“Reach for a glass of Jim Beam?”
He chuckled. “Well, probably that, too. But I meant she consulted her tarot cards. She must’ve seen something, because she called me twenty minutes later, all hysterical like, going on about this card and that . . . Heck, I have no idea what she was saying except that you were in trouble.”
“Didn’t you already know that? I mean, didn’t Zach call 911?”
Sean nodded. “He did. But all he said was something about how he’d solved Chuck Richards’s murder and how he had the killer cornered and we needed to come right away. Then he hung up.”
“He didn’t say where?”
“Nope. We were in the process of trying to track the cell signal when Althea called.”
“I don’t understand. How did Mama know where I was just from her tarot cards?”
“She didn’t.”
“Then how—?”
He grinned. “All those cards she was talking about . . . the Queen of Cups, the King of Swords, the Knight of this and that . . . Well, I got to thinking maybe her intuition was trying to tell her you were in a castle.”
“A castle?”
He pointed up at the turret, snow swirling around its spire. “A castle.”
I shook my head in wonder. “Amazing.”
He pulled me close, the warmth of his body enveloping me. “Yes. Amazing.” He bent down, his lips covering mine, warm, comforting with the snowflakes falling against our face. When we finally parted, he pulled back, reached in his pocket, and pulled out a small velvet box. “I was going to give this to you at dinner, but . . .”
*
“YOU’VE BEEN LOOKING at that thing for the last ten minutes,” Bentley chided. We were riding in her Lexus, headed toward Dunston. Olive was in the backseat, strapped in with a canine seat belt and riding contently. The rest of the car was loaded to the brim with every sort of doggie apparatus and toy imaginable.
“I can’t help it.” I turned my finger this way and that, admiring the filigree engraving and the way the diamond sparkled against the vintage art deco setting. “It’s exactly what I dreamed about.”
Bentley glanced across the seat. “I’m happy for you, Lila. I really am.”
“Thank you.” I folded my hands and added in a more serious tone, “For everything. Especially for helping Lynn.” It had been a couple of weeks since Dr. Meyers’s and Lynn’s arrests. Bentley had retained one of the best lawyers in the area to defend Lynn. We were all hoping for a lenient sentence. As for Dr. Meyers, she’d fully confessed to everything. Even manipulating Lynn into becoming her co-conspirator. Personally, I wouldn’t have cared if they locked Dr. Meyers up and threw away the key. She’d connived such a twisted, evil plot. Someone like that should never be set free into society again. Not ever.
On a positive note, Jodi was released from jail and her record completely expunged. Due to some clever write-ups, Bentley was able to turn the whole fiasco into a grand publicity campaign. Jodi’s sales had more than doubled in the past two weeks and propelled her to the top spot on the bestseller lists. There was no doubt she’d have a long and successful career ahead of her.
Speaking of careers. I’d talked to both Bentley and Flora about Pam’s wish to switch genres. While they were both shocked by the news, and a little concerned how it would affect the agency’s bottom line, they showed Pam an amazing amount of support. I was glad. Because I’d read her mystery manuscript and it was terrific. I could hardly wait to introduce her work to the world of mystery readers. Knowing that I had even the smallest part in bringing intriguing stories to eager, discerning readers fueled my passion for the written word. I felt so fortunate to be able to live my dream and help others achieve theirs. Including my best friend, Makayla, who was overjoyed when I finally presented her with the cover artwork for The Barista Diaries. With the publication of her first novel and her upcoming nuptials, my friend was on cloud nine.
As for Trey. Well, he was still working at Machiavelli’s. And I was still concerned about his career choice. But he was happy and as long as he continued to pay back the money he owed me, I could be happy, too. And as it turned out, Oscar had proven to be a good boss. He’d taken Trey under his wing and shown him the business. He’d assured me that Trey was blossoming into a great chef.
Trey’s cooking skills weren’t the only thing blossoming. So was the relationship between Oscar and Mama. And I didn’t mind a bit. I’d never seen my mama so happy.
“Well, here we are,” Bentley said. She parked in front of a large Craftsman-style home, located on a tree-lined avenue in one of Dunston’s older neighborhoods. The weather had finally started to turn, and if I squinted, I could almost make out tiny buds lying in wait along the tree branches, ready to burst with color as soon as spring gave the official nod.
“It’s a lovely place, isn’t it?” I said.
Bentley nodded.