Lenny begins pacing around Gina in increasingly tight circles, his ghostly mane bristling with righteous indignation. He’s sparkling andshining, and well, glowing with white-hot rage. “She’s lying through her perfectly veneered teeth, Lottie,” he growls. “I can smell deception on her. Also, expensive perfume and what might be sweat laced with guilt.”
“Lottie, I think you’re confused—” Gina starts, but her voice has taken on that higher pitch that suggests panic might be setting in.
“Confused?” Carlotta snorts, unwrapping another chocolate bunny with unnecessary violence. “Honey, the only thing Lot Lot is confused about is how she ended up with two husbands and a body count that would make a serial killer jealous.”
“I know what you did,” I interrupt, just as Fairbanks appears, looking as if he’s been wrestling with more than just his conscience.
He’s disheveled in that I’ve-been-arguing-with-organized-crime-and-losing way, his usually perfect hair is mussed, and his expensive shirt wrinkled. There’s a sheen of sweat on his forehead that suggests his chat with Luke Lazzari didn’t go well, and his eyes have that wild look of someone who’s realized they’re in way over their head.
“Fairbanks!” Gina hisses under her breath. “What the heck happened?”
“Luke’s not happy,” he mutters, running a hand through his hair and coming up with a leaf. “He says the heat’s getting too intense. He wants us to shut everything down.”
“I know what you both did,” I continue, feeling like I’m finally connecting dots that have been scattered across Honey Hollow like confetti.
Lenny prowls around them in a circle, his ghostly form radiating menace while his eyes glow with predatory hunger. “Just give me the word, Lottie! I’ll show them what happens to people who threaten and kill those I love! My claws are twitching to dig right in.”
I nod to the couple. “You had a meager share of the business and wanted a cash infusion, but Duncan held the financial reins,” I start, ticking off evidence on my fingers while Carlotta provides inappropriate sound effects in the background as if all that chocolate has given her some serious digestion issues. “You needed a financial fix, so you started laundering money for Luke Lazzari through thecompany. Duncan found out and was going to expose you both. You were desperate, and you wanted him dead. First, you planned to pin it on Bunny with the digitalis—I’m betting you laced Duncan’s drink at the festival. But when that didn’t work fast enough, and after Duncan had that public blowout with Muffin, you grabbed the nearest weapon—my grandmother’s knife—and finished the job. I’m sure you were hoping the new widow would find herself in prison soon.”
Both Gina and Fairbanks shake their heads, but their denials lack conviction and are about as genuine as Carlotta’s professed monogamy.
“That’s ridiculous,” Fairbanks sputters, but his face has gone pale under his tan, making him look like a ghost who’s had a very expensive vacation.
“Is it?” I press on, taking another bold step forward. “You hand-delivered two perfect suspects to the sheriff’s department on a chocolate platter. Bunny with her foxgloves and access to digitalis, and Muffin with her motive and timing. Two perfect red herrings. But they both backfired on you because you underestimated small-town solidarity and my ability to see through a wall of lies.”
Lenny growls at the twosome before us as if he were about to pounce. And I’m half moved to let him.
“Way to go, Lot, Lot!” Carlotta applauds while still holding a bunny and bits of chocolate shoot every which way like candied shrapnel. “Way to build up the drama! I’m getting goosebumps! Well, it might be the sugar rush, but still. Way to take out the trash. You cuff ’em, and I’ll confiscate the goods.” She gives a side-eye to the tower of chocolate bunnies looking vacantly this way.
“Lottie, we’re friends, remember?” Gina tries, but her voice wavers like a soprano hitting a note that’s just out of reach.
“Friends don’t frame friends for murder,” I point out. “It’s like the first rule of friendship. Right after don’t steal each other’s boyfriends and always share dessert.” Not that she intentionally tried to pin the murder on me, but still, I found the body, and it happened to contain my knife.
Fairbanks pulls Gina back with a tight smile that’s about as reassuring as a shark in a swimming pool. “She’s right.”
“About the friendship rules?” Carlotta asks. “Because I’ve definitely broken those a few times. Well, more than a few times. Actually, I might have made a career out of it. Bros before hos and all that good stuff.”
I slice a glance her way and shake my head. That’s not how it goes. On second thought, that’s exactly how it goes in Carlotta’s world.
“You’re right about everything, Lottie,” Fairbanks clarifies, his smile taking on a maniacal edge that suggests he’s decided to stop pretending to be sane.
Gina swats at him like the annoying gnat he is. “What are you doing, you idiot?”
“Be quiet,” he snaps, his façade cracking completely. “Lottie figured it out. We knew she would.”
He looks back at me with that same unsettling smile and starts walking toward Carlotta and me, effectively backing us toward the tree line. The sounds from the festival are getting fainter by the second, which is never a good sign when you’re confronting a couple of killers.
“We laced his drink with a toxin that came straight from my sister’s little botanical witchery shop,” he continues conversationally, as if he’s discussing the weather instead of confessing to murder. “Bunny’s got quite the collection of deadly plants. She can be very educational. And then when Duncan went ballistic on Muffin, I had a change of heart.” His laugh has all the warmth of a morgue. “And then I stabbed him inhis.”
Lenny’s roar shakes the evergreens around us. “Give me permission, Lottie! Let me tear his throat out! I can even the score right now!”
Carlotta starts tap-dancing nervously beside me, her stolen chocolate bunnies spilling every which way with each movement. “Um, Lot? This confession is getting a little too detailed for my comfort. Can we wrap this up and maybe call for backup? Because I’m getting seriousvillain monologue vibes here, and those never end well for the good guys.”
But Fairbanks is herding us deeper into the woods, and the festival sounds are fading behind us like a distant memory. The trees close in around us, creating a thicket of darkness that seems to surround us with malicious intent.
Fairbanks reaches into his jacket with a jerk of his arm, and suddenly Carlotta and I are staring down the barrel of a gun, glinting in the dull light like a very unwelcome surprise.
This is it.
