Murder By Muffin (Lucy McGuffin, Psychic Amateur Detective 3)

“You have to let me handle this. You have to step away, Lucy.”

“Step away? What does that—”

“It means no going behind anyone’s back and trying to investigate on your own. No sneaking around and trying to find clues. No talking to witnesses. You have to trust me to find out what happened. Can you do that?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“No.”

I glance down at Paco. He looks up at me with his big brown doggie eyes like he’s worried. He nudges me with his wet nose. I know he’s urging me to give Travis an answer, and I know what he wants that answer to be. Paco isn’t the only one who might be able to read minds.

“Okay, I trust you.”

“Thank you,” he says solemnly.

I walk Travis to the front door, feeling like a zombie. He asks me to thank my mother again for dinner and makes me promise once more to let him handle everything. All I can do is nod.

Holy wow.

Someone poisoned Tara.

And they used my muffins to do it.

Which means someone in Whispering Bay is trying to frame me for murder.

Chapter Eight

After all the dishes have been cleared, Sebastian and Brittany go home, but Will hangs back. “Walk me out?” he asks.

I kiss my mom and dad goodbye, then Paco and I follow Will to his car.

The second we’re outside, he turns to me. “What was all that about? Are you and Fontaine really dating?”

“No. Absolutely not. He only said that to get Mom off my back. But that’s not important now. Nothing is definite yet, but it looks like Tara might have been poisoned. And … ” I can barely say the next part out loud without shuddering. “The muffins I brought her? The cops had them taken to the lab, on account of I told Gilly that I wish I’d poisoned them, and—”

“You what?”

“It was a joke! Like when a person says ‘I could kill you’ or something. Anyway, pay attention. Travis says the preliminary lab report found traces of cyanide in my muffins. In my muffins, Will! And it looks as if she ate two of them. We have to wait for the autopsy report, but if it comes back that Tara did die of cyanide poisoning, I could be making a visit to Ol’ Sparky.”

The corner of Will’s mouth twitches up. “Ol’ Sparky, huh?”

“Brittany thinks it’s a possibility.”

“FYI, Florida doesn’t use the electric chair anymore. It’s death by lethal injection. But you want to know what I think? I think your mother has it all wrong. It’s the Whispering Bay Police Department that’s on drugs, not Tara. You wouldn’t hurt a fly, much less a person.”

“Well, I might hurt a squirrel.”

He grins. “Squirrels don’t count.”

Will and I lock gazes, and I know we’re thinking of the same memory.

When I was seven, a pack of evil squirrels (three to be exact) nearly ruined my birthday party by swooping down out of the trees and going after my birthday cake. On impulse, I grabbed the cake and ran as the squirrels chased me down. Luckily, Will took action. Just as the squirrels were about to overpower me, he spooked them off, saving both me and my cake from a fate worse than death. I remember it all down to the last detail because not only was that the day I acquired sciurophobia, it’s the day I fell in love with Will.

“Seriously, though,” I say. “Someone has it out for me. Because how else did that cyanide get on my muffins? I certainly didn’t put it there.”

“The lab is as incompetent as the cops. Your muffins were probably contaminated from some other source. Right now, this is all just guesswork. Until they have the autopsy results, they don’t even know the official cause of death, do they?”

I have to admit, I’m beginning to feel better. “No, but Travis is pretty certain it’s a cyanide poisoning. He says he’s seen it once before.”