Better Off Dead Read online

  Noelle smiled. "It was bound to happen." She tilted her head at Kitty and studied her for a second. "I'm not familiar with your brand of magic, but I can sense it there. I'm guessin' you can do the same, so you already know what I am."

  Kitty gave her a lopsided grin. "I did. I caught your aunt peekin' over my shoulder when I was cookin' this morning. I'm not sure if she doesn't trust me to feed you or if she was tryin' to steal my great-grandmammy's pancake recipe."

  Addy popped in beside Noelle, scowling. "I don't need to steal your recipe. I have my own, and it's perfect just the way it is, thank you very much." Her scowl turned to a small smile. "Though I do like the way you made the blueberries a little syrupy with honey before you added 'em in."

  "Hush," Kitty said, her face glowing with pride. "That's my secret ingredient. If you go spreadin' the word, folks won't have to come here to get 'em."

  "Pht," Addy scoffed. "I doubt you have to worry much about that. I taught the girls to make mine when they were barely teenagers, and it didn't create no drivin' need for them to cook for themselves."

  "Hey!" Noelle exclaimed. "I've been baking since I was old enough to stand on a stool and do it."

  "That's bakin', not cookin'," Addy replied.

  I held up my hand. "Okay, already. I'm glad everybody's all peas and carrots now, but I have something serious to talk to Kitty about."

  "You want us to head inside so you can talk in private?" Noelle asked.

  "No," I said. "I don't think that's necessary."

  Kitty smoothed non-existent wrinkles from her apron—something she did when she was worried. "What is it, Cori? Is it somethin' about Daisy?"

  Pulling in a deep breath, I shrugged. "Sort of, but not like you'd think. Don't freak out, but I have to ask—have you seen Rhea, or somebody who looks enough like her to be her twin?"

  "Or maybe an older model red Caddy?" Addy asked.

  Kitty frowned. "Of course I haven't seen Rhea, Cori. You know that. And I haven't seen anybody who looks like her, either. What's this about?"

  I sighed. "I would have sworn Rhea passed us this morning on our way here. Flew by us in a red convertible."

  A few emotions flitted across her face. "That just can't be," she finally said. "Rhea would have never let us mourn her like that if she wasn't gone."

  My heart went out to her. I knew what she was feeling; I was struggling with the same thoughts she was. "Well, as these folks have pointed out, if she did, I'm sure she had her reasons."

  She'd cycled through shock and confusion and settled on anger. "Well then, if you passed her on your way here, she was likely headed to Sean's. Get your bucket out there and find out what's goin' on, one way or another."

  I pushed up from the porch swing and Alex did the same. "That's exactly where we were going next," I said as we thunked down the steps and toward the truck. "I'll let you know what we find out."

  "You do that," she replied, her brow furrowed. "And don't take too long doin' it either. You can't just drop something like that on a person then leave 'em hangin'. If I didn't have supper to make, I'd be goin' with you."

  I waved at her over my shoulder. "I'll call you when I leave Sean's."

  "If there's anything we can help with, let us know," Noelle called after us.

  Though I knew it was a genuine offer, there wasn't anybody who was going to be able to help me through what I had to do next.

  We climbed in the truck, and Alex turned in the direction of Sean's.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  SEVERAL EXPENSIVE VEHICLES were lining Sean's brick-paved driveway when we got there. That wasn't out of the ordinary; in fact, it would have been more unusual had it been empty.

  We pulled in behind a Range Rover and made our way up the grand staircase to the veranda, where I picked up the giant lions-head knocker and dropped it. There was a doorbell, but I preferred the knocker, both because it was neat, and because it drove his doorman batty. My lack of decorum made me a heathen in his eyes, and it was all he could do to remain civil whenever he had to deal with me. For some perverse reason, I enjoyed needling him.

  I was just reaching for the knocker again when the door swung open and I came face to face with His Stuffiness.

  "Jeeves," I said in the hoity-toitiest tone I could manage. "We're here to see the master of the house. Is he in?"

