“I really didn’t think this through,” I said, turning to the dead woman riding shotgun in my Honda CR-V. She glanced at me, eyes running over my fancy dress costume.
“The straw is a nice touch.” She gave a nod to the bright orange straw I’d crammed under my battered hat. It had seemed like a good idea at the time to come as a scarecrow to Firefly Bay’s annual Scarecrow Ball. But oh my lordy, the straw! Thankfully, I’d only shoved it under my hat, not all over, because straw? It itches like you have a bad case of something contagious. That requires medical treatment. And ointment. Lots and lots of ointment.
The woman’s costume, on the other hand? She was a fairy-tale princess, complete with a massive ballgown that took up almost the entire front of my car and puffed around her like a tulle-filled meringue. The gemstones on the bodice sparkled in a ray of light that cut through the windshield, twinkling in the fading light as the sun dipped over the horizon. I didn’t sparkle. I itched.
“Cinderella?” I asked, nodding at the white gloves that reached beyond her elbows and the crown perched upon her short blonde hair. Technically, Cinderella had long hair, but who was I to quibble?
She lifted a bare shoulder in a half shrug. “Not really.”
“No?” My brows shot up, creating friction between the straw and my hat and scraping my skin. “Who then?” Shoving an index finger beneath the band of my hat, I scratched.
“I’m the fairy godmother,” she deadpanned.
I didn’t think my eyebrows could physically reach any higher on my forehead, so color me surprised when they hit my hairline. At least, that’s what it felt like. It could’ve been the tight hat and abundant amount of straw cutting off circulation, yet oddly, not the itching sensation. I patted my brows with my fingers, reassuring myself that they were still in situ while eyeballing the woman incredulously.
Gianna Tate was a ruthless divorce attorney with a passion for making money. At least, that’s what I’d heard. I’d never had personal dealings with her before other than to say hello, but sitting in front of me, all I saw was a beautiful woman, mid to late fifties, blonde hair cut in a stylish pixie, subtle makeup that accentuated her blue eyes, impossibly thick and dark lashes that made me think they were false, and a slim figure that told me, for a dead woman, she liked to keep in shape. She did not, in any way, resemble the fairy godmother I remembered from my childhood.
I turned back to the windshield, stuffed a couple of Cheez-Its into my mouth, and pondered the turn of events that found Gianna in my car. Dead, obviously. Unless the blood marring the front of her pale blue gown was fake. Costume blood. But she’d appeared out of thin air, so I felt reasonably confident in my initial assessment.
“So…” I swallowed my mouthful of Cheez-Its. “You’re just a straight-up fairy godmother? Not the horror version or anything?”
“Horror version? What on earth are you talking about?” She fluffed the tulle around her, seemingly genuinely oblivious to the blood and her non-living status.
“Actually, I’m glad I caught you,” she said, as if she hadn’t just materialized in the front seat of my car wearing a ball gown with bloodstains.
“Oh? Why’s that?” Without a doubt, I was one hundred percent expecting Gianna to say she’d been murdered and wanted me to find her killer. That’s how it usually worked. Ghosts found me, and I’d find out who killed them. Assuming they’d been murdered, of course.
Ever since my best friend Ben had died and come back to haunt me, I’d been able to see ghosts. I am a ghost magnet. Or, more accurately, a ghost detective. I help the dearly departed solve the mystery of their death, giving them peace of mind and justice, which allows them to cross over.
Except for Ben, who’d chosen to stay. And when I say haunt, I don’t mean it in the clanging chains and moaning in the dead of night way. Ben just hangs out with me. It’s almost like normal. Except he’s dead. And only I can see, hear, and speak to him. Did I mention I can also talk to—and understand—Ben’s cat, Thor? I agree—the whole thing is pretty freaky. We don’t really know why, other than Ben’s old neighbor dabbled in witchcraft, and the night Ben was murdered, she did a little something-something that resulted in… this. Me, talking to and seeing ghosts.
“I want to hire you,” Gianna said.
I shoved another Cheez-It in my mouth. “Yeah? What for?” Here it comes.
“Someone is attempting to blackmail me, and I want you to find out who and shut it down. But this has to stay on the down-low. No one can find out about it. At all. Ever.”
I stopped chewing. My hand—already in the Cheez-It box for another serving—froze. “Blackmail?” I hadn’t been expecting that. “Tell me more.”
“I received an email demanding money, or they’d release risqué photos from my youth.”
I began chewing again. “Are there risqué photos from your youth?”
She crinkled her nose. “Who knows? My youth was a very long time ago. Needless to say, I have no intentions of paying, but I can’t have this interfering with my work. I don’t want our law firm dragged into anything untoward, so I figured I’d hire a private investigator. Your name came to mind.”
“Why not go to the police?”
She shot me a look. “Because if there are risqué photos, I want them destroyed. The police would take them into evidence.”
Of course. But now, she was dead. At the hands of the blackmailer? Why would the blackmailer kill their meal ticket? You can’t get money from a dead person.
“Who sent the email?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes. “If I knew that, I wouldn’t have to hire you.” She waved a hand around, narrowly missing the box of Cheez-Its. “It came from one of those anonymous email accounts. The bogus ones anyone can create.”
“Right. What did it say? Exactly. Instructions for a money drop? A deadline?”
“It was a couple of sentences. It’s probably best if you read it for yourself.”
“Probably,” I agreed, my mind spinning with possibilities. Gianna was a successful divorce attorney and partner at Beasley, Tate, and Associates. The same firm my sister-in-law, Amanda, worked at as a paralegal. But behind every successful case, there was a loser on the opposing team. Mostly disgruntled spouses who’d battled it out in a courtroom and lost, thanks to Gianna. She probably had a list a mile long of people who’d wished her dead.
