Page 83 of Fish and Chip

Her eyes land on Henrietta, and she gives an approving nod. “At least someone at this park smiles.”

A part of me wants to smile, but I’m hesitant.

“How does next week look?” I ask, already dreading the answer. She is the events coordinator, after all.

“Relaxing!” Delora beams. “Nothing scheduled. Just regular park operations. You can breathe.”

Nothing scheduled. In my experience, “nothing scheduled” is exactly when the universe pencils something in.

I feel myself start to relax anyway, because hope springs eternal and I’m a slow learner.

“Actually,” I say, “it’s time to flip the switch to Christmas. The holy grail of holiday seasons for theme parks. I’m hopeful for more cold hard cash and fewer cold hard bodies.”

“Speaking of Christmas.” Delora pulls out her phone, and my brief moment of peace dies a swift death. “I almost forgot to tell you! The park has a booking for the week before the big day.”

My stomach drops as though I’ve boarded one of my own roller coasters. The ones with the questionable maintenance records. “What kind of booking?”

“A film crew. They’re shooting one of those Christmas holiday movies here.” She scrolls through her phone. “They insisted on authenticity. Something about ‘capturing real Maine holiday charm.’”

Real Maine holiday charm. I hope they mean the lighthouse variety and not the body-count variety, because lately my park specializes in the latter.

She strides off, already texting someone about logistics and probably bankrupting me further.

Dexter pulls me back into his arms. “A film crew—filming a Christmas movie? What could possibly go wrong?”

“Absolutely everything.”

“You answered that a little too fast.”

“That’s because experience has taught me that whenever more than three people gather at my park, one of them stops breathing.”

His lips land back on mine, and I forget all about film crews and Christmas chaos and the fact that my theme park apparently can’t go a single season without a corpse turning up somewhere inconvenient.

Happy Halloween, a tiny voice whispers from somewhere between our chests.

Dexter breaks away so fast I nearly lose my balance.

He shakes his head with a look of marked terror in his eyes. “Please tell me that was you.”

I glance down at Henrietta and her smile looks that much more devious.

“It wasn’t me. But she’s grown on me,” I admit while giving her a quick pat. “Like a barnacle. A haunted, judgmental barnacle.”

I’m not afraid to call a haunted spade a spade.

Henrietta winks up at the both of us, slow and deliberate, like she’s in on the joke and would like credit for it.

Dexter gives a dark laugh in spite of himself, and I lose it along with him. There’s something about a homicide detective being charmed against his will by a severed doll head that tips me right over the edge.

We indulge in another smooch while somewhere in the background Georgie cheers us on and the oiled-up werewolves strike poses for the cameras.

Last I hear, Georgie’s negotiating with her werewolf for a standing appearance at every park event through spring. Heaven help us all. But who are we kidding? We all know it’ll bump up admissions.

Nearby, Ree watches the whole spectacle over a plate of coffin cake. “I’ll admit it,” she says. “The beefcake was a rather sound investment.”

“A SOUND INVESTMENT?” Georgie crows loud enough to rattle the windows of the Haunted Mansion. “It was a stroke of genius, and you can put that on my tombstone. Right under ‘she was right about everything.’”

“We’re going to need a bigger tombstone,” Ree mutters into her punch.