Murder in Real Time Read online

“Palm readings. I heard this lady’s the best this side of Vegas, so no chitchat when it’s my turn. I want to hear every word she says. For what she’s charging, I’ve earned it.” She pointed at my mom then shot a warning look to Claire and me. “You got it?”

  I edged around the lady and rose to my tiptoes. “Oh, it’s okay. We don’t want a palm reading.” Been there, done that. I only wanted to reach my parents before lunchtime.

  Mom sat at a table, visible behind a curtain of beads. Her long wavy hair hung down her back, neatly braided with a wildflower crown at her temples. Her skin was unnaturally healthy from a lifetime of eating right, proper hydration and avoidance of toxins, like cigarette smoke and Red Dye #40. I couldn’t say the same for my skin. I enjoyed processed foods, soda and sunshine. We looked alike, despite my poor skin care routine and the fact I’d blown my hair into submission with a brush and a hair dryer then wrangled it into a ponytail.

  I turned in a circle, confirming Claire wasn’t beside me anymore. When did she get away? I wiggled through the line.

  Several voices rose in protest. “No cutting.”

  Claire waved her hands in the air. Her fingertips were barely visible over the crowd. “Over here.”

  “Excuse me. I’m really sorry. Pardon me.”

  Whoa. When I reached Claire, I straightened my shirt and smoothed my hair. “Is it a thousand degrees in here?” I fanned my face with a book on tarot and inhaled the patchouli-scented air.

  She stooped behind the half wall of books. “Yeah, and it smells like incense. Reminds me of freshman year at college. Now, shush.” She moved her fingers into a V, pointed them at her eyes and then toward the hemp jewelry display.

  “I don’t know what you’re doing. I’m so confused by this day.” I sank into a beanbag chair beside the bookcase and dipped my head back. “Down is up. Left is right. I don’t know how to process all this.”

  “Shh. I’m spying.” Claire rearranged the books and stuck her head between them.

  “What are you doing,” I whispered.

  “That’s Elisa French.”

  I slid off the beanbag and knelt beside her. She pointed between the books to a girl wearing ginormous sunglasses, with a silk scarf wrapped around her head. “She’s from the show.”

  “The Watchers?”

  “Yep.”

  I stood for a better view. Elisa thumbed through a rack of hemp bracelets with crystal accents. If she was here, how many other cast members were on the island? A better question popped into mind. When did she arrive? Since she was shopping for non-essentials, I doubted she’d rushed here as soon as she heard the news. It didn’t look like she was mourning the loss of a loved one, either. Why come here with the show’s host and one cast member dead? I made my way to the jewelry.

  “Can I help you?” I sidled up to Elisa, pretending to straighten the rack as she browsed.

  “Do you work here?” She slid the oversized glasses down her tan, ski-slope nose and peered over the top. Her big blue eyes were round, lined in matte charcoal pencil and accented with stage-length false lashes.

  I needed to step up my game. I used to wear eyeliner. “Yep. I work here.”

  “Where’s your name tag?” Her gaze dropped to my chest.

  “I don’t wear one. It’s a small island. Everyone knows everyone.”

  “Yeah, but what about tourists?”

  I looked over my shoulder for backup. Steam from the shirt press curled into the air around Dad’s balding head and salt-and-pepper ponytail. He loved making quirky custom shirts as much as Mom loved her watercolors.

  “Dad!” I waved a hand overhead. He smiled back.

  “That’s your dad?” Elisa’s voice dropped to a scandalous tone. “He’s hot.”

  I eyeballed Dad. Mmm-kay. “Yeah. This is my parents’ store.” A proud smile split my face.

  “And you work here? How old are you, like thirty?”

  My smile fell, and my eyebrows crowded together. Thirty wasn’t old. Thirty was the new twenty.

  “Peepee.” Dad held a black shirt to his chest. Bold white letters declared Ghost Hunters Do It in the Dark.

  I gave him a thumbs-up. Why would he make a ghost hunter shirt?

  Elisa’s mouth turned down on both corners. “Your name is Peepee?”

