My name is Lottie Lemon, and I see dead people. Okay, so I rarely see dead people, mostly I see furry creatures of the dearly departed variety, who have come back from the other side to warn me of their previous owner’s impending doom.
My mother’s B&B is hosting a Fright Night Festival for the entire month of October and since my bakery is out of commission I’ve opened up a booth there to sell my sweet wares.
But Not only is that lunatic, the Prankster, still terrorizing me, but a body turns up at the festivities. There are more pumpkins, candy, haunted hayrides, and ghosts than you can shake a magic wand at in Honey Hollow this time of year.
And just when I thought my honey-glazed doughnuts would be the talk of the festival, it’s a grim-faced ghoul stealing the show. But when I find a chilling clue hidden within my very own sweet wares, I realize that this Fright Night may just turn into my worst nightmare.
Can I sift through the madness, unmask the Prankster, and stop a killer before the final trick is on me?
Welcome to Honey Hollow—where the treats are sweet, the scares are sweeter, and murder is just the icing on the cake.
Lottie Lemon has a brand new bakery to tend to, a budding romance with perhaps one too many suitors, and she has the supernatural ability to see the dead—which are always harbingers for ominous things to come. Throw in a string of murders, and her insatiable thirst for justice, and you’ll have more chaos than you know what to do with.
Living in Honey Hollow can be murder.
Chapter 1
My name is Lottie Lemon, and I see dead people. Okay, so rarely do I see dead people. Mostly I see furry creatures of the dearly departed variety who have come back from the other side to warn me of their previous owner’s impending doom. But the only thing I’m seeing now is a whole gaggle of pink fairies and cute little green monsters.
“More candy! More candy!” a choir of adorably costumed children cries out at once as I try my best to sprinkle a handful of sweet treats into each of their plastic pumpkins.
I’m about to offer a second round of sweets when a terrible roar erupts, and that roar would be Carlotta jumping from behind and sending those kids screaming right out of my mother’s B&B.
A few salty words are lobbed our way by their mothers as they do a disappearing act as well.
“Carlotta,” I snip. “What the heck are you thinking, scaring the daylight out of those kids like that?”
My sister, Charlie, lifts a hand. “Don’t bother reprimanding her. Our mama doesn’t know right from wrong, up from down, or left from right. She’s a…” Charlie nods toward Carlotta. “Well, exactly what she’s dressed as—a wicked witch.”
It’s true. Carlotta is dressed to the wicked nines in a black tattered dress, her gray and honey blonde hair is teased every which way, and her face is covered in green foundation.
Carlotta opens her mouth to say something when a lone black feather drifts from the ceiling, leaving her looking transfixed by the sight for a moment.
The three of us are standing in the makeshift bakery that my mother—Miranda Lemon, the sweet angel who raised me—has lent me. This makeshift version of the Cutie Pie Bakery and Cakery just so happens to be in the heart of my mother’s happily haunted B&B. In addition to selling my pies, cakes, and cookies inside of her B&B, I also have a booth right outside these walls where all of Vermont seems to be gathered these days.
Back in September, I seemed to pick up a crazed lunatic’s attention who identified themselves via a series of mean-spirited riddles as the Prankster. And well, as their last act of terror, they not only temporarily kidnapped Lyla Nell, my sweet one-year-old, but they vandalized and virtually destroyed my bakery.
But it’s October now, the spookiest month of them all, and my husband, Everett, has hired the best contractor in town—my ex, Bear Fisher—to put the front of my bakery back together again. Thankfully, the kitchen was more or less untouched, so I’ve still got an army of bakers whipping up sweet treats and driving them straight over to the B&B so we can feed Honey Hollow.
The bakery should be ready for a grand reopening in just a few weeks. Or sooner if Bear takes me up on my bribe of free sweet treats for life. As much as I love my mother and all of the ghosts that take up residence in her sweet B&B, I must admit, there’s no place like home. And by home, I mean my bakery on Main Street.
I take a quick look around at the steady crowd streaming in through the front door of my mother’s massive B&B as they clamor to get a better look at the various desserts I have strewn out on the tables right next to the reception counter.
Lily, Suze, and Effie, three of my trusty employees, are helping me hock my yummy wares both inside and at the booth set up right outside. The crowds are ravenous in both places as they snap up the cinnamon rolls, brownies, the bevy of cupcakes decorated with edible witches’ hats, and marshmallow ghosts for the holiday at hand.
And you can bet all three of my employees are dressed to impress. Costumes are practically mandatory at my bakery for the entire month of October, so this makeshift version is no different. That’s exactly why I’m dressed as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, complete with a blue and white checkered dress, ruby slippers, and French braids. And Charlie is—well, she’s glued some Smarties candies to her leggings and she’s a self-professed smarty pants.
Every last inch of my mother’s B&B has been decorated for Halloween, but more importantly, for the festival, my mother is inadvertently hosting up until the spooky finale of this month—it’s a little community party she’s dubbed as the Fright Night Festival.
