Cloudy with a Chance of Ghosts (Destiny Bay Cozy Mysteries Book 4) Read online

  We looked at each other, shrugged, and turned to begin the climb up.

  “Hello,” I called again. “Marilee?”

  A door slammed. The lights flickered. I gasped and grabbed Jill. She was breathing as though she’d just run a mile and she held onto me as though I was her last hope of salvation.

  Her eyes were huge and shadowed. “M…m…maybe we ought to go,” she whispered breathlessly.

  It seemed like a very good idea—but I stopped myself from running for the door. We had to do this thing and we had to follow through. I took a deep breath and started for the stairs again.

  My mood had changed very quickly. It had seemed risky but normal enough to go into Marilee’s house, but now, for some reason, it was beginning to feel foolhardy. It was as though a chill wind had swept through, full of evil possibilities. Was this my magic again? Or something more sinister? Whatever it was, my heart was racing.

  We reached the second floor landing and turned toward the hall. I heard something weird, something that sounded like a groan. I stopped, frozen in my tracks, heart thumping-- and at that very moment, the lights went out.

  All of them.

  The whole house.

  It was pitch black and we couldn’t see a thing.

  Chapter Eight

  We screamed and clung to each other and something came barreling past us, knocking us both to the floor. We screamed again and began to flail, until we realized we were hitting each other, not whoever had turned off the lights and come crashing into us.

  “Flashlights,” I managed to gasp out between panting breaths as we struggled to our feet. “Never again will we go anywhere without flashlights.”

  “Hush,” she whispered harshly, grabbing my arm. “He’ll hear you.”

  “Who?”

  “The man who knocked us down.”

  “How do we know it was a man?”

  “Who do you think it was? Marilee?”

  “No. I think you’re right. But he’s gone. Didn’t you hear the front door slam?”

  “Oh. No, are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  I was feeling my way along the wall. “We’ve got to find some light.”

  “Wait,” she said, grabbing my arm again. “Look at that.”

  It was an eerie, wavering light coming from under one of the doors.

  “What is that?” I was whispering now too.

  “Candles,” Jill said. “I think it’s candles. I’ll bet that’s the bathroom.”

  We made our way to the door and stopped.

  “I’m going to knock,” I said.

  “Are you crazy?”

  “No. We can’t just barge into a bathroom without knocking.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just not right.”

  “Oh, alright. Marilee’s privacy concerns are important, I guess. Go ahead. Knock away.”

  I did.

  “Marilee?” I whispered loudly, just in case the man who had bowled us over really was back downstairs and would hear me.

  But there was no response.

  “Okay. I’m going to open this door.”

  “Go ahead. I’ll just close my eyes and wait for the murderer to come barging out again.”

  “He’s gone.”

  “So you say. I don’t believe it.”

  With a sigh of exasperation, I opened the door. Sure enough, it was a bathroom, and a very nice one, too. Small candles filled the room with a warm, romantic atmosphere. But all that was ruined by the body in the tub.

  “Oh no!”

  Reaching out, I tried the switch and was surprised when it came on, flooding the room with light. “Grab her!”

  It was Marilee, lying just under the water as though she was looking up at us. We both pulled her out, but it was obviously too late to do anything about her. She’d been thoroughly drowned.

  The water was still warm, so it hadn’t been long since she’d died. I have to admit I dreaded seeing the police with another murder to my credit. I actually had a moment of panic, thinking we could run for it and phone it in anonymously. But I knew right away that was impossible. I tried to calm myself and make the call.

  I struggled to find my cell phone. My hands were shaking and my throat was dry. This was horrible.

  We moved in a dream until the police arrived, bringing in the paramedics who checked her over and declared her officially dead. Captain Stone arrived and barely gave me a look, but I was grateful to avoid another conversation. We answered questions and then more questions and I was in the living room when one of the detectives played back the recording on the answering machine. The only call that was in any way relevant was from Jagger, and he was furious.

  He’d obviously found out that she’d fingered him for the murder, and he called her some ugly names.

  “I’m coming over there,” he warned. “You’re not going to get away with this. I’ll make you pay.”

  Jill and I looked at each other, eyes wide. Then Jill was murmuring something I couldn’t quite make out. It looked to me like she was reciting the rosary without using beads. For just a second or two I wished I was Catholic so I could have that comfort for myself.

  We watched numbly as the police took away piles and piles of papers and other possible evidence. When Captain Stone finally let us go, he looked me right in the face and acted like he’d never met me before. It was actually getting downright annoying.

  As we walked out to my car, I noticed a piece of paper stuck in a bush as though someone had dropped it and it had caught there. Jill was talking and I didn’t say a word as I pulled down the paper and stuck it in my pocket. I had no idea what it was, but something told me it might be important. It looked fresh, like it hadn’t been stuck in that bush for long, and it wasn’t on the path the police were taking their loot through. It might be nothing. But it might also be something.

