Page 111 of The Main Event

The menu was superb. The supplies checked and double-checked.

The decorations were done and glorious.

The employees all had to submit their costume choices for approval, although Levi had apparently gotten a pass without me realizing it until it was too late. They knew the drill. Anything overtly sexy or gross had to be saved for their own time. Costumes for the big party had to be deemed “safe” for a reason.My costume was safe and adorable, and I couldn’t wait to get into it.

“Are we all set?” Karen Little asked. She was the chef for this shindig. She’d just arrived—she wasn’t forced to go through the walkthrough like the others—and seemed to be amazed as she looked around the ballroom. “You went all out.”

“It looks good, right?” I rubbed my hands together, anxiety I didn’t even know I could feel coursing through me.

“It looks amazing,” she assured me. “It’s going to be a great party.”

“It needs to be.”

“Because you’re afraid if it goes poorly that Hunter Junior will throw in the towel and sell us to a conglomerate?”

I didn’t want to voice those fears out loud, but Karen was the pragmatic sort. “If everything goes as planned, all of the renovations will be finished in May. We’re talking June at the absolute latest. That allows us to up the room prices, and we’ll be competing with the big dog hotels in Boston at that point.”

“And because it’s Salem, we’ll have a leg up on them,” she surmised. “It sounds like a good plan to me.”

“As long as we can see it to fruition,” I agreed.

“Do you know of any reason we won’t be able to see it to fruition?” She looked genuinely curious.

“No. I think we’re going to be okay.”

“So, why are you such a nervous wreck?”

There it was. The question I’d been asking myself over and over. “I think I’m just putting a bit too much pressure on myself. This is the biggest party I’ve ever hosted.”

“You were born for this. Don’t worry.”

Her faith in me served as a salve. Karen didn’t say anything she didn’t mean. “Okay, I’ve checked, double-checked, and triple-checked everything here. I’m going to go home and get ready. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

“There’s one other thing you have to deal with,” Karen countered, catching me off guard.

My mind was a total blank. “What?”

She pointed toward a spot over my shoulder, to where Tammy had appeared. She was already in her costume—of course she was—and true to what she’d submitted in her request, she was dressed as an angel.

“Does anybody else think she would catch fire if she was in the presence of actual angels?” I asked darkly.

“Oh, she’s the devil in a tarnished halo,” Karen agreed. “She’s our devil, though.”

“Yeah. I’ll check in with her.” I was resigned. “She’d better not pull anything weird tonight.”

“She’s Tammy. She’ll do something weird.”

I didn’t disagree. Unfortunately. “She’d better not pull anything evil.”

“Yeah, we’re both hoping for that.”

I squared my shoulders and stepped in her direction, plastering a fake smile on my face as I approached. “Everything set?” I asked her.

Tammy’s attitude as far as I was concerned was as dark as they come of late. That didn’t suddenly change because we had an important party on our agenda. “I see you went full-on Satan for the decorations,” she said by way of greeting, her glare turning to the coffin in the corner. An animatronic vampire kept poking his head out as the coffin creaked.

“You really need to let it go,” I admonished. “People love this stuff. Vampires are not satanic.”

“If you say so.” Her tone was clipped. “Are you going home to get changed?” She sounded a little too eager for my liking.

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