His days as a pirate or a duke on the cover of hot romance novels were over. He’d dropped the model work when it had been suggested he be in the background as the pirate’s father. He had become a personality after that doing some commercials and comedy bits playing himself on late-night talk shows. He had enough of a name that he was able to add a celebrity touch to the high-end drugstore called the Apothecary that he’d created. He was in the process of expanding his business and opening a restaurant.

  His connection to crochet came from his Irish grandmother, who taught him to crochet lace when she had no granddaughters to teach. It always amazed me how he managed the delicate work with such large hands.

  “What are you guys talking about?” Dinah said. “Was Molly telling you about having her granddaughter left on her doorstep? The baby was in her car seat with a bag of things on the front porch.”

  “It wasn’t quite that bad,” I said. “Gabby talked to me before she rushed off. Though more like talked at me announcing she was leaving the baby. She was flying to Vancouver for a production job and couldn’t take care of Marlowe without help and the nanny had quit just as they were leaving for the airport.”

  Rhoda looked at the space around me. “Where is she?” She glanced around the area for the baby.

  “You should have been here yesterday. It was ‘bring your granddaughter to work day’ for Pink.”

  “Are you still calling her by her last name?” Rhoda said, giving Adele a look.

  Adele started defending herself, saying that calling me Pink was a compliment, likening me to the singer. They all rolled their eyes at her attempt at a save. “But that reminds me. I wanted to tell you about my new venture.” She surveyed the group at the table. “Actually, all of you.”

  Adele began to circle the table, making eye contact with everyone as she did. “It has become unmanageable living with Mother Humphries. I know it upsets Eric that his mother is so bad to me, his wife, but I don’t think he knows what to do. Lucky for him, I do. We have to get our own place. I’m sure you all know of my super success with the children’s department. Everybody loves Queen Adele. We have a waiting list to join story-time. So I asked myself why can’t I use my talent to make a profit. The answer was so obvious. I’m going to put on kids’ parties.” She looked directly at me. “I just need to connect with the right people. Then Queen Adele will be trendy and everyone will want to pay a ridiculous amount of money to have me host their kids’ party.”

  “You do realize it takes more than you in a costume to put on a party,” CeeCee said.

  Adele shrugged it off. “That’s why I need Pink, she can fill in the rest of it.”

  Rhoda gave Adele a scolding shake of her head. “You know it might help your situation if you stopped calling her Mother Humphries.”

  Adele flashed her eyes and made it clear that was not going to happen.

  Dinah grabbed the floor. “Molly has more than a baby visitor going on.” She turned to me. “Tell them what Peter wants you to do.”

  They all knew how my son had reacted to my sleuthing and I was sure it was okay if I didn’t mention any names. They all chuckled at the irony. Except Adele.

  “Here goes Sherlock Pink again,” Adele said in a scoffing tone.

  “We’re really here for crochet,” CeeCee said, holding up her work and giving Adele a pointed look. “We haven’t done a charity project in a while and I think it’s time.”

  “That’s what I was going to say after I talked about the party business,” Adele said, interrupting. The rest of the group got the here we go again look. CeeCee was the leader of the group, but Adele somehow thought she was.

  CeeCee ignored the comment and said she’d bring in some ideas.

  “After you run them past me,” Adele said, trying to stake out her position. There was a collective rolling of eyes.

  Chapter Five

  “Here are the directions. It’s in Malibu at a playground,” Peter said, handing me a printout. “I can put them in your phone since your antique car doesn’t have GPS.” It was the night before the first meeting of the mommy group and Peter said he was there to prepare me. He had waited until the rest of the family had left and seemed more uptight than usual.

  Just because he asked me to investigate his possible partner did not mean he completely trusted me to do the job. He went on and on about what I shouldn’t say, like the obvious that I was trying to check the background of Miles Langford. He told me over and over that I should act casual and not ask any direct questions, like Is there anything scandalous in your family’s past that is likely to come up? Like duh, I thought, shaking my head in disbelief at my son.

