Adventures of a New Year's Kiss: A Holiday Romantic Mystery (Funeral Crashing Young Adult Mystery Books) (6 page)

"Yeah, really. That's the theory at least," Kait said. "I overheard her friends talking in the hallway. Two people in her family died from aneurysms."

"Wow. I didn't know that," I said. "And you believe them? That Scarlett died from an aneurysm?"

"Uh-huh. Well, for a second, I thought maybe there was another mystery for me to solve, but now I don't think so," Kait looked a little disappointed.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

Kait nodded. "Yeah, well, at least unless I hear something different after they do an autopsy. Sometimes people do just die. It's still sad."

I felt relieved. Scarlett dying with my stolen necklace around her neck was not a good thing if she had been murdered. If Kait didn't think Scarlett was murdered, then she probably wasn't. That meant that I was safe from becoming a murder suspect. That was good because it was not how I wanted to spend my winter break.

"Anyway, I was thinking of going to her funeral. Do you want to go with me?" Kait asked.

I almost choked on my saliva. My breath caught. This felt too good to be true because I suddenly did want to go. If I wasn't in danger of getting framed for a murder I didn't commit, I wanted my necklace back. Wait. Would it be weird to steal my necklace back from a dead girl if she was wearing it at her funeral? Oh no. Last night's nightmare was about to come true.

Scarlett's funeral was only a couple of days before Christmas. I felt so sad for her parents and siblings. The holidays were a hard time to go through such a major loss. Kait wanted me to read Scarlett's obituary, but I just couldn't. It was depressing enough that I was going to her funeral to try to steal back my necklace. If I read about her passions and how her life was cut short way too soon, I might back out and I couldn't back out.

For obvious reasons, I didn't tell Kyle that Kait and I were going to Scarlett's funeral. We hadn't talked about the necklace since the night Scarlett collapsed. I think he thought it was gone forever. I still wanted to get it back. I was afraid he'd think it was too morbid for me to take it back from Scarlett this way. It totally was, but I felt like it was my right to get it back. It was my necklace after all. Maybe I'd change my mind at the funeral. Maybe. Or I could just disinfect it really, really, really well.

Scarlett's funeral wasn't crowded when Kait and I arrived. I expected more people from school especially after all of the craziness in the counseling center. If they were coming, they hadn't showed up yet. I was disappointed. I had been counting on more people. If I even had a chance of taking my necklace back then I needed the funeral to be packed. Now that it wasn't, I needed a distraction. Except for jumping in the pool during gym, I really didn't know how to create distractions.

I glanced at Kait. I needed to tell her what was going on so that she could help me. She'd know what to do. The problem was that I should have told her in the first place, but I hadn't. Now I felt awkward about it, like I'd convinced her to come with me to do this, unknowingly. I reminded myself that Kait was the one that had asked me to come to Scarlett's funeral with her. I still felt guilty, but I had to suck it up and tell her the truth.

"Kait, I have something to tell you," I said.

Kait looked at me and then listened as I poured out every word of the mystery story of my necklace. I told her what I knew happened. Then I told her what I suspected. The only thing I left out was what Kyle said about Ethan. Ethan would need to talk to Kait directly about that if he hadn't already. I wasn't too worried about telling Kait all of this now anyway. I didn't need her to solve the mystery anymore. It had been solved. I just needed her help getting my necklace back from Scarlett.

When I finished blathering on Kait said, "So, you want me to help you get your necklace off of the girl in the coffin?"

"Yes," I couldn't believe I was admitting to that. Wow. It was so creepy. I'd definitely need to disinfect my necklace, but I still wanted it back.

Kait sighed and then nodded as she spoke, "Okay. It is your necklace and not hers. Otherwise I wouldn't do it."

"I wouldn't do it either," I quickly said. "It just means so much to me."

"I know," Kait said. "Because it's from Kyle."

"And you can't tell him," I said.

Kait smiled, "I'm good with secrets."

I felt relieved. I knew Kyle would want to know how I got the necklace back. I vowed tell him when I was ready, "Okay. So, how should we do this?"

