Sip, Swallow & Scream is a paranormal Poe-themed mini-mystery based in the fictional world of Baltimore’s sexiest sleuth, Sesame Swallow, whose novels are still being written, even as I write these fun, holiday-themed adventures.
In this excerpt, Sesame and Regan are just returning from a little sleuthing expedition to go over things with the third person in their tight little group, Lindsay. It does not turn out the way they expect. Nor does it turn out the way the guy who works at the B&B expects either.
It took twenty or so minutes to get back to the B&B, and I gave Cal a wave, grabbed a few cookies from the plate by the stairs and started nibbling. I offered one to Regan, but she said Linds would want two, which was true, and I knew she wasn’t one for sweets. Probably not one for all this sneaking around either. When we’d gone past The Serpent & The Rose again, the lights had been off, and Regan had mentioned she might should have just punched him in the balls and asked if he did it. I laughed, of course, but at the same time I figured it would have been a good plan. Regan was a little more direct, which came in handy, and I was a little more legal, if you could call it that -- let’s not break more laws than the bad guys, I always said, even though sometimes it had to happen. Like when I did a B&E to check for clues in The S&R and ended up stealing that locket.
Okay, so legal was, well, precarious. But so was our position, and maybe it was just violence I wasn’t really up for. That is, until we opened the door to Regan and Lindsay’s shared room.
The door wasn’t even locked. In fact, it was ajar. Regan nudged it open with her foot, her right hand balled up into a fist, and a look on her face that told me she was a little over our fun, spooky weekend.
“She’s not here,” said Regan flatly as we stared at the room that looked like a hurricane Lindsay victim, but didn’t feel like one. Like, her cell was under the bed.
“Fuck,” I groaned, and got down and grabbed it. “Fuck fuck fuck. Regan?” I turned and looked up at the seething black woman who’d done her time in the Marines. “Cal is downstairs. Maybe we should…”
“Have a chat with him,” she said, and I could almost see the steam coming out of her ears. “Somebody’s going to cry tonight, and it better not be me.”
She turned, and I was right behind her, closing the door. Girl was locked and loaded, a locomotive coming down the stairs, and I scrambled to keep up. She even grabbed a cookie and shoved it in her mouth, and then I knew shit was going sideways. I grabbed two because I’d seen something like this before, and there was no popcorn.
Cal squeaked like a mouse when she grabbed him by the collar and made him part of the fridge for a few seconds. I winced, wondering if the fridge would recover. Cal, a normal looking dude in a village full of Halloween junkies, sort of bounced off what looked like a newer model Samsung, and then he sort of melted under Regan’s stare while also remaining upright because she had him by the collar.
“Spill, geek.”
“Cal, you were doing so well with the bourbon and the snickerdoodles, and now our friend is missing, and her best friend is probably going to hurt you something awful, and I can’t help you because my hands are full of delicious cookies.” I shrugged. “I think you’re on your own if you don’t tell us,” and here my voice sort of got a bit louder -- seemed louder because Regan somehow read my mind and added her voice to the last bit, “where the FUCK IS OUR FRIEND?”
It’s probably some boy’s fantasy to get manhandled by girls -- the internet was weird, but this wasn’t one of those moments, and I got the impression right away that Cal knew it. The tears started before the words, and I almost felt sorry for the guy because he was sort of cute, and these cookies were the bomb.
“Devin. It was Devin. He came in and wanted -- I’m sorry. Was I wrong?”
“Wanted what, douchebag?” said Regan, and all I could think of was that Cal was too scared to close his legs, and he was about to regret that.
“In one of the rooms. I know I know. I’m not supposed to. And please, I’ll make it up to you. I need this job. I’ve been here for six years. And he’s a cool guy. Did he steal something? Oh my god, no, please don’t tell me he stole something. He just wanted to look for -- I actually don’t know. Jeez Louise, he gave me a hundred dollars. It’s in my pocket. You can have it.”
I stepped up and laid my hand on Regan’s shoulder. Her right hand was a balled-up fist that was about to make this a crime scene, and I didn’t want to have one friend in jail and one missing. I felt the tension ease just the slightest bit at my touch, and then I peered over her shoulder at the sniveling wiener who just offered me a hundred dollars to replace my friend, and I dropped my hand and said to Regan, “Hurt him.”
“No! No! Please. What happened? What did I do?” Cal’s eyes were bulging, tracking the fist that came up.
“Your fucking friend Devin took our friend, you asshole! You let him in, and he took our friend. She’s gone!” I stopped for a moment and just trembled, my own fists balled tight, and I could see the black eyes coming Cal’s way, and I wanted to deliver one of them. And then I stepped back, as did Regan, because, well, Cal’s pants developed a leak, and then so did the floor around his house slippers.
“If she’s hurt, Cal, I’m going to come back and hurt you,” Regan hissed, her voice so quiet I had to dial it in and shut everything else out. But Cal heard her. “I’m going to come back and hurt you real bad, Cal. Now spill all the tea, dickhead, and you just might walk away from this without the help of a paramedic.”
Cal spilled. All the fucking tea.
Author’s Note: You can find all of the Sesame Swallow content — excerpts, etc., by clicking on her name in the navigation bar at the top of the page. Sesame is currently in line for a number of novels, most of them in some stage of revision right now, but there will continue to be mini-mysteries as I have time to finish them.
Sesame Swallow is a mid-20s Baltimore urban professional trying to become a private investigator. Her adventures are a little fun, a little serious, a little sexy, a little silly, depending on what the situation calls for. If you want to read more or learn more about her, feel free to stop by her website — https://www.nomysteryinc.com/ — or just stick around here.
