As I unscrewed the top and took a long swig, the crowd began to shift yet again, and I was given a clearer view of the stage. Mitzy, her back to her fans, was suddenly moving toward the left side of the podium, where she teetered for a moment—and rather suddenly turned toward the massive gathering at the base of the dais.
Her face, the size of one of the balloons floating around the room, bloated and red, elicited a loud, horrified gasp from everyone before she fell off the small stage and landed face down on the floor with a hard crack.
And all I could think was, in all my frozen horror, holy squee.
Chapter 2
There was a heavy, pulsing silence for maybe a millisecond while everyone processed what had just happened, and then the room erupted in pandemonium with people running everywhere, and then someone screamed with a southern twang, “My purse! Help me open my purse!”
I blinked in my own personal horror, frozen in place by the sudden uproar until I came to my senses and instantly began to move toward where I’d last seen Coop.
Listen, I know she’s a big girl and she’s a demon with the strength of an NFL team, but she’s also very sensitive and sweet and, this being her first foray into something that meant so much to her, I was worried about her reaction.
Thankfully, she’s tall and gorgeous, and that made her much easier to find—which happened to be at Mitzy’s feet, where she held a phone in her hand as she knelt beside her fallen idol.
I should have known Coopie would somehow, in the midst of this chaos, keep it together and do the practical thing. She was always a blessing in the middle of a crisis.
Coop nodded her head and barked an order into the phone as she held up a hand to keep people from crowding Mitzy.
“Yes. That’s correct. We need an ambulance at the Cobbler Cove Hall immediately,” I heard her say in her matter-of-fact tone.
With a white purse in her hands, Margot knelt beside Mitzy—who was now rolled over onto her back—driving her hand into the purse and pulling the contents out, letting them scatter to the floor. “Where is it, y’all? I always have EpiPens, where are they?” she rasped in a light Southern twang, her eyes dripping tears, her hysteria evident. Then she paused as though she were gathering her thoughts. “Her purse! Someone find Mitzy’s purse!”
“An allergy?” I asked as I, too, knelt beside Margot, my eyes searching hers. “How can I help? Where else should I look?”
I tried to keep my voice as calm and as soothing as possible, but at this point, I don’t think it mattered. I was almost certain by the look of her, Mitzy had gone to the other side.
“Peanuts! Oh, my Lord and the Pearly Gates, it had to be peanuts!” The tall Amazon lady I’d heard gossiping earlier yelled as she pushed her way through the crowd and folded her long legs to sit beside Coop. “She’s desperately allergic to peanuts. Everybody knows that!”
I blew out a breath and reached for Mitzy’s wrist, almost knowing in my heart it was pointless. Knowing it was not only going to crush Coop, but the hundreds of people who’d shown up for this meet and greet.
Coop scooted toward me and whispered in my ear, her voice hoarse and, dare I say, almost shaky, “Trixie?”
I knew what she was asking without her articulating the question and it broke my heart. Mitzy’s wrist had no pulse, but I double-checked her neck anyway to be sure, all while her bulging eyes in her bloated face stared upward.
I turned to look over my shoulder at Coop and let my lips thin in sympathy as I shook my head.
Just then, the paramedics rushed in, swiftly followed by Detective Tansy Primrose, Officer Oziah Meadows, and the rest of Tansy’s crew, who began to do what they did best. Cordon off people in order to parse who would need to be questioned.
The paramedics virtually stepped over Margot to get to Mitzy, gently pushing her back out of their way, but then one paramedic looked up at Tansy and shook his head while another grabbed a sheet from the gurney they’d dragged in and covered her body.
The act made Margot howl a high-pitched wail of agony.
Blowing out a breath, I looked to Tansy, whose sharp blue gaze caught mine and held it as she approached. “What happened, love?” she asked, her tone sympathetic. “Who is this?”
I rose to my feet, pulling Coop up with me and squeezing her waist. “Her name is Mitzy Cavanaugh. She’s a social media influencer, and I think she went into anaphylactic shock. At least that’s what I’ve gathered from what I’ve been hearing about missing EpiPens.”
“And the chippy on the floor?” Tansy asked, leaning into me, her floral perfume invading my nose.
We hadn’t worked a case together in a while, which I was almost grateful for. It had given Higgs and I some time to help him adjust to the demon in me, and Coop, and all our talking animal friends.
We’d also had some time to try and understand what my inner demon wanted—we hadn’t figured that out yet, but it wasn’t for lack of trying and a bunch of eyeball-rolling research on the subject of possession. So we’d only seen Tansy at the occasional neighborhood dinner as of late, and I regretted this was the way we’d reconnect.
Yet, Tansy and I fell back into our respective roles almost immediately. She the authority, me the consoler as chaos swirled around us.
“Her name is Margot, and she’s Mitzy Cavanaugh’s assistant.”
“Margot Winters,” Coop provided. “She handles all of Mitzy’s personal business, and she’s also who does all the video uploads on YouTube.”
The Amazon lady snorted as she, too, rose from her place on the floor, towering over all of us, even Oziah. “And runs a bath for her, and takes care of her dog,