Kait thought for a moment. "I think I have an idea."

"What?" I asked after Kait didn't go on.

"Well..." Kait said.

"Am I not going to like it?" I asked.

Kait laughed. "I'm not going to like what I have to do and I doubt you will either. You just need to make sure you grab that necklace."

Eek. In my opinion grabbing the necklace was the hard part. How was I going to unclasp it exactly? My Zombie Scarlett nightmare popped into my head. No. I could not think about this. I'd worry about that when I had my opportunity. Until then, ew.

Fifteen minutes later I was in position, pretending to look at a photo collage of Scarlett. Her family had put together a bunch of pictures of Scarlett from the time she was a baby until now. I'm sure it was very touching, but I couldn't focus on any of the pictures. My stomach was a bundle of knots and I kept picturing Zombie Scarlett sitting up in her coffin as I tried to take her necklace off. How was I going to go through with this? This was worse than the time I had to do a twenty-minute speech on Winston Churchill in World History class. My knees were shaking. Still, I had to look normal. I had to do this. Kyle. I had to do this for us. I needed to get that necklace back to restore balance to our relationship. I relaxed a little, but only a very tiny bit. I waited for the signal.

The fire alarm went off. No, it wasn't original, but it worked. Everyone turned toward the exit doors. Some people walked out to be safe. Nobody was looking at the coffin. I didn't think. If anybody asked, I'd just say that I wanted to make sure that someone came and got Scarlett out too if there was a fire. I hoped nobody asked. I hoped Kait didn't get herself arrested. I hoped I didn't get arrested.

It was now or never. I walked the last few steps to the casket. Then I leaned over it to grab the necklace from Scarlett's neck.

"Please don't wake up, Scarlett," I whispered over and over again.

I couldn't believe I was doing this. If it wasn't a stolen necklace and Kyle hadn't given it to me then there was no way I'd even think about doing this. It felt so wrong. The only thing keeping me from running out of the funeral was that Scarlett had stolen my necklace. If I didn't do this now, it would be buried with her forever instead of being with me, it's rightful owner. I couldn't let that happen to my necklace.

I reached down and my hand hesitated just above the necklace. This was it. No. What was I doing? I looked at Scarlett's face. She looked so peaceful and not like a zombie at all. No. I couldn't do this. This was totally insane. I pulled my hand back from the casket.

Even though my heart was hurting, I had decided. I'd have to let Scarlett be buried with my necklace because this wasn't me. I wasn't a grave robber for goodness sake.

I took one last long look at my necklace. Kyle would understand and somehow maybe our relationship would go back to normal. Everything would be fine eventually and we'd forget about this. Still, I wished I'd at least gotten a picture of myself wearing the necklace. I wanted to remember every detail.

Wait. I did a double take. The stone on Scarlett's necklace looked different. Scarlett's stone was a deep dark blue, like a sapphire blue instead of the black color of my meteorite stone. I had only gotten a glimpse of Scarlett's necklace before and the star was so similar that I thought it was the same, but it wasn't. The stones were definitely different. That meant one thing. Scarlett hadn't stolen my necklace.

I felt like I was back to square one except at least now Kait was there to help me. I told her that Scarlett wasn't wearing my necklace after all. Kait totally understood even though she had risked getting into trouble by making the fire alarm go off. Uh-oh. Ethan probably wouldn't be happy about Kait continuing to help me with my mystery especially if it caused her to do things that she shouldn't be doing. Should I tell her that?

"So, if it wasn't Scarlett, then it has to be one of the others," Kait was thinking out loud and she didn't seem to notice that I was conflicted. "Megan and Sarah are Ariel's lackeys. If any of the three of them took it, I'd bet that they all know it. I'd guess that Ariel took it out of the three of them, though."

"Why?" I asked.

As much as Kait and Ariel fought, I still felt like Kait missed the friendship they once had. I was surprised that she'd be willing to accuse her. Then again, maybe that was her residual anger at Ariel talking and not the detective in her.

