She makes a sharp right down a blind corner, and I’m hot on her celestial tail. The sound of a woman’s voice shouting something comes from the left. I glance over, only to see a man dressed as a vampire, and just past him a few feet is a woman dressed as a large cat. It’s Jack and Carrie. Only Jack doesn’t seem to be paying any attention to Carrie. He’s looking at something or someone down another corridor and a woman’s voice emanates from there.
Another woman takes a step toward him, and I recognize that tattered black dress, that pointy hat with blonde whips of hair sticking out from underneath it. It’s Miggy. He pulls at her wrist and says something to her, but she pulls right back and it looks as if they’re dancing.
My vision! It’s coming true!
He’s saying something to her and she tries to run back down the corridor she came from, but he pulls her forward once again.
“I’m in danger,” her voice echoes, and a breath hitches in my throat.
“Not if you come with us,” Jack thunders as Carrie crops up next to him, begging her to do the exact same thing. Carrie glances in my direction, and I quickly jump back out of view and bump into a body.
I let out a howl as I try to stumble away from the ghost or ghoul or…suspect.
“Bowie?” A startled dimple-faced Little Red Riding Hood staggers back a step herself.
“Annabelle.” My adrenaline spikes because she just so happens to be the exact person I was coming up to see. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there.”
“Well, how could you?” She laughs. “Unless you’ve got X-ray vision, or you can see the future.”
“I can see the future,” I tease. “I just never know what it means.”
She laughs again. “That went over my head.” She ticks her head toward an open door to the left. “I was just about to head into the room that Miggy likes to call the reading attic.” I follow behind as we head into a dimly lit cavernous room with a vaulted ceiling. The wooden floors are stained dark and so are the exposed beams up above. My guess is that this room sits right over the library.
Annabelle shrugs. “Since so many of the young kids are staying late tonight and just begging to see what’s going on upstairs, Miggy thought it would be good if we could put out some tricks and treats—and books, of course, before inviting the little ones up to see it. I thought it might be nice to light up a few pumpkins and candles near the back. The deeper you get into the room, the darker it is.”
A giant cathedral-shaped window sits at the end of the room lined with velvet navy curtains.
I follow her in that direction as she lights up three thick candles and sets them along the ledge. A couple of jack-o’-lanterns sit on an elongated table laden with books, and she lights those, too, and the room takes on a peach glow.
“Annabelle? Can I ask you a question?”
She blinks my way, and the poor lighting enunciates the dark circles under her eyes. The sight alone makes my stomach churn. Carrie said the poor girl hardly sleeps, and sadly, it shows.
“Anything.” She offers a dimpled grin as she straightens the colorful books on display.
“Um, Miggy lost her necklace.” I shrug. I’m not sure why I decided to lead with that—lead with a lie, but I did and we’re here now.
“Her necklace?” She looks momentarily confused.
“Yeah, it’s antique silver.” I tap my neck. “She just lost the pendant. I guess it wasn’t secured very well.”
She rocks her head back. “Oh, that necklace. I know exactly what you’re talking about. It was a clip-on earring. They were mine, actually. My grandmother gifted me a pair for Christmas years ago, and they pinched my ears so hard it felt like a punishment to have them on, so I had the thought to wear one as a pendant. I gave one to Miggy as a gift. She was making necklaces for a party of hers, and I thought it’d go perfect with her dress.” She takes a moment to glare out the blackened window.
“I take it that was back when you were friends.” I make my way around the table where she is.
A dull laugh thumps from her. “Yup. It feels like a million years ago.” Her jaw clenches as if the memory still had the power to stir her to anger.
“You don’t care for Miggy very much, do you?”
The whites of her eyes flit to mine, glossy as shards of glass.
“I don’t think we need to like everyone in this life, Bowie. There are some people we’re simply stuck on the planet with.”
“And you feel stuck with Miggy.”
Her lips curve a notch as she eyes something at the end of the table, and I note it’s the picnic basket that goes along with her costume.
She takes a deep breath. “I won’t always have to deal with those people. Sometimes you need to take the devil by the horns and remove the people from your life that don’t deserve to be there.”
“Is that why you removed Hazel?”
Her eyes dart to mine, wide-eyed as a look of horror bleaches out her face.
“You killed Hazel Newton that night, didn’t you?” No sooner do I say Hazel’s name than a flicker of light illuminates the wall behind her, but I don’t take my eyes off the woman before me.
“How did you…?” Annabelle shakes her head in disbelief. “No.” Her voice hikes a notch as she grabs ahold of her basket. “I didn’t do it.”
“You did.” My voice softens. “And it was an accident, wasn’t it, Annabelle?”
Her chest bucks, and she holds the basket tightly.
“Yes,” the word hardly croaks from her lips.
“You thought it was Miggy, didn’t you? You never wanted to kill Hazel. And once you stabbed her to death, you took off to the side of the manor and you touched the wall to turn on the hose. I saw your bloody handprint. I also saw the pendant that fell from the necklace you were wearing that night.”
Her hand floats to her neck. “I did.” She stares ahead blankly. “It was an accident.” Her voice grows small. “I never wanted to hurt Hazel,” she shouts her friend’s name, and in a flash of lightning Hazel appears beside her in her ghostly form, her body completely see-through as if she were made of glass. Hazel looks angry and hurt, and a smidge bit pleased all at once as she looks over at Annabelle.
I bet she’s thrilled her killer has finally been caught.
“Miggy deserves to die.” Annabelle’s voice shakes. “She destroyed my company.”
“She had a very different marketing strategy.”
“Which she wouldn’t share!” her voice riots to thunderous octaves. “She said she told me all she knew, but if that was true, why wasn’t I getting off the ground? Why was she floating in the stratosphere while I was left to drown?” Her voice continues to escalate as crimson tracks take over the whites of her eyes. “She knew how much it meant to me. And I hated her for leaving me in the dust like that. All I wanted was my career back. I would have done anything—”
“Did you?” I cut her off. “Because if you try to implement some of those methods she taught you—”
“I’d be in this exact same predicament!” she riots. “Miggy let me help out with a few things back when she was mentoring me. That didn’t end well.”