New York Cheesecake Chaos (MURDER IN THE MIX Book 8), Page 2

  Carlotta picks up a couple of boxes of cheesecake and heads for the door. “We’ll see you all at the library. Can you believe a big author like Pepper Patrick has come all the way to Honey Hollow to do a signing? You won’t believe the crowds once you get down there. She’s singlehandedly putting Honey Hollow on the map!” She takes off, and that overgrown bird flies right out with her.

  Everett closes his eyes a moment, most likely resigned to the fact of what that ghostly fowl represents—the impending doom of someone in the vicinity.

  He pats me over the back as if trying to comfort me. “I’ll start loading up the van with the rest of the boxes.”

  “I’ll help,” I quickly volunteer, and no sooner do I attempt to follow Everett to the refrigerator than Noah blocks my path. He’s as tall and wide as a doorframe in the sexiest way possible, and it’s an intimidating sight.

  “Lottie, are you okay?”

  “Yes,” I hiss, suddenly miffed at Everett for leaving me with nosy Noah. I’m not so hot on telling another living soul about my ability to see the dead. It’s not like I always see them. It used to be that deceased pets or people would appear and hover around their owners or family—and then, well, something perfectly lousy would happen to those owners or family members. It used to be relegated to something as simple as a scraped knee or a broken bone, but it’s scaled up to death these last few months with a frightening consistency.

  Everett is convinced that I can use my so-called powers to stop an impending homicide, but so far that’s yet to happen.

  “Lottie”—Noah steps in close, studying my features manically as his concern for me grows by the second—“you said you saw a bird.”

  “Did I say bird?” I duck as I make my way around him. “I meant word. I was trying to say a word to my mother, and I must have gotten tongue-tied.” I quickly scoop up my purse and the bakery bag I’ve already laden down with knives and dishtowels.

  Noah wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me to him. That sorrowful smile blooms effortlessly on his face, and I melt right down to my core. As much as I hate to admit it, a part of me craves to have him hold me just like this. He feels solid and warm, and soothingly familiar.

  “Lottie, if there’s something wrong, I want to help.” His eyes widen in an instant to the size of silver dollars. “This has something to do with that secret, doesn’t it?”

  I peel his arm off me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I glance back to the front of the bakery where my assistant, Lily Swanson, is manning the register. Lily is my best friend, Keelie’s twin sister’s BFF. Ironically, both Lily and Naomi, the twin in question, have a heavy disdain for me. But by and large Lily holds a truce while at the bakery. “Lily? I’m taking off now! If you want to join the fun, make sure we have enough staff to cover.”

  “I’m not missing it! Tell Essex to save me a seat!” she shouts back. Lily is a brunette stunner who dated Everett for a while. All of Everett’s exes are privy to calling him by his first name. I’ve yet to reach that status. I’m pretty sure you have to do the mattress mambo to achieve it, so I’m good with just Everett for now.

  “Will do!” I try to make my way to the door, but Noah gets in my way again.

  “Lottie, I can get you the best doctor money can buy.” His tearful eyes are practically pleading with me.

  “Please,” I growl out, incredulous. “I don’t have a fractured mind, if that’s what you’re implying.” My voice cracks as if maybe I do. In truth, there are not that many supersensual people out there. Recently, there was a meeting right here at the bakery with the transmundane community, and not even they knew what to make of the frequency with which I see the dead.

  Everett comes back in. “The van is ready. I can drive.”

  “Thank you,” I say, trying to make my way past Noah, but he steps in and leans in close.

  “I still love you deeply, Lottie Lemon. And no matter what’s happening, I just need you to know that you can trust me.”

  “She trusts me,” Everett pipes up, his chest expanding as if he were gunning for a fight. “Get it through your head. She’s not up for talking about it.”

  “That’s because there’s nothing to talk about.” My God, I just spewed a lie the size of the Empire State Building as I trot out into the warm spring air and into the passenger’s side of the van, my heart racing as if I just escaped a fire.

  Everett hops in beside me, and we take off.

  Noah grows smaller in the rearview mirror, and my heart breaks.

