My jaw dropped. “What’s wrong with baking bread?”
“Not a dang thing.” He let himself out the back. Through the window, I watched him cross back toward his house with the long, unhurried stride of someone who had nowhere to be but was always slightly braced for wherever he ended up.
I looked down at Teddy.
"There is nothing wrong with this dress," I told my skunk.
Teddy sneezed.
“Harper! Harper! I desperately need your help!” Allison called out, bursting into the kitchen, wild-eyed and frantic.
Two
“What happened?” I asked, already scanning Allison for blood, broken bones, or evidence she’d been attacked by an angry ghost.
“My laptop won’t connect to your WiFi and I have chapters I have to send to my editor within the hour or she is going to think I have abandoned the manuscript entirely. I cannot have that conversation again, Harper, I simply cannot.” Allison pressed a hand to her chest like she might actually faint.
I had braced myself for so much worse. A fellow guest falling out a window. A poisoning of the welcome chocolates. The ice for the mint juleps being melted. That’s what happens when your bed and breakfast is known as Murder House. You expect the worst.
“That’s an easy fix. I’ll take care of it for you right now. The house router resets if you unplug it and plug it back in. It lives in the hall closet under the stairs. Very high tech operation I’m running here. Feel free to reset it yourself if it goes out again and I’m not around.”
“Would you mind showing me exactly how to do it? Technology and I have a complicated relationship.”
I led Allison to the closet, unplugged the router, counted to ten out loud like I was playing hide and seek, and plugged it back in.
“You’re a lifesaver,” Allison said, already typing furiously on her phone while we waited for the little blinking lights to stabilize.
“So you’re on a deadline for the new book?” I had no idea how that sort of thing worked. It seemed like such a cliche that writers were always frazzled and on a deadline but there must be some truth to it.
“Yes. It’s due in September and I’ve barely started. I have twelve months of writing to fit into five.”
“That sounds unfortunate.” I shut the closet door. “What’s the book about?”
“It’s set in New Orleans. A fictionalized Garden District family, several generations, several scandals. Evelyn has been extremely helpful with research.”
I wasn’t sure if that was sarcasm or amusement. Allison’s expression was hard to read.
“Evelyn seems like she would be a stickler for accuracy.”
“Not in this case.”
Definitely amusement. The sort of I-have-a-secret look on Allison’s face gave it away.
“That sounds interesting.”
“It’s all a nightmare,” Allison said cheerfully, and went back to her phone. “I should have been a true crime writer. So much more straightforward.”
“But bloodier,” I commented. “I should know.”
“Why is that?”
“I co-host a true crime podcast with my best friend, Murder Maggie.” It was a morbid nickname but not the worst the internet had called Maggie, unfortunately. Everyone had an opinion.
The nickname had stuck and Maggie didn’t mind it.
I would hate it, but fortunately for me, even though Homicide Harper was an obvious pairing to Murder Maggie, no one seemed to have thought of it. Yet.
“You do? Fascinating! I’ll have to pick your brain. I’ve been noodling with the idea of writing a time travel novel. I could have the contemporary female protagonist be a true crime podcast host. Then she gets sucked back into a series of serial murders from the Victorian era.”
