cake!” I shouted as I walked into the kitchen to retrieve it.
I set it on the dining room table as everyone gathered around. Adam lit the first birthday candle and we sang happy birthday to Ella. The boys gave her a little help with the candle, but then she grabbed the small chocolate Elmo cake in front of her and smashed it into her mouth. Red icing covered her face as she shoveled more and more cake in.
“Well, I think she takes after her mother,” Adam quipped.
I glared at him and he grinned back at me. Goldie had escaped from the family room, probably let out by the boys, and he hoovered around on the floor for crumbs. I guided him out and led him back to doggy jail.
“Sorry. Chocolate isn’t good for dogs.” On the way back, I saw my whole family sitting there, enjoying Desi’s wonderful baking, and I was overcome with how lucky I was to have all of them. Life wasn’t always perfect, but I knew we were always there for each other.
Everyone retreated to the living room after the cake had been consumed, except Desi and me, who were cleaning up.
“I can’t believe Lisa confessed to the police,” Desi whispered as she ran a rag over the table top.
“Me neither.” I stacked up the remaining dishes to take into the kitchen. “But doesn’t that support her innocence? I mean, it’s going to get out that she doesn’t make all of the products she sells. If it was such a big secret that she would kill to protect it, I don’t think she’d have done that.”
“Probably not,” Desi said. “But then who did it?”
“I don’t know.” I glanced at our family, chatting and laughing in the other room. “But if we’re going to find out, we’d better do it on the down-low.”
“No kidding. We promised all of them that we’d be careful. If something else comes up about our involvement, I think Tomàs is going to freak out.”
“Agreed.”
After Desi helped me clean up the table, she edged toward the door. “We’d better get going. I think Anthony’s about to fall asleep standing up.”
I glanced at Anthony, leaning on his dad, his eyes half-closed.
Laughing, I said, “Thanks for coming.”
Desi put her coat on and the rest of them followed, including my parents. Tomàs helped Anthony put his shoes on and the adults did the awkward dancing at the front door routine as they all tried to put their shoes on at the same time.
“Sorry about the mess.” Desi looked ruefully at the muddy outlines of their shoes on the hardwood floor next to the door. “Hopefully Mikey doesn’t smear that all over the rugs.”
Rain and dirt tracked into the house were all just part of the fun of living in the Pacific Northwest. At Angela’s house, when I saw the mud oozing from Drew’s shoes, I’d had the same worry as Desi—that I’d get it all over the spotless interior of Lincoln’s truck. Luckily, I’d managed to return the truck to him in the same condition it was when I’d borrowed it, and I hoped I could keep Mikey away from this mess long enough to get the mop. That kid did like playing in the dirt.
“Don’t even worry about it. I’ll clean it up when you’re gone.” I smiled at her.
Everyone waved goodbye and they were gone. Our house felt suddenly empty with just Adam, me, and the kids. They’d helped me clean up so much that the muddy imprints of their shoes near the front door were one of the few reminders that we’d just had a party. All of the party energy had drained out of me and I yawned. Although some people had big parties for their child’s first birthday, I was glad we’d had a more intimate gathering. Ella wouldn’t remember much of it anyway and the pictures would remind her she’d been surrounded by everyone she loved.
19
“Seriously? You thought it was a good idea to put that in the corner? That was front and center in my design.” Angela fumed in front of me as she took in the decorating that we’d done in her absence. Adam had made the grievous mistake of placing a particularly realistic zombie near the corner of the first room.
I bit my tongue, literally, forcing myself to calm down. Part of me wished the police had held Angela longer, but they hadn’t had enough evidence to keep her locked up and now she was out, torturing me.
“You weren’t here. We had to do something to get the haunted house ready. We open in only two days.” In my opinion, the haunted house looked great. It was spooky now, with the bright overhead lights, and would be even more frightening in the dark.
“Well,” she huffed, “if you and your sister-in-law hadn’t discovered a body in my yard, this never would have happened.”
I cocked my head to the side. Did she really say that? Somehow Mindy’s murder had become Desi’s and my fault, although I was pretty sure neither of us had been responsible for killing her.
“Again, I tried to get your designs, but we couldn’t find them at your house and Drew said he wasn’t able to see you to get them.” I leaned against the doorframe, watching her face grow redder by the minute.
She turned to face me, her eyes ablaze. “That idiot. My lawyer said that Drew refused to visit me in jail. Said he didn’t want to see me that way. He couldn’t even figure out how to pay for my bail, leaving me stuck there for this whole time.” She huffed again. “Well, he can forget about seeing me ever again. Not that it’s any of your business, but I intend to divorce that jerk as soon as I get this legal matter cleared up.”
It amazed me how she brushed off being the police’s prime suspect in a murder investigation. And although I never saw her and Drew getting along, I hadn’t seen them together much. He’d seemed devoted to her when he asked Desi and me to investigate Mindy’s murder and reluctant to tell us about the embezzlement that Mindy had accused her of.
We were interrupted by a delivery man rolling a tall box along on a dolly. “Where should I put this?”
I gave him a confused look. “What is it? I’m not expecting any deliveries today.”
“That’s mine,” Angela said to me. “I saw what you’d done to my haunted house a
nd I knew that I needed to do something to improve it, so I had this rushed over from a local prop store.” She turned back to the man. “You can put it over there.”
She pointed to one section of the haunted house and he unloaded it against the wall there. In my opinion, my husband had risen to the challenge of decorating the haunted house. He’d come up with creative scenarios on the spur of the moment—or at least I hoped they hadn’t been lurking in his mind forever. Adam had managed to enlist the help of several of Lincoln’s carpenter friends and built the farmhouse, plus a barn and graveyard nearby. What could Angela have possibly ordered to add?
I followed her over to the cardboard box. She ripped the sides open with a set of keys she pulled out of her oversized purse and spread it open. Packing peanuts spilled out all over the hardwood floors, revealing an Egyptian sarcophagus, the twin of the one where Mindy’s body had been hidden.
I gasped, too many memories flashing back into my mind. Besides, what did Egypt have to do with a creepy haunted farm theme?
She gave me a satisfied look. “Now I can really get started on this.”
I had to leave the room before I punched her in the face. It was my turn to fume. Adam had spent too many hours in the last week making this the best haunted house Ericksville had ever seen and now Angela wanted to undo his hard work?
It was if Angela had sucked all the oxygen out of the room. I walked outside to the parking lot to get some fresh air. The skies were gray, but thankfully, it wasn’t raining. I circled the building until I was on the side by the lighthouse. For a few minutes, I focused my attention on the historic building and grounds, allowing the familiar sight to calm me. I liked to imagine what Ericksville must have looked like when it was operational. When I felt better, I turned around and walked back toward the front door of the Boathouse. In the parking lot, Adam was just getting out of his car and I waited for him outside.
When he neared me, he said, “Whoa. You look mad enough to spit nails.”
Perhaps my anger hadn’t mellowed as much as I’d thought.
I gritted my teeth. “Come inside. You’ll see.”
Adam gave me a hug, then opened the door for us to enter. “What’s wrong?”
