by Vivi Andrews
“Mrs. Kent, he isn’t a tourist—”
“Don’t you listen to a word she says. Everyone who visits Parish becomes a tourist. They can’t help it. You just stay as long as you please, Mister…” She trailed off, extending her hand and beaming at the Reporter of Doom. Her eyes gleamed with the fervent light of a hostess scenting a tourist in the off-season.
Mark Ellison flicked a brief, triumphant look at Biz then turned to smile down at the petite picture of Parish hospitality. “Mark Ellison, ma’am. A pleasure.”
Mrs. Kent twittered girlishly, instantly smitten—damn those dimples—and latched onto his hand with a death grip worthy of a boa constrictor. “Promise me you won’t go rushing off now.”
Ellison twinkled. “Oh, I promise.”
Biz wondered if this was how people on the Titanic felt when they saw iceberg chunks floating past their stateroom windows.
Chapter Two—The Black Widow of Sunnybrook Farm
Elizabeth “Biz” Marks wasn’t at all what Mark expected of the Black Widow of Parish Island.
He’d mentally cast her as dark, sleek and smolderingly sexy. Catherine Zeta-Jones, or maybe Penelope Cruz. In reality…she looked all wrong. The lethal Lolita who’d killed three men in the last three years shouldn’t look like a cross between a gypsy and a librarian.
He’d pictured her in a killer black dress and red stiletto heels, as sexually appealing as she was coldly calculating. Instead her clothing was shapeless and drab, but she sparkled with an inner energy that couldn’t be contained. She was obviously doing everything in her power not to attract men—no makeup, hair yanked back in a brutal bun, the clothes, the get-the-hell-away-from-me vibe—but he was attracted. More than he cared to admit. Her face was a perfect heart shape, and while she was certainly pretty, there was nothing about her that screamed sexual siren so much as Sunday school teacher.
But just because her eyes sparkled with innocence didn’t mean she wasn’t responsible for the deaths of at least three men.
Three “accidental” deaths in the last three years. All on Valentine’s Day. And all of them leaving a tidy inheritance to one Elizabeth Marks in their wills. It was beyond suspicious.
From the second his editor handed him the assignment, he’d known there was more to the story than a human-interest piece. Bad luck didn’t strike at exactly the same time on exactly the same day every single year. Somehow she was killing them while maintaining the appearance of complete innocence, and he was going to discover how.
Snow White, that’s who she reminded him of. Provided Snow White had wild curls, bad fashion sense and started killing off her dwarves for their riches.
“So how long will you be staying on Parish, Mr. Ellison?” asked the diminutive, elderly woman clinging to his hand with a surprisingly strong grip. “There’s so much to do and see.”
“It’s the off-season,” Biz interrupted. “Everything’s closed. Nothing to see.”
Her eagerness to get rid of him screamed guilt, but there was more to it than that. She seemed edgy, but almost…protective.
Mark studied her, letting a slow smile spread across his face. “Oh, I think there’s plenty here to interest me.”
A charm offensive never failed him, but Biz shot him a disgusted glare and turned away, crossing to the rack the wind had knocked over a few minutes ago. She righted the black metal carousel and untangled the charms on display, her hands steady.
Mark had learned to watch the hands. Fear of discovery sent a jolt of adrenaline through any system. Adrenaline came through in shaking or fidgeting hands, quickened breathing, but Biz seemed calm. Annoyed, undeniably. Hiding something, most definitely. But the guilt signs were contradictory. Interesting.
“Mr. Ellison?” Mrs. Kent prompted. “How long?”
Mark met Biz’s eyes as she glanced up to catch his response. “As long as it takes.”
Biz’s hands jerked and the rack careened away from her. Mark’s hand snaked out to catch it—more reflex than anything, he was too far away to prevent the crash. But there was no crash. The rack froze at forty-five degrees and swung back upright, stopping exactly vertical, the charms tinkling against one another.
Mark frowned. Odd counterbalance on that thing.
Biz rushed back to her post behind the counter, jumpy as hell, drawing his eye away from the anti-gravitational rack.