Of course, some festivities take place during the day as well for the little ones, but come evening the grounds of the B&B are transformed into the spookiest and perhaps kookiest place on the planet—or at least here in Honey Hollow.
My mother came up with the frightening idea after she lent me the space to open up my temporary bakery. She thought a spooky fall festival seemed like a perfect way to lure people to the B&B, seeing that it usually doesn’t have near the foot traffic that Main Street does.
And in true Miranda Lemon fashion, she’s turned this place into a carnival that has drawn just about every person in Vermont to her doorstep. She didn’t do it alone, however. She hired one of her boarders, Cormack Featherby, a feather-headed socialite to run the Fright Night festivities.
My mother put her money where her mouth was when it came to hosting the biggest haunted party Honey Hollow ever did see. And if Cormack is good at anything, it’s spending other people’s money—this time the money would be my mother’s.
I have to give it to Cormack. She’s called in her decorator friends who have turned the inside and outside of the haunted mansion into just that, a bona fide haunted mansion with enough spiders, bats, witches, scarecrows, monsters, and ghouls to scare up a fright all year long if need be.
And the festival? Well, let’s just say every food vendor in town has shown up to feed the masses, along with crafters who are happy to show off their wares.
The best part of all is there’s a haunted hayride that travels all around the grounds with things that go bump in the night that jump out at you. The ride is all fun and games during the day—and naughty and spooky as a horror movie at night.
Actually, I hear it’s more like a theme park ride with various spooky scenes that build to a terrifying crescendo. During the day, it’s tame and playful for the little ones, and at night it takes on a more demented feel. Apparently, the scenery and the storyline changes every night so that the teenagers and the grown-ups alike keep coming back for more. It doesn’t hurt that my mother is charging them a premium to do it either.
“Watch your language, Cha Cha,” Carlotta snips at my sister. “I am not dressed as a wicked witch. Do you see a pointy hat?” She thumps herself on the head as she says it. “Do you see a broom in my hand?” She tosses her empty hands in the air and another lone black feather drifts from the ceiling, falling right into her palm. “Gah,” she shrieks before shaking it loose and letting it fall to the floor.
“Please don’t tell me you’re afraid of a little old feather.” Charlie snatches the feather and fans it toward our birth mother.
“I’m not afraid of anything,” Carlotta bellows a touch too loud as if she were trying to convince herself.
I roll my eyes at the thought, although it’s probably true.
For as long as I’ve known Carlotta, I don’t remember her shirking away from anything.
“And the only reason you don’t have a broom in your hand is because you’re too afraid I’d make you use it,” I tell her.
There is no greater truth. Carlotta is pretty much allergic to manual labor.
“You got me there, Lot.” She grins for a moment. “But who needs to ride a broom when I can ride the arm of a handsome man or two.” She makes a face. “Now that Harry has put up the finish line to my freedom, I need to nab me as many men as I can get my grubby little hands on.”
Both Charlie and I frown at our birth mother in unison.
It’s true. Carlotta’s so-called boyfriend, Mayor Harry Nash, has told her that he wants monogamy come Christmas, and Carlotta has been bemoaning the fact ever since. Most women would be thrilled that they no longer have to share their man with heaven knows who, but not Carlotta. Mostly because the good time runs in the other direction as well.
“Oh, come on.” Carlotta waves us off. “You girls both know life is too short to date just one handsome man.”
“Please.” Charlie shakes her head. “We could barely survive the chaos you brought when you were single. You’re ten times the terror with one, two, or ten men by your side.”
“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” I muse.
Charlie really does know her.
“Eh,” Carlotta chuffs. “Survival is overrated. But variety, now that’s the spice of life. How am I supposed to stay spicy with just one man by my side? I’ve got less than eight weeks of freedom, and you girls can bet your britches I’m going to get while the getting is good.”
“Just don’t get any venereal diseases,” I say as I scoop up a fist full of candy. “You’re still living with me, remember?”
“Always and forever, Lot.” Carlotta crosses her heart. “You’ve got my pledge of household allegiance. I’ll be there until they drag my cold, dead body from my bedroom.”
Charlie sniffs. “Now there’s something to look forward to.”
Carlotta, Charlie, and I all share the same honey blonde hair, same hazel eyes—okay, so Charlie has a touch of blue—and the same build and features.
We also share the same cursed ability to see the dead.
Charlie gasps at something just past the wrought iron stairwell that leads to the second story.
“Charlie, what is it?” I ask, stepping in line with her in an effort to see anything that might pique my interest. The only thing I see is that oversized painting of my mother that hangs in the foyer.
“Nothing. I just…” her voice trails off and her face turns white as a sheet.
“Charlie, you look as if you’ve seen a ghost, and I’m not talking about any of the ghosts we know.”
Charlie shakes her head and snarls. “Oh, I had better have seen a ghost. Excuse me,” she says, speeding past me as she darts in that direction.
But before I can chase after her, I see a sight that sends a chill right up my spine.