Page 94 of Murder on Charity Lane

“You and George knew Karina before any of you met Frank DeYoung, right?”

“Forever ago, yeah.” Her eyes twinkled. “You’ll never guess how. We were part of the same bocce league. George and I were so bad, but they needed to make up the numbers.”

“What did she do back then?” Nicholas asked. “I think someone told me she was an engineer?”

Helene ate the last tortilla chip. “No, she worked with engineers in the design department. Something like that.”

“Oh. Uh…” Nicholas wasn’t sure if he was learning anything, but this seemed like a great opportunity, so he said, “Uh, I don’t want to offend you—I am sneaking around asking you to read Sophie’s stuff, after all.”

“But you want to know about Frank’s investment in our business?”

“Yeah,” he admitted.

“He loaned us a half-million dollars and let us live with him for two years for free, after we invested every cent of our own in the business. Without Frank, we never would’ve gotten off the ground. Of course, he didn’t do too badly for himself investment-wise. Though we—”

She stopped as Nicholas’s phone rang with a call from Ocean. That surprised him: they texted, they didn’t call.

“Sorry,” he said, standing from the table. “I should take this, and get out of your hair. Thanks so much for everything.”

“You’re very welcome,” Helene told him. “We’ll let you know about the play.”

Nicholas answered the phone as he walked back to his car. “Hey, Ocean.”

“Is Mrs. B with you?” she asked.

“No, she’s—you don’t know where she is?”

“Her car’s gone. I’m hoping someone drove her somewhere.”

“Text the group chat.”

“I did, Nicholas. You didn’t respond.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Ocean said. “It’s not like she forgot how to drive a car.”

“When did you notice she was gone? You want me to check the YMCA for her car?”

“Would you?” she asked.

“I’m on the way.”

Mrs. B had been taking care of herself for longer than any of them had been alive, so Nicholas wasn’t that worried. Still, he trusted Ocean’s opinion about this kind of thing. She joked about her “mom senses,” but she’d learned good judgment the hard way: by raising kids. And he had to admit that while Mrs. B was as bright and lively as ever, she’d become more easily distracted lately and maybe a little dippier.

By the time he pulled into the YMCA parking lot, the Marigold Cottages Murder Collective chat had eighty-four notifications. He drove along the first aisle, scanning for Mrs. B’s car, then paused and scrolled through the texts. No one had any idea where she was: Sophie hadn’t seen her; Hamilton accidentally pasted in a recipe for a pineapple upside-down cake; Ocean announced that she wasn’t at the grocery store nor the library; Hamilton apologized for accidentally pasting in the recipe; and so on.

Nicholas crawled through the parking lot with no luck.

She’d been gone for three hours.

45

LILY-ANN

Lily-Ann frowned at the picture frame on her living room floor. She knew the top was perfectly aligned with the door, because she’d already checked twice. Despite that, she checked for a third time. And sure enough, the picture was still in the right place. Unlike herself. She felt uncomfortably out of place. She sat and frowned at her phone, at the “Mrs. B is missing” updates buzzing every few seconds.

“You want to check See’s Candies?” Anthony stepped in from the kitchen in his flour-dusted apron. “You know how she feels about peanut crunches.”