Chapter 2
Lottie
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 right now, the only thing I see is a magnificent circus tent glowing against the night sky.
The June air smells like popcorn, cotton candy, and deep-fried everything, which means we’re standing smack in the middle of the Sterling and Sons Circus fairgrounds, just steps away from the massive pink-and-white-striped tent.
The sun set about twenty minutes ago, and the first stars are starting to peek out as if they want to see what all the fuss is about too.
The Honey Hollow fairgrounds sprawl across the field just past my mother’s B&B in a riot of lights and noise that could probably be seen from the North Pole.
It’s all flashing bulbs, carnival music, and enough neon to make my retinas beg for mercy.
Bodies are pouring in from every direction, and by the looks of it, all of Vermont has shown up this evening.
And for once, every last body in my vicinity is vertical. I consider that a personal victory.
A Ferris wheel spins lazy circles against the darkening sky, a handful of other rides whirl and clatter nearby, and the game booths promise prizes that weigh more than my toddler. Somewhere in the distance, an elephant bellows out a trumpet call.
At least I hope that’s an elephant.
“I can’t wait to feast my eyes on all those strong men,” Carlotta announces, loud enough that three families turn to stare.
She’s walking beside me in skintight leopard print and hot pink heels, shocking absolutely no one.
Her caramel-colored hair catches the carnival lights as if she’s auditioning for the ringmaster position herself.
“You know what they say about circus performers, Lot Lot. They’re flexible in all the right ways! ”
“No one says that, Carlotta.”
“Well, they should.”
I push the double stroller with my three-month-old twin boys inside, Ozzy and Corbin, over a patch of uneven grass and try not to think about what Carlotta considers the right ways.
The boys are fraternal but look enough alike to be disorienting.
Same dark hair, same cobalt blue eyes they got from their father, same tendency to spit up at the exact wrong moment.
And of course, we can’t forget their shared disdain for sleep.
Here I thought Everett was being cute when he was getting frisky with me at all hours for all the years we’ve been married.
Come to find out, the man may have had a sleep disorder all along.
One that works to my benefit, but still.
Regardless, I think he may have passed that aversion to snooze on to his sons.
Everett walks beside me, all six-foot-something of the legal system in gorgeous action.
But since he’s nowhere near the courthouse, he’s donned jeans and a navy flannel that should be illegal in at least twelve states.
His black hair is slightly mussed from the breeze, and his cobalt blue eyes scan the crowd with a casual vigilance.
Years on the bench will do that to a man.
So will being married to a baker who has stumbled over one too many corpses.
“Giddy up, Daddy! Faster!” Lyla Nell calls out from behind.
I shoot a look over my shoulder at Noah, who has our two-year-old daughter perched on his shoulders like a tiny tyrant. She bounces up and down, her curls fly in every direction, and Noah grins as if she just handed him the moon. His dimples are out in full force, and so are hers.
Lyla Nell bounces harder. “Lottie, make Daddy go faster!”
And there it is. My own daughter, calling Noah Daddy and calling me Lottie as if I’m the babysitter. She refuses to call me Mommy and has decided I’m just another member of her entourage.
I’m not bitter. Much.
All of this Lottie nonsense started a few weeks back, and it’s only picking up speed no matter how hard we try to talk her out of it.
Noah catches my eye and laughs. “Don’t worry, Lot, she’ll come around.”
“Easy for you to say.” I frown his way. “She still calls you Daddy. I’ve been demoted to friend of the family.”
“Nah.” Carlotta chuckles. “The Little Yippy sees you more as the staff.”
She’s probably not wrong.
Everett’s mouth twitches. “She’s not staff, Carlotta.”
“You’re right,” Carlotta agrees. “The staff gets a day off once in a while.”
And she’s not wrong, yet again.
Carlotta loops her arm through mine as we make our way toward the glossy pink and white striped monstrosity.
“You know, I once had big dreams of running off with the circus. But then I got knocked up with you, Lot Lot, and that dream got flushed faster than my waistline.” She gives a dramatic sigh.
“Turns out a baby bump and tightrope walking don’t mix. ”
“Who would’ve thought,” I muse, doing my best to excise any visuals of Carlotta teetering above a crowd with a giant belly where I happened to reside.
Carlotta is my biological mother.
“But look on the bright side,” Carlotta continues with the monologue no one asked for. “I’m here now, aren’t I? With a snatched waist and excellent taste in muscular entertainment.”
