Page 115 of Mother-Daughter Murder Night

She clicked her remote at a green Jaguar parked by a dusty pickup in front of the greenhouses.

Beth and Jack followed Martin to help.

“Do you think Prima’s okay?” Jack bit her lip. Lana had been texting her all afternoon about Lady Di and the evidence they still needed to find. It had been exciting when it was just words on the phone. But up on the ranch, it felt different. Isolated. She could hear frogs waking up in the muddy creeks down below, the crickets twitching in the high grass. But there was no light, no movement except their own.

“I’m sure she’ll be here soon,” Beth said. She looked down the road, squinting at the darkened fields and rolling hills beyond the gate. “A dinner party? Lana wouldn’t miss it.”

* * *

The parking lot of the yacht club was not so picturesque at sunset. The sun slammed into the ocean at an angle that blinded anyone who was sentimental enough to gaze west.

Paul and Lana were looking north, hunting for supplies in the decrepit boatyard on the far side of the yacht club.

Paul peeled a canvas cover off an upside-down rowboat and pulled out a cardboard box. He dumped it on the gravel beside Lana and began digging through it, tossing aside a sleeping bag and an armful of clothes before wading back in.

“Have you been . . . living under this boat?” Lana stepped between the islands of seagull poop.

“Just the last couple nights.” Paul’s voice was muffled, his head deep in the box.

“How long did you imagine you could evade the sheriffs here?”

He shrugged. “It’s worked so far.”

It was disgusting, but also brilliant. With the sheriffs watching everyone coming in and out of the marina, Paul had found the one place he wouldn’t be spotted. Even if it did come with the stench of eviscerated fish.

Lana watched with clinical detachment as Paul pulled off his sweat-stained T-shirt, revealing a shark tooth necklace and a blond, furry trail from his navel down to the top of his khaki pants. He put on a black sweatshirt, a leather vest, and a moth-bitten beanie.

“Do I look tough?” he asked.

Lana gave him a curt nod. She felt the slightest twinge of guilt for roping him into this.

“Do you have anything you could use as a weapon?”

He tunneled back into the box and emerged waving an American-flag-coated Maglite.

She stared at it. “The sheriffs are looking for that, you know. They think you used it to kill Ricardo. It could have helped you out a lot if you’d given it to them to test.”

“They took all my others,” he said. “I needed this one to get my plants.”

There was no time to critique Paul’s shortsightedness. It might even help her. Lana gave him brief bullet points on his role, telling him where he’d wait and how she’d signal when she needed him. By the time she handed him her backup key fob, it was 6:05.

“We have to go,” she said.

“How are we going to get past the cop at the gate?”

“I’ve got a plan for that.”

It took only a little cajoling to get Paul to agree to it.

* * *

Diana stayed out front to wait for Lana while Beth, Jack, and Martin carried the food inside. The ranch house was cavernous and dark, cluttered with farm implements from the ranch’s past. They passed a set of massive elk horns in the foyer, a line of spurs mounted above the coat rack, and over every doorway, cattle brands, upside-down Rs wrought in heavy iron. On the way to the kitchen, Beth peeked left, into a sunken den that was dominated by a leather couch and a fireplace lined with wide, heavy river stones.

After Jack set the pie on the counter, she wandered into the den. Beth and Martin stayed in the kitchen. It was brighter than the rest of the house, all pale wood and windows with frilly curtains. The decor was avian, with wood-framed watercolors and sketches of pheasants, hawks, even a bald eagle.

“It’s lovely in here,” Beth said.

“This was my mom’s domain.” Martin poured wine into two glasses, handing one to Beth. “She had a light touch.”