Page 6 of Gumbo, Ghosts, and Deadly Deception (A Midnight House Mystery #1)

FOUR

I stared at the empty chair where Delia had been sitting just moments before.

Huh. She was obviously much more spry than I had expected. She’d looked tired all day and yet somehow she had managed to hot foot it out of the parlor in about twenty seconds.

But then I realized there was no way she could have left by the main parlor doors, because that’s where I had gone to flick the lights on. We would have essentially collided with each other or at least I would have sensed her presence. Right?

Yet the only trace of her presence was the faint scent of gardenias that seemed to grow stronger by the second.

She must have buzzed by me when I knocked the chair over.

"Where the hell did she go?" Maggie demanded, her tutu rustling as she spun around to check the corners of the room.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Beau exclaimed. “Did you see that candle? It was like a torch!”

"Language," Father Claude murmured again, but his heart wasn't in it. His face had gone pale above his collar, and his hands were shaking slightly as he reached for his wine glass.

I had no doubt Claude was already dusting off his exorcism speech. He would obviously conclude this was demons.

Hollis was already on his feet, his detective instincts kicking in. "Everyone stay where you are. Don't touch anything." He pulled out his phone and hit the flashlight, scanning the room methodically. "Harper, are there other exits from this room?"

"Just the doorway we came through," I said, my voice sounding oddly calm despite the fact that my heart was doing a tap dance in my chest. "And the windows, but they're painted shut and haven't been opened in decades."

Which may or may not be a fire hazard for a B&B but that was a concern for another day.

Beau was still gripping the edge of the table, his knuckles white. "This is impossible. She was right there. We were all holding hands?—"

"Were we, though?" Ginger interrupted, her crystal necklaces jangling as she gestured dramatically. "Because I could swear I felt my connection break right before the lights went out. Like someone let go."

“It was probably the skunk,” Hollis muttered.

"That was me," I admitted. "I dropped everyone's hands when I heard the scream."

"But whose scream was it?" Maggie asked, her investigative instincts clearly kicking in. "Because it didn't sound like Delia."

Hollis continued his methodical examination of the room while we talked.

"The windows are definitely sealed. No way she could have gotten through them without making noise.

" He paused at the doorway, shining his light into the hallway.

"And I would have seen her if she'd gone past me toward the front door. But she obviously did, because she’s not here.”

Teddy, who had been unusually quiet during the séance, suddenly leaped from his chair and waddled toward the staircase with purpose. He paused at the bottom step and looked back at us, chittering softly.

"Teddy thinks she went upstairs," I said, because after living with him for two years, I'd learned to trust his instincts more than most humans'.

"To her room?" Hollis asked. Then he shook his head. “Not that I’m asking the skunk. I’m asking rhetorically. But it makes sense."

"Maybe she felt overwhelmed and just needed to step away," Father Claude suggested, though he didn't sound convinced. "Spiritual work can be...intense."

Ginger snorted. "Delia DuMont doesn't get overwhelmed. That woman could conduct a séance during a hurricane while juggling flaming batons."

It occurred to me for the first time that Ginger acted like she knew Delia very well…much more so than I had realized. Or maybe she just perceived every other medium as a threat.

We trooped upstairs in a loose formation, with Hollis first man in and Teddy as his backup. The skunk stopped outside Room Three and sat down, his tail puffed to twice its normal size.

"Delia?" I called, knocking on the door. "Are you okay? We were worried when you disappeared."

No answer.

Hollis tried the handle. "It's locked."

We all looked at each other, uncertain. “Do we just leave her alone to gather herself?” Claude asked.

“I say bust it down.”

Unsurprisingly, that was Maggie.

"I have a master key," I said, fishing it out of my pocket. The old skeleton key was one of the few things I'd kept from Aunt Odette's original system, partly for emergencies and partly because it was too pretty to throw away.

The lock turned easily, and the door swung open.

Room Three was empty.

Not just empty of Delia, but empty in a way that made the hair on my arms stand up.

The purple velvet dress she had been wearing—just wearing!

—was laid out neatly on the bed, as if she'd carefully removed it.

Her jewelry was arranged on the antique dresser in perfect rows.

The rings, necklaces, bracelets were all gleaming in the overhead light.

Even her shoes were placed precisely by the door, as if she'd stepped out of them and simply. ..vanished.

