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

I go room to room, starting with the den, hoping that I’ll find Gilly’s notebook, but there’s nothing there. Two of the bedrooms have unmade beds and look like something out of Animal House. No way is the production company getting its full deposit back. If this is what they leave the beach house looking like, I’d hate to see what those two guys did at the pool bar. No wonder they needed to make restitution.

I check out the other two bedrooms. One is neat but definitely empty. This must have been Tara’s room. The last room down the hallway has to belong to Gilly. I do a fast sweep of the dresser and the nightstands, but all I find is clothes and regular travel stuff. There’s a tote on the floor next to an armchair. I recognize it immediately. It’s the same tote Gilly always had with her while working.

I rifle through it and bingo! A three-ring binder with the title BATTLE OF THE BEACH EATS practically leaps into my hands.

“Did you find it?” yells Red.

“Still looking!” I call back, stalling for time.

I lift the binder out of the bag, but it’s so heavy I almost drop it. Good grief, Gilly sure took a lot of notes. The binder is neatly divided by categories. I find a tab titled NOTES FOR SHOW and quickly skim through it. This is exactly what I’m looking for, but there’s no way I can read all this in a under a couple of minutes.

I told Will I wasn’t going to steal anything, but steal is such a disagreeable word. Borrow is much better. Yes, I’ll borrow Gilly’s notebook and find a way to return it before she even knows it’s missing, only I can’t very well walk out of here with this monster binder in plain sight.

I stuff the notebook under my T-shirt, but it’s so heavy, the only way to keep it from falling out while I’m walking is to hold on to it. Plus, my stomach looks completely misshapen, like I’m pregnant with an alien baby. The cleaning ladies are going to notice for sure.

There’s only one other way I can think of to get what I need out of here. I click open the binder and take out all the pages that look promising. Then before I chicken out, I crumble up the pages and stuff them into my bra.

Ouch.

Who knew paper could be so scratchy?

I glance at my reflection in the dresser mirror. I look like a thirteen year-old-girl going to her first school dance. I readjust the stuffing in my bra, trying to flatten it down as much as possible.

“We gotta go, so you’ll have to come back later when your friend is here.” The cleaning woman’s voice sounds close, like she’s about to enter the bedroom.

I readjust my bra again, hoping I don’t look too ridiculous, when I notice Gilly’s laptop lying open on the bed. I shouldn’t snoop, but then I shouldn’t have lied my way into the house or stolen—I mean, borrowed—the pages from her notebook either, so I’m not going to quibble with my own ethics at this point.

I touch the screen, and it opens up to Gilly’s email. There’s a series of correspondence between her and someone back at the network. I mentally scold Gilly for not properly closing down her computer, but it’s a good thing she didn’t because it gives me a chance to scope out what’s going on with the show. If I’m going to lie my way into a house, I might as well get my money’s worth.

I scroll down to the latest email and … Holy wow. Gilly’s officially been given Tara’s job! The email was just sent in the past hour, so she probably just had time to get the good news before leaving the house. Talk about a motive for getting rid of someone.

I turn to leave at the same time that Red walks into the room. “We have to lock up. Did you find your purse?”

“No, but I’ll, um, come back later when my friend is here.”

She looks at me funny. For an instant I think I’m busted, but she doesn’t say anything. Instead, she follows me down the hallway and out the door, then locks up the house.

Since I don’t want to call attention to the fact that my car is parked down the street, I lollygag around the front of the house and wait for them to leave. “Thanks again for letting me look!” I call out as their car drives off.

I get back inside my own car just in the nick of time because out of nowhere, Gilly’s car pulls into the driveway. “That was close,” says Will.

“She was probably at the Piggly Wiggly buying some celebratory champagne.”

“Why would she—” Will stares at my chest. “Lucy … did you stuff your bra?”

I can’t help but giggle. “Yep.” I gingerly pull all the crumpled paper out and hand it over to Will. “I found the notebook, but I couldn’t walk out the door in front of the cleaning ladies with it, so I tore out all the sheets that might help us.”

“So we’re taking this straight to the cops, right?”

“Well—”

“Lucy, you promised.”

“Yeah, but we don’t know what’s in these papers yet. It could be nothing or it could be everything. We need to check it out first.”

Will starts to iron out the wrinkled sheets of paper with the palm of his hand.

“Not here. We’ll take all this back to my place and go through it later. I have a good feeling that somewhere in those papers we’re going to find a clue to who killed Tara. But first,” I say gleefully as I start up the engine, “it’s time to hit my first pool joint.”