I helped Rose tidy up the kitchen and wash our cups. As I wiped the counter I realized she was studying me. “Do I have spinach between my teeth?” I asked. “You’re staring at me.”
“I heard what you said about Gina to those two lovely young people,” she said, as she dried the last cup. “Do you really believe this time was going to be different?”
I leaned against the counter. “Maybe Gina would have gone to rehab and it would have been no different from the previous times. Or maybe, as Gram likes to say, this time would have been the charm. I don’t know. What I do know is that it doesn’t hurt anyone to give her the benefit of the doubt.”
Mr. P. was putting the cups away. He turned and gave me a smile. “You’re right,” he said. “It doesn’t.”
• • •
I stepped into the hallway the next morning to find Alfred holding Rose’s cake carrier. “Good morning, Sarah,” he said.
“Good morning.” I eyed the large container. “Is that for us?”
He smiled. “It is. Blueberry buttermilk coffee cake.”
I gestured over my shoulder at my apartment door with one finger. “Maybe I should just slip back inside and grab a fork? You know, just to make sure the cake turned out.”
“Or maybe you should just march yourself out to the car, just to make sure it’s going to start,” a voice said behind me.
Rose. She was glaring sternly at me but I caught a hint of a smile play across her lips.
“I wasn’t really going to eat any of that cake,” I said.
“Well, I know that,” she said, reaching up to pat my cheek as she bustled past. “Alfred could take you down with one hand tied behind his back.” She smiled archly. “He has a number of talents you’re not aware of.”
Mr. P. smiled at her and raised one eyebrow.
I decided starting the car was a very good idea.
Rose kept the cake on the backseat with her. Elvis sat next to her and helped guard it.
Liam pulled into the shop’s parking lot right behind me. He came around the back of his truck and took Rose’s tote from her. “Is that for me?” he asked with a smile, gesturing at the coffee cake Mr. P. was carrying.
I shook my head. “I swear you’re like one of those dogs they use in the Alps that can find people under the snow. How do you always know when there’s cake?”
“I’m psychic,” he said, bumping me with his hip as we started for the back door. “Some people can talk to the dead. I can find cake.”
“Good to know if I ever have to send out a search party for a slice of devil’s food,” I said.
He gave me that grin that had been charming women since before he could walk. Then he slung his free arm around my shoulders. “How would you like to get your sunporch back today?”
“Seriously?”
He nodded. “I have to hang that blackboard, put some hooks on the end wall and do a couple of other things, but I should be done around lunchtime.”
I hugged him. “I owe you.”
“I know,” he said. “One of these days I’m going to collect.” He tipped his head close to mine. “Be afraid,” he whispered. “Be very afraid.”
Liam finished up in the office just before lunch. We all trooped in to take a look.
“Aw, Liam, this is great,” I said, turning in a slow circle to take it all in.
The new windows had thermal shades, which would keep the heat out in the summer and in during the winter. The walls were painted a pale shade of off-white and I knew there was lots of insulation behind the new drywall. Liam had put down vinyl plank flooring and a baseboard electric heater for the coldest months.
The chalkboard was on the wall above Mr. P.’s desk, flanked by Rose’s wall sconces, which, I had to admit, looked great. The long farm-style table we always seemed to gather around was at the far end of the room, surrounded by a collection of mismatched chairs.
“You did an excellent job,” Mr. P. said. He couldn’t stop smiling.
“It’s perfect,” Rose said, clasping her hands together.
“I can’t take all the credit,” Liam said. “It would have taken a lot longer if I hadn’t had Nick’s help.”
“I live to serve,” a voice said from the doorway. Nick and Charlotte were standing there.
“This is beautiful,” Charlotte said. “You both do lovely work.”
Rose was standing just to the right of the desk, frowning at the wall. She beckoned at Charlotte with one hand. “What do you think about a bookcase right here?” she asked.
Charlotte walked over to join her. Liam was showing Mr. P. how the blinds worked.
I smiled at Nick. “Thank you,” I said. “Liam’s right. This would have taken a lot longer without you.”
“Anytime,” he said. He tipped his head toward the workroom. I followed him out. “I just came from the police station. It looked like Katy Mueller will be sent for a psychiatric evaluation.”
I’d expected that.
“It’s going to take a little time, but the plea agreement will be voided and Mike Pearson will come home to his kids. They’re going to keep him in the infirmary for now.” He shrugged. “It’s not a perfect ending, but it’s not a bad one, either.”
I nodded. “You and Rose make a pretty good team.”
Nick smiled. “I’ll try not to let that go to my head.”
Rose decided we needed to christen the office by having our cake there around what had already been doubling as our meeting table.
“Does anyone know where Liz is?” I asked as I waited for Rose to cut a slice to set aside for Avery.
Charlotte shook her head.
“All I know is that she said she had some meeting she had to go to,” Rose said. “Some kind of foundation business.”
I nodded. I knew what that meant.
Liz never did show up. “Do you need a ride?” I asked Avery at the end of the day.
“No,” she said as she pulled the vacuum out from under the stairs.
“Is your grandmother coming to get you?”
“No,” she said again.
Okay. I needed to stop asking yes-or-no questions. “How are you planning on getting home, then?” I asked, grabbing the attachment for the vacuum.
“I’m not going home.”
At the rate the conversation was happening, neither was I. Then I realized she had her earbuds in. I reached over and pulled one out of her ear.
She frowned.
“Where are you going and how are you getting there?” I wrapped my fingers around the wireless earpiece so she couldn’t snatch it back.
Avery sighed. “I’m going to the library for the Jonathan Demme film festival. Greg is meeting me here and we’re walking. We’re going to McNamara’s for supper.” She made a point of enunciating each word like I was very young or very old.
I handed her back the earbud and started for the stairs.
“Sarah,” she said.
I turned around. “Thank you for what you did for Greg and his family.”
“I’m glad you’re his friend,” I said.
She smiled then. “Yeah, me, too.”
Liz called after supper. I brought her up to date on what had happened in the last twenty-four hours.
“Michael deserves a happy ending,” she said. “He’s a quality person. In fact, I told him that.”
“Wait a minute. You talked to him?”
“Yes,” she said. “That’s why I was gone all day. I went to the prison to talk to him. There were a couple of questions I wanted to ask him about the summer he worked for the foundation.”
“Did you get the answers you were looking for?” I asked.
“Yes I did,” she said. “And I have a favor to ask you.”
“Anything,” I said. I propped my feet on the edge of the coffee table. Elvis jumped onto my lap. I started to stroke his fur.
“I’m going to see Wilson tomorrow to tell him what I’ve learned about Marie. Will you come with me?”
“Of course I will. We make a pretty good team, you know.”
“That we do, pretty girl,” she said.
We agreed to meet at nine thirty the next morning at the foundation’s offices and said good night.