Page 139 of Murder on Charity Lane

“You need to eat your noodles,” Ocean told her. “And let the rest of us handle this.”

“Oma?” Riley called from the front door. “Mrs. B?”

“In here!” Ocean said.

“Karina knows more than she told us.” Mrs. B frowned at her food. “We should sneak into her house and—”

“We’re not breaking into her house, Golda. We’ll figure this out. I promise.”

“Break into whose house?” Riley asked, entering from the foyer. “CJ’s? You don’t need to break in, you have the key. Just unlock the door.”

“Not helping,” Ocean snapped.

“God!” Riley huffed, and stormed out.

“My fatal flaw, on the other hand,” Ocean said, “isn’t that I’m too good.”

64

NICHOLAS

CJ’s disappearance upset Nicholas more than he expected. He felt sick at the prospect of losing the property. Mrs. B loved every inch of the place. Ocean would never find a place half as good for her family, Lily-Ann needed the Cottages for a community, and god only knew what would happen to Hamilton.

Nicholas, however, would be okay. He and Sophie would be fine. At least that’s what he told himself as they indulged in the comfort of burritos from their favorite hole-in-the-wall. But later that night, he couldn’t fall asleep. And when he finally understood why, he was ashamed.

He’d never cared about inheriting the Cottages. He’d told Mrs. B a dozen times that she didn’t owe him anything just because his father had been her cheating husband. Hell, she should’ve resented him for that. And intellectually, he still meant that. Of course she didn’t owe him anything.

Yet apparently he’d started to count on inheriting a valuable, income-producing property a few blocks from State Street. He’d begun to take for granted that money would never be a problem—and then he’d started to believe that he deserved it.

That was the twist in his gut: selfishness.

What if CJ’s disappearance made him lose his property? He was ashamed of himself for thinking that way. For caring more about money than his friends’ happiness. He almost told Sophie, but he didn’t want her to know how petty he was. So instead, he drifted off to sleep, dreaming of ways to help. Ways to address Hamilton’s issues, to find housing for Mrs. B, to convince one of Sophie’s philanthropists to cover a single mother / local artist’s rent …

65

SOPHIE

I felt Nicholas’s mind racing as he lay beside me, unable to sleep. Poor guy. He’d tried so hard, for so long, to stay out of the Marigold Cottages drama. For years, he’d barely spoken to anyone on the property. Yet look at him now. Living with me and deeply entangled with everyone else.

He was probably obsessing about the murders. I didn’t know what to make of this second one, Sunny Wheeler’s stabbing, but my playwright senses were still tingling about Frank DeYoung’s death. My mind’s eye kept zooming in on details nobody else seemed to notice. The ice cubes, for example. They changed everything. Somehow.

Well, say the killer planted ice at the top of the stairs, knowing that’s where Frank lingered while saying goodbye? In that case, they wouldn’t need to be present when he fell, widening the field of suspects!

I almost shared that with Nicholas, but kept quiet when I heard his unhappy sigh.

On second thought, he probably wasn’t obsessing about the murders. He was probably worrying about the other residents. And about Mrs. B. He considered her family. We all did, but his relationship with her was deeper. If Ocean was her daughter, Nicholas was her son.

“We’ll figure it out,” I murmured, in the dim light of the bedroom.

“There’s just so much to lose,” he said.

I knew what he meant. I wanted to cry at the thought of Marigold Cottages breaking apart, of the community fracturing and fading. Of losing these connections. I hated the chance that he’d lose the property, too. I treasured the weird, beautiful home we’d made together, and I felt it slipping away.

66

HAMILTON

A forest path unfurled in front of Hamilton. Light seeped through the canopy and strange birds called in the distance. Trees with impossibly glossy leaves flanked him as he ran with a cheetah swiftness toward the elven village.