Raspberry Tart Terror (Murder in the Mix Book 30) Unknown (christmas read aloud .TXT) 📖

“Come on, Lot.” Carlotta pulls me along just as a young man takes the stage and the room quiets down again. “We gotta get a move on before she gets mobbed.”

“Onward and forward.” Teddy glides on ahead. “Come now, Carlotta. It’s time for you to shine!”

I make a face at this older version of me as we thread our way to the front.

“Let me do the talking,” I tell her. “That perky poltergeist can believe what she wants, but this is my investigation.”

Carlotta takes a breath. “Sometimes the lies we tell ourselves are the sweetest.”

I shake my head at that one just as Carlotta and I carefully steer clear of Evie as we come upon the counter.

Bambi steps back and bumps into my arm while doing so.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she says, landing her hand over her mouth as soon as she spots my beach ball of a belly.

“No worries,” I say, shoving the bill Everett just handed me to Carlotta. “Decaf and cake, please.” I force a bright smile at the suspect at hand as we step off to the side. “That was quite some poetry. You were phenomenal.”

“Ah, thanks.” She laughs while doing her best to shrug it off. “It’s something that I’ve done ever since I was a kid. You know, I didn’t have anything handed to me. I had to fight for everything I’ve got. So I come upon it honestly—pouring my heart out.”

“I can tell that you miss Verity very much even if you weren’t as close as you had hoped toward the end.”

She closes her eyes a moment. “I’d like to think if Verity knew that it was her last night on this planet she would have—we would have had one final heart-to-heart.” Tears glitter in her eyes and she quickly bats them away. “Who are we kidding? If Verity knew that was her last night on the planet, she would have told me off twice as hard.” Her chest bounces as she laughs. “She could be a cold-hearted witch when she wanted to.”

Teddy floats over with her mouth agape. “What in the world is going on here? Lottie, you can’t just hog the suspect while you force Carlotta to do your dirty work. That’s exactly what she says is happening here.”

I give a tiny shake of my head in the gullible ghost’s direction. This is not the time or the place for Carlotta’s ridiculous shenanigans.

“Bambi?” I lean in. “Can I ask about that dark night you were alluding to? The way you wove your words, it was as if you were painting a picture. You really pulled me in.” Typically, greasing a suspect’s ego is a tried-and-true tactic, but at the moment, I happen to mean these words. She was that good.

She blows out a breath. “She iced me out. I suspect it had something to do with the fact she wanted me to take down one of her exes. She was notorious for collecting do-nothing cheaters who loved to mooch off of her. Verity always had a cash flow going. She was a hard-working thief, I used to call her.” She winks my way. “Her latest boyfriend was no different. Of course, Chad has a job. A chef or a magician or something like that. And I think he sings, too. I don’t really care for Chad all that much, so I’ve never put much energy into learning more about him.”

Teddy scoffs. “A singing chef and a magician? Verity always did like the go-getters even if they didn’t actually get anything. Oh dear, Carlotta is missing all of the good stuff. I wish you wouldn’t press ahead without her, Lottie. I have a feeling things will go terribly wrong if we don’t wait for our commander in chief to arrive.”

I roll my eyes and Bambi laughs.

“I thought the same thing, honey. A chef and a magician? Verity was probably blowing smoke up my skirt. She liked to do that toward the end. Let’s just say she needed to be in the driver seat of our friendship, and when the boat started to rock, she threw me overboard without hesitation. But like I said, I don’t really care about Chad. He’s a freaking lunatic just like the rest of the guys she attracted. Verity sure did seem to have it all together.” She nods to the crowd. “Especially to these guys, but she was a fractured mirror, long before I ever met her. And believe me, she cut everyone who dared get too close.”

“Oh dear.” Teddy shivers as a sprinkling of silver stars peppers to the floor. “Verity certainly was a walking piece of broken glass. I couldn’t have said it better myself. She said she’d claw her way to the top. She vowed she’d have enough money so that she wouldn’t have to rely on anyone.”

Interesting.

I lean toward Bambi. “So I take it Verity didn’t come from much.”

“Are you kidding? She was scraping and stealing from the waste bin just to keep herself fed as a kid. She was a dumpster diver before dumpster diving was cool.”

“Oh yes.” Teddy sighs. “Those were some of my best memories. Verity often said that’s why she needed me. I was able to winnow all the way down to the bottom of those steely, stinky wonders. And we always found treasures. Burgers and fries, and even the branch of a eucalyptus on occasion. We made a great team, Verity and me. That is, when she was in a good mood.”

“But I bet she was moody,” I say to Bambi with a nod. “You don’t get to be a genius like that without a few emotions.”

“You can say that again. She was a tempest in a teacup. She had to be just to survive.”

I nod. “And I bet that secret you’re holding for her had to do with her need to survive.”

Her eyes sharpen over mine a moment. “You can bet your bottom dollar it did.