Fudgy Fatality: A Pumpkin Hollow Mystery, book 10 by Kathleen Suzette (good books for high schoolers .txt) 📗

layered between tortillas. I inhaled deeply. “That really smells good. I appreciate you making this for me. When Ethan gets off work, he’ll be starving, and I know he’ll appreciate it, too.”

“Well, I feel like a freeloader living at Mom and Dads and I thought I may as well make myself useful tonight. Mom is working so hard down at the candy store it makes me feel guilty.”

“Me too,” I said. “She’s a workaholic.” Mom was a workhorse, and as much as we insisted that she not feel she had to do most of the candy making, she insisted on it.

“I think it’s time I found my own place. I’ve been looking around, but rents are so high.”

“I know, I was surprised that this little house was such a great deal.” Ethan had lived in the house across the street for years and I had moved into my cottage last year. There were six little white houses with black shutters on both sides of the street. They were adorable, even though they were tiny.

“Maybe one of these little houses will come up for rent soon,” she said.

“That would be fun if you moved into one of them,” I said. “Want some lemonade?”

“Sure.” She sat down at the table while I got us glasses of lemonade. “I’ll have to buy everything new. I took almost nothing with me when I left John.”

I nodded and set the glasses on the table. “I didn’t have much either when I moved in here. Thankfully the place is small, so I didn’t need a lot.” I chuckled and poured lemonade into the glasses.

“Any news on Olivia’s killer?” she asked and took a sip of lemonade.

I shook my head. “Not a word yet.” I wondered if she wanted to say anything about having breakfast with John the morning Olivia died.

“I really think Ethan needs to look at her ex-boyfriend, Aaron.”

“He mentioned he was going to talk to him again,” I said, picking up my glass of lemonade and taking a sip. “I was just getting ready to decorate for Halloween. I’m a little behind on it. Do you want to help me?”

She nodded, and we headed into the living room. I had already brought several boxes of Halloween decorations out of storage. I loved vintage Halloween decorations, and I had a lot of things I had been collecting for years.

“There are those little lights that need to go around the front window there,” I said, pointing to a box of them.

“You got it.” She picked them up and headed over to my living room window. There were some hooks that I had left from last year and she began hanging the lights up. Boo followed us into the living room and sat down, observing us as we worked.

I picked up some old-fashioned paperboard Halloween cutouts from another box. Some of the items I had collected were vintage-look Halloween decorations, and some were authentic.

“I left all of my Halloween and Christmas decorations with John. I need to ask him what he did with them since he’s moving back to town. I hope he didn’t get rid of them.”

“I hope not,” I agreed as I placed some cardboard cutouts on the fireplace. “I need to get some pumpkins.” The local grocery store had gotten a shipment of pumpkins in, but I liked to go out into the field and pick my own. It would make a fun afternoon date with Ethan.

Boo walked over and rubbed up against Christy’s legs. “Hi, Boo,” she said, reaching down and scratching his head. “If I get my own place, I can get a kitty of my own.”

“You could get a black cat to match mine and Ethan’s black cats.” I chuckled. “Has John found a job yet?” I wanted to bring the conversation back around to him, but I wasn’t sure if I could just straight out ask her what was going on.

“No, he’s still looking.”

I glanced at her. Her back was to me as she finished hanging the orange lights. “Christy, do you think there’s any possibility that John may have been involved in Olivia’s murder?” I didn’t know how to ask it nicely, so I decided to just ask.

She turned and looked at me wide-eyed. “Why do you ask that? Has Ethan said something? Does he suspect him?”

I shook my head slowly. “No. He hasn’t said anything, but it’s just odd that John was with her the morning she died.”

She looked at me. “He didn’t leave with her. He couldn’t have killed her. He was at the parade.”

“So you did know he was with her that morning?”

She stared at me. “He mentioned she had been there at the café with him, but she was gone by the time I got there.”

I looked at her. I was glad she was telling me the truth about it, but I didn’t understand why she was with him.

“Do you think John had seen Olivia before that day? Did he mention talking to her or seeing her?”

She shook her head slowly. “No, he never mentioned that. Why are you so concerned about it?”

 “I don’t know. It just seems odd that he was one of the last people to see her alive.” I didn’t know if John would’ve had time to leave the café and kill Olivia or not, but I thought it was possible.

“I don’t think it’s odd. It was just a coincidence,” she said slowly and picked up a papier mâché pumpkin from the box and brought it over to the fireplace, setting it on the mantle. “I really like these pumpkins. I wish I had some of them.”

“I wish I had bought more of them. I bet you can get some similar ones just about anywhere though.”

“Probably so. I’ll have to take a look around.” She turned and looked