  “It’s a nickname.” I waved her off and changed the subject. Explaining the goofy nickname came from Patience Peace Price, the hippie train wreck of a name my parents saddled me with, wouldn’t make it less weird. “How long have you been visiting Chincoteague?”

  “We got in this morning.” She held a bracelet up between us. “Is this really a protection stone?”

  “That’s a crystal, but it works the same.” In your mind. I bit my lip. Mom begged me to say in your heart if I couldn’t confirm the power of things in their shop with a straight face. I stopped believing in the power of talismans in preschool, but Mom insisted they didn’t work for me because I didn’t believe, so there’d been a twenty-five year agree-to-disagree clause in our relationship.

  “Oh.” Elisa turned the crystal over in her fingertips. She pushed the glasses onto her head.

  “You’re on the show, aren’t you? The Watchers.” I cut to the chase before someone else recognized Elisa and ruined my chance to get a few answers. “Did you hear about what happened to Rick and Anna?”

  Her eyes brimmed with unshed tears at the mention of their names.

  I shuffled my feet, weighing my options. If I pushed her, she could cry and draw attention to herself, which would be terrible, considering the number of reporters lurking around, but I had more questions. She blinked back the shine in her eyes and blew out a long breath.

  I softened my voice to a more soothing tone and leaned toward her to imply a shared bond. “Making the trip so soon after such a tragedy must be very difficult for you.”

  “I guess I needed to see for myself if it was true. You can’t believe anything you read online anymore.” She sniffled. “Part of me hoped I’d get here and Anna would jump out and say ‘Fooled you!’”

  “That wouldn’t be a very funny joke.” I stopped pretending ours was a casual conversation and focused on Elisa. She was clearly hurting and I ached for her loss, but I had one more tiny little question. “Were you and Anna close?”

  She nodded, running a fingertip under each eye to catch tears. “We were like besties. She knew everything about me.” A little gasp bubbled through her pursed lips and her face darkened.

  The change in her expression worried me. I scanned the room in case anyone was trying to listen in. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. You’re having a terrible day already. Do you want to sit down? Maybe get some fresh air? Can I bring you a glass of water?”

  “No. I’m fine.” Elisa’s face reddened. “I’m better than fine. That bitch knew I was with Rick, and she couldn’t let me have him. She had to trick him into bed with her. Anna was always jealous of me. She wanted everything I had. Well, look where that got her.”

  “Um.” I scanned the crowd for Claire. She stood frozen near the bookshelf, mouth half open. Eyes wide. Well, if that outburst didn’t make Elisa a suspect, nothing would. My fingers twitched to text Fargas. His investigation might be wrapped up by dinnertime. “When you said ‘we’ got in this morning. Did you come with the rest of The Watchers cast?”

  “No.”

  Thank goodness.

  Elisa slid sunglasses back onto the bridge of her nose, extinguishing the fire in her eyes. A moment later, a lanky guy with surfer hair and sideburns wrapped his arms around her middle and kissed her hair. “Babe.”

  My mind rewound the last portion of our conversation. She said she was sleeping with Rick. “Who’s this?”

  “This is my boyfriend, Dan Dirk. Dan, this is Peepee.”

  Claire choked
behind me.

  “S’up.” He flipped his bangs away from his face with one sharp jerk of the head.

  And then there were two. The boyfriend of a cheater and woman scorned sounded like another logical suspect to me. Though this particular boyfriend looked a little awkward for a cold-blooded killer, looks were often deceiving.

  Dan kissed Elisa’s cheek and released her. “Did you see my shirt, babe? It’s custom made.” He dug into a little Purple Pony sack and pulled out the ghost hunter shirt my dad held up earlier.

  “You hunt ghosts?” A smile tugged my lips. That was cute. It was also a colossal waste of time and money, but who was I to judge?

  “Yeah. Everyone who’s anyone in ghost hunting is here. Your island’s website says this place is crawling with specters. This beautiful land is replete with lingering spirits and longing souls. We’re here to document the specters.” He opened his arms wide, palms up. A reverent look crossed his face.

