Chapter 8
Between school and working at the bakery, the next day flew by faster than a witch on a broom.
Riley would be here any minute to pick me up for the Halloween party, but I had no real information for him.
I hadn’t seen Elaine today, and she’d only responded to a few of my texts.
Maybe she was still upset with me for suggesting her boyfriend might be a murderer.
I still wasn’t sure what motive Caleb or Eve might’ve had, and I couldn’t get the mysterious third suspect who Graham might have cheated with out of my head—the possible other woman.
Perhaps she and Eve were one and the same.
Someone knocked on the door, so I hurried to open it. The house was empty except for Dad, who was sleeping.
My heart fluttered in my chest as I stumbled to a stop at the back door. Was I excited to see Riley? Falling for him would set myself up for heartbreak. Even if Mary was right and he didn’t like Lizzy, that wasn’t the same as him liking me.
Another knock came, and I straightened. I was thinking too hard about this. Maybe I wasn’t excited to see Riley so much as I was excited to get the next clue to solve this murder. Then people on campus would stop looking at me like I was the killer.
I swung the door open. “Hey, Ril—”
Jack Skellington stood on the back porch, fiddling with his bat-shaped bow tie.
“Surprise!” Riley held out a costume and tugged his hood up. “I know you were nervous about being recognized at the party, so I figured we could go in disguise.”
“I guess that’s better than my cat costume.
” I pulled off Lydia’s cat-ear headband I’d borrowed and accepted the proffered outfit.
He’d gotten me the costume for Sally, the patchwork rag doll.
As in Jack and Sally who fell in love in The Nightmare Before Christmas.
My stomach tightened as I took in the very obvious blue skin and red hair attached to the hood.
“What’s wrong?” Riley said. “Don’t you like it?”
“It’s great. It’s just…” I looked at him, then closed my mouth. What did it matter if he’d gotten us a couple’s costume? He wouldn’t think it was weird because of the potion, and I shouldn’t make a big deal out of it. “I’m not sure if it will fit.”
“Oh, is that all? I’m sure it’ll be fine.” He waved me upstairs, his arm far too muscular in Jack’s stick-figure sleeves. “If you want to wear it, I’ll wait while you change. Otherwise, what you’re wearing looks great.”
“I’ll change.” I climbed the stairs, resisting the urge to glance back at Riley. It was so refreshing that he wasn’t bossy—that he asked me what I wanted to do.
I slipped into my room and shut the door behind me.
Unlike Lydia who’d wasted no time in painting her walls a bright pink as soon as she had a room to herself, I still hadn’t done much with mine besides put up my poster of the periodic elements that I’d memorized when I was eight and a classic list of spells.
I’d also squirreled away quite a few Halloween decorations for my room.
It took me less than five minutes to wipe my face clean of the drawn-on whiskers and pull the costume over my black jeans and shirt.
It was weird looking out through the eyeholes in the hood, which was more of a mask attached to the costume, but better than being exposed.
With the hood down, it connected seamlessly to the rest of the costume at the stitched neckline, making it appear as a single piece.
Riley smiled as I came back downstairs. “You look great.”
“Thanks.” I followed him into the brisk October air. Despite my costume’s thinness, it protected me from the cold surprisingly well.
We turned down Main Street and headed toward Northanger Abbey.
The wind rustled the branches overhead and swirled the fallen leaves down the street.
A streetlamp flickered, casting weird shadows through the fog rolling in from the ocean.
Someone had raked their leaves into an enormous pile next to their white picket fence, and a few kids were taking turns jumping into it.
“Are you warm enough?” he asked.
“Surprisingly, yes.”
“Good.” His voice held a smile. “I added thermal scales to the costume to insulate it.”
“Thermal scales?”
“Just a little magic, but the point is, it shouldn’t let any of the cold in.”
“Thank you.” His thoughtfulness was more addictive than his smile.
He put his hands in his pockets. “I haven’t been to the Northanger party in a while.”
“Me either,” I admitted. “I don’t care for haunted houses.”
“Are you scared? If so, you can hold on to me.” He moved a step closer and offered his hand.
“I’m fine.” Even though it was impossible to see Riley’s expression through Jack’s huge stitched grin, the amusement in his voice had me resist the urge to reach for him. “I just don’t like creepy things, and Northanger Abbey is super creepy.”
