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CHAPTER ONE
Fresh Paint
“Your ex is coming here? When?” Luna Sage rolled her paint brush over the scuffed white walls of what had been the Golden Oldies memorabilia shop, leaving a smooth ribbon of buttery yellow, the color she’d chosen for her new bakery.
It might be more accurate to say her and my grandfather’s new bakery, since he had stepped in as a silent partner to help her get the Sweet Spot off the ground. He said it was purely selfish on his part because he was ensuring himself a hassle-free tenant. I also knew Stirling genuinely liked Luna. Since he never worried about money—for reasons that were still a mystery to me—I wasn’t surprised he wanted to help her.
He’d already done far more for me, which was why I’d put in an extra couple of hours at the antique shop before lending Luna a hand. I’d planned to take Aneksi back to my apartment first, but Stirling offered to take her home with him instead.
For a guy who claimed to dislike cats, he certainly seemed fond of the little furball. Maybe it was because Aneksi was no ordinary cat. I was still trying to wrap my mind around the idea that she could talk, and that she was once a companion to Queen Cleopatra, making her at least as old as the oldest artifacts in our shop.
One of these days that might seem normal, but right now, it still felt like I was living through an episode of The Twilight Zone, or Warehouse 13.
I suppose that was why I was so eager to help Luna get her shop ready. Don’t get me wrong. She’d helped me so much since I arrived in Citrus Grove and I owed her big time, but caring for this peculiar cat and constantly being on the lookout for the cursed Egyptian artifacts that were stolen from my grandfather’s secret underground vault, not to mention the mundane managerial duties of running Cuthbert Exotic Antiques, made an evening of paint, brushes, and girl talk extremely appealing.
Considering it was just the two of us, we were making impressive progress. The first coat of paint was almost complete, and it wasn’t even midnight.
“His text message said Tuesday.” I reloaded my own roller brush with more paint to finish my section. “And that was last week.”
“Rebecca, you know it’s Thursday, right?” She tried to wipe a loose tawny curl off her forehead with the back of her wrist, but it immediately fell back over her eye. “Are you sure he didn’t mean next week?”
“Maybe. Or maybe he changed his mind.” I really hoped he’d changed his mind.
I’d left Elk Pass, Montana, to put my problems behind me, and as far as I was concerned, Mason Morretti had been my biggest problem. These past few days, the thought of my ex-fiancé showing up in my new town had reduced me to a neurotic mess.
Since he’d texted to announce his travel plans, the stress of seeing him was definitely messing with my head. I thought I’d caught sight of him at the market, then again at Malone’s Diner, and a few times I thought I saw him strolling through Fountain Park, at the center of the traffic circle in front of the shop.
“Sounds like you don’t want him to come. Why don’t you tell him that?”
Luna was trying to be helpful, and I appreciated it, but I couldn’t tell Mason anything. I couldn’t call him because I didn’t trust myself to talk to him. I didn’t even trust myself to text him because something happened to me when it came to that man. It was like my brain turned off, and I stopped being me. I became Mason’s girlfriend or Mason’s fiancée or Mason’s whatever. It took me weeks and about two thousand miles to realize that, but now that I had, I couldn’t risk slipping back into that old pattern.
It wasn’t just that I was dating Nick Devon, either. That whole situation was still pretty new, and we were taking it slow since he was a part-time, single dad to his five-year-old son, Kevin.
There was also the fact that while we’d known each other for a couple of months, most of that time involved me either being a murder suspect or otherwise involved in one of his homicide investigations. Life was more complicated, I was finding out, when one dated a police detective.
“I’m not going to call Mason or text him or write him a letter or send smoke signals. I don’t want anything to do with him.”
“That’s fair. Have you told Nick?”
I was wondering how long it would take her to ask that question. I’d been dreading it, and I still didn’t have a good answer. “He’s busy with Kevin. Besides, what would I say? ‘Hey, my ex might be coming to town. I’m not planning to see him, but I thought you should know.’ That makes it sound like a bigger deal than it is. And it’s not a big deal. At all. Right?”
