Same old, same old.
“How’s Evie?” I ask, grabbing my own slice and settling onto the couch.
“It’s finals week,” Lottie says, sitting between Everett and me in a way that feels both natural and like torture. “We’ve been sending her encouraging texts all week. I think she’s doing okay, though she threatened to block us if we send one more motivational meme.”
Evie would be Everly Baxter, one of Everett’s long-lost daughters that we tracked down a few years back. Everett seems to be having a run on long-lost daughters coming out of the woodwork as of late.
“She threatened to block us?” Everett looks mildly amused. “That’s fair. Your last one was questionable.”
Lottie clucks her tongue. “It was inspirational!”
He offers her a pointed look. “It was a cat hanging from a tree branch that said, ‘Hang in there, baby.’”
“Exactly.Inspirational.”
I bite back a smile. “She’ll do great. She’s got brains and Everett’s ability to intimidate people into submission through sheerforce of will.”
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said about me,” Everett says.
“Don’t get used to it.”
We eat in comfortable silence for a moment, the TV playing some home renovation show that none of us are actually watching. Lyla Nell is playing with Toby, Pancake, and Waffles—thoughplayingis a generous term. She’s more ordering them around like tiny furry subordinates.
“So,” I say casually, taking another bite. “How was your day, Lottie?”
“Fine,” she says too quickly. “Unconventional. Boring, really.”
Something in my gut cinches, and I set down my pizza. “Lottie, you spoke to a suspect, didn’t you?”
She tosses her hand in the air, nearly launching her slice across the room. “What gave it away?”
Everett gestures to her outfit with his pizza. “The fact that you’re dressed like a hot housewife straight out of the fifties had something to do with it.”
Lottie’s entire face lights up. “You think I’m hot?”
“Sexy thinks you’re hot no matter what you’re wearing,” Carlotta calls from her chair, still apparently conversing with the invisible peacock. “Come to think of it, the less you’re wearing, the hotter you are.”
Everett nods solemnly. “I don’t disagree.”
“Lottie, who did you speak to?” I ask, ignoring both Everett and Carlotta.
Everett frowns twice as hard. “And who watched the kids?”
Lottie gasps, her hand flying to her chest. “Funny you should mention it—Lyla Nell went to preschool today!”
My eyebrows shoot up. “She what?”
“It was just a trial run! Sort of like the one she did a few months back. Lainey took her. I wasn’t planning on it, but Mom bailed on babysitting, and Lainey basically kidnapped her straight from the bakery.”
I turn to Lyla Nell, who’s now sitting cross-legged on the floor with Toby’s head in her lap. “How’d you like school, sweetheart?”
Her face takes on a serious expression. “I like it. But the other kids—they didn’t listen very good.”
“Didn’t listen well,” Lottie corrects softly.
“That’s what I says! They didn’t listen! So I had to tell them what to do.” She pats Toby’s head with the authority of a tiny dictator. “Just like I tell Toby and Pancake and Waffles.”
Pancake chooses this moment to swat at Waffles, who retaliates by tackling him off the couch. They tumble to the floor in a ball of white fluff and indignant yowling.