  The thundercloud that crossed his face told me he would dearly love to rip my throat out, if only he wouldn't face certain death doing it. And, just for clarification, his name wasn't Jeeves.

  "I'll check to see if he's receiving ... visitors," he said, staring down his nose at me as if I were three-day-old Spam. I stepped forward, but the door slammed soundly in my face.

  Alex sighed. "Why do you insist on poking him every time we come here? You could try a little sugar rather than vinegar; he doesn't treat me like that when I show up here alone."

  "That's because you're his idea of the ideal guest," I replied, casting a glance at his black dress pants and button-down shirt. "Classy, sophisticated, and male. I, on the other hand, am just a lippy, irreverent child whom he thinks is in a position I inherited rather than earned."

  "Still," he said, "butlers know everything that goes on in a household. You never know when having him on your side may come in handy."

  I waved him off. "It's not like I started it. He's disliked me since the first time he met me. I refuse to suck up to him just to make him my BFF. Besides, it's not like it would work, anyway."

  The door swung back open and a smiling Sean pulled the door open and made a sweeping gesture to invite us in. "Cori, Alex, what a delightful surprise. Do you have a lesson with Charlotte?"

  "Not tonight," I replied. "Unfortunately, I have an uncomfortable question for you."

  His brow furrowed. "Then let's go to my den. If it's that uncomfortable for you, I'm sure a finger or two of scotch will smooth the way."

  That was just like Sean—the consummate host. And when he said scotch, he didn't mean the rotgut stuff you bought off the shelf at the local liquor store. No, that wouldn't do for him at all. He had bottles that he'd picked up over the centuries from the finest distilleries in the world. Stuff so smooth, you didn't dare pollute it with an ice cube.

  And right then, it wasn't sounding like a bad option. Sean was affable, if a little odd, at least until he wasn't. There wasn't much that ruffled him, as he tended to live in his own world. Mess with something in that world, though, and you would pay dearly. I'd never witnessed anything but kindness from him, but Kat, whom he'd "raised,” had some wicked stories about him.

  He'd taken me under his wing a year or so ago when there had been some gruesome paranormal murders and tended to give me a bit more leniency than he typically would to a youngster such as myself. Considering he'd been around for a thousand years or so, I was still a child to him. He rarely treated me that way, though.

  "Sounds great," Alex replied as we followed our host through a hall toward a set of closed, ornate pocket doors. "I have a feeling she's gonna need it."

  Sean gave him a questioning look as he slid the doors closed behind us. A fire crackled in the fireplace, as it always did regardless of the temperature. It gave the room a warm glow, gleaming off the rich wood that comprised most of the room.

  He stepped to a sideboard and poured amber liquid from a cut-crystal decanter into three matching whiskey glasses, then handed one to Alex and another to me.

  "Please, sit," he said, motioning to one of two burnished leather sofas situated so that they were facing each other in front of the fireplace. We did so.

  "Now, what is this difficult question you have for me?"

  I swirled the scotch in my glass. The glow from the fire shone through the cut crystal, fracturing into small beams that shot through the amber liquid. I looked him in the eye.

  "Five years ago, my friend Rhea Baker died in a car crash, or at least we thought she did."

  His face remained impassive, but something flickered in his eyes. "I assume the
important part of that sentence is the last part."

  I pulled in a deep breath and puffed it out through my cheeks. "Yes. I'm sure I saw her yesterday, driving a red Cadillac in this direction."

  He sat back and crossed one leg over the other, his dark eyes piercing mine. "And you want to know if she's here. If she lived through the crash." The question was rhetorical; he knew that's what I was asking. He sighed. "I knew this was going to become an issue if she came back here."

  I felt like somebody'd punched me in the gut and I took a gulp of the scotch, grateful for the near-immediate warming in my belly. "So it was her."

  He nodded. "It was. But you have to understand—her disappearance was neither intentional nor her decision. At least not consciously."

  "And what, exactly, does that mean?" I asked, a mix of anger, hurt, and confusion washing through me. "And can I see her?"