“Are you asking me? Because if you are, I say, yes, it is a big deal. Even if you don’t want to see him or want anything more to do with him, he was a big part of your life for a long time. You were going to marry that guy. It’s bound to bring up feelings.”
She had a point. If Mason hadn’t dumped me a few weeks before our wedding for my best friend—sorry, ex-best friend—he and I would be married right now. That thought struck me like a diesel truck to the gut. So, if nausea was a feeling, then, yeah, he was bringing up feelings.
“You should tell Nick,” she said when I didn’t respond. “I think you know it’s the right thing to do.”
Man, Jiminy Cricket had nothing on Luna. “You’re right. I’ll tell him. As soon as I see him.”
Considering this weekend was Citrus Grove’s International Festival—which, according to the posters plastered on local shop windows, including ours, was the town’s biggest event of the year and involved shutting down the traffic circle and side streets so community groups could put up food and beverage booths to sell delicacies from around the world, along with local businesses promoting their wares and services—I didn’t expect to see him soon at all.
Nick had already warned me he, along with the rest of the police department, had festival security duties all weekend.
I didn’t mention that to Luna, though.
While I considered whether I should feel guilty about the omission, she stepped back from the wall she’d finished and stared at it. “What do you think of this yellow? My grandmother stopped by yesterday, and she talked me into it. She said it would brighten up the place.”
“Is that the grandmother that runs a psychic shop in Laguna Beach?”
“It’s more of a year-round Halloween shop, but yeah, and she’s had it for decades. She must know what she’s talking about, right?”
“I’m sure she does. I like the yellow, but what do you think?”
Her lip twisted as she stared at the wall. “I think I like it. But then I wonder if I should go with sage green. That was my original plan. You know, to capitalize on my last name. But I’ve never seen a sage green bakery. Have you?”
“To be honest, sage green doesn’t make me think of cakes and cookies. It makes me think of a day spa or one of those bougie boutiques that stocks twenty pieces of ridiculously expensive clothing.”
That made her laugh. “That sounds like a no on the sage.”
“But what do I know?” I added. “You probably shouldn’t make a final decision tonight, though. It’s late, and we’ve been breathing paint fumes. See how you feel about it in the morning.”
“You’re right. I just want everything to be perfect when I open tomorrow. I guess I’ll have to be satisfied with pretty good.”
“Or perfect for now,” I suggested.
“Perfect for now. I like that. At least I have a display case and a real cash register, even if I won’t have much else.”
That was true. She had gotten both from Hank Malone, who said he’d found them abandoned at the back of his diner’s storage room. I wasn’t sure I believed that—both pieces looked brand new to me—but if he wanted to be a hero to the woman he clearly adored, more power to him.
“Remember, this isn’t your grand opening,” I said. “It’s only a preopening to let people know the Sweet Spot is coming soon. And I can assure you, people aren’t going to care what color the walls are once they taste your delicious cupcakes.”
For the past two days, she’d been in a baking frenzy in her home kitchen, whipping up batches of miniature cupcakes to sell at the festival. The mocha chocolate cupcakes were my personal favorite, but the key lime and strawberry shortcake flavors were close contenders.
“I hope you’re right.” Luna pulled away the blue tarps she’d borrowed from Hank to protect the equipment and the floor from paint splatters. “I’ll be disappointed if I’ve made a hundred cupcakes for nothing.”
The yellow walls complemented the pink tablecloth she’d thrown over the utility table Hank had lent her for the cash register and extra counter space.
“They will sell. Trust me. People love your cupcakes and your petit fours and everything that comes out of that recipe book of yours. And they’re going to love this bakery. It’s already adorable. Once I get the trash out of here, you’ll see.”
I pulled the plastic liners from the paint pans and stuffed them into a garbage bag, then tossed in the empty paint cans and used foam rollers. When I had all the rubbish collected, I lugged the bag through the back door to the trash bins, which were in the alley halfway between Luna’s place and Cuthbert Exotic Antiques.
