“Why are you wearing water wings?” She squeezed William’s inflatable orange muscle as he wiggled under her covers.
“Mom said you’d take us to the pool!”
Wait. Today was the day Eureka had agreed to sail with Brooks.
It is your destiny, Madame Blavatsky had said, piquing Eureka’s curiosity. She wasn’t eager to spend time with Brooks, but she was at least ready to face him. She wanted to do what little she could to honor the old woman’s memory.
“We’ll go to the pool another day.” Eureka scooted William aside so she could climb out of bed. “I forgot I have to—”
“Don’t tell me you forgot you were watching the twins?” Rhoda appeared in the doorway wearing a red crepe dress. She worked a bobby pin into her tightly coiffed hair. “Your dad’s at work and I’m delivering the keynote at the dean’s luncheon.”
“I made plans with Brooks.”
“Rearrange them.” Rhoda tilted her head and frowned. “We were doing so well.”
She meant that Eureka had been going to school, had suffered through her hour of hell with Dr. Landry Tuesday afternoon. Eureka had forked over the last three twenties she owned, then dumped out onto Landry’s coffee table a battered sack of nickels, dimes, and pennies amounting to the extra fifteen dollars she needed to pay for the session. She had no idea how she would afford to suffer again next week, but at the rate the past few days had crawled, Tuesday was an eternity away.
“Fine. I’ll watch the twins.”
She didn’t have to tell Rhoda what they’d be doing while she watched them. She texted Brooks, the first communication she’d initiated since Never-Ever: Okay if I bring the twins?
Absolutely! His response was immediate. Was going to suggest that myself.
“Eureka,” Rhoda said. “The sheriff called this morning. Do you know a woman named Mrs. Blavatsky?”
“What?” Eureka’s voice died in her throat. “Why?”
She imagined her fingerprints on the papers on Madame Blavatsky’s desk. Her shoes unknowingly dipping into the woman’s blood, screaming out proof of her visit.
“Evidently she’s … missing.” Rhoda lied badly. The police would have told her Madame Blavatsky was dead. Rhoda must not have thought Eureka could handle hearing about another death. She didn’t know one percent of what Eureka was handling. “For some reason, the police think you know each other.”
There was no indictment in Rhoda’s voice, which meant the cops weren’t treating Eureka as a suspect—yet.
“Cat and I went to her storefront once.” Eureka tried not to say anything that was a lie. “She’s a fortune-teller.”
“That junk is a waste of money, you know that. The sheriff is going to call back later. I said you’d answer some questions.” Rhoda leaned over the bed and kissed the twins. “I’m almost late. Don’t take any chances today, Eureka.”
Eureka nodded as her phone buzzed in her palm with a text from Cat. The freaking sheriff called my house about Blavatsky. WHAT HAPPENED?
No clue, Eureka responded, feeling dizzy. They called here, too.
What about your book? Cat typed back, but Eureka didn’t have an answer, only a heavy weight in her chest.
Sunlight glittered on the water as Eureka and the twins walked the long cedar planks to the edge of Brooks’s Cypremort Point dock. His lean silhouette bent forward, checking the halyards that would raise the sails once the boat was in the bay.