Well, shit. He’d never get her story if he couldn’t put her at ease. He’d almost screwed up his chance already, pushing too hard. He’d been off his game lately, but it wasn’t like him to lose control of a conversation this completely.
Normally he was the best around when it came to getting people to open up. His sources adored him and he never failed to get them to spill all.
Biz obviously didn’t adore him.
“Mr. Ellison…” she began, but Mrs. Kent must have sensed Biz was about to try to throw him out again because the tiny grandmother started chattering at warp speed.
“I do hope you’ll stay at least as long as the Parish Island Winter Festival. It isn’t much by city standards, I suppose. Just an excuse for the locals to use up all the leftover peppermint schnapps and cocoa after Christmas is over, but we like it. Our Biz here has one of the most popular booths every year.”
“Do you?”
“Mrs. Kent runs the B&B across the street,” Biz explained dryly, without looking at him. “She has a vested interest in convincing you to stay.”
Mark wrenched his attention away from Biz and focused a beam of charm straight at the rail-thin matron. “A B&B?”
“The Shoreview Guesthouse,” she said with obvious pride. “Top rated. A Raleigh magazine even called my scones the best in the Carolinas.” Her hands fluttered like hummingbirds, never settling, but Mark could tell it was fussy energy rather than nerves or guilty adrenaline causing the flittering. “We have a weekend rate, you know. Off-season. Very reasonable. Are you in town for business? No time like the present to add a couple days for pleasure, I always say. It’s so lovely this time of year. Quiet. Without all the tourists jostling for space on the beaches. Though I don’t imagine you came for the beaches, what with it being so cold lately. But then it is winter.” She giggled as if she’d made a joke. Biz looked like she was trying not to leap across the counter and throttle the little old lady. “What brings you to Parish Island, Mister Ellison?”
“The Spanish Inquisition,” Biz grumbled under her breath.
“Work, I’m afraid. I’m a journalist.”
“Are you now! Is there a story on our little island?”
Mark smiled his most trustworthy smile. “Everyone has a story.”
Mrs. Kent fluttered, Biz glowered, and a display behind Mark smacked into the back of his legs, knocking him to his knees. “Ow! Damn it—beg pardon, ladies.”
“Tony,” Biz snapped.
“Heavens, are you all right, Mr. Ellison?”
Mrs. Kent and Biz rushed to help him up, the latter glowering disapprovingly at the empty air behind his shoulder.
“Excuse me,” she said curtly, once they had him back on his feet. Biz marched to the corner of the shop and began to give a stern whispered lecture…to a floor lamp.
Mark frowned. “I’m fine. Is she all right?”
“Hmm? Oh, Biz? Right as rain.” Mrs. Kent beamed at him. “You will stay until the festival, won’t you, Mr. Ellison?”
He hadn’t been planning to stay. He’d meant this to be a day trip. Come over on the morning ferry, interview Ms. Marks, poke around to find additional sources, get a feel for the situation and be headed back to Raleigh on the five o’clock ferry. But this looked like it was going to take more than a day to get to the bottom of this story. He had a contact looking into the medical records of the three victims, but this island was where the story breathed.
And he had the time if he wanted to spend it. His numbers had been slipping lately and, after a handful of reader emails complaining about how jaded his features had become, his editor had more or less
commanded him not to return until he’d gotten his mojo back. A few canned columns would fill his inches for the next two weeks whether he was here or in Raleigh.
Seeing idyllic, sleepy Parish Island, he had a feeling his editor had thought of his story as about as close to a spa vacation as she could assign him.
“You know, Mrs. Kent, I think I would like to book a room for the night.”
“No!” Biz spun away from the naughty lamp she’d progressed to wagging her finger at. “You have to leave. Are you insane?”
Coming from the woman talking to the lighting fixture.
“Biz, really,” Mrs. Kent exclaimed, but before she could say more, the bells jangled, the door opened, and a slim, dark-haired man stepped inside.
“Mrs. Kent?”
“Grand-central-fucking-station,” Biz muttered, retreating back behind her counter as the B&B owner turned to the newcomer.
“Mr. Bloom! What can I do for you?”
