Chapter 18 Lottie
LOTTIE
Evergreen Manor sits on the edge of Honey Hollow, looking as elegant as ever. Lush green ivy climbs the brick walls, tall windows catch the afternoon light, and the circular driveway curves up to the entrance with that old-world charm that never gets old.
Carlotta climbs out of the passenger side in full vintage glory.
She’s donned a cherry red wiggle dress that hugs every curve she’s earned over the decades, paired with black patent leather heels and a matching clutch.
Her hair is swept up in victory rolls, her lips are crimson, and she looks like she’s about to sell war bonds or seduce a sailor. Possibly both.
I went slightly more modest with a soft pink fit-and-flare dress with cap sleeves, white polka dots, and a sweetheart neckline that Everett called dangerously distracting after I sent him a picture while I was doing a quick change.
I’ve got my hair curled and pinned back with a white headband, and I’m wearing kitten heels that are already making me regret every life choice that led me here.
The twins are strapped into their double stroller, both miraculously content for the moment. Ozzy is chewing on a teething ring while Corbin is staring at a bird like he’s plotting its demise.
“Ready to infiltrate a sock hop?” Carlotta asks, adjusting her neckline.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
We push through the heavy oak doors into the main foyer, and I’m immediately hit with the smell of fresh flowers, lemon furniture polish, and that expensive candle scent that ritzy places like this always seem to have.
The foyer has high ceilings, a grand staircase that curves up to the second floor, and enough dark wood paneling to build a small village.
To the right, the doors to the grand ballroom are propped open, and I can hear music drifting out—“Rock Around the Clock” plays at a volume that suggests the DJ either doesn’t understand speaker settings or is actively trying to cause hearing damage.
And standing just inside the doorway with her arms crossed like a bouncer at a very judgmental nightclub is Naomi Turner.
Keelie’s twin sister.
Naomi used to be blonde, but she dyes her locks a deep shade of midnight these days, unlike my bestie, who keeps her mane the yummy creamy blonde she was born with.
Where Keelie wears hers in soft waves, Naomi’s is pulled back into a sleek, severe bun that screams I run this place, and I don’t have time for your nonsense.
She’s dressed in a charcoal pencil skirt and white blouse, sensible heels, and an expression that says she’s already regretting letting us through the door.
Naomi used to be my self-proclaimed nemesis in high school, mostly because she wanted to sleep with my boyfriend, Bear—along with a whole gaggle of other girls he cheated on me with.
But for reasons I don’t care to ponder, Bear wouldn’t have her.
And good thing, too, because all these years later, Bear ended up marrying Keelie.
It would have been more than a little weird for Keelie to even think of dating Bear, knowing he’d slept with her sister, let alone marrying him.
So in a way, Bear’s rejection of Naomi saved everyone a lot of awkward family dinners.
“Lottie. Aunt Carlotta.” Naomi’s voice is flat. Her face isn’t all that warm and inviting either. “I was hoping you wouldn’t show up.”
“And yet here we are,” Carlotta chirps. “Like a rash that just won’t quit.”
Naomi’s eye twitches. “As the manager here at the manor, I’m responsible for making sure nothing gets destroyed, stolen, or set on fire.” She looks directly at Carlotta. “Last time you were here, you cost us a chandelier.”
“That was an accident,” Carlotta protests.
“You were dancing on a table,” Naomi says flatly.
“The table was very sturdy,” Carlotta insists.
“Until you used the chandelier for support,” Naomi counters.
“The chandelier was decorative!”
“The chandelier was a thousand dollars.”
I nod because not only do I remember it, I footed the bill.
“We’re just here to deliver cookies and enjoy the sock hop,” I’m quick to interject. “No table dancing. No chandelier incidents. Scout’s honor.” You can bet your bottom dollar I’m crossing my fingers behind the stroller.
Naomi looks at me like I’ve just promised to sprout wings and fly. “You were never a scout.”
“I wanted to be.” I tip my head, never taking my eyes off the woman.
She sighs, steps aside, and gestures us into the lounge with the enthusiasm of someone directing traffic at a funeral. “Behave. Both of you. Or I’m calling security.”
“You have security?” Carlotta asks.
“For you? I’ll hire some.”
