“I like you already.” Carlotta loops her arm through Ronnie’s. “Tell me everything. Especially the dirty bits involving sailors.”
They drift off together, two agents of chaos recognizing a kindred spirit.
And just like that, I’m alone, but I’m alone in a sea of people, all pretending it’s an era long gone by with better hairstyles and dicier desserts.
Speaking of sweet treats, I glance at the buffet table—and my heart soars.
My banana pudding dish is almost empty!
Almost empty.
Ha! Take that, Midge Thornbury.
I’m so buoyed by this small victory that I decide to track down Noah and Everett and share the good news. The overgrown house looms ahead, and I slip through the side entrance, following the hallway toward the sunroom.
The afternoon light pours through the windows in golden streams, illuminating Vivi’s precious Persian rugs and?—
I stop short of stepping into a bona fide slippery mess.
A bowl containing what looks to be banana pudding lies shattered across the floor, leaving creamy dessert splattered everywhere like a dairy-based crime scene. And judging by the pale hue of that pudding, I know exactly who made it—me.
A heavy vintage cast-iron skillet rests nearby, and I immediately recognize it as the commemorative 1952 Griswold, AKA Big Bertha.
But right now, Big Bertha isn’t stealing the show.
Because there, face-down on the antique rug, lies an all too familiar face, with a trickle of crimson pooling near her temple, staining the Persian fibers.
Vivi won’t have to worry about the foot traffic anymore or her precious pricey rugs.
Vivienne Pemberton-Clarke is dead.
LOTTIE
Ascream rips from me, so loud and harsh it feels as if my own soul is about to vacate the premises.
It’s one of those screams that starts somewhere deep in your chest and claws its way out before your brain has fully processed what your eyes are seeing. And what I’m seeing right now is Vivienne Pemberton-Clarke face-down on her cream and gold Persian rug like a discarded marionette, and the small pool of crimson beneath her head is making my stomach lurch sideways.
The late afternoon sun slants through the sunroom windows, painting everything in a golden light that feels obscenely cheerful given the circumstances. Vanilla-scented candles flicker on the mantle, their sweet fragrance mixing with a sharp copper tang, and well, the sweetness of the scattered banana pudding.
Mybanana pudding.
It may not be prize-winning, or blue-ribbon-worthy, but apparently, it’s a cursed banana pudding because it just so happens to be splattered across the rug in abstract swoops and dollops, complete with vanilla wafer shrapnel and a whipped cream tower that’s already starting to deflate.
A cast-iron skillet lies a few feet from Vivienne’s head, glossedwith a dark slick that I really hope is just pudding residue but definitely isn’t.
Near the velvet sofa, a butcher knife gleams against the hardwood floor. Professional-grade. The kind you use to break down a whole chicken or, apparently, commit murder at a 1950s reenactment. Although I don’t see any stab wounds on the poor woman, or any blood on the knife. So odd.
The sound of thundering footsteps snaps me out of my screaming spiral half a second before Noah bursts through the door with his weapon drawn. His suit jacket is skewed sideways, and his dark hair is slightly mussed from the jaunt over.
“Geez,” he says, lowering his gun when he sees it’s just me and a corpse.
It’s not exactly a unique sight.
I really should have stayed home and baked cookies instead.
Everett appears half a second behind him, the sleeves of his charcoal dress shirt rolled up over his forearms in that way that shouldn’t be attractive during a murder investigation but somehow totally is. His jaw is tight, his eyes are already scanning the room with an intensity that could make a criminal confess and makes me feel things I probably shouldn’t be feeling right about now.
I’m about to say something when Carlotta bops into the room and surveys the scene with the ease of a woman who’s seen way too many dead bodies, and sighs.
