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“Clawdia was going to release it?” I ask, although I already know the answer.

“She was planning to shop it to streaming platforms. Turn it into a multi-episode series. ‘The Real Scream Queens’ or something equally exploitative.” Ghoulia grunts at the crowd. “Kitty begged her not to. I heard Kitty was crying on the phone with Clawdia, offering money she didn’t have to buy the footage back. Clawdia laughed at her. Told her she should have thought about that before filming everyone’s secrets.”

“When was this?”

“Two weeks before the festival.” Ghoulia looks at me directly. “Kitty bought very expensive camera equipment about a year ago. She showed it off to everyone. She was very proud. Then suddenly, right before we all came to Spider Cove, she went completely silent about the project. Wouldn’t talk about it. And she looked sick whenever anyone brought it up.”

Something happened with that documentary, Sherlock says with a quick bark. Something that gave a lot of people a very specific, very recent reason to want Clawdia dead.

“What happened to the footage?” I ask.

“Oh, I have no idea.” Ghoulia shrugs. “Clawdia had it. Presumably it’s somewhere in her belongings. Or on a hard drive. Or in the cloud.” She pauses. “Or maybe Kitty got the copies back somehow.”

The woman dressed as a spider is about to take out the cider table, Duchess announces without a hint of urgency.

I turn and spot Georgie in her sequined spider corset backing up to get a better look at something. Sure enough, she bumps directly into the cider table. Mom lunges forward and catches the dispenser before it tips over.

We can always count on Georgie for some real entertainment, Fish mewls with pride.

And some real bacon, Sherlock barks.

Georgie spins around to see what she hit. Her elbow swings wide and catches the top tier of Macy’s precarious candle display—multiple tiers of “Poison & Passion” and “Deadly Nightshade” candles stacked in a pyramid for demonstration purposes.

The entire display gives a disconcerting wobble.

Macy lunges for it.

The vampires surrounding her stumble.

And the whole thing comes crashing down.

Candles fly every which way. They roll across the grass and bounce off people and table legs. One of them, which happens to be lit with a flame streaking behind it like a tiny little comet, barrels straight into a thicket of women next to the dessert table and takes them down like bowling pins. Sequins fly through the air. A witch hat sails to the sky. And somebody’s punch cup creates an arc of red liquid over the crowd.

Women are screaming, some laughing, and most all of them are filming the spectacle on their phones.

“This is a sign!” Georgie shouts as she grabs one of the fallen candles—one with a flame, no less. “The spirits are communicating through scented wax!”

“GEORGIE, PUT THAT DOWN!” Mom shouts.

Georgie does not put it down. She holds it up like she’s summoning that otherworldly boyfriend of hers, which causes three more women to start filming and at least two to back away with fright.

The rogue candle’s flame catches the crepe-paper bunting that’s hanging from the Scream Queens Showcase signage, and in the span of a single scream, the entire thing goes up like a birthday candle. Jordy barrels out of the crowd with a fire extinguisher and starts to blast the blaze into a cloud of white foam.

“I think I need something stronger than cider,” Ghoulia says as she quickly scuttles off to safety.

I watch Georgie attempting to commune with spirits using Macy’s candles while Mom tries to physically drag her away from the fire. A vampire in leather pants is helping Macy collect the scattered inventory while at least five women get his number.

Festival staff have given up on restoring order and are just standing back to let the chaos play out.

The documentary footage is still out there somewhere. Either with Clawdia’s belongings, or someone got it back somehow. Ghoulia, Vampyra, Morticia, and Kitty all had a reason to want that footage out of the wrong hands. That also means they all had an additional motive.

And they all certainly had an opportunity.

Time to find out where that footage is.

CHAPTER 16

The bonfire crackles at the edge of the cove, right where the festival grounds meet the beach, and the Atlantic is churning dark and restless just beyond it.