  “Remember, don’t give your last name or mention me. I can’t have Miles Langford find out that I sent my mother to investigate him.”

  “You’re sure they don’t know who Marlowe’s father is?” I said, and Peter shook his head.

  “Gabby made sure to distance herself from me, and Marlowe goes by her last name.” I asked what he knew about the people in the group and Peter seemed impatient. “All that matters is that you keep a low profile and find out what you can about Miles Langford. I really don’t expect anything to show up. He seems to be a pretty mild guy. The money comes from his family and he wants to get into show business.”

  I thought that was going to be the end of it, but then he said he had talked to Gabby. I asked him what her plans were. Was she going to get a new nanny and come back to pick up Marlowe? Peter looked uncomfortable.

  “No and no,” he said. “Nothing has changed. She’s leaving things as they are and put it all on me.” He looked at the array of his daughter’s stuff in my living room. “Okay, it’s on you more than me.”

  I had explained the situation with Marlowe and the mommy group to Mrs. Shedd and Mr. Royal and they were very accommodating about letting me switch around my hours. Of course, they knew nothing about the other reason I was going to the meetup.

  I had been able to get a little more information out of Peter. The different members of the group took turns hosting. It was an exclusive group and Gabby had used a connection in the group to get the production job. This one was being hosted by Taylor Palmer in Malibu.

  • • •

  Marlowe was snuggled in her car seat the next morning and had fallen asleep before I even got on the 101. She didn’t stir when I got off the freeway at Las Virgenes and headed toward the ocean. The first part of the trip was all straight road surrounded by meadows and mountains in the distance. It was all very green from the winter rains. The scenery changed as we passed through Malibu Creek Park. There were trees and bushes and somewhere in it all was the creek.

  From there the road became twisty as it hugged the mountainside. The name had changed to Malibu Canyon Road. Craggy mountains loomed on the other side of the road and it seemed hard to believe we were so close to the people and congestion of the Valley. I thought of other times I had gone on this drive with Mason. He was an expert at romantic gestures, like taking me off to an exotic spot for lunch or going to the beach to toast the sunset with cappuccinos. It had been about us being together and sharing the experience. Wasn’t that the way a relationship should be? I felt horrible all over again for the way things had turned out. Particularly since the whole thing with Barry had imploded so quickly. How could I have not seen that it would never work out? Well, I’d made my bed and now I had to lay in it—alone.

  It was always a thrill when the blue of the water was suddenly visible and then the road began to descend, giving a bigger view of the ocean. Peter had given me very specific directions, like turn left at the second stoplight and then listed landmarks I would pass before I had to turn left again. He could have just said the street names and the name of the elite shopping center.

  There was a haze making the sky seem iridescent as I pulled into the small shopping center in a flat area at the foot of the mountains. The stores and restaurants were all high-end. There were more exact directions from Peter about where to park and where to walk around the line of shops to get to the playground. Marlowe awoke as I put her in the umbrella stroller Peter had gotten her and she looked around with interest while I wheeled her to our destination.

  The playground was nothing like the places I had taken Peter and Samuel when they were small. The moms had sat on green wood benches in leggings topped with sweats that had chocolate fingerprints smudged on the shoulders, while the kids played on dull-colored swings and slides.

  The equipment here was more colorful and varied. There were bridges and slides with a structure resembling a fire engine. A swing set was set up for different age kids and an area set aside for babies Marlowe’s size. Kids were on the move, running and climbing. The play area was fenced in and a strip along it had brightly colored chairs and benches. A group was huddled at one end and I assumed they were who I was looking for.

  I sized them up as I approached. There were two woman and a man. They were all in their thirties and seemed wrapped up in a sense of their own importance, reminding me of Gabby. I already felt like the odd man out and realized it wasn’t going to be so easy to do what Peter requested.

  I put on my friendliest smile and wheeled Marlowe to the group. They all looked up when I approached and reacted as if I was an intruder until they recognized the baby.

