“No.” I hooked my arms through both of theirs. “Come on. Let’s go see what Roan’s feeding the guests tonight.”
Alice gasped. “Won’t we be intruding?”
I smiled. “No. I don’t think so. Besides, we’ve got planning to do. First thing is to figure out how to steal theSpiritusback from Fannie. Without breaking one of her hips, I mean.”
Ruth smirked. “You know they say that sometimes the hip breaks first and then the person falls.”
“I’ve heard that,” I murmured. “Let’s just hope that wherever she is, Fannie isn’t causing any trouble. She doesn’t know it, but she’s bitten off more than she can chew.”
“A lot more,” Alice agreed. Her brow crinkled in thought. “Do you think Roan will have pie? I’m tired of shortbread.”
I laughed. “Come on. Let’s find out.”
TWENTY-ONE
“Fannie’s disappeared,” I said.
Roan, Axel, Pepper, Ruth, Alice and I sat around the dinner table.
Roan’s brow furrowed. “For good?”
Against my better judgment and plans to keep my thighs trim, I broke open a dinner roll and slathered butter on it.
Only one, I promised myself. I would not resort to stress eating. “I don’t think Fannie’s gone for good, but where is she?”
“Avoiding you.” Axel poured himself a glass of tea from a pitcher. “She’ll be back. Especially if she took the spirit.”
“But why take it?” Pepper said. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“She needs something from him.” Ruth stirred green beans around her plate. “Mark my words, that woman needs something from that spirit.”
“Like what?” I spoke between bites of dinner roll. Man, was it heavenly. “The supposed treasure inside that place?”
“Whoa”—Roan flared out a hand—“there’s treasure in the house?”
“Supposedly,” I explained. “But there’s no evidence.”
He hitched a brow. “Maybe there is evidence and we just don’t know it. Maybe that’s why Fannie took the tube.”
“So the spirit could show her where the treasure is,” Alice chirped. She poured half a gallon of gravy on her roast. “If I thought there was treasure and I finally had a spirit under my control, I’d use it to my advantage.”
“You’d use it if the spirit promised to introduce you to a mountain of shortbread,” Ruth said smartly.
Alice sniffed. “I might.”
“Okay, we’re getting off track.” I gazed at each person in turn. “It’s not as if Fannie’s going to run into that house with the Jarvises in there. She needs it empty if she’s searching for treasure.”
“You don’t know that,” Axel said. “How stable is Fannie?”
I laughed. That was the joke of the century. “Oh, she’s as stable as the next person who drinks whiskey like water and has stuffed all her dead cats.”
“Oh, that is strange.” Alice nudged Ruth. “Isn’t it? I might like shortbread, but I wouldn’t stuff my pets. When they’re dead, they’re dead.” She clutched her chest. “You don’t think her husband’s stuffed and hanging out in the attic, do you? Or worse, a bedroom?”
Ruth patted Alice’s hand. “Let’s calm down. I’m sure Fannie Sullivan doesn’t have an army of stuffed people or creatures in her home.” She shot me a hopeful look. “Right, Blissful?”
I shrugged. “I can’t make any promises. I didn’t see anything other than cats, and there’s no evidence of a husband.”
“Thank goodness.” Alice exhaled a breath filled with the sound of relief.
