Chapter 78
OCEAN
When Karina stepped onto the deck, Ocean’s stomach clenched. She heard Sophie gasp and saw Nicholas grimace, while George Kagant muttered, “Hoo boy.”
However, Mrs. B brightened as she waved her hands in an overdramatic greeting. The ridiculous old lady loved a rousing argument.
So Ocean took her elbow while Karina snapped, “What the hell?”
Helene strode forward to intercept her. “There are you! Let’s talk inside.”
“What is everyone…”
Helene was a tiny woman but she managed to halt Karina’s scowling advance.
She peered at her with inquisitive, gentle eyes, and Karina trailed off and tightened her grip on her shoes, which she was holding in one hand.
She must have just gotten a massage, but her jaw was clenched so tight that it looked like she’d never relaxed in her life. And her eyes were worse.
“Oh, god,” Sophie whispered, after Helene ushered Karina inside. “Let’s go before she calls the cops.”
“We’ll say you’re here as our guests,” George told her. “There’s nothing illegal about it.”
“You’re not the owners!”
“No, but we have long-standing permission to treat the house as our own.”
“And isn’t this exciting,” Mrs. B exclaimed. “I only wish we knew what happened to CJ.”
“I only wish you hadn’t gambled the Cottages on her,” Ocean said.
Mrs. B sighed. “She was so lovely in the locker room.”
Ocean couldn’t even respond to that. She couldn’t think about CJ. Happily, she didn’t need to because George starting telling a story about how he’d once spotted the actor Simon Callow in an airport and greeted him with a heartfelt “Maestro!”
She couldn’t believe that Mrs. B had tried to assemble the suspects like a TV detective—except without any suspects. And where the hell was Lily-Ann? She’d disappeared two seconds after they’d arrived.
The French doors opened again and Karina returned onto the deck, still carrying her shoes.
Her hair was stringy from massage oil and her shirt was only half-buttoned, which made her look a little deranged.
Pax stood behind her, his tight white T-shirt bright in the gloom of the house, while Helene looked on nervously from one side.
If everything hadn’t felt so fraught, Ocean would’ve appreciated the composition of the scene.
“What the fuck is going on?” Karina demanded.
From behind her, Helene said, “I told you! The Marigold Cottages Murder Col—”
“You think I killed him?” Karina demanded, her gaze narrowing on Mrs. B.
“Let’s all take a breath,” Pax said, his voice deep and mellow. “And remember our better angels.”
“Stuff your angels up your ass,” Karina snapped at him. “This wrinkled sea hag thinks I killed my husband.”
“Oh, no, dear, that’s not at all what I think,” Mrs. B assured her, while Ocean squeezed her arm in a show of silent support. “However, it’s also true that I don’t not think that.”
“Who the hell asked you?”
“You did! Just a moment ago, you asked if I—”
Karina’s lips thinned. “I loved Frank. You think I killed him?”
“Well! I think if we all put our heads together, we might answer some lingering questions.”
“Maybe we should sit down,” Helene suggested.
“With a nice cup of chamomile,” Pax said.
Karina narrowed her eyes at Mrs. B. “I know who killed him, you bitch. I saw her do it.”
“Then there’s no reason not to chat with us! Betwee—”
“Shut your mouth! Why would I kill Frank?”
“I’ll tell you why.” Sophie stepped closer, and Ocean saw flashes of her anger at how Karina was speaking to Mrs. B. “And how. You hated whenever Frank spent time on anything that wasn’t you. Charities, CJ, anything.”
“That’s not—”
“Your turn to shut up! Your jealousy was enough reason to kill him. Maybe you had other reasons, I don’t know, but what you did was, you rigged the Amaretto bottle to fall, then you ran upstairs to your husband and CJ, knowing he always lingered on the landing as everyone said goodbye, and—”
“That’s a lie!” Karina snarled.
Still, Sophie didn’t back down. Apparently you didn’t call Mrs. B an old bitch without the sweetest of the Marigold Cottages tenants going for your throat.
“And when the bottle broke, you spilled ice on the floor at Frank’s feet.
I don’t know, maybe you nudged the cubes into place.
You’re a gifted bocce player, aren’t you?
Either way your husband stepped on an ice cube, you know how unsteady he was, and—”
Karina screamed and threw one of her shoes at Sophie. It went flinging past her, off the deck. A woman yelped, then Lily-Ann emerged at the top of the stairs, uncharacteristically flushed and untidy.
“Someone almost beaned me with a slingback pump,” she said, stepping onto the deck. “I believe it was a Jimmy Choo.”