Chapter Seventy-Nine Kiersten
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Kiersten
Dottie’s last words hung in the air after Kiersten stopped reading.
“Is that all?” Piper whispered.
“That’s it. That’s the last entry from the three diaries I found.” Kiersten closed the small black volume and handed it to Piper.
“Could there be more diaries hidden in the encyclopedias?” Piper asked, leafing through the remaining diary pages, all of them blank.
Kiersten shook her head. “I double-checked last night. This is the last one.”
“It’s like watching a show on Netflix and then they cut off your subscription before you can watch the season finale,” Rosamund said.
“Do you think she got away?” Piper asked, sinking down in her chair.
Kiersten chewed on her lower lip. “We need to talk to Lillian next door. She must know something.”
Rosamund nodded. “And we need to find out if Evil Dickie and Pregnant Peggy—”
“You mean Richard and Margaret,” Kiersten interjected.
“Right. We need to find out if Richard and Margaret have a fallout shelter underneath their garage.”
They all looked at each other.
“And if we find one . . .” Rosamund began softly.
Piper swallowed. “If we find one, that’s a coincidence we can’t explain away.”
“Let’s take it one step at a time.” Kiersten began to gnaw on her thumbnail. She couldn’t bear the idea of not knowing what had become of Dottie. But she also couldn’t bear the idea of learning that she’d been murdered.
“Unfortunately, I can’t do anything more right now.” Rosamund got up from her chair. “I have to take Guinevere to the orthodontist. Time, tide, and braces wait for no man.”
“And I have to take Travis in for his shots,” Piper said.
“I can take the kids with me to see Lillian,” Kiersten offered.
“No. I’ll take them with me,” Piper volunteered. “We’ll call it career day at the veterinarian. You talk to Lillian and report back, okay?”
“All right.” Kiersten nodded. Clearly she was getting the better end of this deal. She shuddered at the idea of taking seven children and a puppy anywhere, much less to the vet.
“By the way, tomorrow might be rough,” Kiersten warned, unable to keep an ominous undertone from her voice.
“Because?” Rosamund asked expectantly.
“Because Valentina and Reggie are going to a line dancing convention.”
They both turned to look at her. “A what?”
“A line dancing convention,” she repeated. “At the Dulles Expo Center. And then they’re going to the Blue Diamond Bingo Emporium.”
“Reggie the retired marine corps drill instructor is doing line dancing?” Piper asked.
Kiersten nodded. “He says it keeps his mind sharp.”
Rosamund looked perplexed. “And they are doing this because . . .”
“Because apparently they’ve started going to the Scoot Your Boot country and western bar in Lorton on Thursday nights for line dancing lessons, and now they’re going to take a two-hour workshop to further refine their technique.”
“Are Valentina and Reggie . . .” Rosamund waggled her eyebrows. “You know . . .”
“A thing?” Kiersten asked. “I’m not sure. I tried to ask last week. He made me run an extra mile for, quote, ‘expressing curiosity about things that are none of my damn business.’”
“Wow,” Piper said.
“I know.” Kiersten grinned. “But that’s the problem with having a faculty made up of mostly unpaid retired people who may or may not be conducting a romance outside of school hours. If they want to take the day off to hang out at a line dancing convention and play bingo, we obviously can’t say no.”
“So who watches the kids while we go next door to the Influencer’s party?” Piper asked.
Kiersten frowned. “I supposed we could just let the kids hang out here, unsupervised. We’ll be right next door.”
“Absolutely not.” Piper shook her head.
“Chip said they’d have childcare available,” Rosamund said. “We could bring them along.”
“No way.” Piper shook her head again. “I’d rather leave them home alone for an hour than trust them to the tender mercies of Evil Dickie’s son.”
“You mean the man Evil Dickie thinks is his son but who is actually the offspring of a mechanic who died in Viet Nam,” Rosamund added.
Piper exhaled loudly. “Holy soap opera, Batman.”
“No kidding,” Kiersten said. “I think I’ve lived a very sheltered life.”
Rosamund patted her hand. “Welcome to the big city.”
“But this isn’t the city,” Piper argued. “It’s a quiet, respectable suburb. Or at least we thought it was, back then.”
“Maybe nothing is the way I thought it was back then.” Kiersten attempted to swallow her sorrow for Dottie, for the past, for a sweeter, simpler time that apparently never existed.
Piper rapped her knuckles on the table. “Dudes. Focus. Childcare for this damn party . . . to which I have nothing to wear. Maybe I should stay here with the kids while you guys go to the Influencer’s house.”
“Oh no you don’t.” Kiersten eyed her with a determined expression. “We all need to go. And if Grammy and Grampy are there, maybe one of us could sneak next door and check their basement for a fallout shelter while the other two keep them distracted.”
“Excellent point,” Piper conceded with a sigh. “So is the least terrible option really leaving the kids here by themselves for an hour?”
“They’re good kids,” Rosamund said. “They’re responsible. And we will literally be next door. Plus Miles is working from home tomorrow. He’ll be right across the street.”
Piper cast a sideways glance at Rosamund. “By the way, are you and Miles . . .”
Rosamund rolled her eyes. “Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.”
Piper grinned. “Shakespeare?”
“Jane Austen,” Rosamund said with a sphinxlike smile. “And I have no further comment at this time.”
They rose from the table to go in their separate directions. After helping Piper load seven children and Travis the puppy into an SUV, Kiersten headed two doors down to find out what her neighbor remembered about Beaverbrook Lane in 1965.