The day had been a scorcher, but the night had turned pleasantly cool. At this hour, only a few windows overlooking the alley still had their lights on, so I was grateful for the amber glow of the streetlight beside the trash bin.
Once I muscled the bag into the bin and closed the cover, I noticed Stirling had left a full bag of trash outside our back door. It wasn’t like him to do that. He made a point of putting our trash in the covered receptacle every night, so we wouldn’t attract vermin. He must have set it out and forgotten about it.
As I moved closer to it, intending to toss the bag into the bin, I realized the shadowy mass wasn’t a trash bag at all. It was a woman hunched beside our concrete steps with her knees pulled to her chest and her head bent down. Long, dark hair spilled forward, covering her face.
“Hello?” I called.
She didn’t respond. Was she asleep? I would have thought she was a vagrant, but her clothes were far too nice and clean. I’d never seen a vagrant wearing black heels, either.
“Do you need help?” I gently shook her shoulder.
The instant I touched her, she flopped to the side. That was when I saw the blood.
CHAPTER TWO
Bad Kitty
Luna stared at the woman lying motionless in the alley behind Cuthbert Exotic Antiques. “Who is she?”
My friend had followed me out of her shop with a second trash bag and found me kneeling over the body, searching in vain for a heartbeat. “I have no idea. I found her like this.”
I didn’t mention she’d been sitting upright until I tried to shake her awake. What were the Citrus Grove Police Department forensic people going to say when they learned I had—how had they put it last time—tampered with another dead body? I wasn’t looking forward to that moment.
“Do you know what happened to her?”
Luna was asking great questions, and I wished I had answers. “I don’t know anything about her. I thought she was…” I stopped myself from saying a trash bag, because even in my rattled state, I knew how awful that sounded. The woman deserved more respect than that. “I thought she needed help. I didn’t realize she was dead until you got here. How could this happen? Why was she even back here?” My voice rose as a dizzy, panicky feeling set in.
Luna put her hand on my shoulder. “I’m sure there was nothing you could do. This isn’t your fault. Have you called the police yet?”
I shook my head. It should have occurred to me, but I was still hoping the woman would wake up and say this was all a terrible misunderstanding.
Luna crouched down to look at her more closely. “Are you sure you don’t know her? You look like you could be related.”
“Are you kidding?” The woman didn’t resemble me at all. She was about forty pounds thinner for one thing, dressed better, and wore a ton of makeup. Her dark hair with the sun-kissed highlights still had more style in its tangled state than mine ever did.
“You definitely look alike,” Luna pressed. “The same color hair, about the same height, and you both have freckles on your nose.”
Dark hair and freckles. Yeah, we were practically twins. “Sorry, I don’t see it.”
“Maybe it’s the shadows. Do you have your phone?”
I patted the back pocket of my jeans. “It’s still in your shop.”
“Mine, too. I’ll go back and make the call. Will you wait here?”
Before I could tell her I was coming, too, the antique shop’s back door squeaked open and the light over it switched on. “Rebecca? Luna? Is that you? What are you doing out there?”
It was Stirling. He fussed with his glasses, moving them up and down his nose as he tried to get a better view of what was happening in the darkness.
“Do you know this woman?” I asked.
“What woman? Who are you talking about?” He was almost angry as he descended the trio of steps, but when he saw the mystery woman on the ground between Luna and me, he stopped.
If the light had been better, I probably would have seen his face turn as white as the ring of hair around his head.
“We just found her,” I said. “We were finishing up next door, and I saw her when I was throwing out the trash.” I explained how I’d thought she needed help before I realized she was dead. “Did you hear anything?”
He was still staring at the lifeless body. “Voices, just now. But that must have been you two. I didn’t hear anything suspicious. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
It occurred to me that what was out of the ordinary was him being at the shop at this hour. “Why are you here so late? I thought you were taking Aneksi back to your place?”