Kait smiled, "Because she's the leader of the group. And if she liked something, she'd take it. That's one of the aspects of the new, popular Ariel. She does as she pleases without regard to anyone else."

I nodded. I didn't really know Ariel, so I couldn't say anything to that. It could be true. It definitely sounded like Kait was still mad at Ariel, though.

Kait paused for a second, "But, to be fair, Megan and Sarah can be pretty on par with Ariel. I can't rule them out completely."

"Well what about Claire?" I asked.

"Claire could have taken it too," Kait said. "You're right in thinking that she could have grabbed it when she went to get her shampoo. She'd only need a few seconds to do it."

"But even if Scarlett was there?" I asked.

"Maybe Scarlett wasn't there yet or maybe she wasn't paying attention," Kait said. "Regardless, you can't rule Claire out completely either."

"So, what do I do now?" I asked. "We're on winter break. It's not like I can hunt everyone down. They wouldn't tell me if they took my necklace even if I did confront each of them."

Kait thought for a moment. "I have an idea."

I wasn't sure I could handle another one of Kait's ideas. I had almost had a nervous breakdown at Scarlett's funeral. I was just glad that neither of us got arrested. I did have to admit, though, that Kait had a good track record at solving mysteries and I still wanted to get my necklace back.

"What's your idea?" I asked.

"I know where Ariel, Megan, and Sarah will be on New Year's Eve," Kait said. "Maybe we can get Claire to be there too."

"Where are they going to be?" I asked.

"They're going to be at the Palos Town Square New Year's Festival," Kait said.

"How do you know that?" I asked.

"That's where Ariel goes every year," Kait said.

"But it doesn't seem very Ariel. Isn't it mostly kids and families?" I asked.

Kait nodded. "Yes, but they do have live music, food, and booths with all sorts of things you can buy. It's fun. I went with Ariel and her parents in junior high."

"But that was junior high," I started.

"No. Ariel will definitely be there," Kait said. "Her great aunt told me. Plus, when we were kids, Ariel told me that it was her favorite part of the year, going to that festival. Her dream was to kiss a guy there at midnight for New Year's. Maybe she's already done that a bunch of times, but from what I heard, she's bringing Troy there this year to do just that."

"Well, it looks like Kyle and I have New Year's Eve plans now," I said.

"Yeah, it looks like Ethan and I do too," Kait smiled back at me. "And don't worry, Suzie. We'll get back your necklace."

I nodded, but my mind was elsewhere. It wasn't exactly the perfect first New Year's Eve that I had dreamed of for Kyle and I. Still, maybe we could get the investigating done during the early part of the night. A New Year's Eve Festival would be fun. We could eat, dance, and have fun with our friends. Maybe Ariel had something with the romantic nature of the town square festival. Yeah, it would be fine as long as our investigation didn't interfere with my first New Year's kiss ever. Okay. I was definitely in.

Kait and I had almost a week to plan everything. Ethan was out of town until New Year's Eve with his family, so I think Kait was bored. We saw each other every day of winter break except for Christmas and talked about our investigation plans. Then we usually did something fun like go to the mall or the movies unless Kait or I had to work or I had plans with Kyle. Of course, Christmas happened too and that took up a whole day. I didn't even get to see Kyle on Christmas because of the two family parties that I had to attend. That was a bummer, but I was now really looking forward to spending New Year's Eve with him.

The most important part of our plan was to get everyone to the festival. Kait was absolutely sure that Ariel was going. That almost assuredly meant that Sarah and Megan were going too. In case they weren't, we had a plan. Of course it was a little tricky for Kait to do what she had to do.

The problem was that I swore her to secrecy about the stolen necklace. I didn't want her to tell Ethan. I had two reasons. One, I didn't want to get Kait and Ethan into a fight. I also didn't want Ethan to accidentally mention it to Kyle. I still hadn't told Kyle that I was looking for the necklace. It wasn't a lie technically, but I didn't want to get his hopes up. I wanted to find it and surprise him with it instead. It would be the perfect New Year's present if I could pull it off.