Page 100 of Murder on Charity Lane

I reached to pull him back but it was Mrs. B. She drifted in from the courtyard with a flutter of her silk muumuu and a bouquet of marigolds with overlarge round yellow blooms. Hamilton and I called her name and Nicholas smiled like a schoolboy. Ocean gave her a relieved, wary, exhausted, adoring look that was extremely daughterly.

“You’re all here!” Mrs. B said. “Well, almost all. Not CJ. You didn’t invite the children, Ocean?”

Ocean set a pitcher of iced tea on the table, which she’d made after we’d all refused to run to the market for Hamilton’s egg yolk–flavored Italian syrup. “Not until I know where you disappeared to.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“For all I know, you were off getting boudoir photographs.”

“Oooh, I should look into that! Not photographs, paintings. If only there were an artist I could hire.” She gave the flowers to Lily-Ann and turned to Hamilton. “How about a glass of your kombucha?”

“She’ll have Ensure,” Ocean said.

Mrs. B made a face. “Fine, but only if you have butter pecan.”

“Of course he has butter pecan,” Nicholas said.

“My favorite kind of pecan!” Hamilton flip-flopped into the kitchen.

Lily-Ann arranged the flowers in the vase, and I opened my mouth to ask Mrs. B where she’d gone, but Ocean got there first. “Are you going to tell us where you disappeared to?”

“After dinner,” Mrs. B said.

Ocean said, “Golda, I am already on edge.”

“Please?” Mrs. B asked, then at Ocean’s expression of begrudging agreement she said, “Thank you. Now, where shall I sit?”

Nicholas pulled out a chair, and she gave him a buss on the cheek. “Such a gentleman. You’re a lucky woman, Sophie.”

“Lucky-ish,” I grumbled, still annoyed at his interference.

“I’m in trouble,” he told Mrs. B.

“Oh-ho!” Her brown eyes brightened with interest. “What have you done now?”

“Believed in her,” he said.

“Everyone sit,” Lily-Ann said. “Who wants wine?”

I said I did, and nobody shot me a dirty look, which I appreciated. I knew I had to be careful with alcohol, but one glass at Hamilton’s house before strolling home across the courtyard with Nicholas? Even I couldn’t get in trouble with that. Lily-Ann had made enchiladas and Hamilton produced a nice, normal green salad. In an obvious attempt to keep the conversation light—not about CJ or Mrs. B’s disappearance—Ocean told us that Miles was trying to get Anthony approved as a chaperone for his weeklong school trip to the Channel Islands. “He’s considering picketing the principal’s office with a sign about felons’ rights. He still spells ‘school’ wrong half the time, but ‘felon’ is no problem.”

“He’s great in Realm of Rangers,” Hamilton said, helping himself to another serving of enchiladas. “And my friend, the cop who plays Cyntria? He’s so grateful for Miles’s healing that he’s still sending me an update every day.”

“Goodness!” Mrs. B said. “About CJ’s case? Have you learned anything important?”

“Not really, though I haven’t checked his message today. I made the salad instead.”

“It’s so good,” I told him.

“The snap peas are fresh from the farmers market.”

“Do they deliver?”

“I asked Anthony to pick them up.”

“You’re baking baguettes, drinking kombucha, and shopping at the farmers market?” Nicholas asked Anthony. “What have you become?”

Anthony’s eyes crinkled. “I’m doing yoga, too.”