Page 29 of Gumbo, Ghosts, and Deadly Deception
But what was he doing in my house? How had he gotten in?
I slipped through the dining room and into the front hallway, my heart hammering against my ribs. I needed to get out of the house, needed to call Hollis, needed to?—
The front door was standing wide open.
I hadn't left it open. I never left it open.
And there, silhouetted in the doorway, was another figure. This one I recognized immediately.
Detective Hollis Broussard.
He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. In the dim light of the foyer, his expression was unreadable.
"Harper," he said quietly. "We need to talk."
Behind me, I could hear Father Claude moving around in the kitchen. I was trapped between them, clutching Aunt Odette's journal pages and a very confused skunk.
The grandfather clock chose that moment to chime. Just once, like it had the night Delia died.
Time, I realized, had just run out.
EIGHT
Maybe that was dramatic, but honestly, what was that clock’s problem?
Also, I needed a locksmith to change the locks on the doors because clearly the current ones were worth a whole lot of nothing.
"You need to talk to me, Hollis? About what?" I tried to keep my voice steady, but the papers in my hoodie pocket felt like they were radiating heat.
"I wanted to tell you a little bit about what’s going on with Delia’s case. What I can share, that is."
“I would love an update.” I was also distracted though. “Was my front door unlocked?”
“What?” Hollis looked behind us at the door. “I don’t know. I guess.”
I really was positive it had been locked.
Father Claude emerged from the kitchen, his expression grave. "Harper, child, you're playing with forces you don't understand. This isn't some ghost story for your little podcast."
That was really patronizing. I was instantly insulted.
"It's not a little podcast," I said, which was probably not the most important point to make at the moment.
“Maggie filed a Freedom of Information Act Request on the Francine Darrow case.”
That was smart of her. I could always trust Maggie to be three steps ahead of me. I couldn’t wait to share Odette’s journal with her. “So? We’re just trying to understand what happened to Delia," I said. "She left me that note?—"
"The note that you didn't turn over to police for eight hours," Hollis interrupted. "The note that could be evidence in a homicide investigation."
I was going to ignore that little fact. "You said it was an accidental drowning."
"I said that was the preliminary assessment. The official cause of death just came back from the coroner." Hollis pulled out his phone and read from it. "Cause of death: drowning. Manner of death: undetermined."
"What does that mean?"
“That it’s undetermined.”
Even as he said it, Hollis couldn’t quite fight a smile that was turning up the corner of his mouth. I would have been super annoyed by him except for that smile. It was oddly cute, catching me off guard.