His glance slid from the woman to me. “Sorry, what was that?”
I repeated the question.
“Oh, yes. I spent some time on the…” He glanced at Luna then back at me. “On the project we’ve been working on.”
Luna must have sensed she was the reason Stirling was speaking in such vague terms. She walked toward the antique shop’s open door and pointed inside. “Can I use your phone to call the police?”
“Yes, of course,” he said. “That’s an excellent idea. We definitely need the police.”
It was true, but there was a peculiar eagerness in his voice. Luna ignored it and disappeared inside, but I had a pretty good idea what he’d been doing.
“Were you down in the vault?” I whispered.
“Obviously,” he hissed under his breath. “Time must have gotten away from me.”
It wasn’t unusual for him to go down to the secret vault beneath the shop after closing and spend an hour or two cleaning up. When Stirling had showed it to me the first time, shortly after his former shop manager broke into it and stole ancient Egyptian artifacts my great-great-grandfather had stored there after discovering they were cursed, it had been such a mess of dust and cobwebs, it was impossible to take a proper inventory. Not that an accurate inventory would have helped much because James Percival Cuthbert had kept terrible records. Scratch that. As far as I could tell, he hadn’t kept any records at all.
That was something Stirling was trying to do as he cleaned. Even though we didn’t know exactly what was missing or even how many artifacts were stolen, we’d still managed to retrieve the Osiris spyglass and the emerald scarab, as well as the Cleopatra’s cat funerary vessel, which had turned out to contain something far more valuable than we’d expected.
No one besides the two of us and Aneksi knew anything about the underground vault or its remarkable contents, so I wasn’t surprised Stirling had been so evasive in front of Luna.
But now that she was gone, he still had the oddest look on his face.
And he was still staring at the dead woman.
“Are you sure you don’t know her?” I asked.
His gaze shot back to me. “Of course not. Why would you say that?”
“Can you think of a reason why she’d be back here?”
“How should I know? Anyone can be back here. They closed the traffic circle this afternoon, so the festival booths could go up. With all that going on, she was probably trying to avoid the chaos. The alley is a reasonable alternative.”
Was it, though? How much chaos was out there at this hour?
It wasn’t his flawed logic that caught my attention, though. It was the smudges I noticed on his hand when he pushed back his glasses. When I looked more closely, I didn’t want to believe what I was seeing because what it looked like, when the light caught it just right, was a smear of red that was still shiny and fresh. “Stirling, is that blood on your hand?”
His gaze locked onto the spot I was staring at. “Oh, that. It’s nothing.” He tried to rub it away, which only worsened the smear. “I must have caught the edge of something.” He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and rubbed at the spot.
“Excuse me.”
Aneksi’s familiar little voice surprised me. I hadn’t seen her leave the shop, yet here she was at my feet, gazing up with those brilliant blue eyes.
But what was she doing? She knew the rules. No speaking except at home or inside the shop and only when no one else was around. The shh! that flew out of my mouth was an automatic reflex.
Instead of her usual glare at my reprimand, her eyes widened in fear. Then, in a flash and before I could react, she raced up my leg to my shoulder, digging those talon-like claws into my thigh and my side before perching on my shoulder like a deranged parrot.
She stopped long enough to put her nose to my ear and whispered, “It’s in her pocket,” then she raced back to the ground and sat her rump beside the woman’s right hip.
“Bad kitty,” Stirling admonished.
Aneksi didn’t flinch. Instead, she nosed the pocket of the dead woman’s tailored black trousers.
“Bad Aneksi!” Stirling scolded again.
“No. I don’t think so.” I bent down and slipped my hand into the woman’s pocket. The moment my fingers touched the smooth, cool surface of the thing Aneksi had sensed, I knew why she had broken our rules. I knew it even before I curled my fingers around it and pulled it from its hiding place.
The look on my face must have told Stirling the same thing, because when I opened my palm to show him what I had, we both knew that black stone ankh had something—maybe everything—to do with this poor woman’s death.
End of Excerpt
