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Emmie appears at my elbow holding Ella, who’s clapping her hands and giggling at the chaos. The cats take this as their cue to leap from my arms and head straight for the dessert table. Believe me, I’ll be following their lead in less than ten seconds.

“No offense, but Georgie and your mother are a lot,” Emmie says, handing Ella back to me.

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Mama!” Ella reaches for my face, and I kiss her forehead before settling her on my hip.

“Maybe we won’t tell Daddy about all of our sordid adventures tonight.”

“No tell dada.” Ella laughs as if it’s the funniest thing she’s heard. Something tells me she’s going to be hearing a lot of that phrase.

Emmie laughs as well. “You’re lucky he’s not the one who can read minds.”

I make a face at the thought. “He’s so good, he doesn’t have to.”

Georgie finally gets pulled down from the hay bale by Mom and two very patient festival staff members, and the crowd slowly disperses back toward the panel area where Morticia is trying to restart the meet-and-greet.

I watch the chaos swirl around me. Georgie still arguing with the angry wife. Macy counting a frankly obscene amount of cash. The festival carrying on without a single person seeming to care that a woman died less than twenty-four hours ago.

I think about what Vampyra told me.

She gave me a motive. Partially, anyway. Lost sponsorship, professional sabotage, years of rivalry.

But she’s hiding something bigger. I not only heard it in her thoughts, I saw it in the way she deflected every time I pushed.

And she pointed me straight toward Miss Kitty Cadaver.

Countess Clawdia Noir had secrets. Big ones, judging by how many people hated her.

And one of those secrets got her killed.

Time to find out what Miss Kitty knows before someone else ends up dead.

CHAPTER 9

The front door to our tiny cottage is unlocked, which means Jasper is already home.

The festival grounds are just yards from our cottage and yet the noise of the holiday revelry is coming just as loud and clear as if we were standing in the midway.

I push through the door with Ella on my hip and three pets at my heels, and the smell of Chinese food hits me immediately.

Jasper is sitting on the floor in front of the sofa with takeout containers spread around him, and there are two mugs of hot cider on the coffee table steaming away. He’s already changed out of his detective clothes into jeans and a flannel, which means he’s been home long enough to get comfortable, and the fire is crackling in that perfect way that makes the whole room feel warm and cozy.

He looks up when I walk in, and his whole face lights up.

“There’s my girls,” he says, reaching for Ella.

“Dada!” she squeals and lunges for him with her arms outstretched, and I hand her over before I drop her because she’s got the wiggle factor of an eel when she’s excited.

“I just put out the dinner for the pets,” he says and instantly becomes everyone’s favorite hooman.

He points toward the kitchen where the three of them are currently gobbling down everything on their plates.

“You know fall is one of my favorite seasons for many reasons,” I say, kicking off my boots. “But one of them is seeing you in a flannel.” I plop down next to him and steal a kiss. “You got food,” I say, eyeing the containers. Lo mein, spring rolls, sesame chicken, beef and broccoli. All my favorites are present and accounted for.

“I not only got food, I made cider. And I started a fire because it’s cold and you love fires.” He settles Ella in his lap and kisses the top of her head, and she immediately tries to grab his nose. “Also because I heard from my mother that you were off investigating in the woods, and I figured you’d come home hungry.”

Of course, Gwyneth texted him. That woman has a sixth sense for when I’m doing something that could be classified as mildly dangerous, which is basically everything I do on a daily basis. She probably saw me heading toward the tree line with Vampyra and immediately pulled out her phone to tattle on me to her son.