Page 17 of Gumbo, Ghosts, and Deadly Deception
Delia had died—bills didn’t matter.
At least not until next week.
"What famous jambalaya?” I asked no one, since Teddy wasn’t even listening to me. “Her recipe was just rice, sausage, and whatever was about to go bad in the refrigerator."
Teddy opened one eye and gave me a look that seemed to say, You're being very obtuse.
"Don't give me attitude. You're the one who's supposed to have animal instincts." I scratched behind his ears. "Any insights on the mysterious jambalaya clue?"
He yawned and closed his eyes again.
The crime scene tape across the staircase leading to Room Three when I left my own room in the attic this morning served as a grim reminder that my life had taken a decidedly noir turn. Detective Broussard had left around midnight with promises to return "bright and early" to give me an update before he went into the police station.
My phone buzzed. A text from Maggie.
Coffee? Need to discuss last night's recording. Found something interesting.
I texted back.
Kitchen. Bring beignets. And possibly a new career plan because I think I'm done with the hospitality industry.
Twenty minutes later, Maggie burst through my kitchen door like a caffeinated tornado in leggings and a hoodie. She clutched her ever-present iced coffee in one hand and a white paper bag from the coffee shop down the street in the other.
"Okay," she announced without preamble, "I've listened to our recording from last night during the séance approximately fifteen times, and either we captured something genuinely supernatural, or someone is seriously messing with us."
"Please tell me it's the latter. I can handle ghosts. Humans who may or may not be murderers are above my pay grade."
Maggie plopped into the chair across from me and pulled out her phone. "Listen to this. I isolated the audio from right before the lights went out."
She hit play. For a moment, there was just the sound of our voices around the table. Delia calling to Francine's spirit, Ginger making huffing noises, Father Claude muttering prayers. Then, just before the woman's voice answered about no one believing her, there was something else.
A whisper, so faint I almost missed it: "Not yet."
"Did you hear that?" Maggie asked.
"The 'not yet'? Yeah. Creepy, but it could have been anyone at the table."
"That's what I thought too. But watch this." She pulled up a video on her phone. It was security footage from the upstairs hallway camera I'd installed last month after Teddy kept mysteriously escaping my room and nearly caused a woman to fall down the stairs when she tripped over him.
It had turned out to be a young boy staying in Room Five who kept opening the attic door for Teddy to roam.
The timestamp showed 9:47 PM, right when the séance was happening. The hallway was empty, dimly lit by the antique wall sconces. Then, at 9:48, a shadow moved across the far end of the corridor. Not a person—just a shadow, gliding along the wall like it had detached itself from whoever was casting it.
"That's definitely weird," I admitted. "But it could be a guest walking past the camera's range, or?—"
"Harper." Maggie's voice was unusually serious. "The shadow moved toward Room Three. And according to the timestamp, that was exactly when Delia disappeared from the parlor."
I stared at the phone screen, watching the shadow drift down the hallway like smoke in reverse. "You think someone was up there waiting for her? Or was that her?"
"She couldn’t have gotten up there that fast. She moved like an anemic turtle, not a track star. Besides, if she was running we would have heard her on the stairs. They’re very creaky.”
“That is very true. Except she did get up there that fast. That’s a fact. She was in the tub dead by the time we got up there.”
“I think someone knew exactly where she was going and when. Like, a prearranged meeting or something. Unfortunately, the camera only captures a sliver of the hallway and the attic door."
She gave me a meaningful look, like it was my fault. Which it was. I had only intended to watch my doorway, not make guests uncomfortable with surveillance.
Before I could respond, the kitchen door opened and Detective Broussard walked in, looking like he'd slept about as well as I had. His usually neat dark hair was mussed, and there were coffee stains on his shirt that suggested he'd already been working for hours. Or never slept.
