Ghosts & Gateaux Read online

  Jenny was in the kitchen with me too. She was whipping up a huge batch of blue cupcakes. "I'm going to put sweet dreams in these,” she said thoughtfully.

  "I think that's a great idea."

  What was even better was that she was at work on time. Even if her issues with dragon racing were passing, I was still going to hire another assistant. The shop could afford it, and even with Jenny Mae giving the job her all, we could use another set of hands. Many hands make light work, my mother used to say.

  She was still frosting cupcakes when it was time to open, so I went out front to unlock the door. Of all the people I expected to see waiting for the shop to open, Patrick was not one of them. But there he was.

  I opened the door and he stepped inside while I flipped the sign. "Good morning, Fern,” he said brightly.

  "Good morning, Patrick,” I said. "What can I get for you?"

  "Perhaps a coffee to go and maybe a donut?"

  "Step up to the counter. I can get that for you right away,” I said.

  "Coffee and donuts aren’t the only reason I'm here," Patrick said as he watched me put his donut in a paper bag.

  "How else can I help you?" I asked as I poured his coffee into a paper cup.

  "It's more how I can help you."

  He set a check down on the counter and slid it across.

  "What's this?" I set his coffee down and picked up the check. It was from the Medium Association and was for the amount the bakery had already been paid.

  "It's a check for the rest of your fee,” he said.

  "But I've already been paid." I bit my lip. Why did I have to be so honest? Turned out, it didn't matter.

  "About that. So, Marcel got me to hire you at half of what he had budgeted for the food. He knew you'd take the job even if it was low because you'd get so much exposure for your business. I was only supposed to give you the other half as a bonus if you did exceptionally well. He was kind of a jerk like that,” he added.

  "Oh."

  "I think you did exceptionally well," Patrick continued. "You were a little late, but you still would have had everything set up on time. I saw how hard you worked. I'm guessing that your business can be unpredictable, so I'm not going to hold that against you. Plus, as I stated earlier, it was a jerk move for him to pull."

  It was my opportunity to ask him about Marcel's death, but I had to wonder if I should take it. Would it have been crass to ask him? I already had the check in my hand, and what harm was there in asking Patrick how he was doing after his long-time friend died?

  "How are you handling Marcel's death? Are you doing all right?" I asked as gently as possible.

  Patrick shocked me by bursting out laughing. He finally got control of himself after a solid minute of cracking up. Even Jenny poked her head out of the back to see what was so funny.

  "Sorry,” he said as he worked to compose himself. "I shouldn't laugh but you just sounded so sincere."

  It was obvious that Marcel's death hadn't caused Patrick even the slightest hint of grief. I would have guessed by his reaction that he was happy and relieved to be rid of him.

  "I was worried you were sad about the loss of a close friend."

  Patrick chuckled again, but he didn't lose his cool this time. "He was no close friend of mine, but it is a great loss to the medium community. That's why I'm sorry I was laughing. Marcel was a good medium, if nothing else. I do hope the Medium Association will be able to move on to greater and grander things now, though. Without someone as nasty as him as the leader, the association should be able to blossom. Enjoy the check, and I'll enjoy these,” he said and held up the coffee and donut. "How much do I owe you?"

  "On the house, considering,” I said.

  "Thanks."

  And with that, Patrick left the shop with a huge smile on his face. I quickly put the check in the cash register.

  Gumbo sidled up and plopped himself down in the doorway between the front of the bakery and the kitchen. He sat just far enough back that I could see him, but if a customer wandered in, they wouldn't.

  "That was suspicious," Gumbo said.

  "Ya think?" I asked.

  "More than you do."

  I sighed and shot him a look. "I need to take a walk and clear my head. I think I need to put that check in the bank as soon as possible too. You'll come with me right?"

  "I was just about to go nap in my basket. I think I'd rather do that," Gumbo said.

  "Fine,” I said as I took the check out of the register. "Jenny Mae, I'm going to run to the bank. I'll be right back."

  "Got it,” she answered.

  When I walked out of the shop, I noticed that Gumbo was right behind me. Despite his grumbling, he’d decided to tag along.

  I walked down the block and went into the bank. Anyone who knew about magic understood why there was a cat with me at the bank. Anyone who didn't know didn't see him. It wasn't that he was invisible, but they'd just look past him.

  Despite the fact that the lobby had just opened, there was a short line. Probably people who needed to get their banking done before they went into work.

  A couple of places ahead of me in line was Mrs. Darlington. She turned around a little, and when she spotted me, she glared. I tried to duck behind the person in front of me when I saw the way she was looking at me, but they stepped aside.

  Thanks, I thought.

  I couldn't blame them. I wouldn't have wanted to be involved in the vitriol Mrs. Darlington was about to spit at me either.

  "You were the one involved in the murder of Marcel Love,” she said angrily. "You ruined the Darlington Seance for the whole town."

  Everyone in the bank turned to look at me, and I felt my cheeks burn with humiliation. I wanted to just sink into the floor, but I had to defend myself. I couldn't just stand there and blush while she accused me.