  “Our town website says that?” I asked. What was happening? Our town had plenty of ghost stories, but they weren’t reasons to visit the island.

  “Everything says that. Your website, all the online ghost hunter boards, blogs and forums, HollywoodWatcher.com, The Watchers website and all their Halloween special ads. Anyone researching ghosts right now is reading about Chincoteague, Virginia, America’s hidden haunted treasure.”

  Uh-huh. Well, I couldn’t speak for any other souls, but mine longed to take down the island website and also let Fargas know I’d stumbled across two viable suspects for Rick and Anna’s murders.

  Elisa and Dan had better hope their alibis for last night held water.

  Chapter Five

  I texted Fargas about Elisa and her boyfriend the moment we left the Purple Pony. Five long minutes passed in silence as Claire and I walked back to my place.

  Waiting for his response put me on edge.

  “What if he wanted us to keep Elisa and Dan busy until he could come and haul them in for questioning?” I asked.

  Claire pulled her lips to the side, distorting her pretty face in a comical way. “You think we should go back?”

  “No. They’re probably gone now.” Why hadn’t I thought it before we walked home? We stopped outside the century-old two-story with my apartment.

  She looked up the steps to my stoop. “We’re already home anyway.”

  Bummer. “I thought he’d text back. Maybe he didn’t get my message.”

  I followed Claire up the steps to my apartment and looked down on the crowded street. The change in altitude provided much-needed perspective and a bonus view of sailboats on the causeway. My nerves settled. The boats were graceful, skating on still waters. The tranquil scene was a perfect representation of island life: beautiful, peaceful and unchanging. I sighed. No matter what happened on land, fisherman never stopped hauling up nets of crabs and shrimp. The gentle waves never ceased to flap against weathered wooden hulls, and shadows of soaring seagulls forever shaded the daily catch as the birds searched for forgotten morsels on slick, water-soaked decks. The hoopla in town wouldn’t last. Fans would head home after the memorial services and whatever else the reality show might have planned to exploit the untimely deaths of two young semi-celebrities.

  My phone buzzed in my palm.

  Claire peeked around me as I checked the screen. “Is that Fargas? What does it say?”

  I placed a hand on my chest and cursed my shoddy nerves.

  “Well?” Claire pressed.

  “It’s Sebastian.” I opened the message. “He says to stay out of this murder investigation. Fargas and Frankie are fully capable of handling it on their own and I...”

  “What? What was the rest?”

  I vibrated my lips together. “I owe him a flashing. What is his problem?”

  She shrugged. “Sounds like you owe him a flashing.”

  I angled in front of her on the tiny stoop and shoved my key in the lock. “What did Fargas do? Forward my text to Sebastian? That sheriff’s a tattletale.”

  My front door swung inward before I turned the key. I screamed, threw my phone inside, and opened my arms to shield Claire from danger.

  Adrian grabbed his forehead and danced from foot to foot inside my place. “Ow! You hit me with something. Why’d you do that?”

  “I thought you were an intruder.” I retrieved my phone and checked for damage. My bejeweled phone case could protect an egg going over Niagara Falls. “It’s okay. It didn’t break.”

  “Great. I’m not so sure about my head.” Adrian went to the freezer and pressed a frozen bean burger patty to his forehead.

  I examined the disaster I once called my living room. “What is all this?” I balled my fists. “What is happening in here?”

  The couch, countertops, coffee table and floor were covered in Team Adrian posters and Vote for Davis signs. His mayoral campaign paraphernalia ran from one room to the next, and it was all topped with paper bags and boats of food truck food.

  Adrian repositioned the burger on his head and looked at me with one eye. “I’m working.”

  “On what? A bigger belt size?”

  A pastry box near the coffeepot caught my eye. Sophisticakes. The most delicious gourmet cupcakes in the country. No, the world. I never indulged. I couldn’t afford a twelve-dollar cupcake habit. I still had a balance on my credit card from the brown leather riding boots I ordered online. Those boots had cost a lot of cupcakes.

  Claire pushed a pile of food aside and sat on the couch. “I understand all the campaign gear, but I need help understanding all the food.”

