"Gala crowd?"
"Every single one of them." I turned around and leaned against the opposite counter, wrapping both hands around my mug. "They all know the woman who's chairing the event tomorrow night and only one of them seemed thrilled about it."
He looked at me over the rim of his coffee. "Harper."
"I'm just observing."
He sighed. Set down the mug. "Which woman?"
His voice sounded heavier. I was personally responsible for sucking all the light and joy out of Hollis this morning.
"Evelyn Carrington."
Something moved across his face. Not alarm. Just…awareness.
"You know who she is," I said.
"I know of her." He picked his mug back up. "She's well-connected. Old Garden District family. Very involved in historic preservation." He paused. "Not universally beloved."
"I can see why.”
"Yep. She's powerful and she knows it and she doesn't always use that power gently."
I looked at Teddy. Teddy looked back at me.
"Great," I said. "So I've got a full house, a charity gala, and a potentially divisive authority figure who all four of my guests have some kind of complicated history with."
Hollis gave me a look. "Or you’re overreaching and overreacting and borrowing trouble.”
I nodded. “Could be. I won’t even deny it.”
“They're just members of the same small social world and you're reading into it because you've had two solved murders in six months and your pattern recognition is running hot."
"Probably." I picked my mug back up. "I'm just saying I'm paying attention."
"You're always paying attention."
"And yet somehow it's a surprise every time."
He almost smiled at that. He finished his coffee, ran the mug under the faucet the way he always did, and set it on the drying mat. He then dried his hands and looked at me with an expression I had started to recognize over the past several months—the one that meant he was going to say something he hadn't fully decided to say yet.
"Be careful tomorrow night," he said.
"It's a charity gala, Hollis. There will be canapés."
"There were canapés at the last thing you got mixed up in."
I considered that. "There weren't, actually. There was charcuterie."
He pointed at me.
I thought he was going to admonish me again.
Instead he said, “Nice dress.”
It didn’t sound like a compliment. “I’m trying to look professional!” I protested.
“You look like you’re going to film videos of yourself baking bread.”