Bloom avidly tracked Biz’s progress back to her perch, but when she looked in his direction he flinched and flicked his gaze to Mrs. Kent, blinking rapidly. “Internet,” he blurted, his pale face reddening. “The internet is down. My window faces… I saw you over here.”
“Of course! Drat that router-thingamawhatsit,” Mrs. Kent prattled. “I’ll be over in a jiff to get it set to rights, Mr. Bloom.”
Bloom hesitated, momentarily stymied by the dismissal, then sort of bowed in Biz’s direction and disappeared out the door as abruptly as he’d arrived.
Mrs. Kent patted Mark’s arm, protecting her sale. “The internet works quite well, I assure you. Mr. Bloom is my other guest at the Shoreview. Perhaps you could have breakfast with him. Of course, I keep the dining room open from seven until nine, so if you chose to avoid him, that would be possible as well. Though he does seem a nice sort. Quiet.”
“It’s always the quiet ones,” Biz mumbled, and Mark had to bite back a smile.
He gently untangled Mrs. Kent from his arm. “I’m sure he’s a lovely breakfast companion.”
“I’d best go fix the router-thingamawhatsit. Just you pop across the street whenever you’re done here, Mr. Ellison. I’ll have your room all ready for you.”
Biz bounded off her stool. “Mrs. Kent, he won’t be staying.”
Mark spoke to Mrs. Kent, but he didn’t take his eyes off Biz. “I’ll check in this afternoon.”
The B&B proprietress giggled as if he and Biz were a fabulous comedy routine, fluttered her hummingbird hands and jangled out the door, leaving him once again with the Black Widow who was becoming more fascinating the more she protested.
She met his gaze, her own openly pleading. “Please just go, Mr. Ellison. This is a bad time for me.” She’d obviously tried to be rigid and firm, but it didn’t fit her any better than the frumpy sweater she was hiding inside.
“I can come back later. Let me take you to lunch. Or better yet, dinner.”
“No! God, no. I meant this time of year. We can’t eat together. Are you suicidal or something?”
“You’re that bad a cook?”
“What?”
“It was a joke. There’s got to be a decent restaurant somewhere on this island. Or was it your big jealous linebacker boyfriend you were warning me about?”
“I’m not seeing anyone.” She winced. He smiled.
“So what’s the harm? It’s only dinner.”
“That’s how it always starts.”
“Do you think you’re jinxed? Like if you start seeing someone he’ll…” He trailed off, trying to think of a delicate way to say keel over.
“Yep. Jinxed. Especially on Valentine’s Day. So you should leave. Now.”
“What if I promised to leave town only if you have dinner with me tonight?”
Biz’s mouth dropped open. “I— Are you trying to blackmail me into going out with you?”
He grinned. “Is it working?”
“Why?” she yelped.
“You intrigue me.” He smiled another trust-me-on-this smile.
Biz’s eyes narrowed. “This is all just a ploy to get a story, isn’t it? You’re good. I’ll give you that. And I’ll give you an interview. An interview, not a date. No dinner. No eating together at all. Someplace professional. And public.”
“How about here? Now?”
“No, I… Later. I have to man the shop.” She waved at the deserted aisles. Bustling downtown Parish. “I close at two tomorrow. You can come by then.”
Mark slathered charm onto his next smile. “I’ll be here. Wild horses couldn’t drag me away.”
Biz groaned. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Chapter Three—With Friends Like These Who Needs Enemas
When the door closed behind the reporter with a death wish, Biz somehow resisted the urge to curl into the fetal position and sob, though she did sink onto her stool and drop her forehead to the counter with a thunk.
Not another ghost. Anything but that.
Biz gave the counter a couple more thumps for good measure. It was oddly cathartic, the physical act of banging her head against something. Especially after the conversation she’d just had.
So she had an interview with a reporter who wanted to put all her secrets on display. It could be worse. At least it wasn’t dinner.
Dinner meant dating and dating meant death. An innocent little dinner, a few hours of cozy conversation, and next thing she knew she was at another funeral with another mountain of guilt heaped on top of her. No, thank you.