  Gumbo jumped up into my arms, and I felt him giving me an aura of command. I stroked his chin, and he purred. The happy vibrations helped to calm me down even more.

  "I found his body, but I had nothing to do with his murder,” I said as confidently as possible. "I didn't ruin anything."

  A murmur ran through the small crowd. I could hear people calling me a murderer.

  "Hey," a man further up the line said. "That Marcel guy was a world-class jerk. He ruined a lot of people's lives. I bet a lot of people wanted him dead."

  "Yeah," a woman agreed. "Marcel broke up Susie and Blake Wallace's marriage."

  "He put Frank Minor out of business too," someone else said. "Frank never did get over it."

  "What about when he cost Linda Buckingham the article in that Southern Living magazine? Oh, she was hot about that."

  "You know, Marcel never did manage to make contact with a Darlington ancestor no matter how hard he tried," another woman said.

  "What about Greg Jenkins? His fiancée left him at the altar over one of Marcel's famous tell-alls," a man added.

  It went on like that for a few minutes. The small group of people sort of forgot about me and just kept throwing out their theories and gossip. Mrs. Darlington must have noticed that she ultimately failed to turn the room on me. She finished her banking and left.

  When I got up to the counter, I deposited my check and turned to leave quickly. My heart was pounding with embarrassment, and I just wanted to get out of there. Even though the focus had quickly turned away from me, I didn't like being accused so openly in public.

  I rushed past the people in the bank, but I could swear I still heard some whispering. I heard my name too. I didn't care what Mitch said about staying out of things or that he'd protect me. He hadn't been able to protect me just then. Oh, no... I decided that it was in my hands.

  Chapter Six

  I knew that even if the police investigated Marcel's house, they weren't going to pick up on a lot of the magical clues there. They had to wait on a spell expert to examine the murder weapon. There were witches on the police force, but I convinced myself they weren't up to the task.

>   "We should go to Marcel's house after we close the shop. I want to have a look around,” I said to Jenny. "That weird tower of his... I just know there are secrets there. Secrets that if we uncover, we'll find information on who wanted him dead bad enough to actually kill him."

  "I don't know, Fern. Is that really a good idea? The police still consider you a suspect. If we get caught breaking into Marcel's house, it's going to look even worse for you,” she said.

  "You just want to go to the dragon races tonight," I accused.

  “Fern, that’s not true. I just don’t think it’s a good idea,” Jenny said.

  “Fine, I’ll go on my own.”

  And I left without another word to her. I had a bracelet at home that I thought might help me get past Marcel’s security spells. It was a risk, but it was one I was willing to take.

  At home, I dug the bracelet out of my special box of powerful trinkets and amulets. The mahogany chest was lined with lead and there was a layer of loose salt at the bottom to keep spirits out.

  Some of the items contained in the box were too powerful for me to use, and others I just lacked the confidence to wield. The idea of using a potent magical item and having the whole thing go wrong took me back to when I messed up one of my mother’s spells and earned the nickname “Jinx”. It had taken most of my adult life to live that name down, and people still brought it up from time to time. If I misused a magical tool and screwed up again, it was the kind of thing that would be with me until my dying day.

  But I thought I could handle the bracelet. I wasn’t going to use it to cast any spells. All I wanted was for its powers to help me slip by Marcel’s magic.

  “Gumbo, I need you to use your magic to overpower this bracelet,” I said.

  “No.”

  “What do you mean no? Augmenting my magic is your job.”

  “No.”

  “Just a little?” I asked sweetly. “Would you do it for some carrot cake?”

  “No. Wait… carrot cake?” Gumbo’s ears flicked and he finally looked over at me. “I want the carrot cake upfront.”

  “Okay,” I said. “But, we have to make it quick. I want to get this over with.”

  “The whole thing is your idea,” Gumbo said.

  “I’ll get your cake,” I said.

  A few minutes later, Gumbo had eaten the cat-sized piece of carrot cake I’d cut for him. It was his favorite, so I always kept a small one on hand. Most cats wouldn’t touch something like carrot cake, but Gumbo loved it. He loved glazed carrots too.

  Once he was satisfied, we got in the car and drove out to Marcel’s weird tower house. When I arrived, from what I could see, the police had never been there. I’m not sure what I expected. Perhaps some police tape or maybe a mess where they’d done a search, but from the outside, it just looked like Marcel had stepped out to buy milk.

  I tried to use the magic in the bracelet to get through a protection spell around the front door. Unfortunately, Gumbo’s overpower was a little too overpowered, and sparks flew when the bracelet contacted the spell. The sparks landed on a flower bush next to the front door, but at least it didn’t catch fire. Instead, the bush transformed into a palm tree.

  No one was around to see it, though, because Marcel’s place was in the middle of nowhere. At least, no one who would tell on me saw it. Right after the bush turned into a tree, Jenny’s car pulled up.

  She came over and used an amulet to unwind the security spell on the door. It was a family heirloom, and I was surprised she was willing to use it because there was only a trace of magic left.

  “Thank you,” I said. “It means a lot to me that you’d use that amulet to help me.”

  “What would you do without me?” Jenny said with a wink.

