“What’s in the living room?” Hudson asks one of them.
“Not your brother. But an old statue fell off the buffet.”
“Wooooooooooooooooooo,” Daphne says over the intercom. “The killer left a clue on the knife. Woooooooooooooooooooooo.”
Bea squats in her dress, the fabric riding up her thighs, and I have to swallow hard.
Hudson glares at me.
He’s returning to school in a mere two weeks, so I let him have the fun of glaring.
Rather suspect I’ll miss him when he’s gone. Not that I’ll be far behind in leaving, but he’s an enjoyable chap, and I’ll return long before he does.
“Hmm,” Bea says.
“What’shmm?” one of the dads of some of the children downstairs says.
“It’s not Hudson’s missing dinner knife, unless he’s the only one who didn’t have a knife that matched the rest of the set.”
“Or unless a prop knife can’t look like the rest of the knives,” the dad says.
They both look at me.
I stare back in full offended glory, which makes Bea laugh, which makes me smile because I will never not smile when she laughs.
She squints at the knife attached to Lana’s abdomen again. “Do we get fingerprint kits?” she asks me.
“Surely the sheriff or the police will bring some, but we intend to solve the crime before they get here.”
She snags a serviette off the nearest chair and uses it to touch the knife.
“Ow, ow, my stab wounds,” Lana says dramatically.
“Don’t mess with the crime scene!” Wendell shrieks.
“Or reanimate the body,” the dad says. He squats next to Bea. “You’re Bea Best. We didn’t get to say hi earlier. I’m Torrence. Flying solo tonight. My ex?—”
My eye twitches. “Have you inspected the body to your liking, Torrence?”
Hudson coughs.
Lana snickers.
“Thedeadbody,” I add. “The very dead body.”
Bea grins up at me. “I’m good. And I should go find my other brother.”
She rises, and I watch Torrence to make sure he doesn’t try to sneak a peek up Bea’s dress.
He quickly looks back at Lana’s body, and I realize I need to growl again to make sure he’s not checking out my ex’s breasts.
I should have only invited single mothers when I could not invite a married couple.
No single fathers.
Bea slips her hand around my elbow. “Will you show me to the parlor, Archie? I’m afraid of being alone with a killer on the loose.”
And just like that, I no longer care about Torrence.