  A soft knock sounded on the door. "Sean," said a female voice I'd never thought to hear again, "let me explain it all to her. She deserves to hear it from me."

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE DOORS SWISHED OPEN and Rhea glided into the room, looking nearly identical to how she had the last time I'd seen her, before she'd gone to work that night five years ago. She had the smooth, classy beauty that all vampires shared, and the freckles on her nose were gone, but other than that, she hadn't aged a day.

  Cold sweat bathed my forehead and I thought maybe I was going to pass out as she moved to take a seat beside Sean.

  "Cori, you have to believe I never meant to hurt you."

  I couldn't seem to find my voice around the conflicting emotions, so I just stared at her, drinking in the face I'd never thought to see again.

  She reached a hand out to touch me, but I pulled back. She withdrew, her hand wavering as if she didn't know what to do with it for a second. She settled it on her knee and continued, a pleading look in her eyes.

  "I don't even remember the wreck. I remember being angry and driving faster than I should have, and I remember headlights plowing toward me in my lane." She raised her hands, palms up. "And that's it. Nothing until five days later, when I woke up here."

  Alex had remained silent, leaning back on the couch, but he'd put his hand on my back in a silent show of support. His warmth seeped through me, and I was grateful for it.

  "So why didn't you come to me when you woke up?"

  She shook her head. "I tried. I snuck out of here and made it as far as your house. I stopped when I saw you with Mama on your porch."

  I remembered that day. Mama and Daddy had been out of town on pack business and my car had been broken down. Rhea's mama had stopped to pick me up for the funeral, which had been postponed until her massive extended family could get there. We'd sat on my porch drinking tea that neither of us could taste, just sharing our utter misery.

  "You were both so miserable, and all I wanted to do was comfort you. But then I smelled her, and my throat burned with the need to feed. It was all I could do to force myself away. At that point, I knew I had to go away until I could control it. And besides, how would I possibly explain it to Mama? She doesn't know anything about the supernatural world. And at that time, I believed I was the worst of the worst. A parasite who couldn't live without a host."

  She gave a short, self-deprecating laugh. "Hell, I hadn't even known about you. About what you are. I hadn't known about any of the creatures living right under my nose. You, Sully, half the kids we'd gone to school with. I felt like everybody'd lied to me."

  She looked me in the eye. "I was so mad at you for hiding it from me. I didn't even know about you"—she waved a hand, motioning around the room—"or any of this until that day. Mama smelled ... delicious."

  She wrinkled her nose in disgust, and I didn't know if it was at herself or me. "But you ... you smelled sorta like a dog. I didn't understand."

  I tried to put myself in her place, and pity flashed through me at how confused and conflicted she must have been. I wished more than anything that she'd have come to me.

  "I came back here, where Estefan—the man who'd found me and rescued me—explained everything. I never wanted to speak to you again, at first. A few days later, though, I tried to come see you again, but Zach and a couple other humans were at your house."

  Helplessness crossed her face. "I just couldn't be around them. I was weak, and hungry all the time, and angry. Finally, I gave up. Estefan convinced me to go to his estate in Spain. At the time, I thought he was being cruel, pulling me away from what little familiarity I had, but now I know he was being kind. It had to have been brutal watching me struggle. I hated myself and who I'd become. I hated you. I just ... hated." She cast her gaze into her lap. "I'm sorry."

  I pulled in a deep breath, then released it. "So I have to ask ... why now?"

  She gave me a small smile. "I'm still asking myself that. My friend Dominique convinced me to come. She's helping Sean design the resorts, and I thought maybe I could check on you and Mama. I hadn't thought much past being home."

  My elbows were on my knees, and I dropped my head into my hands, trying to think through the feelings.

  She moved around to sit beside me on the couch, tentatively touching me on the back. "I never meant to hurt you, Cori. Just the opposite. You'd accepted my death, and I'm not the person you remember. Besides, it's not like I can stay here. People—humans—think I'm dead, and we can't hardly tell them the truth, now can we?"

  "So Corrine knew?"