"This is getting really weird," Maggie said, voicing what we were all thinking. “How did she change so fast? Does she have two purple velvet dresses and couldn’t decide which one to wear?”

"Her suitcase is still here," Beau observed, pointing to the purple rolling bag in the corner. He glanced into the bathroom. "Nothing out of the ordinary in there.”

Hollis was examining the windows, which were just as painted shut as the ones downstairs. "No signs of forced entry or exit. Room was locked from the inside." He paused, studying the key in my hand. "How many of these master keys exist?"

"Just this one," I said. "Aunt Odette kept it on her nightstand, and I took it when I inherited the house."

"So theoretically, no one else could have locked this room from the outside?"

"Theoretically, no. But this is New Orleans. Anything's possible. Anyone could have a key from thirty years ago for this room for all I know."

Teddy had waddled into the room and was sniffing around the base of the bed with intense concentration. Suddenly, he sat back on his haunches and made a sound I'd never heard him make before. It was a low, mournful whine that raised goosebumps on my arms.

"What is it, boy?" I knelt down beside him.

That's when I saw it.

A small, dark stain on the hardwood floor, barely visible unless you were looking from exactly the right angle.

It was tucked under the edge of the bed's dust ruffle, no bigger than a silver dollar. Not enough to indicate bleeding out, but it was blood. On top of Delia’s thirty-second disappearing act, this was definitely cause for alarm.

And Ginger hadn’t wanted theatrics.

"Hollis," I said. "You need to see this."

The detective crouched down beside me, his phone light illuminating the stain. In the harsh glow, it was unmistakably dark red.

"Is that...?" Maggie started.

"Blood," Hollis confirmed grimly. "Fresh blood."

Father Claude crossed himself. Ginger took a step backward, her face pale. Beau just stared at the stain like it might start speaking and explain itself to him.

"We need to search the house," Hollis said, standing up and pulling out his phone. "I'm calling for backup."

"Wait," I said, something nagging at the back of my mind. "The bathroom. Beau, could you see the whole room?"

He shook his head. “I just glanced in there.” He actually took a step or two backwards like he was concerned a knife-wielding killer might be on the other side of the shower curtain.

I pushed past the others and pushed the bathroom door open further. The small space was pristine—white tiles, vintage fixtures, fluffy towels I'd put out that morning. But behind the shower curtain, the clawfoot tub was full of water.

Water that was tinged pink.

And floating in that pink water, face down and perfectly still, was Delia DuMont.

For a moment, nobody moved. The only sound was the drip-drip-drip of the faucet and Father Claude's whispered prayer.

Then Hollis pushed past me, pulling on a pair of latex gloves that he'd produced from somewhere. Did he just carry those around in his pocket? Either he was always anticipating a crime or the sudden need to clean a toilet, both of which were weird.

"Everyone out. Now. Don't touch anything."

"Is she dead?" Maggie asked.

Hollis gently turned Delia's head, checking for a pulse at her neck. After a moment that felt like an eternity, he looked up at us with grim eyes.

"She's dead. Back up now."

I snagged Teddy off of the carpet and shooed everyone out of the room.

My stomach was churning. I’d only seen a couple of dead bodies in my life and they were all perfectly preserved in their Sunday finest, laid out in a coffin.

This was my first dead body in the wild, so to speak, and I was a little stunned.

Working on the podcast with Maggie, I’d seen plenty of images of death, but this was far too up close and personal.

The next hour passed in a blur of sirens, flashing lights, and questions I didn't know how to answer. The house filled with police officers, crime scene techs, and a coroner who looked like she'd rather be anywhere else on a Wednesday night.

We were all herded into the dining room while they processed the scene, sitting around the same table where I'd served dinner to my guests just hours earlier. The mood was decidedly different now.

"Heart attack, maybe?" Father Claude suggested hopefully. "The stress of the séance, combined with her age..."

"She was fifty-three," Ginger said flatly. "And in perfect health, as far as I know. Delia was always very particular about taking care of herself."

"Could have been an accident," Beau offered. "She felt faint, drew a bath to relax, and...slipped?"

“That doesn’t explain why she bolted out of the room when the candle blew out,” Maggie said. “Was this a planned suicide? Because wow, that’s just…not cool. Way to traumatize random people.”

Detective Broussard appeared in the doorway, his expression unreadable. "I need to speak with Harper privately."