“Carlotta,” Noah says with a chuckle, “need we remind you, you’re engaged to Mayor Nash?”
“Engaged is a strong word, Foxy.” Carlotta shoots him the stink eye.
“More like encaged.” She swats her hand his way as if shooing a fly—the hand with a giant diamond adorning it.
“Harry’s all right, but a woman can window-shop.
Besides, he’s here somewhere, buying votes, kissing babies, smooching with their mothers, or whatever it is mayors do at the circus.
Which means I’m free to conduct my own research on upper body strength and flexibility. A girl’s gotta have hobbies.”
“Your hobbies are concerning,” I mutter.
“And your hobbies are boring,” she fires back. “Now, where’s this cookie booth you keep yapping about?”
Right. The cookie booth.
I’d almost forgotten in the chaos of trying to wrangle three children, two husbands (one current, one accidental on more than one occasion), and one Carlotta, for whom appropriate behavior is strictly optional.
I steer the stroller toward my cookie booth on the midway, stocked with cute little animal crackers, each one iced to perfection.
The circus reached out to the bakery last month to see if we’d like to join their local vendors, and naturally I said yes.
My sister Charlie is handling the savory side with the Honey Pot Diner, which means she’ll be elbow-deep in corn dogs and turkey legs all week. Her booth is right next to mine and I fully plan on supporting her efforts personally.
We’ve already restocked my display three times tonight, and it’s only opening night.
“Looks like you’re a hit, Lemon,” Everett says, nodding at the line forming near my stand. The man is serious as a heart attack, rarely smiles, and can stop a woman cold with a single glance.
That would explain all women in a twenty-foot radius craning their necks in this direction.
I should be immune to this by now.
I’m not. And since we’re at the circus, I should probably sell tickets.
Noah groans. “I can’t wait to get my hands on your cookies, Lot.”
“I bet,” Everett growls his way.
Suffice it to say, Noah and Everett have a precarious relationship, and it’s mostly because of me.
The fairgrounds unfold around us in layers of chaos and sugar.
There’s a petting zoo off to the left where a goat is currently eating someone’s hat, a ring toss game where a teenager just won a stuffed giraffe the size of a sedan, and a cotton candy stand doing brisk enough business to rival the GDP of a small country.
Everywhere I look, there are kids with sticky fingers, parents with frazzled expressions, and couples holding hands as if they’re not about to have a fight over whose turn it is to win the goldfish.
It’s perfect. And I hope this night stays perfect, but something in my creaky bones says it won’t.
I turn to Everett. “Can you believe you got an entire week away from the courthouse just as the circus came to town? That means you can spend the whole week here at the fairgrounds with me and the kids.”
Noah’s jaw tightens. “How convenient for you.” He shoots Everett a wry look. “I’ll see what I can swing with the station. I’d love to hang out at the fairgrounds with you and the kids, Lot.”
Lyla Nell claps and cheers and nearly topples right off Noah’s shoulders.
“Whoa,” Noah says, catching her wrists while Everett steadies her from the side.
Noah is the lead homicide detective down at the Ashford County Sheriff’s Department. And, oddly, my corpse-finding habit has kept him gainfully employed for the past few homicide-riddled years.
“I couldn’t be happier to have a week off, Lemon.” Everett slides an arm around my waist. “And I couldn’t have planned it better myself.”
I’m about to list all the things we can do in addition to the circus when something catches my eye.
“Hey,” I say, squinting through the crowd. “Isn’t that Eliza?”
I point toward a tall, dark-haired woman in what looks like a white mink stole and kitten heels (because apparently we’re time-traveling to 1952 again), and beside her stands a dark-haired woman with almond-shaped eyes and two teenage girls who look like they were styled for a prep-school brochure.
Everett blinks in that direction. “Mom?”
We make our way over, and Everett pulls his mother into a hug before his gaze snags on the two girls beside her. “And my girls.” He folds Ava and Olivia in next, one under each arm, and they let him, which at thirteen is its own small miracle.
Eliza Baxter smells like Chanel No. 5 and old money. She’s wearing the mink stole as if she were about to head to the opera, and her dark hair is swept into her signature elegant twist.
“Essex, honey! You should have told me you’d be here.”
And there it is. The Essex. Except in this case, it doesn’t mean what it usually does.