Page 45 of Ghosts, Ghouls, and Growls
“Exactly.” Georgie nods sagely. “But we went out in a blaze of glory. And chocolate. Lots and lots of chocolate.”
I can’t help but laugh as we load up and I start the minivan. “I hope it was worth it.”
“Oh, it was,” Georgie assures me, pulling a small chocolate haunted house from her pocket like a magician revealing her final trick. “Mission accomplished.”
We drive away from Westoff Farms, and I glance in the rearview mirror at the red barn growing smaller in the distance. Hammie Mae is still there somewhere, going about her day, completely unaware that she might have just shared hot chocolate with her half-sister—and witnessed said half-sister’s family get permanently banned from the premises.
But then again, she might know exactly that.
And judging by the warning Matilda just gave me, she definitely knows more than she’s saying—about Heath, about her daughter’s parentage, about my father’s two-timing behavior.
The question is—what am I going to do about it?
Just another typical day in the life of Bizzy Baker Wilder—amateur sleuth, professional innkeeper, and apparently, chocolate shop menace.
CHAPTER 20
It’s just a few hours after the chocolate catastrophe and Gwyneth and my father all but committed a baby heist about an hour ago, insisting that baby Ella wanted to take a nice solid nap in their cottage.
I wholeheartedly agreed—mostly because after the Westoff Farms incident, I need some quiet time to process the fact that I’m apparently banned from chocolate shops and quite possibly related to half the town.
So I brought my laptop out to the back patio of the Country Cottage Café which overlooks the sandy cove and promptly fell down a rabbit hole that involved any and every relative on both my mother’s and my father’s side. Because apparently, when you can’t solve mysteries the normal way, you resort to digital genealogy stalking.
The crisp October air carries the scent of woodsmoke, sea salt, and something sugary sweet that’s wafting from the kitchen—Emmie’s latest autumn-inspired creation, no doubt. The woman could make cardboard taste like a culinary masterpiece if she put pumpkin spice in it.
The fading daylight paints the cove in watercolor hues of amber and rose, while the distant sounds of the Fright Night Halloween Festival—creepy music, children’s laughter, and the occasional shriek from the haunted house—drift across the property like a spookysoundtrack to my family research. Candles flicker on the table as the Atlantic roars in front of me like a lioness ready to eat her fill of Halloween candy. Can’t say I blame her. I’ve already done the same.
A few festival castoffs have wandered over to the cove, their costumes fluttering in the breeze as they walk the shoreline like extras from a Halloween movie. There’s a pirate chasing a princess, a zombie shuffling along with surprising grace, and what appears to be an oversized pumpkin that might actually be a person—though in Spider Cove, you never can tell.
Just beyond them, Fish, Sherlock, and Fudge zip up and down the sand as their silhouettes glide against the glittering water. Fish maintains a dignified trot, while Sherlock bounds in joyful circles around her. Fudge seems to land somewhere between Fish’s aloofness and Sherlock’s lumbering enthusiasm as he darts back and forth like a fuzzy pendulum at lightning speeds.
This is NOT a game of tag,Fish yowls indignantly as Sherlock nips playfully at her tail.This is me trying to escape your slobbery existence.
Everything is a game of tag if you believe hard enough!Sherlock barks with canine optimism.Also, have you noticed how pretty the water is when it sparkles? Also, I smell hot dogs somewhere. Also, I think I just saw a fish in the water. Wait, is that wrong to say around you?
Everything you say is wrong on some level,she yowls back.
“How’s it going?” a voice chirps from above and I look up just in time to see my sister Macy—the one I actually know far too much about—plop into the seat next to me. On her heels are Jasper, Emmie, and Leo, forming a parade of concerned faces that I wasn’t expecting but probably should have been, considering my track record with finding trouble—not that they’re trouble, but their collective expression suggests I’m about to be.
Candy, Gatsby, and Cinnamon trot off for the shore to run with their four-footed friends without so much as a bark hello. Pet priorities, apparently. When there’s beach running to be done, human conversation is strictly secondary.
“Hey, hey, the gang’s all here,” I tease, closing a particularly unhelpful genealogy website that’s been about as useful as a chocolate teapot. “I was just clicking through a good couple hundredpictures of both the Bakers and the Pahrump family trees, hoping to find some answers that don’t involve chocolate-related criminal activity.” I wince a little because I haven’t exactly told Macy anything about our new mystery sister yet.
“So you’ve moved from stumbling over dead bodies to creating chocolate chaos? Diversifying your disaster portfolio, I see,” Macy quips just as Emmie lands a platter of those scrumptious pumpkin spice French toast bites and another platter of her far too addicting toffee on the table. The woman has a supernatural ability to appear with food whenever drama is about to unfold. It’s not a bad talent to have.
“You’re barking up the wrong family tree,” Macy continues. “You’re supposed to get me off the hook for murder one, not trace our family lineage back to theMayflower.”
Jasper hikes a brow her way. “Why should she get you off the hook? Are you guilty?”
“You’re not funny,” she snips his way, before narrowing her eyes to laser-beam slits. “We all know I didn’t kill him. I just had a manicure that day.” She holds out her hands to reveal a French manicure but, in keeping with the season, her tips are orange. “You think I would risk these beauties by way of dipping them in blood? Not even Heath Cullen was worth that kind of sacrifice.”
“The perfect alibi.” Leo chuckles. “I didn’t kill him, Your Honor. I just had my nails done. Salon knowledge leads to justice.”
“It worked for Elle Woods,” Emmie points out, snapping up a French toast bite. “What in the world did that man do to you, Macy?”
Macy’s face darkens like a thundercloud preparing to unleash its fury on unsuspecting picnic-goers. “He cheated on me, lied to my face, and then stole a night’s deposit from my shop. I hated him, and I’m not sorry he’s gone.” She pauses for effect. “What Iamsorry about is that he’s not still around so I can’t kick him in the cookies one more time. Do you think the morgue would allow me to visit?”
“No,” we all answer at once.
