After an eternal second, he shakes his head my way.
Vivian Maple won’t have to worry about protecting her recipes anymore.
Vivian Maple is dead.
And judging by the way Killion’s eyes are scanning the crowd, somebody at this festival just added murder to the menu.
HATTIE
Ascream rips from my throat before I can stop it.
Peggy and Clarabelle trot over as if they’re answering a dinner bell and belt out their own screams. Soon, everyone at the Pumpkin Palooza Harvest Festival joins in the impromptu choir of horror. It’s like we’ve all auditioned for roles in the same slasher movie, and we all got the part. Too bad for Vivian Maple, because she got the part of the corpse.
The once-cheerful festival grounds transform in an instant. The same twinkle lights that looked whimsical moments ago now cast eerie shadows across a crowd full of shocked faces.
The scent of pumpkin spice and caramel apples mingles with something new—the metallic tang of fear. Someone drops their candy apple and it rolls across the ground, collecting dirt and leaving a trail of sticky red film that looks disturbingly like sanguine liquid that leads all the way to Vivian herself.
Vivian Maple lies motionless at my feet with her perfect hazel eyes now vacant, her immaculate outfit rumpled from her fall. That oversized check for twenty thousand dollars flutters in the breeze beside her, unclaimed.
This is bad, bad, bad,Cricket’s thoughts pierce through the chaos as she paces in tight circles near my ankles.Deathsmells wrong. Not like a good wrong, like that cheese you left out too long that I ate anyway. Justplainwrong.
Rookie whimpers, nudging his nose against Vivian’s hand as if trying to wake her before Killion gently pulls him back.
“Back up, boy,” Killion murmurs. His voice is steady, but his eyes are sharp as he whips out his phone. He barks commands into it like a drill sergeant ordering recruits. “This is Detective Maddox. I need immediate backup and the coroner here at the Pumpkin Palooza Harvest Festival out in Brambleberry Bay. Possible suspicious death. Secure the scene. No one leaves.”
Within minutes, the festival transforms into a crime scene. Deputies materialize like they’ve been hiding behind the hay bales all along, cordoning off the area with yellow caution tape and herding witnesses to one side. Killion directs it all with the efficiency of a conductor leading an orchestra of chaos—something he’s come to perfect in the time I’ve known him. And a part of me wonders if I’m the constant in the equation of chaos that seems to be following us like a dark cloud.
Peggy, Clarabelle, and I find ourselves shuffled to the side, where we watch Oliver Prescott stride to the microphone. His silver hair catches the light, and his expression is now far too somber.
“Ladies and gentlemen”—he announces as his voice carries across the stunned crowd—“we ask for your patience and cooperation while the authorities conduct their necessary work. Please feel free to enjoy the remaining festivities in other areas of the grounds. The food stalls and carnival rides remain open for your entertainment while we handle this more than unfortunate situation.”
“Unfortunate situation?” Peggy scoffs at the thought. “That’s like calling a hurricane a light breeze.”
Clarabelle gives a sage nod. “They always downplay death at public events. It’s bad for business. Remember when that man had a heart attack at the Lobster Festival three years ago? The emcee called it a minor medical inconvenience.”
Peggy swats me on the arm without pretense. “You have got to stop with this little corpse-collecting habit of yours, Hattie Holiday,” she says with her Southern drawl stretched as thin as her patience. “It’s becoming more than a little concerning.”
“Extremely concerning.” Clarabelle nods, and that mountain of gray sitting on her head gives a mean wobble. “You find more bodies than an undertaker.”
I open my mouth to defend myself when a familiar voice cuts through the crowd.
“Hattie Holiday! What in heaven’s name have you gotten yourself into now?”
I look up to see my mother, elbowing her way through the crowd with the determination of someone who raised four children and has perfected the art of parting an entire sea of people to reprimand one of those children. Ruthie Holiday might be a retired nurse whose blonde hair and green eyes normally give off nothing but warmth, but right now those eyes are shooting lightning bolts in my direction.
My sisters trail behind her, looking far less irate and far more frightened—Winnie with her caramel hair tumbling in waves around her heart-shaped face, and Neelie, whose blonde locks are suspiciously similar to my mother’s despite being the only natural blonde among us.
“Don’t even bother denying it, young lady,” Mom says, replying to Clarabelle’s corpse-collecting comment before I can get a word in edgewise. “Every time I turn around, you’re standing over another dead body. It’s becoming a very disturbing pattern.”
“Believe me, there is no pattern.” I wince along with my protest because, let’s face it, there is very much a well-established pattern. “I don’t collect corpses. They just... sort of find me.”
“Findyou?” Winnie gives a short-lived laugh. “You make them sound like stray cats.” She steps forward and gives my hand a squeeze. “Are you okay, Hattie? We saw the whole thing. That woman almost took you down right along with her! That must have been awful.”
“Of course, she’s not okay,” Neelie interjects, flipping her golden locks as if to accentuate her point. “Clearly, she needs professional help. There’s a lovely psychiatric clinic in Switzerland that Stanton highly recommends. Very discreet, very effective.”If Hattie gets locked away in a mental institution, that’s one less embarrassment I have to explain to Stanton’s colleagues at the country club. Do you know how hard I’ve worked to be taken seriously by those people? It’s bad enough Hattie works there. She’s the hired help, and that makes me the hired help’s sister.
I gasp involuntarily as Neelie’s thoughts hit me with a breathtaking selfishness only Neelie can provide. My youngest sister, once the quasi-sweet baby of the family, has transformed into someone I hardly recognize since becoming engaged to Stanton Troublefield, plastic surgeon to the wealthy and notorious womanizer—currently aged fifty-seven to her twenty-four. And believe me, it’s not ideal for more than those numerical reasons.
“I’m not going to Switzerland or anywhere else,” I say firmly. “And I’m perfectly fine. I just happened to be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.”Againandagain, but I leave that part out.