No men. Until Biz knew for sure she’d broken the curse, she had her vow of eternal chastity and her battery-operated boyfriend to keep her warm at night.
And the ghosts.
Charms tinkled against one another in an upward cascade like a question asked. A soft hand patted her gently on the back. If she looked up, she knew she’d see Paul, peering at her with his own version of concern, but she didn’t want to look up. She didn’t want to deal with the ghosts at all. For five minutes she just wanted to be completely, utterly alone.
“I’m fine, guys,” she said without lifting her forehead from the countertop. “Go on upstairs. I’ll be up in a minute.”
She felt them move away. With her eyes closed, the air shifting around her could have been displaced by actual bodies. She could have been surrounded by real men. It was so tempting, sometimes, to live her life with her eyes closed.
But the ostrich approach wasn’t going to make the reporter go away.
What was she supposed to tell him? Admit the truth? Or some sterilized version of it? Jinxed was probably better than I’m a witch and I cursed myself and now my ex-boyfriends are haunting me on the how-crazy-are-you scale.
But the odds were good her brain was going to short-circuit the second Mark walked into the room tomorrow.
She certainly hadn’t been able to think straight today. Panic and the yummy pheromone cloud he exuded had combined to turn her into a blithering idiot. She’d needed cool-headed strategy and all she could think was Evict the dimples! Which was really not as helpful as one might hope.
God, why hadn’t he just left? Why had he flirted like a freaking lemming sprinting toward the nearest cliff?
But she knew why. The spell. She wasn’t a sex goddess. She was disorganized and had ten stubborn pounds she could never get rid of adding an extra layer of padding. Not that the two were related. But she wasn’t exactly a catch. So why was this hunk of burning investigative reporting willing to blackmail her into a date?
Though maybe it was the scent of a story he was chasing. Please let it be the story. If he was only a reporter, he might survive the month. She just had to make up some lies to tell him tomorrow at the interview.
Provided the curse hasn’t already struck him dead.
Biz groaned. This was a bad idea. She shouldn’t be spending any more time with him. He might as well have had Biz’s Next Victim tattooed on his forehead.
She should call him back. Tell him no. Be firm. Kick him off the island. May
be see if the boys could scare the bejeezus out of him.
But before she could do anything, the bells over the door jangled again. Biz lifted her head off the counter and watched as her best friend shouldered open the door with both arms full of what looked like a large plastic purple pumpkin.
“Morning, Bizby,” Gillian called cheerfully, trying—and failing—to flip her blonde Charlie’s Angels bangs out of her eyes with a toss of her head.
Biz waved half-heartedly, still preoccupied with the Reporter of Doom. “I can’t handle another ghost on my conscience. I honestly can’t.”
Gillian hefted the pumpkin thing up onto the only open counter space in the shop and huffed her bangs out of her eyes. “Sometimes I forget how odd you are. And then you speak.”
“Says the woman with the giant purple pumpkin.”
Though, seeing as it was Gillian and this was Parish Island, the sight of a woman carting around a swollen purple gourd in the middle of January didn’t even tweak Biz’s finely honed weirdness radar.
“It isn’t a pumpkin. It’s a heart. I need to store it in here until Valentine’s so Dave doesn’t see it.” Gillian looked at her for the first time since swanning through the door. “Jeez, Biz, what are you wearing? Just looking at you is depressing.”
“Thank you. That isn’t a heart and it is not staying here.”
Gilly’s eyelashes began to bat at Mach two. Dr. Gillian Hale, M.D., Ph.D. pain in the ass, was a freaking genius, but she’d learned early that she could get away with more by being the prettiest girl on the island than she could by being the smartest one. Flirtation was still her first line of attack, even on people experience had shown weren’t susceptible to her charms. “Please, Bizby?” she purred, as her eyelashes worked up a gale-force wind.
“Stop that. Or I won’t tell you about the new hunk in town.”
Gillian’s eyelashes screeched to a halt. “New hunk?” A flash of interest crossed her face before her expression fell. “God’s testicles, Bizby, did you go all spastic on him? I’ve seen you around good-looking men. It ain’t pretty.”