  “I’m Molly, Marlowe’s grandmother,” I said. The easiest thing to do was give no last name. “I’m standing in for Gabby.”

  “She sent me a text that Marlowe was staying with you while she was on the film shoot,” one of the women said. “I’m Taylor, the host of this meetup.” She was slender with a determined demeanor, as if she was the kind of person who set her sights on a goal and got it. She turned to the other two people.

  “I’m Kath,” the other woman said. She had long dark hair that the breeze was doing a number on. She peeled it off her face and twisted it into a topknot. With the hair off her face, I noticed that her features seemed a little too perfect and I tried not to stare at her pillowy lips.

  The man nodded a greeting. “Garth, working-from-home husband,” he said with a grin. He seemed the least concerned with his appearance and was wearing jeans and well-worn ankle boots.

  Two other women sat a little off from the rest and Taylor gestured toward them in a dismissive manner. “They’re stand-ins.” She lowered her voice. “Nannies because their mothers couldn’t make it.”

  “You mean like me?” I said, wondering if I was going to be banished to the fringe.

  “No. You’re family, so it’s okay.” She looked down at Marlowe. “You can take her into the play area. My housekeeper, Elena, is there to watch the kids.” A woman about my age dressed in comfortable jeans and a hoodie was catching a little boy who looked about two on a slide. Another child about Marlowe’s age was crawling on the ground. Once I’d left Marlowe, I glanced back at the adults.

  It seemed like the first bit of detective work I was going to have to do was to figure out who Miles’s wife was. I knew that Taylor’s last name was Palmer, so she was out. Peter had said wife, so Garth was out. I didn’t want to be overt and simply ask Kath her last name. Even if Peter hadn’t given me the ridiculous warning not to be obvious, I knew that on my own. Asking a question like that would likely prompt them to ask me why I was asking. It would be even more complicated dealing with the nannies and finding out who they worked for. They were both older and plain-looking. I wondered if their age and appearance had made them choice candidates after so many stories of husbands running off with younger caregivers. It seemed doubtful any husbands would want to take off with them unless the guy had a mommy complex.

  They all had coffee drinks and Taylor pointed to the coffee place just around the corner. When I returned with my drink, they had a chair in the middle for me. I took a sip of the coffee as I considered what to say. It was delicious with a chocolatey aftertaste. I made a mental note to mention it to Bob for the bookstore café.

  A good icebreaker seemed to be asking how they’d started the group. It turned out they’d met at a celebrity-owned Malibu children’s boutique. Along with a play area that had snacks for the kids, there was a wine and espresso bar for the adults where they hung out as a clothing consultant showed them merchandise. I found out that Taylor had a five-year-old son named Andrew who was in school. The boy she had with her was a toddler named Oliver. Garth had three-year-old fraternal twins named Edgar and Lucy. Kath had a daughter named Plum who was Marlowe’s age and was a surprise addition. Her two older kids were in high school. As I glanced at her face again, I realized she was older than I’d thought.

  “What about them?” I said, pointing at the two nannies.

  Taylor seemed annoyed. “We should really consider whether we want to keep their mothers in the group. I don’t remember the last time Lindy and Vanessa came with their kids. And they always have an excuse why they can’t host when it’s their turn. We had to ask Benita to leave when she refused to do her part.”

  I was hoping that neither of the no-shows or Benita was who I was looking for, which left Kath. I thought if I could get her talking about herself there might be a clue.

  I had barely put together a question to ask her when she solved the problem and also dashed my hopes that she was who I was looking for. She began talking about her professional life. She turned to me to explain. “My husband is a plastic surgeon and we have a number of clinics. I deal with the marketing and advertising. We’re in the process of putting together a new infomercial.” She looked at me to see if I understood what she meant and then explained anyway that it was a half-hour show about their services that was really an advertisement for them. “We call the clinics Beau Visage, which means beautiful face even though the clinics do everything. We were going to call them Beautiful Body, but in French it comes out as Beau Corps.” She laughed. “Corps and corpse sound the same. Not the image we wanted.”