We push the stroller past her into the grand ballroom, and honestly, the Daughters of Honey Hollow have really outdone themselves.
The room is massive—high ceilings with exposed wooden beams, a polished parquet floor that gleams under the lights, and floor-to-ceiling windows along one wall that overlook the manor’s manicured gardens.
Normally, this space hosts fancy weddings and Christmas galas with ice sculptures and string quartets, but today it’s been transformed into a 1950s party that looks like someone raided every vintage store in Vermont.
A banner stretches across the back wall in looping pastel letters—DAUGHTERS OF HONEY HOLLOW SOCK HOP SOCIAL—LET’S TWIST AGAIN!
Streamers in pink, mint green, and pale yellow drape from the ceiling like ribbons of cotton candy.
Balloons cluster in the corners in shades of pink, mint green, and baby blue.
Small café tables are scattered around the perimeter, each one covered with a checkered tablecloth and topped with a glass bottle holding a single pink carnation.
And in the center of the room? A vintage soda fountain.
An actual, bona fide soda fountain, complete with chrome stools, a marble counter, and a woman in a paper hat dispensing ice cream floats like it’s 1955 and the world hasn’t invented lactose intolerance yet.
The music is loud, upbeat, and aggressively nostalgic.
“Rock Around the Clock” fades into “Great Balls of Fire,” and the dance floor is already packed with women in poodle skirts and saddle shoes, spinning and laughing and moving with an energy that suggests they’ve had way too much sugar. That would be my fault.
“I don’t know, Lot,” Carlotta grunts, taking it all in. “Something about this many smiling women feels dangerous.”
“Give it five minutes. You’ll fix that.”
Mom appears out of nowhere, resplendent in a lavender circle skirt and matching cardigan, pearls gleaming at her throat. She’s got her hair teased into a bouffant that defies physics and gravity in equal measure.
“Lottie! Carlotta! You made it!” She swoops in and hijacks the stroller before I can protest. “Oh, let me take these precious angels and parade them around. Lucy’s been pestering me for baby content all week, and Margaret’s convinced Corbin is her dead husband reincarnated.”
“Wait, what?”
“I know, ridiculous. But she’s eighty-three and harmless, so I’m letting her have her delusion.” Mom’s already wheeling away. “Besides, she keeps slipping me fifty-dollar bills to hold him, so really, who’s winning here?”
“Mom, I don’t think you should be charging people to—”
Too late. She’s gone, cooing at the twins like they’re the greatest thing since sliced bread and also a lucrative side business.
They are the greatest thing since sliced bread. But they’re not a rental service. Although at three in the morning it might be tempting, and perhaps a good case for abstinence.
The sock hop rages around me as I hold three platters of cookies, with no babies to hide behind.
Carlotta gives me a nudge. “Look alive and all that jive, Lot. Suspects at three o’clock.”
I quickly park the cookie platters on the dessert table and follow her gaze.
Midge Thornbury is near the soda fountain, naturally, holding court with a cluster of admirers.
She’s wearing a butter yellow dress with a full skirt and a matching headscarf, looking like she just stepped off the set of a wholesome family sitcom.
Her smile is bright, her laugh is musical, and she’s handing out plates of—you guessed it—banana pudding as if it were the cure to every ailment.
I also spot Dolly Hatchett at one of the café tables, nervously adjusting her cat-eye glasses and smoothing her floral dress.
She looks like she’d rather be anywhere else, and I don’t blame her.
Being publicly humiliated by a murder victim and then showing up to a dance hosted by her organization takes guts.
And there, near the back corner by the windows, stands Gigi Wentworth-Crane.
She looks elegant, composed, and untouchable in an ice blue sheath dress, pearls, and her auburn and silver hair swept into a perfect French twist. She’s chatting with two other women, her posture is impeccable, and her expression is serene.
She looks like someone who’s never had a bad hair day or a guilty conscience in her life.
Which makes her either innocent or an extremely good actress.
“Target acquired,” Carlotta murmurs.
“Don’t say it like that. We’re not assassins.”
“Speak for yourself.”
I’m about to reply when a woman’s voice cuts through the music.
“Well, well, well. If it isn’t Carlotta Sawyer.”
Carlotta stiffens. “Oh, heck no.”
