my heart does its best to thump right out of my body. “Come on, Everett. I see a soft pretzel with our names on it.”
We indulge in soft pretzels dipped in stone ground mustard, and it makes me wonder why I’m not offering up these salted wonders at my own bakery.
“I should make these,” I tell him. “And I can roll them in cinnamon and sugar, too. Oh! And we can dip them in caramel sauce.” It’s pretty much a done deal at this point.
“You could, but you’d put Mrs. Pretzel’s Pantry right out of business.”
I cringe at the thought. “And that would make me no better than Hot Hannah. I’d hate to have a visit by the man in the fedora, so I’ll just keep buying my pretzels across the street like a good neighbor. Speaking of neighbors, we should find Noah. We’ve looked high and low for that man in the red muscle tee—and it looks like he might have just been a man in a muscle tee. I guess he wasn’t a ghost.”
“Now that would be a relief.”
“You’re telling me. I’d like nothing more than to end this day on a positive note.”
His lids hood a notch. “You will.”
A laugh trembles through me as we navigate our way through the crowd. We finally hit the end of Main Street before backtracking again. We come as far as Swift Cycle before the urge to sit down, get a glass of water, and find a toilet hit me all at once.
“I can’t go another inch,” I say. “Let’s go in and see if Brit will give me some water. Not to mention the fact the baby is dancing on my bladder.”
Everett opens the door to the gym without hesitation, and we don’t take but two steps inside before a scream gets locked in my throat.
Lying on the floor with a bevy of paper cups strewn around her, her hand smashed through a slice of my pecan pie, is Hot Hannah.
Her body is motionless. Her mouth and eyes are open as she stares vacantly to the ceiling.
Everett quickly checks her vitals before shaking his head my way.
Hot Hannah isn’t going to have to worry about being sued by anybody.
Hannah Beckham is dead.
Chapter 3
She’s dead.
I glance down at the poor woman sprawled out on the ground and quickly scan the scene around her—the disarray of cups, her blouse looks disrupted, as if she had pulled and tugged at it, and near the front desk there’s a hot pink lock of hair that looks to be a hair extension.
Why does that look familiar?
Everett pulls me back outside and puts a call in to Noah, and not ten seconds later, the place is crawling with sheriff’s deputies.
Noah wraps his arms around me and swings me farther away from the building as he offers up a quick embrace.
He looks from me to Everett. “Tell me everything you saw.”
“I had to get a drink,” I say. “I needed to use the restroom, because well, the baby seems to have shrunk my bladder to the size of an acorn. Anyway, we walked in and we found Hot Hannah there on the floor. She was—she was dead.”
Everett nods. “I checked her vitals, and then we stepped out and I called you.” His lips twitch my way. “The woman had a slice of Lemon’s pecan pie with her. And it looked as if she was clawing for water. Maybe she had a nut allergy?”
“Could be.” Noah offers me a stern look. “But if you’re seeing a ghost, Lot, I highly doubt this was a natural event. Why don’t the two of you head back to my place? Lot, you’ve got a key.” Noah presses those evergreen eyes of his to mine. “I won’t be home until God knows when, but chances are there’s a killer out here somewhere and I need to know you’re safe.”
Everett nods his way. “I won’t leave her side.”
This is usually where I’d inject the fact I don’t need a babysitter, but we’ve gone around the block with this and I know they both genuinely care for my safety and that of the baby’s.
“Noah”—I lean in—“Everett and I saw a man with a fedora roughing her up just about an hour ago. He was shaking her, and their conversation looked pretty intense.”
“A man with a fedora?” He quickly pulls a deputy aside and sends him scouring the area for a man who fits the description.
“And nearby her body”—I add—“inside the gym, there’s a hot