The Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum (A Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum Mystery) by Kirsten Weiss

Author:Kirsten Weiss
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: paranormal museum, mystery novel, Mystery fiction, paranormal museum mysteries, paranormal mystery, perfectly proper mystery, perfectly proper paranormal, kristen weiss
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide, LTD.
Published: 2016-03-07T22:00:00+00:00

fifteen

The office tilted, and my brain scrambled to compensate. The blood, the body—it looked too much like Christy’s murder. I shook myself, trying to order my thoughts. Basic first aid: assess the situation, ensure your own safety, call 911. What came after those three steps, I’d long forgotten.

Dropping to my knees in the thick green carpet, I felt for a pulse in Michael’s neck. There was none. An egg-shaped glass paperweight lay on the floor by his head.

“Call the—” I started to say “police,” but when I looked over my shoulder, Harper was dialing, her lips pinched together, grim.

“Is he …?”

“I think he’s dead.” I pressed my fingers deeper into the side of his still-warm neck, praying I was wrong, knowing I wasn’t.

She nodded and stepped into the hall, as if to give us privacy.

I reached for the paperweight. Fingertips inches from what was no doubt the murder weapon, I mentally slapped myself. The glass egg was mesmerizing, with red and blue spirals floating inside it like smoke … and no blood, no hair. Had the killer cleaned it off? Assuming this was Michael’s paperweight, the crime must have been spontaneous. I couldn’t imagine someone bringing a heavy glass egg along as a weapon. The urge to pick it up was nearly overwhelming. I resisted and stood, jamming my hands in my pockets.

I glanced at the closed closet door to the left of Michael’s desk, looked over my shoulder at the open door behind me, and licked my lips. The closed door seemed threatening. Outside, Harper’s voice was a soft murmur. I didn’t want to stay in that room alone, but it felt wrong to leave Michael.

Harper stuck her head inside, her face pale. “The police said not to touch anything, and to wait in the lobby.”

I nodded and followed her into the waiting room. She gripped her phone in both hands, sitting with her feet firmly planted, legs apart, ready to launch.

I edged into the chair beside her. “When I called Michael, he was with someone. He didn’t say if it was a man or woman.”

“At least Adele’s off the hook for this one.”

“Yeah.”

“But this is the second body you’ve found in a week,” she said. “The police will have to wonder.”

“Yeah.” My lunch was doing unpleasant things in my stomach. I scrubbed a hand over my face. Was Harper wondering about me as well? And why shouldn’t she? We’d been friends for years, yes, but we hadn’t seen each other much in the last five. She’d changed. So had I. Bile rose in my throat. “At least we’ve been together since the time I spoke with him.”

Her jaw set. “Unless you were pretending to talk to him.”

I stared. She couldn’t really think I was a killer?

She shook her head. “Sorry. Of course you didn’t.”

I swallowed. “No. It’s logical. But there will be phone records, won’t there? Of me calling and someone on this end picking up? The police will check, I’m sure.”

But was I so sure? They’d arrested Adele, and my faith in law enforcement was eroding.

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