Chapter 44
NICHOLAS
Nobody planned the city planning meetings. Nicholas had once written a satirical interoffice memo about it, but everyone thought he was being serious. So much for his passive-aggressive business communication skills.
The two-hour meeting oozed across the morning, suffocating every other item on Nicholas’s calendar.
When one o’clock finally rolled around, he handled a few urgent tasks while eating a farmers market pluot at his desk.
A single pluot. The only downside of falling for Sophie was he’d gained ten pounds.
He preferred spending time with her to going to the gym.
Even worse, she found their relationship invigorating, and was jogging more than ever, like a traitor.
When he finished the pluot, he left his office for a late “official” lunch hour with two fresh copies of Sophie’s play.
He’d clipped her new card to the top of each and scrawled brief cheery notes, one for Helene Kagant and one for George.
He’d chatted with them a few times since the party and asked for their feedback on the script.
Sophie was going to kill him.
Unlike the DeYoungs’ place, the Kagants’ property made him jealous.
They lived in that sweet neighborhood of funky houses and apartments a block from West Beach.
Despite the obvious wealth, the vibe was unpretentious and casual.
He’d planned to drop the scripts at the front door without bothering George and Helene—he didn’t want to pester them—except as he walked up the path, Helene called to him.
“Nicholas, is that you? Did you bring Sophie’s play?”
He shaded his eyes with the scripts and caught sight of her at a round table on the front patio of her white Spanish-style house. “It is and I did.”
“Good, because I’m stuck on this crossword! Come, sit with me.”
Helene was wearing a gray dress with asymmetrical detailing that reminded him of origami.
An open magazine sat on the table beside a glass of iced tea and a mostly demolished bowl of tortilla chips.
A white kitten slept in her lap, and at least four adult cats eyed Nicholas from the screened front door.
“How many cats do you have?” he asked, taking the seat across from her.
“Right now? Nine, but most of them are fosters. I can’t stand them being locked in those tiny cages.”
Which reminded Nicholas of CJ—and then of Ocean.
She couldn’t catch a break. A few months earlier, when he’d taken Mrs. B out for coconut cake to celebrate her wedding anniversary to his father, she’d told him that she worried Ocean had given up looking for someone special.
She had so much to offer, she was so wonderful, yet she’d been burned so badly that she was afraid to touch the stove again.
While he’d wrestled with that metaphor, she’d demanded that he scour other city employees for single gay women.
Because sure, that wasn’t creepy. He’d agreed about Ocean, though: She deserved better. She deserved the best.
“Yeah,” he told Helene. “Cages.”
“I’m on the board of a cat shelter. I try to give the older cats a staycation now and then. And occasionally a younger one.” She stroked the kitten in her lap. “If you happen to fall in love with Mr. Betty, he’s available.”
“I might know someone who’s looking. Can I take a picture?”
“Of course!”
Nicholas snapped a couple photos of the sleepy kitty before setting the copies of Sophie’s play on the table. “Thanks so much for having a look.”
“I’m happy to.” Helene’s eyes sparkled. “And George absolutely adores this kind of thing.”
“Oh, good. He struck me as pretty literary.”
“I’ll tell him you said that! He’ll love it.” Her expression changed. “Though that was a rough way to meet, considering what happened.”
“Yeah.” Nicholas was surprised that she’d brought up the party, and wondered what Lily-Ann would want him to ask. “Did you, uh, hear the police arrested CJ?”
Helene made a dismissive face. “They finally decided to trust Karina?”
“Only because now Sunny Wheeler also says he saw her push Frank.”
“Oh.” She frowned. “Odd that he didn’t mention that at the time. Sunny is not exactly shy. The only reason he’d ever bite his tongue was if he thought tongue-biting was the key to living longer.”
Nicholas sputtered a laugh. “Why would he claim he saw CJ push Frank if he didn’t?”
“Maybe he did. On the other hand, he’s not the least gullible person I’ve ever met.”
“Er, so was CJ having, like, an emotional affair with Frank?”
Helene scoffed. “‘Emotional affair.’ They were like father and daughter.”
“And how about Karina?”
“Frank loved her. He really did. He worried about her. I’m not sure Karina was … the right person for him? He could’ve been happier. But he loved her, and she loved him, in her way. She’s really shaken up.”
“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.