“That’s what makes it fun,” he said. “Although it is weird that they call it an abbey when it’s just an old Victorian house.”
“That’s because the old abbey was destroyed in a fight between fae a century ago. When they rebuilt it, they turned it into a house but kept the name.”
“And you know that because...?”
“You would know things like that too if you had Mary for a sister,” I told him. “Anyway, let’s just focus on what we need to do. I didn’t have much luck gathering info today, but Elaine told me that Caleb came over straight after his shift that night.”
“I had a bit more luck than you.” He turned down another street. “It sounds like he and Graham were roommates before, but I guess they pulled some sort of prank and it ended up costing Caleb his scholarship at AHCC.”
I whistled. “That sucks.”
“But does it suck enough to kill someone?”
“I suppose that’s what we have to find out,” I said.
Riley pulled out a small notebook and read his notes. “I also looked into his job at the apothecary shop you mentioned. It sounds like he worked until 5:30 that day, and then I guess he went straight to Elaine’s house?”
“I guess.” I wrinkled my nose. “But maybe Caleb lied to her about when he got off, because I’m pretty sure Elaine’s sister said he showed up at 7:00 that night.”
“So at least an hour of his time is unaccounted for.” Riley rubbed his chin.
“That would have given him time to get to Graham’s house and poison something.”
“Yeah, we need to look into him more, but let’s focus on finding Eve at the party tonight. I was thinking we could divide and conquer, try to weed out as many suspects as possible and make sure we don’t miss anything.”
A twinge of disappointment went through me. “Oh, okay.”
We turned onto the street that led to Northanger Abbey and joined the throng of people heading the same way. As usual, it looked like the party was going to be a big hit.
The front gate stood open, creaking softly in the windless night as if granting visitors permission to enter.
The house loomed in front of us, its stone walls cloaked in creeping ivy.
Two imposing columns stood guard by the front door.
From the outside, the house reminded me of my grandmother with its sagging lines and stern facade.
Shingles had fallen from the roof, leaving a few bald spots, and the front door gaped open like Gran without her dentures.
When I thought about it that way, it wasn’t too scary.
A jack-o’-lantern floated by, spinning around to leer at me as it glided across the yard while a few skeletons danced to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” I wasn’t sure who enchanted the bones each year, but it would require an impressive amount of detail to make a spell like that work.
“Ready?” Riley said.
“Yeah.”
He put a hand on the small of my back and guided me up the front steps. “Then let’s do this.”
We stepped through the front doors and onto the worn marble of the dimly lit foyer.
A crystal chandelier, glowing in time with the blasting music, dangled perilously above the grand staircase that led to the upper levels, which were completely dark except for the occasional flash of light—like will-o’-the-wisps drifting through the shadows.
Most of the guests congregated on the bottom floor since the upper floors were said to be haunted.
Many high schoolers dared each other to go up there to “prove” themselves.
Eventually, the Tilneys embraced the haunted reputation as a selling point and agreed to keep the place open in October as an attraction for tourists and locals alike.
“Stay close. It’s dark in here,” Riley whispered in my ear.
His fingers trailed against my wrist before he took my hand.
He pulled me past a crush of people and into the living room where a green fire crackled in the hearth.
My hand reflexively tightened around his before I forced myself to loosen my grip.
He stopped by a window with a heavy velvet drape in a dark corner of the room.
Riley leaned in, and for a second I could imagine us both without the masks, him pressing his lips to mine.
Instead, he whispered, “I’ll cover the other side of the house. Why don’t you check this side?”
“Okay.” I swallowed hard. At least he couldn’t see my cheeks to know I was blushing.
“Don’t forget, according to Madam Rosa, Eve should be a redhead in a pumpkin costume.” He pulled his phone from his outfit’s pocket. “Text me if you find anything.”
“I will.”
With that, he melted into the crowd, his black costume helping him blend in even though his round skeletal head stood out.
I did a slow spin of the room, trying to get a feel for who was here. Jaxon and a few people from my chem lab stood in the corner, but most of the attendees were in costume, hiding their identity. It would be a miracle if we found the right person tonight, but it was our only lead.
My gaze landed on Mary, dressed in her librarian costume and clutching a book to her chest. What on earth was she doing here? She hated coming to these things.