Page 7 of Gumbo, Ghosts, and Deadly Deception (A Midnight House Mystery #1)

My stomach dropped. "Is that necessary? Can Maggie come with me?”

"This isn’t the restroom at a bar," Hollis said impatiently. “No traveling in pairs.”

On-duty Detective Broussard wasn’t even as tolerable as off-duty Hollis, and that wasn’t saying all that much.

“I was just asking,” I said defensively.

I realized I needed to fully cooperate, but excuse me for being intimidated by a full investigative team and an unexpected death appearing in my house.

“We need to speak to everyone individually.”

He led me into the kitchen, where Teddy was stress-eating from his food bowl with single-minded determination. This was Teddy’s first dead body, too, as far as I knew.

"Tell me about Delia DuMont," Hollis said, settling into one of the chairs at my small breakfast table. "How long have you known her?"

"I met her for the first time yesterday morning. She checked in early for the paranormal convention."

"And you had no prior relationship with her?"

"None. Although..." I hesitated, remembering Delia's words about knowing Aunt Odette. "She said she knew my aunt. They met in person a long time ago from what she told me. There was a picture of her with my aunt and two other women."

Hollis made a note in his phone.

It disappointed me that he didn’t have a little notebook like they do in crime shows. Then I realized that was a completely inane thought to have when Delia was dead.

"Did she seem upset about anything? Worried? Frightened?"

I thought about the tarot cards, the whispered conversation about murder, the way she'd clutched my hand and asked for help. "She seemed...anxious. Like she was expecting something bad to happen."

"Did she mention any enemies? Anyone who might want to hurt her?"

"Not specifically." I took a deep breath. "She told me something last night about a murder from forty years ago. A woman named Francine Darrow who disappeared during Mardi Gras 1984. Everyone knew this girl disappeared but there was never any proof of a murder. She just vanished."

Hollis's fingers stilled on his phone. "Why would Delia bring that up?"

"They knew the girl. Delia also said she knew who killed Francine. And that the killer was coming to tonight's séance."

For a moment, the only sound was the hum of the refrigerator and Teddy's enthusiastic crunching.

“I honestly didn’t think much about it. I thought she meant, you know, a spirit. The ghost of whoever killed Francine. Not a live human.” Or that’s what I had talked myself into believing. It honestly had sounded like she meant an actual living man would be in attendance.

"Did she tell you who she suspected?"

"No. She was being all mysterious about it. But Hollis..." I leaned forward. "What if she was right? What if someone killed her to keep her quiet?"

The detective studied my face for a long moment. "Harper, I need you to listen to me. This looks like an accidental drowning. There are no signs of struggle, no obvious wounds, no evidence of forced entry. Sometimes people just die."

"In a locked room? After predicting their own death?"

"She predicted her own death?"

“Maybe not her death. But a death.” I told him about the tarot cards, the Tower, the whispers about something coming. It sounded crazy even to me.

Hollis sat back in his chair. "Look, I'll have the crime scene team process everything thoroughly. But unless they find evidence of foul play, this is going to be ruled an accident or natural causes."

"And if they do find evidence?"

"Then we'll investigate accordingly." He stood up. "In the meantime, you need to close the B&B to new guests until we finish processing the scene. Your current guests can stay, but no one new comes in."

After he left, I sat alone in the kitchen with Teddy, who had finished his stress-eating and was now sprawled across my feet like a furry heating pad.

"What do you think?" I asked him. "Heart attack? Accident? Or murder?"

Teddy looked up at me with his dark eyes and made a soft chittering sound that I chose to interpret as "definitely murder, and we're going to figure out who did it."

Because despite what Detective Hollis Broussard thought, I knew Delia DuMont hadn't just accidentally drowned in my bathtub. Someone had killed her, and they'd done it right under our noses while we sat in a circle holding hands and calling to the spirits.

The question was: who?

As if reading my thoughts, Teddy got up and padded over to the kitchen door. He sat down and stared at it expectantly, his tail twitching.

"What is it, boy?"

He chittered again, more insistently this time.

I opened the door and got hit with the wind and some misty rain. I shut it again.

Teddy might have sighed. He clearly was unimpressed. It did occur to me that opening a door in a rainstorm after a possible murder wasn’t all that smart. But he clearly wanted me to do something .

I started pointing to things and asking him, “This? This? More food?”

Finally, when I pointed to the hinged door above the counter that had once upon a time served as a milk delivery chute, Teddy squawked loudly.

“Okay, okay.” I opened it and Inside was a small white envelope with my name written on it in elegant script.

With shaking hands, I opened it.

Harper,

If you're reading this, then I was right about tonight.

I'm sorry to involve you, but you're the only one I can trust. The truth about Francine Darrow is hidden in your house.

Odette made sure of that. Look for the room that doesn't exist on any blueprint.

The key is in the recipe for her famous jambalaya.

Be careful. He's closer than you think.

—Delia

I stared at the letter, my mind racing. Delia had expected to die tonight. She'd left me this note as insurance, knowing I'd find it after…

A noise from upstairs made me look up. Footsteps in the hallway, slow and deliberate.

But according to Detective Broussard, all my guests were supposed to be in the dining room.

I grabbed Teddy and crept toward the staircase, the letter clutched in my free hand. The footsteps had stopped, but I could hear something else now.

Whispering.

" Francine ," a voice said softly.

Or maybe that part was my imagination. But I was definitely hearing a voice.

The voice was coming from upstairs.

I ignored the voice in my own head that said Hollis would throttle me if I trampled over any evidence, and crept upstairs.

The voice seemed to move around me, swirling, the words indistinct.

It was coming from Room Three.

Delia's room.

Where she had just died under mysterious circumstances and where half a dozen people were currently processing the scene. Maybe that was just them talking?

But it didn’t sound like regular alive people discussing a death scene. It sounded…otherworldly.

I looked down at Teddy, who was staring up the stairs with his ears pricked forward and his tail beginning to puff.

"What are we doing?” I asked him. “This is nuts.”

An unexpected electronic chime made me jump on the landing. I glanced around to see where it was coming from.

A phone was on the console table that divided rooms four and five. “Is this your phone?” I asked an evidence tech who came out of room three with a brown paper bag in her hand.

“No.”

“It must be a guest’s.” I picked it up. The screen was glowing.

A voice memo app was open.

Recording.

I tapped to stop it, heart thudding.

“It’s been recording since she left this room,” I murmured.

I moved it to the middle of the recording and played about a minute.

At first, only silence. Then the rustle of fabric. Footsteps. The sound of the window creaking open. Wind. Whispering—so faint I couldn’t tell if it was real or electronic feedback. Then, suddenly, a voice. Clear. Urgent.

Delia’s.

“No.”

There was a pause. A faint noise, like a door opening.

“They’re here. I—I didn’t think they’d find me this fast?—”

Static. Then nothing.