The Daddy P.I. Casefiles: The First Collection by Frost, J (great novels .txt) 📕

I grin at him. “Ta, Daddy.”

He reaches across the table and strokes his knuckles down my cheek, brushing off a few crumbs at the corner of my mouth from the whole wheat toast I had with my omelet. “I want my adorable baby in her bunny onesie this morning until it’s time to get ready for the tea party. If you’re too cool, I’ll bring you down some of your thigh-highs and a binkie.”

I’m not cold, particularly not with a belly-full of warm breakfast and the hot tea I’ve been drinking with it, but September in Niagara Falls is cooler than it is in the City and I wouldn’t mind socks and a binkie. “Please, Daddy.”

“Peter Aloha Bunny to do the séance with you and . . . what happened to Professor Teddington?”

“I gave him to Piper. She needed him more than I do.”

Daddy’s eyes smile. Not just his mouth or his face, but his eyes. He strokes my cheek again. “That’s my big-hearted girl. Do you want Hedgie instead?”

“No, Daddy. Hedgie might be scared by ghosts. Only Peter Aloha Bunny is brave enough.”

Daddy nods. “I see. Okay, little girl. Have another cup of tea while Daddy gets things sorted and then you and your merry band of ghost hunters can try your luck.” He tests my tea with his pinkie before handing it to me and my heart overflows with love for my daddy. I can’t let him escape without a cuddle, but he finally moves me off his lap and goes upstairs. Hunter, who spent the night in Harry and Mac’s room and took Brenna’s place at breakfast, hops into Daddy’s chair. Cappa drags his chair over and we huddle together to plan our séance.

Martyn overhears us from where he’s tidying up the breakfast tables for people who have already eaten and gotten an early start, which includes Mistress Maude, Jiro, and Laurel. Niall, Shaan, and Vashi are late, coming in after Daddy’s left, but they look relaxed and happy, with Niall holding Shaan close with his arm around Shaan’s neck and Shaan holding Vashi’s hand, so I’m hopeful they’ve worked out the issues Shaan aired last night.

Martyn whisks off to wherever he goes, and when he returns, he hands Austin a plastic bag containing a pile of folded, yellowed lace.

“Molly’s shawl. I’ll bring you gloves if you want to handle it since it’s very old now and getting fragile, but people who have tried to talk to her spirit in the past have had better success when they’ve had something of hers. I have a couple of dresses as well, but I’m not as sure she actually wore them as I am about that shawl. It’s the one she’s wearing in the cameo.”

I hold out my hands for the bag and when Austin passes it to me, I examine it eagerly. I see what Martyn means, it’s recognizably the tatted lace shawl Molly’s wearing over her shoulders and across her breasts in the picture on the inn’s website. There’s a plain, metal stickpin in the bag, too, wrapped in its own baggie so the metal doesn’t interact with the lace, the sharp end carefully capped with wax, which is so very Martyn.

I hand the bag to Hunter who inspects it from all angles like a different perspective will reveal Molly’s ghost.

“I’d recommend trying in the library,” Martyn tells us. “That was the nursery when Molly lived here and one of the more haunted rooms in the inn. The most active room is the kitchen but I can’t let you in there I’m afraid. Health and safety.”

We scamper like puppies, or maybe like bunnies since I’m wearing a bunny onesie, into the library. Austin goes off to get the Ouija board while we rearrange chairs into a circle around a card table. Daddy brings me my thigh-highs, bunny, and binkie and I feel like a séance queen, perched in a big leather reading chair, wrapped in my Ravenclaw blanket, with my bunny in my lap.

While Austin’s unpacking the Ouija board, a crowd gathers: Luisa and Vic, in more of their gorgeous period clothes, Daisy and Piper, who are smiling at each other this morning but not the way lovers do, Bravo and his little, Yumiko, and Master Ryan and his wife, Tania. Bravo and Ryan decide to go to the gym with Daddy and Niall. Martyn turns off the electric lights and opens the curtains wide, gets a few folding chairs so everyone can watch the séance, and tells everyone there’s no food or drink in the library but there will be tea and cakes in the bar when we’re done. When I say he mustn’t go to so much trouble, he just pats me on the head and whisks off.

Hunter drapes himself in a cozy throw off one of the couches in the room, puts Molly’s shawl on his lap, and holds out his hands. I clasp one and Austin clasps the other, even though I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to put our fingers on the planchette.

“Oh, spirits—” Hunter begins before Austin elbows him.

“Don’t be a dick. Everyone put two fingers on the planchette, lightly, and think of a question you want Molly to answer. Emmy, ask your question first.”

We rearrange ourselves, with Austin elbowing Hunter again when he pushes the planchette across the board to rest on “yes.”

“Molly, did you lead Daddy into the middle of the maze yesterday?” I ask.

The planchette doesn’t move. Well, at least it doesn’t move until Hunter moves it again, which gets him an elbow in the ribs that makes him take a hand off the planchette to rub his side while grumbling at Austin.

We go in a round robin, with each person asking a question. Hunter’s is rude. Austin’s is “What did you die of?” Cappa’s is, “Did you and Teddy really get married?”

The planchette doesn’t move in response to any of our questions. We wait for several minutes but don’t feel anything. Hunter throws his hands