I turn around to see Francine Dundee marching toward us, and I hardly recognize her.
Normally, Francine is plain as a pancake—the sort of woman who wears prairie dresses in muted florals year-round, and her hair so long it makes you question whether scissors have ever touched it.
I know Francine. Everyone in Honey Hollow knows Francine.
She and her husband Mark run Dundee Diddles and Whittles, a wood-carving business that produces an alarming number of novelty birdhouses.
I’ve met at least six of her daughters—Mabel, Melody, Margaret, Miriam, Magnolia, and Marigold.
She’s got seventeen children in total, and all of their names start with an M to match her husband Mark, and every single one of her daughters dresses exactly like her—long hair, longer skirts, and the haunted expression of women who’ve given up on personal identity, vanity, and perhaps fun entirely.
The grandchildren? Also, all M names. Apparently, the Dundee family tree is less a tree and more a very committed branding exercise.
But today? Today, Francine Dundee is a whole new woman—one who is fully embracing the quirky decadence of the 1950s.
She’s donned a pale green dress with a cinched waist and a full skirt covered in tiny white daisies.
It’s actually flattering. Her hair—normally a waist-length curtain of gray-streaked brown—is twisted into one massive bun at the nape of her neck, secured with approximately forty bobby pins.
She’s even wearing lipstick, a warm peachy pink.
It’s unsettling but looks amazing on her.
She looks fantastic.
Mark Dundee is going to notice.
And historically speaking, when Mark Dundee notices things, another Dundee baby tends to appear nine months later.
“Francine,” Carlotta says flatly. “I thought you’d died, and I just hadn’t gotten the invitation to the funeral.”
Francine is more or less Carlotta’s nemesis.
“Still alive, unfortunately for you.” Francine stops in front of us, hands on her hips. “I heard you were slithering around town again.”
I fight the urge to laugh. I’ve always appreciated the zingers Francine slings at Carlotta.
“How are the kids?” Carlotta asks with sass. “All seventeen hundred of them?”
“They’re thriving, thank you,” Francine snaps. “Mabel just got engaged, Marcus is opening his own business, and little Margot—that’s Melody’s daughter—just won a spelling bee.”
“And the ones in prison?” Carlotta asks.
“Minimum security,” Francine says through gritted teeth. “It hardly counts.”
To be fair, she might have a point.
“What brings you here?” I ask, hoping to defuse whatever this is before Naomi bans us for life. “I didn’t know you were a Daughter.”
“I joined last year,” she says, lifting her chin. “And I’m here to win that Golden Whisk and the hundred-dollar gift card to the Country Pantry. Do you know how much organic flour costs? I’ve got seventeen kids and thirty-two grandchildren to feed. That gift card would change my life.”
Carlotta snorts. “Well, look at this. You even wrestled that gray haystack of yours into a bun. What’d it take—a forklift and a team of angry elves?”
Francine’s eye twitches. “At least I still have hair and not whatever synthetic situation you’ve got going on.”
“This is one hundred percent natural, thank you very much.”
“More like a natural disaster!”
Naomi appears between them like a referee at a boxing match. “Ladies. We’re at a sock hop. Not a cage fight. Separate corners. Now.”
Francine huffs, spins on her heel, and stalks off toward the soda fountain, her giant bun bobbing like a helium balloon trying to escape.
Carlotta grins. “That woman has hated me since 1987.”
“What happened in 1987?” I’m afraid I’m going to regret that I asked.
“I may have accidentally told her husband he had nice hands.”
“That’s it?”
“In front of her. At their anniversary party. While slightly drunk. And tried to use them.”
“Carlotta.”
“I was being nice! And I had an itch I thought he might be able to help me with.”
Naomi gives us both a look that could peel the wallpaper off the walls. “Behave. Or you’re both out.”
She stalks off, and I’m left standing in the middle of a room full of suspects, witnesses, and one very angry woman with seventeen children, thirty-two grandchildren, and a desperate need for affordable organic flour.
I survey the room until my eyes land on an older redhead with silver streaks running through her French twist. And just like that, my investigation is back on track.
Time to find out if Gigi Wentworth-Crane killed Vivienne to protect her family’s reputation—or if she’s just really, really good at pretending she didn’t.