“That went just as well as I thought it would.” I shake my head as boiling anger takes over inside of me. “I never should have agreed to it. And now I’ve ruined everything.”
“No, I promise.” Jasper pulls me in. “She just needs time.”
“What if she needs one hundred years? Face it, Jasper. Nothing will ever be the same between Emmie and me again.”
Jasper holds me there in the icy wind for what feels like a lifetime.
“How about we get your mind off of things?” He motions to the sand with his head. “Let’s catch up to those dogs and hash a few details out as far as the case is concerned.”
And we do just that. I tell Jasper all about Blair’s Midnight Maidens and their financial underpinnings, and he closes his eyes a good long while.
“A pyramid scheme,” he says as Sprinkles and Sherlock bound between our legs. “So maybe William didn’t do it? This certainly opens up an entire slew of different motives.”
“And don’t forget the physical evidence,” I say. “What about that ring that was caught on the button of Blair’s shirt?”
“It could have belonged to Blair.”
“But she was wearing the exact same ring—more or less. Women double up on a lot of things, but identical rings aren’t one of them.”
His chest expands as he considers this. “It had a different color stone. The one on her finger was a ruby. The lab said the one caught on her button was a zircon.”
“Well, maybe it was hers. Although, when I met her, only the ruby caught my eye. I guess I didn’t do an analysis of her fingers, though. So there’s that.”
“Let’s go over the suspects.” He gives me a gentle squeeze.
“Okay, we’ve got William Helsing. We know he cheated on his wife and knocked Blair up. He was paying her off, I saw the cash exchange, or at least I thought that’s what he gave her. He wanted her to go away, that much we know. And then there’s Tabitha Carter. She’s having financial trouble. She admitted it to me, albeit in her mind, that she had it out with Blair in private that night. Maybe she was feeling the squeeze financially as far as the Maidens go? I’m guessing you can only give so much before you want to see some of that money back.”
“I’m guessing you’re right. What about Raven Marsh?”
“The night of the murder, she made a remark to Blair. She said, go take care of Tabitha—and then her next thought was, and then I’ll take care of you.”
“Cryptic.”
I nod. “She also mentally accused Blair of stealing from her. That could be a motive right there. And then there’s Sabrina. That night, she said something about not letting Blair get away with this. Although, I’m not sure what that could have been. And she didn’t want to send Camila in Billy’s direction—Camila was pretending to be hot for teacher before we even knew he was a teacher. But Sabrina wouldn’t point us his way. She said she wanted to make him pay for what he’d done. I’m not sure exactly what she meant by that.”
“So we have a few question marks. It still feels as if all arrows are pointing in William Helsing’s direction. I guess I’ll need to hunt him down and have a talk with him.”
“You won’t have to hunt him down. He’ll be here tomorrow night. I let him know it was his last chance to leave flowers at the scene of the crime.”
“And the Midnight Maidens will be here as well. It looks as if we’re about to have one heck of an eventful Halloween.”
“That we are.” I wrap my arms around him tightly.
And I’ve got a niggling feeling that it just might turn out to be a little too eventful, a little too frightful, but hopefully, at the end of the day, it will be filled with justice.
There is going to be a day of reckoning for Blair Bates’ killer, and I’m hoping that it’s coming this Halloween night.
We head back to our cottage just as Jordy runs up.
“Hey, Biz, Jasper.” He nods while pulling an envelope from his jacket. “One of the cottage rentals had this mistakenly delivered to them. It clearly has your address on it. I think the mail carrier just wanted to get off the grounds as soon as possible.”
“Can’t say I blame ’em. Thanks,” Jasper says as he takes the letter. “It’s addressed to you.”
“Open it.” I give his arm a squeeze. “Maybe it’s from the Maple Meadows Lodge, demanding we return at once.”
“We can only hope,” he says.
Our honeymoon destination couldn’t have been more perfect. They certainly wouldn’t have to twist my arm to get us to go back.
Jasper pulls out the letter and unfolds it to reveal a pale blue sheet of paper with the insignia of a rose at the top of the page. And just below that it reads,
You dig, and you dig, and you dig.
And you’ve dug your own grave.
Chapter 16
Emmie has avoided me at every turn today.
She won’t reply to my texts either. Fish pointed out that Emmie was ghosting me—a term she picked up on from my sister. An appropriate term, considering the fact today is Halloween.
It was a busy morning at the inn, an even busier afternoon, and now that it’s evening, it seems as if the entire state of Maine has drained onto our little sliver of the coast. If the grounds around the Country Cottage Inn had a fire code, we would have broken them an hour ago.
Fish is wearing a tiny pointed hat that Georgie plucked off of one of the decorations at the front of the inn. Sherlock is wearing a baby blue sheet with cutouts around the eyes and snout. It’s a costume Georgie whipped up when I told her I didn’t plan on dressing the animals up this year. She was incensed at the thought, and immediately
