Chapter 3
LOTTIE
The Pemberton-Clarke garden smells like fresh cut grass, competing perfumes, and enough hairspray to qualify as a fire hazard.
It’s picturesque, it’s nostalgic, and it’s about to become a crime scene—if the ghost of that peacock is any indication.
“Backup denied.” Noah shoves his phone into his pocket as his jaw tightens. “Apparently, I can’t get officers dispatched for a bunch of women pretending they time-traveled to a better decade.”
His dark hair catches the light with the tips glinting red like they always do in the sun, and even when he’s frustrated, those dimples of his are deep enough to dive into. Noah’s lawn green eyes scan the crowd as only a detective can.
Noah and I are complicated. We were serious until it took a turn for the worse, but that didn’t change the fact we have Lyla Nell, our sweet two-year-old baby girl.
Both Noah and I still have a lot of love for one another.
Some might say he has a tad bit more for me, perhaps bordering on obsessive, but I find it endearing.
Everett, however, has been moved to draft a restraining order once or twice.
“Lemon.” Everett’s voice is low and serious with all that protective alpha-male energy radiating off him in waves.
His dark hair is perfectly in place, his cobalt blue eyes glow with something that borders on rage, and he happens to have a body that could stop a bullet and any woman’s beating heart at the same time.
He moves with the authority of a man who sentences criminals for a living and looks unfairly good doing it.
Everett, as in Judge Essex Everett Baxter, just so happens to be my sexy husband extraordinaire.
“I don’t like this—” he growls. “The kids are here. If there’s a killer—”
“The kids are fine,” I assure him, pointing toward the refreshment area. “Look. The twins are in their stroller with Mom, and Lyla Nell is with her cousins.”
Sure enough, our sweet baby boys, Essex Everett Baxter and Corbin Noah Baxter, are tucked into their double stroller like two cherubic loaves of bread. Bread that rises at all hours and refuses to sleep.
I then gesture to where my sisters, Lainey and Meg, are standing, both of them wrangling a small army of children while my best friend, Keelie, attempts to prevent her own offspring from scaling a peacock topiary.
Everett’s expression doesn’t soften. “I still don’t like children being present with a potential killer on the loose.”
“Relax, Sexy.” Carlotta pats his arm with the confidence of a woman who has never relaxed a day in her life. “If there’s a killer here, at least they’ve got their wardrobe choices working against them. It’s very hard to commit murder in a girdle—trust me, I’ve tried.”
Everett growls, but before I can intervene, a sharp tap on a microphone cuts through the garden chatter.
“Attention, everyone! Attention, please!”
Mom stands on the small platform near the pergola, beaming at the crowd like she’s about to announce the second coming of casseroles.
Her vanilla-colored curls bounce around her shoulders in perfectly set waves that likely required two cans of hairspray and a firm belief in mid-century beauty standards.
She’s in full makeup with ruby lips, winged eyeliner, rosy cheeks, and a mint-green fit-and-flare dress dotted with tiny white daisies. An elegant strand of pearls circles her neck. And she looks like she stepped straight off the cover of Good Housekeeping, circa 1955.
Come to think of it, there’s not a woman here who’s not wearing a strand of glorious pearls. Somewhere, an entire coastline of oysters is shuddering.
“Welcome, welcome to the Daughters of Honey Hollow Spring Soirée and Mother’s Day Kickoff Celebration!
” She spreads her arms wide, and her dress swishes with the gesture.
“I am so thrilled to see all of you here today, dressed to the nines and ready to honor the traditions our founding mothers established over seventy years ago.”
Polite applause ripples through the crowd.
“And a very special thank-you to our gracious hostess, Vivi—Vivienne Cordelia Pemberton-Clarke, for opening her stunning home and gardens to us today!”
The applause swells as all eyes turn to Vivienne, Vivi, who waves a diamond-encrusted hand with the modesty of someone who absolutely expects to be celebrated.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” Vivi says, her voice carrying effortlessly across the lawn. “As long as all this foot traffic doesn’t wear out my Persian rugs, I don’t mind in the slightest.”
The crowd titters with laughter—the polite, obligatory kind you give to the woman whose home you’re currently occupying and whose Persian rugs you might be decimating.
Mom continues, undeterred, “As you all know, this week marks a very special celebration. Each day, we’ll be honoring the spirit of the 1950s with themed events—the Casserole Competition, the Pin-Curl Pageant, the Sock Hop Social, the Jell-O Jubilee, culminating in our grand Mother’s Day Founders’ Tribute Brunch, which I will have the honor of hosting at my own establishment, the Honey Hollow Bed and Breakfast! ”
Another wave of applause, louder this time. Mom is practically glowing.
