During the credits of the first episode, Sara said, “We have to find Gena.”
“Yes,” Jack said.
“When we go, do we take arsenic or hemlock?” Kate said and the others smiled.
It was exactly how they all felt.
The next morning at breakfast, they agreed that the best thing would be to get back to normal.
“As if we’ve had any normal.” Sara turned to Kate. “I still want to show you around South Florida.”
“I’d like that.”
Jack was moving eggs about on his plate and saying nothing.
Once Kate got to her office, everyone stared at her, but no one asked any questions.
Tayla gave her the listings and the code to the locks on the doors. “I want my agents to see a house before they try to sell it, so go look at them. If you see anything distinctive, put it in the specs.”
Kate was glad to get out on her own. Her mind was so full of what had been going on that it was hard to think of small talk. “So how was your weekend?” wouldn’t end in “Oh, fine. How was yours?”
She finally had a map of Lachlan and used it to find her way around town.
Tayla’s specs included comments about each house. There were selling points, like walk-in closets, divine kitchen, new air-conditioning.
But there were also coded comments. “Make it your own” meant the house needed to be gutted. “Cozy” meant too small for more than three pieces of furniture.
But Kate’s thoughts were so filled with the Morris women that it was hard to concentrate on what she was seeing.
When she left the bedroom of the eighth house and Jack was standing by the front door, leaning on his crutches, she wasn’t surprised.
“The Matthews family owned this house,” he said. “It needs a new roof and the plumbing is bad. There are three dogs buried in the backyard.”
“Okay, Mr. Sunshine, what’s happened?”
“We found Gena. She’s in Miami.”
Kate took out her cell. “I’ll call Tayla and tell her—”
“Sara called her and they made up and they’re going to spend today at a spa. Together. Talking about old times.”
“I guess that really means that Aunt Sara is in the back seat waiting for us, and you called Melissa to flirt with her soshe’dtell Tayla that I’d be gone.”
Jack tried to repress his laughter but didn’t succeed. “Exactly right. Can you imagine them suddenly being best friends? Hey, you want tacos? It’s on the way and I’m driving.”
“Think they have salads?”
“Ones with no calories at all. It’s a miracle.”
“Laugh all you want, but if you keep sitting and eating barrels of food, you won’t keep that flat belly.” She walked past him, her head high.
“Glad you noticed that I have one.”
They locked the house and got in Sara’s MINI, leaving Kate’s car in the driveway.
On the long drive south through big, bad Miami, Kate described the houses she’d seen and Jack told the history of some of them. Sara knew a few of the families and their backgrounds.
They sat in the parking lot to eat tacos—with Jack eating the fried tortillas that the women wouldn’t touch.
