“Let’s just say I have friends at the county assessor’s office, the building inspector’s office, and the zoning commission. That house is a rental, and I’m willing to bet it’s not up to code. If Daryl wants to play games, I’ll show him what happens when a judge starts asking questions about property violations.”
Noah nods approvingly. “Legal pressure from all sides. I like it.”
“It’s not about revenge,” I say, though we all know it absolutely is. “It’s about making sure he understands that there are adults in this neighborhood who won’t tolerate his negligence.”
Lemon shifts Ozzy to her other hip. “I can’t decide if I should be terrified or turned on right now.”
“Both are acceptable,” I tell her.
Carlotta cackles. “Now that’s the kind of payback I can get behind! Legal, calculated, and with enough paperwork to make that deadbeat dad wish he’d just answered the door.”
The sun climbs higher, birds keep chirping, and somewhere down the way, Daryl Pickens has no idea that he just declared war on the wrong family.
He threw eggs at my house.
I’m about to throw the entire legal system at his.
LOTTIE
As fate would have it, Noah and Everett checked the security cameras, and sure enough, a few dark figures in dark hoodies and darker masks were seen doing the egging—but not a single one of them was identifiable. Pixelated blobs of delinquency, that’s all we got.
They were disappointed, to say the least. But the two of them were still pretty determined to confront the Pickens clan and let the justice system work, which in Everett speak means he’s going to weaponize every subsection of the Vermont civil code and, in Noah-speak, means he’s going to glare them into next week while making sure they understand that he’s armed at all times.
Me? I wish none of it had ever happened. I wish I’d never driven down that street on the way home that day. Of course, that day was cursed from top to bottom, seeing that it was the very same day Vivienne Pemberton-Clarke was taken out by a psychopath wielding a cast-iron frying pan named Big Bertha.
But I digress.
Once Everett and Noah took off to make their rounds—legal ones and otherwise—I got dressed and took Lyla Nell to preschool, where I was fully expecting blubbering tears andkicking and screaming on both her part and mine. But my feisty baby girl toddled into the classroom like she owned the deed to the place, spared me a quick look over her shoulder, and said a hearty, “Goodbye, Lottie,” before she went over to the clay station and dug her hands into something that looked suspiciously like red soil.
Abandoned. By my own two-year-old.
I stood there another full minute waiting for the separation anxiety to kick in. Mine did. Hers never came.
After that ego hit, I did what any rational mother of three under three would do. I called my own mother and tried to pawn off the twins for a few hours.
“Glam Glam,” I said the second she picked up, “how would you like to spend some quality time with your favorite grandsons? They’re extra cute today. I think Corbin might have dimples on his elbows.”
“That’s not a thing, Lottie,” she chirped. “And as much as I would love to soak up the sweet babies, I’m afraid I’m up to my eyeballs in petticoats and pearls.”
“Of course, you are.” I slumped into the driver’s seat and buckled my seat belt with a sigh. “Let me guess. Daughters of Honey Hollow?”
“Today is an extremely important event,” she says as if she were announcing a national emergency. “We’re holding the Pin-Curl Pageant over at Blanche’s shop on Main. I simply cannot miss it. Suze is counting on me to help wrangle the contestants.”
I perked right up. “Blanche’s shop? As in Blanche Baumgartner? Blanche Baumgartner, who has been turning sweet little Honey Hollow grandmothers into blue-helmeted cotton candy clones since 1973?”
“That’s the one.” Mom actually giggles. “Blanche’s House of Hair. We’re calling it the Pin-Up Parlor today. You should come! Bring the boys. We’ll pass them around like party favors.”
I look in the rearview mirror where Ozzyand Corbin are seated in their car seats, cheeks chubby, eyes wide, little fists already at the ready to wreak tiny havoc.
“I thought nobody under seventy was allowed within ten feet of Blanche’s House of Hair,” I say. “Isn’t that in the bylaws?”
“Oh, nonsense. Anyone is welcome.” Mom pauses. “They just rarely come back.”
That checks out.
Blanche’s House of Hair sits on Main Street just a few steps from the Cutie Pie Bakery. I’d walked past it a thousand times but never once ventured inside. Mostly because every single person who exits the premises comes out with the exact same hairdo—tight, electric-blue perm shellacked to their ears like a Smurf had been taxidermied and hot-glued to their skull. It’s like watching a conveyor belt for cotton-candy helmets.
“Fine,” I say, mostly because I’m a nosy sleuth. “Keep an eye out for me. I’ll swing by.”