  “Should I tell him?” I practically mouth the words, and, honestly, I mostly said them to myself.

  Everett shakes his head as if it were a hard no. “It’s up to you, Lemon. Just know this. Once you share your secret, there is no going back.”

  No going back. My entire body freezes solid at those words.

  Everett taps the steering wheel, his gaze set straight ahead. “What did you see?”

  “A bird. A macaw, I think. Big, beautiful blue creature with blue and red feathers, yellow intermingled.”

  “You know what that means.”

  “Someone is most certainly in trouble.”

  “Your track record is spotless. Someone is going to die, Lemon. And they’re going to die today.”

  I slink down in my seat at the stark reality staring me in the face.

  Someone is going to die.

  Noah and I are already dead.

  I can’t help but note the irony.

  Chapter 2

  The entire vicinity around the Honey Hollow Public Library is inundated with cars as throngs of bodies clamor to get inside. The sound of people chattering away ricochets off the building like a happy echo as the scent of lavender and honeysuckle fills the air.

  Everett helps me carry in all of the cheesecake and cookies I baked for the reception out into the library’s foyer. The entire interior of the library as far as the eye can see is done up in roses, peonies, carnations, daisies, you name it. It looks as if Rhonda has emptied all the flora and fauna out of the entire state of Vermont in honor of her favorite author coming to town. Lainey let me know that Rhonda is more than a little obsessed with Pepper Patrick. It’s pretty much a well-documented fact that she’s just this side of a stalker.

  Carlotta told me last week that Rhonda’s niece, Rigby Emerson—whom I’ve yet to meet—was essential in helping to secure a celebrity such as Pepper Patrick to Honey Hollow. I’m sure a big author like Pepper is used to far more sophisticated cities and not some tiny speck on the map of Vermont. But since Rhonda was able to pull a few familial strings, here she is.

  Everett takes off for one last trip to the van, and I bump into Rhonda herself as I’m leaving the tiny staff lounge in the back of the library.

  Rhonda Gilbert has been a character as long as I’ve known her, with her tight red perm, wide marble blue eyes, and, of course, her calling card, those signature custom sweaters she’s known to wear year-round. No matter what the upcoming holiday or occasion, Rhonda always seems to have a sweater to match, and today is no different. She’s donned a bright blue cardigan with tiny felt books, question marks, and bright red hearts sewn over it. I suspect she makes the embellishments herself and adds them to her sweaters. It’s a look only Rhonda seems able to pull off.

  “Hey, Rhonda. You look amazing!” I say as I stand back to admire her handiwork.

  She takes a slight bow. “Pepper Patrick is the best mystery writer in the country if you ask me. I’ve made replicas of all her covers as best as I could,” she says, pointing to the felt books sewn to her lapel. “And the question marks represent the whodunit aspect of her work.” She grabs ahold of the red heart pendant dangling from a gold chain around her neck. “Of course, I have the official ruby red Heart of Tomorrow that belongs to Alice McDade. And her signature ruby red slippers.” She clicks her glittering red heels when she says her name. “Oh, the You Only Die Once series is my absolute favorite. Amateur sleuth Alice McDade is the very best at tracking down
the killer. She puts the homicide detective that has a crush on her to shame.” She waves it off with a laugh, and I can feel my cheeks heating at the thought of the similarities between good old fictional Alice and me. She zips the red heart pendant across its chain until it sizzles. “In fact, I won this from one of Pepper Patrick’s famous giveaways last year. This, here, is a genuine ruby heart with Alice’s initials engraved on the back.” She flashes it my way, and I spot an artful A and M faintly carved into the precious stone.

  “It’s beautiful,” I gush, leaning in to get a better look at the treasure. The heart itself is the size of a quarter at least. “And it’s huge.”

  “It’s priceless is what it is.”

  “That must have cost a fortune. I guess if the flower biz goes belly up, you can always sell it and live on easy street for the rest of your life,” I tease, and Rhonda glowers at me as if I suggested she sell her only daughter, Felicity.

  She shudders a moment. “I just can’t believe I’m this close to finally meeting Pepper Patrick in the flesh. I’ve waited my entire life for this moment. I was born for this.”

