Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 92996 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92996 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
“I just woke up, and I’m already tired,” I told my best friend.
“That is not my fault. It’s probably yours because you were up late, running around Osprey with your intended.”
She wasn’t wrong.
“And now I need you to rise, get going so that we”—she indicated me and her—“can chat about what happened to the lovely Cordelia Wormwood.”
I groaned.
“In case you’re wondering, the town-hall meeting has been moved to one,” she explained.
“How did you manage that?”
“I told the mayor when she informed me of her proposed time that at noon I was eating and not convening for anything. I also pointed out that if we waited, Lorne would have more information to give the community than merely the facts of the crime, and the more answers he had, the better everyone would feel. Knowing if we do or do not have a murderer in our midst is eating away at all of us.”
“That was good thinking.”
“Well, let’s face it. I put her in office, I can take her out.”
“That’s not why she moved the meeting.”
She tipped her head, brow arched, daring me to contradict her.
“You’re a bully.”
“Yes,” she agreed.
The reality was, Amanda owned more land in Osprey, both commercial and residential, than anyone else. Even if somehow Allard Pace bought every commercial piece available, he would maybe own a third of what was not privately owned. Amanda, who had been abandoned by her family, taken in by me and my grandfather, and then became a self-made multimillionaire, had returned to her hometown with a vengeance after college. She was a wonderful, caring, kind person—but you didn’t want to cross her. She also sat on every board that had any kind of pull in the community, and had been the one to insist on hiring a city manager. It was time to drag Osprey into the twenty-first century.
I put my hands over JJ’s ears. “Are Diana and Ken going to give Troy any trouble because his bees are alive and theirs are dead?”
“No,” she assured me. “And I’m having new hives flown in for both of them, which they both lavishly thanked me for first thing this morning.”
I moved my hands from JJ’s ears.
“I heard all that,” I was told. “You were worried I’d cry about the bees, huh?”
“I was.”
“I cried this morning.”
“I’m sorry.”
“We made a donation to the global bee fund.”
“I had no idea there was such a thing, but that’s good.”
“Even though Ms. Flint and Mr. Slater thanked Mom for the new bees, Mom still called them bad names when we walked away from them at the farmers’ market.”
“Oh yeah? What’d Mom call ’em?”
“Dad said it was naughty to repeat them.”
“Did it start with a b?”
They shook their head, big blue eyes on me. “No. The letter c for Ms. Flint and a d for Mr. Slater.”
I looked up at my best friend, who crossed her arms and glared.
“Really? That was early in the morning for the c word.”
Quick grunt from her.
“And the d?” I inquired.
“Dickhead.”
“Mom,” JJ said, shaking their head. “So naughty.”
“I’m not going to get any better,” she informed her second born. “You should get used to it, all right?”
JJ squinted at their mother.
“Go tell your brother to pour Uncle Xan a glass of orange juice.”
They nodded and scrambled off the bed.
“Wait,” I called, and JJ stopped at the door to look at me. “Please make it apple, not orange. Orange gives me heartburn.”
JJ nodded. “Orange makes my stomach hurt.”
“Basically the same,” I replied.
They nodded and darted out.
“Since when?” Amanda asked me.
“What?”
“Since when,” she repeated, “does orange juice give you heartburn?”
“I’m getting older,” I told her.
“Bite your tongue,” she snapped, then motioned for me to move over so she could sit down next to me. “I stopped by Lorne’s office on the way here. He wasn’t there. He was at Kathy’s house with the arson inspector. Pete told me the ME started her autopsy at eight, and that she gave all her preliminary findings to Lorne but no one else.”
“And you’re chomping at the bit to know.”
“Some of these expressions of yours,” she said, squinting at me.
“Raised by my grandparents,” I reminded her.
She chuckled. “I am aware.”
I sighed deeply.
“Okay, Xan. Get up, wash your face, brush your teeth, and come out and have one of the bagels I brought.”
I was going to remind her I was not one of her children and so did not need instruction, but she’d already left the room.
After doing exactly what she’d said, making sure to slather on sunscreen I hoped Lorne had remembered before he left, I staggered out to my kitchen.
When I joined them, the first thing Toby asked me was why I slept in and missed the farmers’ market. I noted that his arms were crossed as he surveyed me.
“I’m sorry. I was tired and I forgot. I promise to make it up to—”