  Who could have dropped it? Almost anybody—but likely the person who pulled the plug on the lights so he could crash his way past us without being seen. Had he been carrying away papers? Was this one of them? I didn’t know, but I wasn’t going to leave it behind when there was a chance…just a bare chance…that it was something that could shed some light on the case. I certainly wasn’t going to leave all the investigating to Mr. Nose-in-the-Air….uh, Captain Stone.

  Another thing I wasn’t going to leave was Jill on her own after what we’d been through.

  “You can stay at our house,” I told her. “We’ve got an extra bed. Don’t think twice. It’s a done deal.”

  She gave in quickly, so I could tell she’d been hoping we’d take her in all along. She didn’t want to go home and listen to the emptiness and notice the phone that didn’t ring. She needed to be with people who cared about her. So she stayed.

  We got into jammies and talked until midnight and then I went to my own room. Finally I had a chance to pull out the piece of paper and check it out.

  It was a sheet of personalized stationery. The name Keri Shorter was printed at the top, surrounded by a simple wreath of wild flowers. The note was typed and addressed to a magazine publisher in the East, requesting permission to change the focus of a story she was working on for the magazine.

  “I’ve stumbled upon some interesting background to the Carlton Hart story which is going to take me off along a different road, involving possible criminal activity and corruption. I’d like to discuss this before going further. Please give me a call….”

  A couple of words were misspelled and crossed out and a large x covered the body of the letter. Obviously, it was a first attempt that Keri had used for practice before sending the real letter.

  So it seemed to be true that Carlton Hart had a shady past and Keri was digging into it. Muckraking journalism—I suppose there is a place for it and sometimes it can be important and illuminating. But I wasn’t sure this was one of those instances. My first impulse was to say—leave Carlton alone!

  “But that’s not the way the world works,”
Jill reminded me when I went back to where she was about to go to sleep to show her the letter and revealed my instinctual response. “Your foibles are bound to come out eventually. We all have to pay for our shortcomings.”

  “Do we?” I wasn’t sure if that was really a necessity. Still, it was what it was.

  I went back to my bed and fell asleep quickly, only to find Sami trying to head butt me awake at three in the morning.

  “Go away!” I grumbled at him, but for some reason, he kept attacking me. It was a benign attack, a fairly affectionate one. Sami was the best head butter around. But it was impossible to sleep while he was doing it.

  “What? Do you want something to eat?” I got up and headed for the kitchen. If he was this hungry, I knew feeding him was the only way I was going to get any sleep. But he sailed right past me and went to the back door, meowing frantically, as if he wouldn’t live until dawn if he didn’t get outside.

  “Okay, okay.” I opened the door to let him out, and then I saw something moving in the back yard. My heart started to thump until I realized it was Roy. I quickly went out to where he was standing, near his patrol car.

  “What are you doing here?” I whispered as I met him beyond the morning glory vine.

  “Checking on you.” He grinned at me, his hands in his pockets. “I was down in Santa Barbara for most of the day and I heard you had some excitement, so I thought I’d come by and see if you were up.”

  “I wasn’t,” I noted dryly.

  He shrugged. “You are now.” He looked me up and down. “Cute pajamas,” he said, trying to hold back another grin.

  I looked down at the fabric. “Little Scotty dogs,” I told him. “My favorites.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Jill’s here,” I added. “She’s sleeping in the guest room.” I frowned at him, hoping he wouldn’t notice how happy I was to see him. “So what did you do, send the cat in to wake me up?”

  He nodded, humor in his eyes. “Cats love me,” he said. “I’m like—king of the cats sometimes. They’ll do anything for me.”

  “Liar.” But I smiled at him

  He raised one dark eyebrow. “You going to tell me what you were doing at the latest murder scene?”

  I stared at him. He was beginning to sound like the Captain. “Why?” I asked him. “Am I a suspect?”

  “Hey.” He laughed softly, shaking his head. “No, you’re not a suspect.” Reaching out, he pulled me close. “I’m just worried about you, that’s all. You seem to have a knack for hanging out where death shows up. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  I raised my face to his and he kissed me—sweet and warm, sending quivery little shivers into mad confusion all over my susceptible places. I drew back, reluctant but firm. I wasn’t going to give in to those delightfully human urges. Been there, done that, and lost a round or two. I wasn’t going there again.

  But I did like this man, and I wanted him to know it. So I told him everything—all about our suspicions, about Celinda’s visit, about our trip to see Marilee that ended in tragedy.

  “Who do you think that was who turned out the lights and knocked you down?” he asked.

  “I’m pretty sure it was a man,” I told him. “But more than that, I have no clue.”

  “Jagger?”

  “Oh, I hope not.”

  “Do you think it was the same person who killed Keri?”

  I hesitated. “Don’t you?”

  He shook his head. “Hard to say.” He looked at me, his gaze a bit veiled. “We’re looking to pick up Jagger again, you know.”

  That gave me a chill. “Do you think he’s the one?”

  He shrugged. “Too soon to tell.”

  “Wow, you’re just full of meaningless phrases tonight.”

  He laughed softly. “You know I can’t tell you the inner secrets of our little group. I already tell you much too much.”

  “Okay. Wink two times if I’m close. Let’s say Jagger killed Keri. Why would he do it?”

