Page 119 of Murder on Charity Lane

“So you’re asking us what, exactly? Not to tell the cops even if we think she’s framing you?” Sophie clicked her tongue. “What if that’s the only way to prove your innocence?”

CJ almost started crying again when she remembered her days behind bars. “I won’t go to jail for her! But she didn’t hurt him. I know she didn’t.”

“It’s lovely that you care so much about what he would’ve wanted,” Sophie said, as a door opened in the darkness behind her. “Even now, you’re still looking after him.”

“Say what you want about me.” CJ sniffled, smiling and tearful at the same time. “I always put Frank first.”

55

OCEAN

After the Murder Collective meeting ended, Ocean nipped into the kitchen for the box of leftover chocolates from the previous meeting.

She worried they weren’t getting anywhere with the investigation. None of the current suspects struck her as particularly suspicious. At least not more than any random group of rich people. Jane had buried two husbands, and based her self-worth on getting fancy national awards at World of Goods. So what? George and Helene owed Frank for turning them into windshield wiper tycoons, and Sunny Wheeler was three kinds of weirdo. Who cared? The caterer was a no-drama local business, the masseuse was a sensitive new age guy specializing in geriatrics. Karina disliked CJ, and resented Frank’s donations, but apparently did everything she could to keep him alive.

CJ was Frank’s devoted assistant. And Frank, in his elderly brain fog, had started hoarding cash from ATMs.

To Ocean, that just sounded like people being people.

In Hamilton’s kitchen, she picked through the half-empty See’s Candies box for Miles and Riley. She wasn’t sure which ones Riley preferred these days, and didn’t want to give her milk chocolate if she only ate dark. Forget CJ, forget romance. Forget investigations. Those were the big questions in Ocean’s life. The only ones that really mattered.

By the time she decided to nab the entire box, everyone was gone. Well, other than Lily-Ann, who’d stuck around to help Hamilton clean up—and look at cats on the animal shelter website.

She left the cottage through the kitchen door. She’d use the chocolates as an excuse to check in with Riley. She liked to periodically remind her daughter that she had access to a mother who loved her, who’d listen. However, before she took two steps, she heard Sophie’s voice drift toward her in the darkness. Talking to CJ, which made her smile. When Lily-Ann had texted earlier, telling everyone to accuse CJ of lying, she hadn’t expected anything from Sophie. Sophie was too sweet to convincingly convey callous suspicion.

On the other hand, after Ocean listened for a minute, Sophie said, “She sounds selfish.”

She almost laughed. Sometimes she forgot how sharp she was. The girl could cut when she chose to. She almost backed away to let the private conversation remain private, but … well, there was too much Mrs. B in her for that. So instead, she peeked around the side of Hamilton’s cottage and listened until the kitchen door opened a few feet behind her.

She jerked in surprise, and Lily-Ann stepped beside her, a quizzical cast to her face, wondering why she was lurking. So Ocean spoke loudly, as if she’d just stepped outside, too. “I’m taking the leftover See’s candy for the kids!”

“Okay,” Lily-Ann said, and nobody who didn’t know her would’ve heard her amusement.

Ocean continued toward her own cottage, the loose chocolates sliding around inside the box. She felt a little like she was stepping offstage after a scene in one of Sophie’s plays. People popping in and out of the spotlight, eavesdropping and being discovered—and clumsily covering for themselves.

Then a whisper sounded from the hedge outside Sophie’s old cottage: “Oma!”

“Miles?” Ocean said.

“Jesus, Mother,” Riley rage-whispered. “I do not sound like Miles!”

“Sorry, sorry!” she whispered back. “What’re you doing?”

“Shhh!” Riley said, and slipped toward her from the shadows.

She took Ocean’s elbow and frog-marched her across the courtyard to their cottage. Once they were inside, Ocean offered her the See’s. She riffled through them with fingernails painted with Chanel Vamp polish saying, “Yum, gross. Yum, yum, gross.”

“What’s up?” Ocean asked, meaning Why were you lurking in the shadows?

“What is up?” Mrs. B asked, wandering in from the kitchen, holding two oven mitts.

“Well, you’re in the kitchen, for one,” Ocean said, as Riley stepped to the window.

Mrs. B flapped an oven mitt behind herself. “I baked a kugel.”

“Not the sweet kind,” Riley said.

“Yes, the sweet kind!”