  Once we were inside, I knew we had our work cut out for us. Stacked on every table, lining the arms of chairs and the sofa, and in little piles on the floor were tiny, black leather-bound notebooks. They were on every surface, and Marcel had scribbled notes in them all.

  I started opening the notebooks to see what was inside while Jenny wandered farther into the house. I’d gone through a few of them when Jenny called out to me.

  "Hey, Fern, come in here and get a load of this,” she called from a room down a narrow hall.

  I started in her direction, and halfway down the hall, it began to turn. The hallways had run through the center of the strange tower, but at some point, it began to twist around the outside edge. That was confirmed when I walked by a window and saw a peculiar garden down below. The garden hadn't been visible from the front of the house because of a large stone wall that surrounded the back of the property. I was also up off the ground level, so the weird little hallway in the strange house must have taken me up to a second floor without me noticing.

  Jenny was in another room twenty more feet down the hallway. The room she'd called me to was a huge bathroom that instantly brought to mind a Vegas hotel suite. Not that I'd ever been to Vegas, but the white marble and gold fittings were what I imagined you'd find in a high roller's suite at the top of some casino hotel.

  "Look at this,” she said from across the room.

  She stood next to a huge white soaking tub that had several faucets. Several more than I was used to seeing over a bathtub.

  "That's not something I've ever seen before,” I said.

  "It's got hot water, bubble water, champagne, and look at all these different scents," Jenny gushed. "You could smell like anything from Trix cereal to fresh spring linens."

  "That's quite interesting,” I said. "But, it's not going to help us solve Marcel's murder."

  "I wish I could take a bath,” she mused.

  "Absolutely not. You cannot stop to take a bath in a dead man's house,” I said. "Let's keep looking. Come out and help me go through all of those notebooks."

  Jenny grumbled, but she followed me back to the living room and entryway area to scour through tiny notebooks. Eventually, I found my way into a nook off the living room where Marcel had a desk. There were several sheets of parchment paper with protection spells written in dragon's blood ink. Underneath those, I found an ancient Darlington spell book on the topic of summoning spirits. I opened it up, and Marcel had written tons of notes in the margins. It looked as though he was doing research for the seance.

  The Darlingtons were a family of powerful mediums, and the book I held in my hand was invaluable to anyone who wanted to summon spirits. Every year, there was a Darlington involved in the Darlington Seance since they still carried the talent of summoning through their family line. Deirdre Darlington was supposed to be at the seance that day, though I hadn't seen her. Mitch hadn't mentioned her, so I could only wonder if she hadn't arrived yet.

  Gumbo jumped up on the desk and when he did, he nudged the lamp with his considerable behind. "Watch it,” I said, but the shifting of the lamp's light caught something on the windowsill near the desk.

  I walked a couple of steps over to look. Curiosity made me reach for the object, but instinct made me draw back as if I'd been burned.

  The little metal ring had a skull attached at the bottom and there were several black and red beads hanging from silk thread attached to the underside of the skull. It was a curse object.

  As I was trying to figure out a way to examine it, Jenny screamed. I about jumped out of my skin, stumbled, and nearly missed putting my hand down on the ring when I reached out to steady myself on the windowsill.

  Once I had my feet under me, I rushed across the room to where Jenny stood. She was shaking and had turned as white as a sheet.

  "What is it?" I asked.

  But she didn't have to answer. I noticed the broken bottle at her feet. She'd knocked over some sort of ornamental container. The next thing I saw was the angry spirit of a man dressed in a black cloak. He had red eyes and began yelling at us in a language I couldn't understand.

  "What have you done?" I asked Jenny, but I didn't expect an answer.

  Chapter Seven

  I pus
hed Jenny Mae back and began chanting the best protection spell I knew. While I wasn't very good at anything besides kitchen magic, I'd been practicing protection charms. Gumbo rubbed against my legs and amplified the protection.

  The spell didn't get rid of the spirit, but it did push it back. I readied myself for an attack, but the spirit just made a sobbing sound and drifted over to circle the broken bottle.

  "It's not going to attack us,” I said. "I think it's just sad because you broke its home."

  "What are we going to do?" Jenny asked as the spirit babbled and sobbed in the language we couldn't understand.

  "We can't just leave it this way,” I said. "Hand me your purse."'

  "What? Why?"

  "Just hand me your purse, Jenny. I'm going to fix this."

  She did, and I rooted through it until I found one of her many perfume oil bottles. Fortunately, it was nearly empty. I unscrewed the cap, and the scent of marshmallows and caramel caught the spirit's attention. I breathed a sigh of relief because it seemed to like the scent.

  "Hey, that's my favorite one," Jenny protested.

  "You're just going to have to buy another,” I said. " Or I can just get you a new one. We'll figure that out later."

  I held the bottle out to the spirit, and it moved closer. He looked up at me, and I gave him a nod. Since I couldn't speak his language, I could only hope he understood me.

  Luckily, he did. The spirit drifted over and then disappeared into the bottle. I quickly put the cap on and set the bottle down on the shelf.

  "Let's get out of here now,” I said to Jenny.