“Shouldn’t we be going?” She tapped her wrist where her watch would be if she weren’t wearing the gloves.
“Just waiting on Galloway,” I said. “Cheez-It?”
Her chin tilted in the air. “You know those are bad for you, right?”
I dusted Cheez-It dust off my hands and figured while we waited for my fiancé, one of Firefly Bay’s best detectives and, may I mention, smokin’ hot to boot, we may as well get to the bottom of Gianna’s recent demise.
“Tell me about your afternoon.”
She frowned. “Why?”
“So I can get a sense of who you are, your usual routine, that type of thing,” I lied. If I could jolt her memory, get her to recall her murder, we just might solve this mystery quickly, and I’d still get to go to the ball. Selfish, but what the heck, if I was going to create a makeshift wig out of straw, it was only fair I got to go to the ball.
“Today hasn’t exactly been a usual day,” she said.
“Because of the ball?” I asked, reaching for another Cheez-It from the box I had crammed between my seat and the center console.
“Obviously. I had a few things to take care of in the office this morning—”
“Do you usually work Saturdays?” I cut in.
She lifted one shoulder. “Usually, yes. The office is quiet, and it gives me a chance to go over case files, et cetera, for court on Monday.”
“Right. So, you went into the office. Then what?”
She was silent for a moment, then tapped her wrist again. “We need to get going. The firm holds a private soiree before the ball, and this year, it’s at my house. I need to be there.”
“You have a party before a party?” I wasn’t sure if it was genius or merely extravagant.
She inclined her head. “Correct. It’s a way for us to thank our staff and to have a bit of fun together before the ball. The ball is more networking and schmoozing.” Her voice had an edge of flint, indicating her irritation that we weren’t moving, and I could see what others saw, the steely lawyer who brooked no BS.
“You don’t like the networking and schmoozing?” I prodded, wondering if I was poking the bear, for her mood seemed to have soured.
“When you are as good at your job as I am, you become public property. That can get… tiresome.” Then a sly grin curled the corner of her lips. “But profitable.”
“So, nothing… unusual… happened today?” Like you getting killed, for instance?
“What on Earth are you trying to say?” she demanded, head snapping and eyes pinning me to my seat with a red-hot glare. I gulped. Her eyes could strip you bare and flay your soul. I would not want to be on the opposing side of Gianna Tate in a courtroom.
Ignoring her glare, I plowed on. “You want me on the case, then I have to ask the questions. Sorry.”
“Fine.” She gave a brief nod and settled back in her seat, staring out the windshield. The view wasn’t spectacular. We were in my driveway, waiting on Galloway to get changed into his costume, only he was taking his sweet time about it. Which was kinda a moot point since Gianna had shown up; there’d be no ball. We needed to find her body.
I had a feeling that when news broke about Gianna’s demise, Amanda was going to be a royal pain in my ass. Not that she wasn’t already. Amanda was on a crusade to fix me. Not that I needed fixing. I’m clumsy, not broken, and we’d clashed over that little fact on more than one occasion. Currently, we were enjoying a cease-fire, but Gianna being murdered was going to upset the delicate balance we’d established. I sighed and shoved more Cheez-Its in my mouth.
“So, after the office, you went home and got changed?”
She looked down at the ballgown, smoothing her hands over the voluminous skirt. “I guess? I don’t really remember. How did I get here?”
“No idea. You look lovely, by the way.”
Gianna softened like butter on a hotcake. “Thank you.” She pulled at the short strands of hair at her nape. “I was going to wear a wig but in the end decided against it. They’re so hot. And itchy.”
I snorted. “You should try straw. Gives itchy a whole new meaning.”
The front door of my house opened and closed, and a nervous thrill rushed up my spine. Leaning forward against the steering wheel, I watched as Galloway strode purposefully toward me. He was the sexiest darn scarecrow I’d ever seen. I loved him for agreeing to be in what had to be a certain degree of discomfort, judging by the straw he had poking from his sleeves and trouser legs, just so that we’d match.
He must’ve felt me ogling him, for he glanced up, caught my eye, and grinned, and it was all I could do not to fan my face and swoon.
“Oh, my!” Gianna had no such qualms.
Remembering our uninvited spirit currently riding shotgun, I jerked my thumb, indicating Galloway should take the back seat. His step faltered ever so slightly before he gave a slight nod and altered his trajectory to accommodate.
“You look fantastic.” I twisted in my seat to give him an approving once over once he’d settled into the back seat.
“Thanks. So do you. Love the makeup.” He winked, and I remembered that I’d colored in the tip of my nose, round red dots on my cheeks, drawn on eyelashes like a cartoon doll, and one of those slasher mouths with the stitches. I’d felt pretty cute until Gianna had turned up all Cinderella-like in my front seat.
Galloway had his phone in his hand and a sheepish look on his face. “Babe, I hate to do this, but….”
“We can’t go to the ball,” I finished for him. I tilted my head toward the passenger seat, indicating my dead passenger. “We have Gianna Tate with us.”
Galloway shot a look toward what appeared to him to be an empty seat, then his phone, and back to me.
“Was the call about Gianna?” I asked, biting my lip. It was tricky when the ghost you were helping didn’t know they were a ghost. Galloway, bless his cotton socks, was a quick study. “We’ve been called to an incident at Gianna’s house,” he confirmed.
“Oh, good!” Gianna twisted in her seat to beam at him. “You can drop me at my place, and I can catch the limo to the ball with everyone else. This is working out perfectly.”
And that’s how I arrived at Gianna’s mansion. Unlike Cinderella and her pumpkin with her mice, but instead in a metallic blue Honda CR-V, with a hunky scarecrow and a ghost.