  A small crowd rushes this way, and I turn to see my mother—the one that adopted me, aka my real mother, Miranda Lemon. She’s blonde and perky and happens to have lousy taste in men ever since my father—my adoptive father—died about a decade ago. After Dad died, she opened the only B&B in Honey Hollow, and as fate and my bad luck would have it, it’s currently haunted by the ghost of a girl who died a few months back, Greer Giles, and her new poltergeist of a boy toy, Winslow Decker, who died about two hundred years ago. It’s a long story, but bottom line, my mother is making a small fortune charging for tours of her haunted abode.

  “Lottie!” Mom trots over with a red-faced Rich Dallas by her side. Rich is my mother’s newest lousy relationship acquisition. He’s a wealthy older man, fake tan, built like a bodybuilder, perpetually angry, and far too possessive of my poor sweet mother. “She’s here! Pepper Patrick is getting out of a limousine out front!” she squawks so loud half the people in the foyer scream as they stomp their way out the door. “And she’s got a couple of bodyguards! Two big, beefy, strong men.”

  Rich lands an arm around my mother’s waist and gives her side a quick pinch, leaving her to chortle to no end.

  She leans in toward Rhonda. “I just live to make this man insanely jealous.” Mom wrinkles her nose up at Rich’s bulging eyes, and his jaw clenches tight as if he were about to rocket through the ceiling if she made one more mention of those beefy strong men. He’s insane, all right. “Oh, and before I forget, Lottie—great news! Chrissy Nash just asked me to relay the message that Mayor Nash himself—her wily ex”—she squints out her disdain for her best friend’s cheating ex-husband for a moment—“has personally requested that you provide the sweet treats for the Bonnet Festival in the Town Square on Easter morning.”

  “Oh, that’s huge! Yes, of course, I’ll do it.”

  “And you’ll be well compensated.” She dots my nose with the tip of her finger before looking back up at that psychotic by her side. “Speaking of beefy hot men, come on, honey. Let’s go check out your competition.”

  I’m about to suggest she keep the commentary to herself—for her own safety, but she’s already hustled him out the door.

  I spot my best friend, Keelie, gabbing it up with my sister, Lainey, and I’m about to head in their direction when a couple of girls stride this way, Felicity and another redhead who looks as if she can be her sister.

  “Rigby!” Rhonda dives over the girl next to Felicity, but the girl’s body remains stiff as stone.

  “Aunt Rhonda.” She rolls her eyes before pulling back.

  “Lottie, you have to meet my great-niece. She’s come all the way from New York with her fancy fiancé.” Rhonda flicks her nose playfully as if to imply he was uppity. And, believe you me, I can understand that to an extent. But I don’t think New Yorkers think they’re better than anyone else. I think others are simply intimidated by their cosmopolitan ways. I used to live in New York. After Otis Bear Fisher broke my tender high school heart, I went to Columbia and had my college heart broken by Curtis Vanderlin, the goof who thought it was a good idea to propose to me then sleep with my roommate. Suffice it to say, I left New York and came back to Honey Hollow with my heart in pieces. I thought Noah Fox would be different but, so far, I’m three for three in the heartbreak department.

  Speaking of Curt, he sent an odd text my way out of the blue, on my birthday of all days, saying something about his girlfriend being a publicist and that they’d be coming through town with some big auth—author! Pepper Patrick!

  “Oh my God.” Suddenly, I find it difficult to breathe. Curtis Vanderlin is the very last person I ever want to see again.

  “I know!” Rhonda muses. “My Rigby is quite impressive. She’s Pepper Patrick’s publicist! Can you believe it?”

  I suck in a lungful of air so fast and hard I could have literally inhaled one of my to die for cheesecakes—the entire cheesy wheel.

  A horrible squawking sound emerges from my left, and I look up to see that overgrown bird flying up near the vaulted ceiling.

  “Oh my God,” I can’t help but echo the phrase.

  Hey? Maybe Curt is here and he had a pet bird? This might pan out to be a lucky day just yet. I cringe that the thought even flitted through my brain.

