Beach Blanket Homicide (Lucy McGuffin, Psychic Amateur Detective 1)

Even though a part of me knows it’s irrational to blame Travis Fontaine for any of this, I still can’t help it. He might not have said it aloud, but he not-so-tactfully accused Sebastian of…who knows what?

As if my brother, the priest, who’s never even hurt a fly in his whole life, was guilty of some kind of wrongdoing!

I grab a sweater and my car keys.

This situation calls for immediate action.

Chapter Eight

I explain everything to Sarah, and since Jill has clean-up duty, she tells me to take the rest of the day off. I don’t bother calling my brother because I don’t want him to find an excuse to avoid me, so I charge over to the rectory.

It takes Sebastian a few minutes to answer the door. He looks surprised to see me in the middle of the day. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

I brush past him and plop myself down on the couch. “What on earth were you doing at the rec center in the middle of the night with Abby Delgado?”

“How did you—” He scrubs a hand down his face. “Never mind. So the cops came to see you, huh?”

“Yep. And I need you to fess up. Now.”

He raises a brow at my use of the word “fess.”

“Sebastian,” I say trying to imitate our mother’s voice.

“Okay. This is what I can tell you. Abby wanted me to perform an exorcism on someone she thought was possessed. I tried to humor her because she was a nice lady, and even though she belonged to that ghost society, she didn’t have any real friends.”

My shoulders sag. Abby wasn’t one of my favorite people. Not even close. Most days she was a nuisance, but she was a loyal customer, and as kooky as it sounds, I’m going to miss her sneaky free lunch trick. It never occurred to me that she might have been lonely. I wish I’d been nicer to her that last day.

“Who did she think was possessed?”

“It’s not relevant.”

“Of course it’s relevant! The police think that Abby’s death wasn’t accidental.”

He stills. “They said that?”

“No one has to come out and tell me what’s right under my nose. You should have seen that crew at the rec center. Taking pictures and fingerprints…and this Travis person running around like he’s auditioning for the lead role in a Law and Order remake. So I’m going to ask you again. Who did Abby think was possessed? Let me guess, Phoebe Van Cleave?”

“All I’m going to tell you is that Abby had some concerns about a friend of hers and she wanted me to help. When I explained that I couldn’t help in the way she wanted, then she became upset. Friday night she called and apologized for her behavior at The Bistro and asked me to meet her in the rec center. She said it was a matter of life or death.”

“Didn’t you think that was weird?”

“We’re talking about Abby here.”

“Point taken.”

“So against my better judgment, I went. But when I got there, she told me that she didn’t need me anymore and that everything had been taken care of.”

“As in, taken care of because her friend was all right, or taken care of because she’d found someone else who’d perform her exorcism?”

“She didn’t say, and frankly, I didn’t ask because it was late and I was tired, and the whole thing was ridiculous.”

Neither of us say anything for a few minutes.

“Okay, so you went to the rec center. You saw Abby. And the two of you talked.”

He nods. “But don’t ask me what we talked about, because that was confidential.”

“You were there for about five minutes?”