  She turned to Garth. “When do you think you’ll have something to show me?” Trying to keep me in the loop, she explained that Garth was writing the script for the half-hour ad.

  “It’s different than what I usually do,” he said, telling me that he was between gigs writing sitcoms. “But I’ll have it for you in a couple of days,” he said, answering Kath.

  “As long as we’re giving our credits,” Taylor said, “I wear a number of hats. Mother, wife, and I was the director of Dust and Sagebrush.” I nodded with a smile as if I was impressed. I vaguely remember the movie from one of the streaming channels.

  Just then another woman joined the group with a boy about four. She sent the boy to join the other kids in the play area and turned model-style in front of us. “What do you think?” she said, seeming to show off the wrap she was wearing. It seemed somewhere between a shawl and a jacket and was white with a blue stripe. The back spread down from her shoulders but was stitched together so there were arms holes. “This is the sport model and it’s made out of linen.” She slipped it off and held it out for someone to try on.

  Garth took it, smiling as he slipped it over his hoodie and mimicked a model on a runway, and they all laughed. “What do you call these things again?” he asked.

  “The style is called a cocoon, but I call mine the Cuddle.”

  Garth handed it back to her and she started to sit, but then Elena came up to the seating area with the kids in tow. She handed off Plum to Kath, and Marlowe to me.

  “Now we move to my place for lunch,” Taylor said.

  “My favorite part,” Garth said, coming up next to me as we trooped to the parking lot and our cars. He seemed to pick up that I was an outsider like him. “Be sure to stick with the convoy. We can’t take the shortcut since it means driving through the creek, which is too high at this time of year.

  “You probably noticed that Taylor is the leader of the group. If you want to get on her good side, compliment her on the house. It was the Beltron family’s summer house. Lots of history with the place. If you have any aspirations to work in the ‘business,’ Taylor is the one with the connections. Gabby got her job as producer from hanging out with this group.”

  Garth seemed friendly and gossipy and I was going to ask him about the last arrival, but his phone rang. He answered the call and gave me a wave, talking as he and his twins went to their car.

  Chapter Six

  I packed Marlowe up in her seat and rushed to keep up behind Garth’s black SUV. I was glad I had somebody to follow instead of instructions. It started with us going past a gatekeeper and then eucalyptus-lined twisty back roads past estates until everyone turned into a driveway. The cars in front of me pulled into a motor court. My ancient blue-green Mercedes seemed lost in all the SUVs, which all seemed to be big and black.

  The house was massive and had a classic old California look with the creamy-colored stucco and terra-cotta roof. Tall arched mullioned windows were on either side of the covered entranceway. I got Marlowe out and gathered with the others around Elena. We followed the housekeeper around the side of the house past a tennis court, pool and yard to a guesthouse, where we left the kids with the housekeeper. The woman in the cocoon wrap took a small box out of an insulated bag. “In case he gets a nose bleed.” Elena pushed it back on her and assured her the refrigerator had popsicles that worked even better. The two nannies stayed with the kids and I followed the others to a French door that led into the main house.

  We walked into a large room with a tiled floor that seemed like a den. A woman in a gray uniform came in pushing a cart and began to set out platters on an antique wooden sideboard. “I kept it simple,” Taylor said, urging us to help ourselves. Simple, ha! There was a platter of fruit with wedges of pineapple, slices of melon, huge whole strawberries surrounded by blueberries and blackberries. A bowl of chopped salad had a stack of small dishes next to it. And finally, there was a platter of triangular half sandwiches. Another smaller one had more sandwiches, which Taylor said were all vegan. There were bottles of wine and glasses and a pitcher of lemonade with slices of lemon floating on the top, and finally an airpot with coffee. At the very end of the table was a tray of brownies. As we all gathered around the food, I noticed they all stared at the chocolate treats, but only Garth took one.