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“MACY!” Mom shouts, but it’s too late.
Everyone erupts in chaos about spoilers and who died and whether the vampire actually died or if it was one of those fake deaths that vampires love so much, and Buffy just sits there with her book in her lap looking defeated.
“The ghost in my book is much better,” Georgie says. “And alive. Sort of.”
“Next month we’re reading nonfiction,” Buffy says flatly.
“True crime?” Mackenzie asks with a glimmer of mischief in her eyes.
“Gardening,” Buffy snips. “Nothing dies unless I say so.”
We start gathering our things—babies, pets, leftover desserts that we’re definitely taking home—and Georgie is still talking about that dreamy supernatural kiss and whether she should try to communicate with him in some otherworldly way that is definitely against our religion.
Mackenzie is helping Emmie wrangle Elliot back into his jacket while thinking, Next time Bizzy finds a body, I’m charging her a fine. A murder investigation tax. She’ll fund the entire city budget in a year.
Sadly, she’s probably onto something.
“This was supposed to be about literature,” Buffy says, watching everyone pack up.
“It was,” I say, grabbing one more pumpkin snickerdoodle for the road. “Murder mystery literature.”
Buffy gives me a look that suggests she’s reconsidering our sisterhood.
But as we’re leaving, she pulls me aside. “Hey. If you need help with the investigation, let me know. I actually do have a lot of resources at the shop. And I pay attention to who buys what.”
“Thanks, Buf.”
“Also,” she says, lowering her voice, “Ghoulia special-ordered a very rare book on untraceable poisons. She picked it up earlier this month, just two weeks before your latest homicide.”
I stare at her for a moment. “And you’re just mentioning this now?”
“I didn’t know it was relevant. People buy weird books all the time.”
“Name one that’s weirder.”
She opens her mouth and closes it.
The poison expertise. The destroyed career. The backstage confrontation. The crying fight with Clawdia. The cleansing candles. And now a book on untraceable poisons ordered two weeks before the murder.
Ghoulia Grimm just moved from a person of interest to prime suspect in the span of one very chatty book club. I think it’s time to see what the queen of poisons has to say for herself.
Somewhere across town, Ghoulia is lighting cleansing candles.
And if she’s the killer, she’s going to need a bigger flame.
CHAPTER 14
“Ican’t believe you talked me into this,” I say, tugging at the neckline of the purple velvet corset Macy and Georgie convinced me to wear.
“Your boobs look amazing,” Macy says, not looking up from the candle display she’s setting up next to the dessert table.
“That’s not the point.”
“That’s exactly the point,” Georgie says, adjusting her own purple corset, which is somehow even more dramatic than mine—and oddly looks like a spider sitting on her chest. “You’re investigating a murder at a horror festival. Blend in, Bizzy. And use your assets to catch a killer, will you?”
“I’m not using my assets to interrogate a seventy-nine-year-old woman about poison.”
“Why not?” Georgie looks affronted by my proclamation. “They’re right there. They’re taut, they’re perky, they’re practically begging to be deputized. You might as well shoot with every weapon you’ve got.”