  He just shook his head, but I noticed he very carefully didn’t wink even once.

  “No motive,” I said.

  “That you know of,” he amended, making me frown.

  “I can see why he might have killed Marilee,” I went on. “After she turned him in and all.”

  “So you heard about that?”

  I winked at him twice and he laughed out loud and pulled me close again.

  “Hey, chew on this one,” he said softly. “What if Marilee was the one who killed Keri? Where does that leave your theory?”

  That nearly sent me into orbit. “Marilee?”

  He nodded. “Hey junior detective lady, you ponder that, why don’t you?” He smiled at me, teasing and looking like a man preparing to leave the premises. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  I watched him go to his car and drive off, still stunned by what he’d said. Marilee? The murderer of Keri?

  Well, why not?

  Yes, but then again, why? Did the police take her in for questioning and get a little too close to some of her secrets? Did she accuse Jagger in order to throw them off? I still couldn’t see her picking up a rock and applying it to Keri’s head. Unless she was very motivated.

  Motive. That was what I still didn’t get. What was her motive?

  But wait. She’d obviously had information on Keri’s attempt to profile the viler side of Carleton, hadn’t she? What was she doing with Keri’s private papers in her house? Hadn’t that ghost girl, Julie Geiger told me Marilee had taken papers from that secret hiding place in the wall? Could those papers have been something to do with Keri’s investigation?

  It was all so confusing. I was about to go back into the house when a rustling in the hedgerow told me there was someone else out tonight. I gasped and grabbed my pajamas to my chest, but the figure that came out of the shadows was familiar.

  “Jagger!” I said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Watching you and your boyfriend, it seems.” He grinned at me, looking awfully relaxed for a man who was wanted by the police. “But I had something else in mind when I first got here.”

  I stiffened. After all, this man was a suspect in a murder. Should I be out here talking to him like this? Probably not.

  “No kidding,” I said a bit breathlessly.

  “Seriously. I was hoping to see Jill, but she’s asleep, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Don’t wake her.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  “No, really. I guess you know that Marilee accused me of murdering Keri Shorter.”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t do it.”

  “Really.”

  “Really.”

  I looked at him nervously, but for the life of me, I couldn’t picture him as a murderer, either. It might be interesting to see who he thought did it.

  “So Jagger, tell me how you see it all.”

  He gave a snort. “I’m not telling you everything. Only what I think you should know.”

  “Okay. Then I’m going back to bed.” I turned toward the house.

  “No, wait. Okay. Listen, I’ll tell you what I think I know. But I’m a little shaky on some of it.”

  “Just try.”

  “Okay.” He sighed and leaned against the fence. “Okay. Here’s the deal. Carleton was being blackmailed.”

  My eyes got wide. “You’re kidding.”

  “No. He really was. He confided in me. And I was trying to help him figure out who it was so he could fight back.”

  “You wanted to help Carlton?”

  Jagger frowned at me. “Why does that surprise you? Sure I did. Hey, I love the guy.”

  “Really?”

  He looked totally earnest about it. “Yes, really. He’s done a lot for me.”

  Okay, I could buy that. When you came right down to it, I was pretty sure Carlton had done a lot for most of the artists in his group. “So what was he being blackmailed about?”

  He shrugged. “I don’
t know the details. Something in his past, obviously. Something he didn’t want coming out.”

  We were both silent for a moment, thinking that over, and I couldn’t help but wonder what Carlton had done that would be so serious he would do almost anything to keep it from the world—and did that “almost anything” include murder? Hmmm.

  “Anyway,” Jagger went on at last, “that was why I took Keri out to dinner the other night. I wanted to shmooze her a bit and try to find out what she was doing.”

  I gasped. “Was she the one blackmailing…..?”

  “No. It wasn’t her. But if she’d actually published the article about Carlton that she was going after, it would not only have messed with Carlton’s life, it would have ruined everything for the blackmailer. Don’t you see? If the truth came out, there would be nothing left for the blackmailer to hold over Carlton to make him fork over the money.”

  “Oh. Sure.”

  “So I figure, the blackmailer is probably who killed Keri. To stop her from publishing the facts that would ruin the blackmailer’s case. You get it?”

  I nodded, my face scrunched up in deep thoughts. “Yes. I think I do. But who was it?”

  “That’s where I get a little fuzzy.”

  “Who had the best motive?” I said, returning to my original puzzle. “The police think you might have done it because Marilee claimed she saw you go into that brush area with Keri at the time she was killed. But what would your motive be?”

  He looked just a touch uncomfortable. “Okay, I did want to stop her from publishing stuff about Carlton. And I got a little testy with her over it. I definitely called her on it, told her it wasn’t cool. I suppose that might be considered a motive.”

  I nodded, biting my lip as I thought that over. “Ingratiating yourself with the boss sort of thing,” I murmured. “Especially if you were expecting to get financially rewarded by Carlton.”

  He swung around and glared at me. “Hey, there was nothing like that. Honest.”

  I nodded, thinking that over.

  “And I didn’t kill anybody. Got it?”