“Uh-huh,” Faulkner says as I tussle with him to grab my phone. “Which jail are they in?”
“I thought you were crafting, Creampuff.”Winnie is wearing a cheap stripper uniform unbuttoned at the collar so I can see the line of her cleavage as she and her accomplices are led out. “You look great in handcuffs, by the way.” I can’t help but kiss her.
“Thanks for bailing us out.” She makes a face.
“Bail you out? Creampuff, please. I can’t have the future Mrs. Svensson with a criminal record,” I say lightly.
“You’re free to go.” The cop at the desk waves to them.
“Oh!” Winnie is a little shocked.
“It’s like this never happened.” I nod to several men in suits standing around under the TV in the jail’s waiting room.
“See, when you make big donations to the district attorney’s campaign, you can call them up and say, ‘Hey! My girlfriend and her friends were out chasing down her elderly grandmother who’s losing her marbles, and she’s very sorry for the big misunderstanding. I hear your daughter runs a charity to offer respite care to families caring for elderly relatives, and I’m planning on making a donation.’ And then she agrees that of course it was a big misunderstanding.”
“I don’t know if I should be grateful or appalled,” Winnie says after a moment.
“I see how much money you charge for those maple-bacon glazed cinnamon rolls. The only unethical party here is you, Creampuff.”
“I’m not crazy!” Frances declares as they lead her out, hands behind her back. “And I’m willing to take the fall!”
“Gran,shhh,” Kathy hisses at her. “Yes, she is sundowning. Thank you for being so understanding about our elderly grandmother,” Kathy tells the DA’s representative.Sorry, Fitz,she mouths.
Winnie’s gaze flicks back to her sis and granny.
“So,” I ask them when we’re back out on the street. “Was this a bachelorette party thing? Is Loony Laura missing too?”
“Shh!” Winnie shushes me and subtly looks at the lawyers, who are heading to their cars. “We were just having a girls’ activity.”
“Bonding activity,” Brinley says at the same time.
“Yeah.”
“Ten toes on the ground. You’re not getting anything out of me,” Granny Frances declares.
Winnie looks guilty.
What aren’t you telling me?I want to scream and shake her.
But apparently, everyone else in my life believes that my outburst freaked her out, so I control myself.
“I’ll send you all home,” I tell them then lean in to whisper in Winnie’s ear: “But after that engagement party? You’re mine.”
41
WINNIE
“Champagne? Mimosa? Hard liquor?”
“It’s ten in the morning, Carolina.”
“The only way I’m surviving this engagement party is shit-faced drunk,” Carolina declares as we arrange the cupcakes with Mount-Etna-green-colored frosting that I’d had to toss three batches of before Laura was happy with the color.
The Rainstorm Bar and Restaurant is at the top of one of Fitz’s many towers.
“How much of this city does that man own?” Carolina asks as she helps me move tables away from the window.
“Thirteen percent,” I tell her.
