“How are you monitoring those cameras?” Smulder asked, calm now, confident because he was in his element. We still hadn’t heard from Grant or the NSIB, so it was up to us to deal with the problem head on.
“With this.” My grandmother removed a final item from her purse—her phone, before sweeping the rest of the items back into it. She placed her phone atop the open map and tapped on an app. A screen opened, displaying footage from a connected camera in the inn. It was a view of the bookcase in the library, firmly closed.
Smulder flipped through the different camera views, scratching his forehead. “Where do we think Turner is gaining access from?”
“The kitten foster center,” I said, right away. “Jordan’s basically been living there for months, so he knows that area intimately.”
“Then we should get a camera up there, right?”
“Already done,” my grandmother said, tapping on the screen to show him. “We’ve got surveillance, now we just need to suit up.”
A knock tapped at the front door, and Jessie Belle-Blue’s obnoxious tones drifted down the hall. “Yoo-hoo! Your savior has arrived.”
Gamma’s eyelashes fluttered as she held back her eye-roll. “The things we do for cats and family, eh?”
23
Jessie Belle-Blue strolled into the inn’s foyer like she owned it, a smirk painting her face in colors of smug and self-righteous. “Well, well, well,” she said. “Looks like you need my help again, Georgina. Who would’ve thought?”
“You were here literally an hour ago to fetch kittens from the incubator, Belle-Blue,” my grandmother said, “let’s not perform too much, shall we?”
“Now, now, there’s no need to be sour, dear. I’m always willing to help a… person in need.” Jessie swept her blue-eyed gaze up and down over my grandmother, clearly enjoying every second of this. “You know, you owe me because of this.”
“And you won’t let me forget it, I’m sure,” Gamma replied.
Jessie practically purred at that. “Oh, of course not. I’m sure there’s something you can do for me. I’m just not sure what yet.”
The skin on the back of my neck and head prickled—an anger response thanks to Belle-Blue’s insistence on being insufferable. “You know where the cats are, right?”
“Of course,” Jessie said, rolling her eyes at me. “My husband is getting the cat carriers from the van. He’ll be a moment. You don’t mind seeing my husband, do you, Georgina? I know you’re still single.”
My grandmother didn’t grace her with a reply to that. “I’ll be retrieving them within a week,” she said. “Maybe less depending on how things go.”
“Which things?” Jessie asked. “You’ve called in a favor with me yet haven’t explained what’s going on. Don’t you think I deserve that explanation?”
You deserve a slap. I kept that though to myself, instead enjoying Smulder’s reaction to the ongoing verbal jousting session between the two older women. He swiveled his head back and forth, his eyes widening at the sheer animosity between them. That look of innocent shock drew me to him. It reminded me of how fun our relationship had been a couple of months ago.
Now… well, now things were complicated. I couldn’t help but think we had rushed into this. That I had been vulnerable and stupid to start something so soon after my divorce. Especially when the wolves were clawing at the door.
“An explanation,” Gamma said, breaking the tense silence at last.
“Why, yes, of course. Are you finally closing up the inn? Everyone in town is convinced it’s cursed, though I do not know where they got that idea.” Jessie gave a gleeful laugh—she was the one who’d spread those rumors about the inn, liberally. “I’ve seen quite a few negative reviews on TripAdvisor about this place. You’ll want to do damage control.”
Gamma chewed on air.
“It’s an exorcism,” I said.
Everyone looked at me like I’d grown an extra head.
“We’ve cleared the inn out because it’s haunted by the ghosts of evil,” I continued, doubling down. It was exactly the type of thing that Jessie Belle-Blue would lap up. “That’s why everything’s been going wrong around here. The spirits have cursed the inn and driven people mad.”
Jessie nodded, her smile widening. “Oh, that’s a good idea. An exorcism.”
“Yeah, we’re getting a priest from out of state to do it, and he should arrive this week. He needs his utmost privacy, though, so we had to ensure everyone left.”
Gamma gave a sour nod. “Charlotte’s correct.”
“Cats clog up the works,” I continued with the ridiculous tale. “You know, they’re very in tune with the spirit world so the exorcism wouldn’t work with them around. It might even endanger them.”
Jessie pressed her palms together, clearly on the brink of exploding from sheer excitement.
“We’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone about this,” I said, knowing full well that Jessie had probably mentally connected with whatever coven of gossips she ran and telepathically transmitted the news by now. “We don’t want anyone to be afraid of coming to the inn after the exorcism’s completed.”
“Of course,” Jessie said, then glanced up at the first-floor landing. “You know, between you and me, I’ve always felt this place had an evil vibe. Pity. It’s a nice building, but all the creaking floors and so on? It’s terrifying.”
A tall man, handsome and with silver-gray hair, entered carrying a cat carrier in either hand. He nodded greetings to us. “The rest are in the car,” he said to Jessie, in a low rumble. “Which way are they?”
“Through that door there, honey,” Jessie said, sweetly. “Be careful, though, the inn is possessed.”
If Jessie’s husband thought that statement was weird, he didn’t show it. He sauntered off through to the kitten foster center to collect the cats.
“I’ll expect
