Cat Scratch Cleaver

in his hand clanks against the counter before he snaps up a handful of s’mores bars. “I’m heading out to have a smoke.”
He takes off and the brunette I was in the scene with leans over.
“Can you believe it?” She waves her hand over her nose, a giddy smile flickering on her thin red lips. “I’m betting that smoke is about to give him a serious case of the munchies. He’s as high as a kite.” A hearty chuckle expels from her as she takes up a s’mores bar herself. “Jane Olsen. I’m the director’s wife.” Her smile is quickly replaced with a frown.
“Bizzy Baker. I run the inn. And contrary to what my surname might have you believe, I can’t bake a thing without burning it.” I wink over at her. “But I’m getting married soon and I won’t have to quantify my last name anymore. That is, if I choose to change it.” The jury is still out on that one.
She belts out a laugh.
Jane is tall, on the thin side, with bony features, crow’s feet, and hard lines around her mouth. She looks to be in her late fifties, and has a fabulous figure and muscular arms as if she knows what the inside of a gym looks like.
“Don’t worry, honey.” Her voice drops an octave. “Husbands nowadays don’t give a lick how good wives can be in the kitchen. They’re much more concerned with another room of the house.” Unless, of course, your husband is Peter. She shoots a look to the irate man having a word with the production assistant a few feet away. He’ll pay for making a mockery out of our marriage. “Excuse me.” She takes off just as the production assistant Peter was berating heads this way.
“Everything okay?” I ask the woman before me with an air of apprehension.
Faith Grayson, the production assistant in question, has been my point person for the most part as far as this fiasco is concerned. She’s a sweet woman, just a touch older than me—I’m guessing early to mid-thirties—about five foot five, stocky with dark shoulder-length curls, and a pleasant face.
“Everything is just dandy,” she sings with a touch of sarcasm, and I can’t help but laugh. She cranes her neck past me as she looks to the makeup artist. “Hey, Kiki? Are you almost done with the gaping wound?”
“Gaping wound?” I say to no one in particular as a woman with long red curls bounces over. Her lips are frozen into a grin and she has a ruddy complexion and large brown eyes that look almost cartoonish in nature.
“I’ve got you covered.” The woman holds up a board in her hand with what looks like a flesh wound bulging out of it and I grimace at the sight of it. “It won’t hurt ya,” she says, landing the board onto the counter. “I’ll have to make a few minor adjustments as soon as Heather finishes with wardrobe, but for the most part, this is it.”
I look down at the bumpy peach flesh that’s sliced open with mounds of what looks like blood congealed over its sides.
“Wow, you’re really good,” I say, having a hard time taking my eyes off the realistic trauma.
Faith laughs. “Kiki is one of the best. You can bet we were thrilled when she came on to the project.” She gives a quick glance around. Now where is that witch? She makes a face. “I’d better track down Heather and make sure she’s with wardrobe. If we don’t keep time, Peter might just drop dead from all the stress.” Not that it would be a bad thing. Sometimes good things come in small body bags.
I make a face at the thought as she scurries into the crowd.
“I’m Bizzy,” I say to Kiki, and I’m just about to introduce her to Fish when she gives an exaggerated gasp.
“Oh”—she inches back, looking mildly confused—“I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to bother you. I was just—”
“No, no!” A laugh bubbles from me as I cut her off. “That’s my name. Bizzy Baker. I run the inn here. Welcome, by the way.”
“Bizzy?” She leans back to get a better look at me. “Now there’s a cute name.”
“It’s a nickname, actually. My best friend and I are both named Elizabeth, and seeing that we were always together growing up, we’ve just gone through life with the nicknames our families gave us. My parents were calling me Izzy for a while, but my big sister couldn’t pronounce it, so Bizzy it is. And my best friend goes by Emmie.” I glance over to where she sits canoodling with Leo Granger, her newly minted boyfriend.
Emmie and I share the same long dark hair and same denim blue eyes. So much so that we’re often mistaken for sisters.
I’m still not sure how I feel about Emmie being with a noted womanizer. Although I do like Leo. Like me, he has the strange ability to read minds. I glance back to that bloody blob of goo before me then back to Kiki, its creator.
“And I mean it”—I say—“your work is spectacular.”
“Thanks.” She shrugs it off as if it were no big deal. “It’s just rubber and some makeup that I’m about to slather onto the cleaver. Any fifth grader can do it.”
“I highly doubt that.”
She coos over at Fish and gives her tiny head a quick pat. “I just love animals.” Her lips press tight. “And that sweet dog running around has become my best friend.”
“He probably thinks you’re working with bacon,” I say and we share a quick laugh on Sherlock’s behalf. “Are you local?”
She rocks her head back as she nods. “We’re all basically local.” She motions to the slew of bodies buzzing around this inadvertent hive. “I’ve lived in Breckinridge all my life.” Her cheeks begin to heat and her already ruddy complexion turns a bright shade of plum. “I’ve got to get out of this room. It has to be at least a thousand degrees in here.”
“I’m