I shrugged my shoulders, letting my chin touch my chest. “I don’t even know if we need to look for suspects yet. I don’t have official word this is a murder. But I’m telling you, it sure feels like one. Anyway, I blew it, and now she’s going to tell her friends not to talk to me, too.”
He turned me around and dropped a light kiss on my forehead, eyeing me critically. “I doubt you blew it, but how about you tell me what the heck’s going on. I thought this was a makeup convention, but outside it looks more like a One Direction concert. Kids are crying, the parents of the kids look like they’re on their last legs because of all the crying. Cops are everywhere. I barely made it through the crowd, but some of the guys knew who I was, so they let me in. Still, nobody could tell me what’s going on. All I know is it’s very purple and silver in here, and you and Coop are in the middle of it. So what’s going on?”
As he listened to me tell him what happened to Mitzy, and the ensuing moments after her death, he held my hands, rubbing his thumbs over the backs, and it never failed to make me tingle from head to toe—even in the middle of a crisis.
He was the kind of strength and stalwart support every girl yearned for in their lives. That he was gorgeous and kind and lived to serve the community made him near perfect.
“Shoot,” Higgs said when I finished, his eyes full of concern. “Poor Coop. I know how much she was looking forward to tonight. How is she taking this?”
Sighing, I wrinkled my nose. “You know Coop. Stoic as always, no emotion, but it has to be eating her up inside. She’s been waiting for three months to meet Mitzy, and she never even got anywhere near her.”
“Though, I see she talked you into being her guinea pig again,” he teased with his handsome grin.
I gave him a saucy wink, batting my falsies at him. “Was it the eyelashes that look like I could rival the Wright Brothers for first flight or the red lipstick smeared on my teeth?”
He tilted my chin up and used his thumb to wipe the corner of my mouth, where I’m sure I had some smeared lipstick. “I think you look beautiful. Coop’s really good at this, but then, you’re a great canvass.”
Smiling at him, I gave his hand a quick squeeze and let him go before I got too lost in the moment, something I found myself doing more and more as of late. I liked Higgs so much. I was incredibly attracted to him, but every time I considered what beginning a relationship with him looked like, I had to think about how it looked to him.
And I’m thinking it looks pretty bananapants. Who wants a possessed girlfriend?
No one. That’s who.
We’ve shared one kiss, and that was sort of in the heat of the moment after the last crime we were neck deep in came to a screeching halt and we were just glad to still be alive. I’ve avoided any intimacy since, but I won’t tell you that hasn’t been hard.
Because it has. I find Higgs nigh-on irresistible, but Artur, the demon who possess me, has made my life topsy-turvy on occasion, and that’s putting it mildly.
Higgs had seen me in full-on demon mode. I hated that my secrets were all revealed that way. I hated that I hadn’t told him, and I knew he felt a bit cheated that I hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him.
But it was a heavy burden to bear.
Alas, since that night, I’ve tried to keep things as lighthearted as possible due to my current circumstances. I don’t want to find myself in this alone. I’m not sure I’m ready for that kind of rejection. Although, Coop assures me Higgs is crazy about me. She says when he looks at me, his eyes go all dreamy and soft.
But I think Coop might be watching too many rom-coms. Another of her live-your-best-life passions—she hoped it would help her learn how to laugh because blending in is still as important as ever.
I affected a southern accent and brushed off his compliment with a joke. “You’re too kind, sir,” I cooed with a giggle.
Higgs draped his arm around me, his dark hair damp from the rain, curling at the collar of his red and black flannel shirt. “Okay, so whaddya say we go see if we can scare off another perp?”
I flicked him in the ribs and chuckled. “Nikki’s not a perp. I don’t even know if this is a murder, buddy. I’m presuming far too much at this point.”
But I think I knew deep in my gut this was a murder. If someone knew Mitzy was so deathly allergic to peanuts, and they’d even had patrons of the tickets to this event agree to a search of their personal belongings as part of the ticket sale and entry to makeup Heaven, and she’d still died because of her peanut allergy?
That said murder to me. That screamed murder loud and proud.
Add to that the fact someone had locked anyone with an EpiPen in a room—and Margot carried one with her for just such occasions and it was nowhere to be found? That definitely said murder to me. It was all too much of a coincidence.
“Ah. But! I think you’re almost hoping some shenanigans are at play here. It’s been a long while since you’ve been eyeball deep in a mystery other than an Agatha Raisin or a Father Brown episode.”
That was very true. Not since that whole mess with Deacon Delacorte, a.k.a, Emile Franklin, imposter and sadistic killer, but I wasn’t sitting around every day, hoping someone would die so I could sate my appetite for a mystery. I had a really busy life. Between running the shop and its surge in popularity, researching
