“What makes you think that?” Brannon asked as he opened the envelope.
“Because the note asks to meet her upstairs in the bedroom. You should definitely send that to forensics for fingerprints.” I gestured toward the paper.
He shook his head. “Thank you for that tip. I’m hoping you didn’t touch it too much. We don’t need Ripley’s fingerprints all over it.”
I grimaced. “Oh, no. I didn’t think about that.”
Everyone was already suspicious of me and now there would be a paper with my fingerprints on it asking Tabatha to meet upstairs. This wouldn’t look good for me. Now my best friend and I were probably going to be accused of murder. Maybe people thought we were in on this together. Next thing I knew they would accuse my mother. After all, she had been up there too. That would not go over well with her. She’d probably faint if she heard that kind of news. For now, I wouldn’t even mention the idea to her. There was no reason to worry her for something that wasn’t even reality right now
Brannon handed the letter to another officer. “Bag this for me please.”
“Yes, detective.”
“Is there anything else that you’re not telling me?” Brannon asked.
“No, absolutely not,” I said.
Brannon studied my face for a moment. “You promise me you’ll tell me if you find anything else?”
“I gave you that letter, didn’t I?”
“That’s only because I walked up and caught you with it in your hand.”
“I can’t believe you don’t trust me,” I said.
He sighed. “I do trust you, Rip. I’m sorry. It’s just been a stressful time, that’s all.”
I touched his muscular arm. “You know I’ll help you any way I can.”
“That’s part of the problem. I don’t want you to help. It’s dangerous.”
“But…”
He held his hand up. “I don’t want you involved.”
Glancing around the room, I motioned toward the woman in the corner of the room. “Do you know who that is? Have you talked to her yet? I ask because I don’t know why but I just get a strange feeling that she might be guilty of something.”
“Guilty of murder?” Brannon asked.
“I didn’t say that, but yes, that’s what I was thinking.”
“She works here at the mansion. We haven’t had a chance to ask all the questions, but just got preliminary answers, but I think she’s fine,” Brannon said.
“What does she do here?” I asked.
“She cleans up around the rooms.”
“She’s at the wedding though.”
He shrugged. “I guess just to help out with the catering.”
“What if she helped clean the rooms? Then she’d have access to the bedroom. Maybe she asked Tabatha to meet her up there?”
“Why do you think that?” Brannon asked.
“What if it was for jealousy reasons? Perhaps over a boyfriend? There are a lot of questions to ask her.” The more I talked the faster the words came out.
“We have it under control, Rip. Remember to take a deep breath.”
No matter what Brannon said, I wanted to talk to this woman myself. As soon as I got the chance, I’d do just that. I needed to find out her name and address. I’d connect with her at a later time when I didn’t have eyes on me, and things were less chaotic.
***
Thank goodness a short time later the guests were allowed to leave. Tammy had discussed having the wedding again next weekend. I thought that sounded like a lovely idea. As long as she could erase the memory of what happened this evening and not let it affect the new event. She might be able to forget, but the murder had moved to the forefront of my mind.
“Is it okay if we leave now?” I asked as Brannon approached. “Tammy’s really tired and I know she wants to get home.”
Brannon ran his hand through his thick hair and released a deep breath. “Yes, it’s all right if you leave. Just don’t leave town, okay?”
I stared at him with my mouth open slightly. “Are you serious?”
He held his hands up. “I’m kidding. I’m kidding.”
“Don’t joke about things like that.” I clutched my chest.
As Brannon chuckled, I poked him in the chest teasingly.
“If you want to wait a few minutes I’ll give you a ride home.”
“Oh, it’s fine. I drove my car. Plus, I know you still have things to do before you leave here,” I said.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m positive.” I smiled.
He leaned down and kissed me on the lips. “Just be careful, all right?”
Brannon had to give that warning, but it was a little unsettling knowing that there could be a murderer anywhere around. What if the person waited outside to kill someone else? Like Tammy said, we could all be murdered. That was a terrifying thought.
However, I pushed it to the back of my mind. There was no reason to get myself all worked up before I stepped out into the endless dark surroundings. Anyone could lurk out there. I couldn’t believe that the ghosts were the least of my worries right now. I was more afraid of the living, but that usually was the case. The only way a ghost could hurt me was if the ghost had really bad intentions and a lot of energy in order to pull off their nefarious intentions.
A living person didn’t need to manifest all that energy in order to hurt me. They could just jump right out from their hiding place, brandish whatever weapon they had, and that would be the end of me. I’d be a goner in a flash, and I wasn’t about to let that happen. Not tonight, Satan. It wasn’t my time. I still had a lot of library books to check-in and a lot of haunted tours to give. Many, many, many years of that.
Tammy and I cautiously stepped out into the night. Matteo walked beside her. They held hands and I felt even worse that they hadn’t gotten a chance to marry tonight. My mother walked to my left. Up ahead, I noticed the woman that I’d seen inside the house. She was getting inside her car. At least I had a bit more information about Penelope Collette now. Tomorrow I would find her and ask more questions. If there was anything suspicious, then I would let Brannon know. Other than that, he didn’t need to know that I intended to interview her.
Chapter 10
How did the wedding go?
The text message popped up as soon as I walked through the library doors.
I sighed. “Not so great, Annie.”
Annie had been anxiously waiting for an update on the nuptials. I’d asked her to try her best to gather the energy needed to pop in and attend the wedding. In her last text message, she’d said it required too much energy to go to a wedding. She wanted to save all that energy for sending text messages. She knew she’d be sending a lot of messages in the next coming months. A lot of energy was needed for a ghost to communicate so I couldn’t blame her for wanting to save it.
I couldn’t blame her for not wanting to spend all that energy in one place. She’d rather dribble it out little by little sending text messages and getting updates on everything, not just one event.
Annie immediately appeared from around the corner. Sometimes she floated like a ghost and other times she walked like the living. I suppose it depended on her mood. She wore her signature white dress with lace high collar and her hair up in a high bun with ringlets falling around her rosy cheeks.