  “I need to speak with you.” Rigby yanks Rhonda off toward the staff lounge in the back.

  Felicity leans in. “I can’t believe my luck. My ex is going to show up today.” She grunts as if she might be sick, and I’m tempted to grunt right along with her. “Not only do he and my mother despise one another, but he’s just as fanatical about this psychotic author as she is.”

  “You mean you’re not into her books?”

  Felicity rolls her eyes. With all those freckles, she has an adorable schoolgirl appeal about her, and I think she’ll have it no matter how old she gets.

  “They’re okay, but to be honest, I was always second-best to Alice McDade.” She says the character’s name in air quotes. “My mom actually lamented over the fact she didn’t name me Alice. My mother is a real piece of work, if you know what I mean.”

  “Same here, my biological mother, that is. And don’t get me started on my exes.” I glance to the entry and spot Noah talking to Bear, and I can’t help but cringe. Good God, he’s probably shaking him down for info on that deep, dark secret I’m harboring. As if I would ever tell Bear. “Speaking of exes, I’ve got two at the door and a potential third roaming the grounds. This is going to be a terrifying afternoon.” Mostly because of the impending murder, but I decide to leave out that homicidal tidbit.

  “Hey, Lottie?” Felicity hikes her shoulders near her ears as if she were afraid to say what comes next. “You do know that I’m dating Bear, right?”

  “What? I thought you were dating that guy from the paper, Simon Warwick.” The Honey Hollow Hive might be on life support, as are all other newspapers in the country, but it still has a staff, and last I heard, Felicity was hot and heavy with the head editor.

  “I am, sort of. He hasn’t been with the paper in months. He’s started his own comic shop down in Leeds. You see, we got in a bit of a fight a few weeks back, and, well, I’ve been trying to make him insane. I caught him with another girl last month, and even though he swears it was an accidental date, I wasn’t having it. So what if they both happened to walk into the Burrito Factory at the very same time? Did he just happen to sit at the booth with her for an hour straight? I’ve been livid ever since, but it’s as if he doesn’t get it. He’s gone as far as accusing my mother of trying to position me against him. Ironically, he’s the ex she actually approved of. Anyway, I thought if I dated Bear for a while he might get the hint. Are you mad?”

  “Are you kidding? You can have any one of my exes.” I bite down hard over my lower lip. “Except Noah.” It speeds out so fast I can hardly control it. I can’t help it. He still very much holds my h
eart. I thought he was going to propose. I was ready to scream yes at the top of my wedding hungry lungs. It’s hard to disconnect your feelings from someone even if they do end up being a moron. Not that I’m fully convinced that Noah is a moron. More like an inadvertent moron. And a downright sexy one at that.

  Voices escalate from the staff lounge behind us, and Felicity rolls her eyes.

  “I’d better get in there. My mother and Rigby are like oil and water these days.” She takes off, and I make my way down the hall. And as much as I try to artfully dodge Noah and Bear, one of the aforementioned beefy security guards cordons off the area in order to clear a path for her literary highness.

  Noah nods me over with a crooked grin, and I hate how easily my feet are willing to comply.

  “Here she comes,” he whispers as he pulls me in close so I can get a better view. His warm arm practically singes my waist as he holds me steady in front of him.

  In strides a tall woman with a light pink bob that looks absolutely adorable. She has dainty little features, her eyes are heavily ringed in dark kohl, she’s donned a dark blue lipstick, and is wearing nothing but black from head to toe. In a strange way, she reminds me of my sister, Meg.

  Meg just left Vegas after a rather long stint in the female wrestling circuit. I doubt she’s here today. She hates crowds, and she sort of hates people when you get down to it. Except for family. She loves Lainey and me to death. Meg has taken to teaching pole dancing at the Red Satin Gentlemen’s club down in Leeds. She was supposed to start part-time at The Enchanted Flower Shop, but Rhonda told her last minute she couldn’t afford another employee. I guess my bio mother, Carlotta, got lucky in a sense since she’s managed to stay on at the shop. She and Rhonda were besties back in high school. And they still are. So much so that Rhonda is letting Carlotta live at her house rent-free until she gets on her feet.