  She shifted and slid her gaze away from me. "She did. But don't be angry with her. She argued fiercely that I should tell you. In the end, she accepted that it was my decision, but she didn't like it a bit."

  She was making rational points that I'd have to sort through once I could separate the emotions from the facts. I wasn't there yet, though. So, I did what I do best—I compartmentalized, shoving the emotional bits haphazardly into a mental box to deal with later, and keeping the analytical bits that had to be managed now.

  "Can you forgive me?" she asked.

  I held up a hand and shrugged her hand off my back, then pushed to a standing position and took her abandoned seat beside Sean. I needed distance. "I can't go there right now. I have a murder to solve, and you were seen there right around the time it happened."

  She furrowed her brow. "A murder? Who was murdered?"

  For the first time, I sensed deception from her and I cleared the residual emotion from my brain so I could focus on the here and now.

  "Somebody pushed Daisy Westfield over the banister at Kitty's B&B yesterday morning. A witness puts you at the scene, looking mad as a wet hen and spinning gravel on your way out."

  "Well," she said, not meeting my gaze. "They must have been mistaken."

  "Is that your final answer?" I asked. "Because you're wrong. You are the same person, and you're no better at lying now than you were five years ago."

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  DESPITE ME CALLING her out, she stuck to her guns. Sean had suggested that we all take a few hours to gather our emotions before we continued, probably because I was about to shake the truth out of her. That would have been a mistake, both because she probably wouldn't have told me the truth anyway, and because she was a vampire and it would have gotten ugly.

  Alex had convinced me to leave before it got to that point, and the last I saw of her, she was watching me from Sean's front door, her face a blank mask.

  "She's lying," I insisted once we were on the way back to town.

  "I believe you," Alex replied as he took a right. "But you weren't going to get anything else out of her, and there was no point in staying there. What you need to do is figure out why she was there."

  "How do you expect me to do that when the only person who saw her is a ghost? And an out-of-towner to boot? What if it wasn't Rhea she saw at all?"

  "I think it's a safe bet that it was Rhea who Addy saw," he replied. "The only question is if she was the one who killed her. Remember, you do still have the lovely Mrs. Smith to consider."<
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  Something Noelle had said clicked in my brain. "Coralee said Daisy was waffling over whether or not she should keep a secret."

  "Yeah," Alex replied, and I saw it the moment it clicked in his head, too. "You think she knew Rhea was alive."

  I nodded. "It's not like there are that many secrets in this town. If she knew something nobody else did, it almost had to be something outside the realm of regular gossip."

  Alex laughed. "I think maybe you're overestimating the powers of the local gossip mill."

  "Maybe," I replied, "Or it just hadn't gotten out yet. Maybe we need to talk to her friends."

  "Or maybe the simplest explanation is the right one. Mrs. Smith got pushy and shoved her over."

  I huffed out a breath. "Yeah, that's possible, too. But it still doesn't explain why Rhea lied to me."

  Before he could reply, my phone dinged, and I pulled it from my pocket. A strange Georgia number had sent me a text.

  It's Noelle. Coralee found out something you might be interested in. It doesn't make any sense, but Daisy told her hairdresser she'd found out somebody had faked their death.

  I read it out loud to Alex.

  "So Daisy knew about Rhea. Do you really think somebody would have killed her to shut her up?"

  I thought about the Rhea I'd grown up with, and the woman I'd spoken with at Sean. Honestly, they hadn't seemed that different to me. At least until she'd lied to me. That wasn't something the old Rhea would have done.

  "I honestly don't know," I replied. "I mean, I guess if somebody was worried about exposing the supernatural world, they might have. But you know how it goes. We debunk that sort of stuff quietly and non-violently. She was mistaken. She was drunk. She was hallucinating. It's not always nice, but it does always work. People don't want to believe in the supernatural."

  "No," he said as we pulled onto Main Street, "but she seemed pretty protective of her mama. And we know that even after five years, many vampires don't have good control of themselves. Maybe she just went to ask her to drop it and then pushed her too hard or something."