  Adrian beamed. “I was multi-tasking. I visited all the local businesses, reminding fellow citizens about the upcoming election.”

  I unwrapped a pink Sophisticake with sugar crystals and red polka-dot icing.

  Adrian smiled. “While I was on the campaign trail, I hit up all the food trucks and started a dialogue with the workers. I figure if anyone hears good gossip, it’s people vending food. Right?” He cleared his throat. “Also, this is my island, and I think I should open a personal investigation into Rick and Anna’s murder.”

  Icing fell off my lip. “You can’t open a personal investigation.” Sweet strawberry cupcake filled my mouth. I worked it down and licked my fingers, trying to concentrate on Adrian’s bad idea. My eyelids fluttered in a successful pastry-gasm. I licked my lips. One down. Eleven to go.

  Adrian bristled. “Why not?”

  Can’t had never been his favorite word. I’d shamelessly used that knowledge for years to get him to do things for me. Now I truly wanted him to not do this thing.

  “Because you aren’t an investigator. You are a very messy politician.” I gathered bags of food from every flat surface in sight and piled them on my kitchen counter.

  Claire turned to Adrian. “We’re looking into this, too. Elisa is on the island with her boyfriend, Dan. Before the boyfriend showed up, Elisa confessed to sleeping with Rick and accused Anna of knowing Rick was already with Elisa.”

  He folded himself onto the floor beside the couch. “That’s good stuff. You should tell Fargas. Elisa and her boyfriend both had motive to kill Rick. Anna might’ve been in the wrong place, if it was Dan on the other side of that gun. He must be mad at the guy who slept with his girlfriend. Elisa probably wanted them both dead.”

  “We already texted Fargas,” Claire said. “Then, he tattled on us. Sebastian texted Patience to tell her to leave this alone.”

  “No.” Adrian looked at me for confirmation.

  “Yep.”

  Claire crossed her arms. “I’m certain those two were murdered because Rick was cheating. Love is dangerous. People shouldn’t mess around with other people’s emotions.”

  Adrian shook his head in disagreement. “Did you know the show’s website says this island is haunte
d? Mayor Hayes used local legends and folklore to entice The Watchers to film here. I think the murders are tied to all those ghost hunters out there trying to prove the legends. Think about it. Fargas said they couldn’t find any fingerprints.”

  Silly. I licked frosting off my fingertips. “You think a ghost did this?”

  “No. I think someone wants it to look that way.” A crease formed between his eyes. “They didn’t even get the story right. The Island Comforts bed-and-breakfast isn’t haunted. Miss Molly’s bed-and-breakfast is haunted.”

  I scoffed. “Nothing is haunted. I hope you have another theory.”

  “I do.” His eyes twinkled. “Maybe one of your patients snapped.”

  He stared me down, daring me to argue or perhaps announce which of my homicidal clients I suspected in the murders.

  “My clients—” I emphasized the word clients, not patients, “—are not homicidal. This has nothing to do with them or local legends. Though, I am pretty peeved the mayor conspired to advertise our island as haunted. Someone should revoke his admin privileges on our website. Elisa’s boyfriend named a bunch of websites touting Chincoteague as some kind of ghost hunting treasure trove and the hype is sending boatloads of ghost hunters here. He also said The Watchers are promoting the idea, no doubt to fuel interest in their Halloween special. The whole ghost angle is a mess, but this isn’t about ghosts. This is about money. How can either of you overlook the two-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar reward so easily? This is definitely about money.”

  “Love,” Claire corrected.

  Adrian shook his head. “Nope. I say legends or insanity.”

  I ground my teeth. The hubbub outside my apartment was bad enough. Arguing in my living room made me twitchy. I lifted the pastry box lid and liberated another Sophisticake. I passed it under my nose and groaned. The soft scents of apples and cinnamon intoxicated me. My toes curled in my boots. “This is an apple pie cupcake.” I sniffed again. “It’s brilliant. The baker is a genius. It’s like a fritter and a pie wrapped inside a cute pink-striped paper and topped with icing.” I stuck my fingertip into the cinnamon sprinkled icing.