She pauses dramatically. “And now, I'm thrilled to introduce our very special guests for this week’s festivities!”
On cue, real live peacocks suddenly strut onto the grounds—males and females, some of which have fanned out their plumage in an elaborate effort to show off. The iridescent blues and greens shimmer in the sunlight, and the crowd erupts in more than a handful of oohs and ahhs.
For a second, I think maybe—just maybe—the peacock I saw earlier wasn’t a ghost at all.
But I know better.
Because in Honey Hollow, if I see an animal that looks vaguely transparent and slightly judgmental, it’s never just a peacock.
It’s a harbinger of murder.
Mom gestures toward the peacocks with obvious pride.
“These magnificent birds have been a cherished part of the Pemberton-Clarke estate since the 1950s. Please be mindful not to feed or touch them. They’re beautiful, but they can be quite temperamental.
” She raises her crystal punch glass, and dozens of gloved hands follow suit.
“Join me in a toast. To mothers and daughters. To the women who came before us, who built this community with casseroles and determination and a whole lot of love. And to the wonderful daughters who carry that legacy forward.”
“To mothers and daughters!” the crowd echoes.
I don’t know if it’s the May sunshine, or the fact that I’m running on three hours of sleep and a prayer, or the sight of my own mother up there honoring the grandmother I never got to meet, along with my Grandma Nell, but my eyes suddenly sting with tears.
Carlotta clucks her tongue my way. “Come on now, Lot Lot. Don’t you get all weepy on us.”
“I’m not,” I lie, blinking rapidly. “It’s just allergies. Pollen or something, or peacock dander.”
Noah chuckles. “Peacock dander isn’t a thing.”
“It is now.”
The applause dies down, and Mom appears at my elbow so fast I’m pretty sure she teleported with the twins in tow as they coo away in their stroller.
“Lottie! There you are!” She’s already grabbing my arm, already dabbing at my cheek with a lace handkerchief that appeared out of nowhere. “Come—you simply must meet our hostess properly.”
She steers me, the stroller, and the boys by proxy, toward Vivienne Pemberton-Clarke, who’s holding court near the buffet table with a chatty brunette I don’t recognize.
Everett follows, because apparently, he’s decided I need a judicial escort.
And with a potential killer on the loose, he’s probably right.
“Vivi, this is my daughter Lottie,” Mom announces with far more pride than I’ll ever deserve. “She owns the Cutie Pie Bakery and Cakery here in town. These sweet little angels belong to her, and this strapping gentleman is Judge Everett Baxter, one of Lottie’s handsome husbands.”
I shoot my mother a look for venturing into questionable matrimonial territory. I only have one husband, and she knows it.
Mom blinks my way with a question in her eyes, and for a split second, I’m not so sure she is in the know about my stance on monogamy.
Vivi’s ice-blue eyes sweep over Everett with undisguised appreciation. “A judge. How authoritative.” She extends a hand dripping with diamonds. “Charmed.”
“And this is Dolly Wainwright,” Mom continues, gesturing to the fidgeting brunette. “She handles our charitable fund coordination.”
“It’s a pleasure,” Dolly says with fluttering hands and an apologetic smile, and she strikes me as the kind of person who probably says sorry to furniture when she bumps into it.
She’s petite and pleasantly plump with dark hair teased into a perfect bouffant that looks as if it hasn’t changed since she discovered Aqua Net.
She’s wearing rhinestone-studded cat-eye glasses, has freckled cheeks that are currently flush pink, and she’s donned both floral prints and gingham.
She looks like she stepped out of a vintage cookbook illustration—wholesome, cheerful, and completely incapable of violence.
Here’s hoping she’s not the killer, although with this crowd, just about every pearl-clutcher in attendance is on my preliminary suspect list. Not that the killer has to be a woman, but then, the odds are certainly in favor of it.
“Your twins are just adorable,” she coos at them as if they’re the cutest things she’s ever seen, and they might be.
“Thank you. I happen to agree, but I’m partial. It’s so lovely to meet you both,” I tell them. “Everything looks so wonderful here today. And it all seems to be going so smoothly. I certainly hope it stays that way.”
I’d hate to ruin it by stumbling over a body, but I keep that homicidal tidbit to myself. Yet I can’t help but give the side-eye to Everett, who looks less than amused by my inadvertent nod to deadly deeds to come.