She shrugs and winks at the very same time. “Let’s just say I know people.”
“I know people, too,” I counter. “People with handcuffs. So it’s a big no, but a big thank you anyway, all the same.”
“I’m just saying, one phone call and those boys would?—”
I shake my head. “I think we’ll save the mob connections for another time.” A brief fantasy runs through my mind of DarylPickens meeting up with a man named Lefty, who happens to know how to crack a kneecap. I shake the thought out of my head and frown.
“Your loss,” she says. “But you know where to find me.” She breaks out into a killer grin, and I can’t help but laugh.
Suze tsks as she snatches a red velvet cookie from the shelf. “Well, I hope Noah and the sheriff’s department do something. Those boys need a wake-up call before they hurt someone.”
“I wholeheartedly agree,” I say, transferring a tray of sugar cookies to a cooling rack. “But right now I’ve got bigger problems. Like keeping these banana pudding cups in stock.”
“Oh, you can thank your mother for that,” Suze says, ringing up a customer. “Ever since she started that morbid little tour of hers, we can’t keep any of your murder treats on the shelves.”
I wince. “The Last Thing They Ate Tour strikes again.”
“That’s the one.” Suze hands the customer their change and a white bakery box. “She finishes up her happily haunted B&B tour, points the tourists down Main Street, and they buy twelve cups each of the latest homicide’s last meal.”
Lily cackles. “It’s morbid as heck, but I respect the hustle.”
“It’s terrible,” I say, but even I have to admit—my mother knows how to turn a dollar and make a ghost holler. And as long as I keep accidentally stumbling over corpses, she’ll keep lining both our bank accounts with green.
So terrible, and yet so effective.
I’m a little ashamed of how okay I am with it. A crowd wanders in, and suddenly Suze, Lily, and Effie are too busy selling my murder treats to tease me about them.
Percy hops from the stroller to the counter, cocking his head at me. “You’re profiting off Mother Vivi’s death, darling. How deliciously ironic.”
“I didn’t ask for this,” I whisper, glancing around to make sure no one’s listening to metalk to thin air.
“And yet here you are, cashing checks with her name on them. Proverbially, of course.”
I lean closer to the counter, keeping my voice low. “I’msolvingher murder. That counts for something.”
“Does it, though? Because from where I’m standing, or hovering, rather, you’re running a profitable side hustle based on corpse discovery.”
“I amnotrunning a—” I catch myself getting too loud and drop back to a whisper. “Percy, I swear to all that is?—”
“Please. You can’t even commit to the moral outrage. You’re already calculating how much banana pudding you can buy with the profits.”
“That is—” I stop cold and wince. “Okay, fine. Maybe a little.”
“A little?” Percy fans his tail feathers smugly. “Honey, you’re one dead body away from franchising.”
I press my lips tight to keep from bursting out in a laugh. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“On the contrary, I’mfascinated. Mother Vivi dies tragically, and somehow you end up with a bakery boom and a themed dessert. It’s like watching capitalism in motion itself, but with more frosting.”
“You’re impossible,” I tease.
“I’m entertaining.”
“Same thing.”
“I’ll give you that.”
My phone buzzes on the counter.
