As she stood, waiting, Clover wound up with the Beatles’ “If I Fell.”

  “Just ease back. Not ready yet.”

  “Clock’s back at three,” he commented as the dogs raced back ahead of him.

  “Every morning. I’ve got a story for you. Tell you on the way. You boys behave. Stay out of the liquor and don’t make any prank calls.”

  “Now you’ve given them ideas.”

  When they went out, she looked at the gunmetal-gray sedan next to her car. “That’s not your truck.”

  “No, but it’s my car.”

  She slid in. “It’s nice. So, recovered from the wedding?”

  “Mostly. Then today, my mother ambushed me for pictures. No headshots, no posing. That’s from you, I take it.”

  “It is. Your job’s top of the list now.”

  “What about Ryder? We can wait, Sonya, if you want to work on that.”

  “It gets an hour a day.” Because she had a plan, and a schedule. “Which is enough until I pull it more together.”

  “Just so you know, if you want to take more time for it, we’re not in a hurry. Now, what’s the story?”

  “I went through the mirror again. Wait.” She held up a hand as he started to speak. “I didn’t call you because I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t. By the end, I was just furious, but not scared.”

  “All right.”

  “I sense you’re not convinced, so let me start at the top.”

  When she finished, he glanced over. “She ended with poetry?”

  “Yes, but like a spell or a charm? I think. I need to ask Cleo about that. But the fact is, someone I bumped felt it. Like I felt Dobbs that night.

  “That’s interesting, to use your word. And it felt like I was wading through mud when I tried to run, to stop Agatha from eating that damn petit four.”

  “Her death’s listed as choking, but sounds like poison.”

  “It was anaphylactic shock. I’m nearly sure. I knew a girl in college with a peanut allergy. We were all out one night, and something she ate. It was really scary, even though she had an EpiPen. This reminded me of that, only it happened so fast, so maybe some poison with it. Hester Dobbs put something in that cake that caused the reaction.”

  As it played back so clearly in her head, Sonya shifted in her seat to face him.

  “She couldn’t breathe, Trey.

  “She knew I couldn’t stop it—Hester knew. And that just infuriated me. Then I started thinking.”

  He parked at the Lobster Cage.

  “Is this okay for dinner?”

  “Oh yes. I’d like to thank Bree in person for the recipe.”

  “Hold on to what you started thinking.”

  The same lovestruck hostess seated them in the same corner booth. He ordered wine, then nodded at her. “You were thinking.”

  “It’s not her. I mean I don’t think it’s Hester Dobbs jump-starting these dreams or experiences.”

  “Why?”

  “Why would she want me to see, to have the details? It doesn’t give her any advantage. But it gives me one.”

  He gestured to her when the server brought out the wine, chatted with her—an older woman this time—about her new granddaughter.

  “Give us a few more minutes, will you, Dana?”

  “You bet—but take my word, the lobster risotto is tops tonight.”

  When she left them, Trey didn’t miss a beat. “Did you do sketches?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want to see them. And you’ve made a good point. I don’t see any benefit to her letting you see what she did, or how she did it.”

  “How’s murky,” she said, but Trey shook his head.

  “You’re an eyewitness, and you see and remember details. So I’m saying you’re right. Why would she want a witness? Do you want the risotto?”

  “I really do.”

  “That works. I want crab cakes.”

  Once they’d ordered, he slid right back in. “I think it’s Astrid.”

  “Why Astrid?”

  “She’s the first. She was there, obviously, from the start. And since we accept she’s been in the manor since, she’d have seen the rest. She’s a witness, too.”

  “That’s logical—in this illogical situation.” And it helped, so much, to have someone who could be logical, someone she trusted, to talk through it all.

  “One of the details? I don’t think Agatha was in love with Owen Poole. Not like crazy, deeply. And she struck me as … I don’t think she was a particularly nice woman. More just a snob. I think he cared about her, but same goes—not the snob. He seemed warmer somehow. But I think it was what they called a good match, if you follow.”

  “He remarried, under two years later. Pretty sure it was less than two.”

  “About a year and a half—I checked. And he and his wife, Moira, had six kids and nearly five decades together. I don’t know if that matters, but apparently second brides aren’t in the danger zone.”

  “One a generation.”

  “Which means me. Or I guess any bride of my generation who gets married in, or lives in, the manor. It has to be there because Dobbs is stuck there, too. After my mother left Sunday? I went out to play fetch with Yoda. He’s getting the hang of it. The shadow I’ve seen, at the library window? I waved. It waved back.”

  Because it made him laugh, she grinned.

  “And right after? Hester started slamming the windows in the Gold Room. Very pissy. I gave her the middle finger salute.”

  The way he looked at her, in just that moment, had her heart doing a slow roll.

  “You’re one in a million, cutie.”

  “I don’t know about that, but I know how to get pissy right back.”

  When Dana served the mains, Sonya looked at her plate, then up at Dana. “I can tell you were right.”

  “Never wrong.” She winked and left them alone.

  “Tell me about the wedding. The one that didn’t end with a dead bride.”

  “Please don’t make me. Fill me in on your weekend instead.”

  “What’s one thing—no, two,” Sonya amended. “Two things that stick out, then we’ll close the door on your weekend adventure and move to mine.”

  “The bride’s uncle Jerry got shit-faced, jumped onstage with the band, and belted out AC/DC’s ‘You Shook Me All Night Long.’”

  He waited a beat.

  “While stripping. They managed to stop him before he lost his pants—there were children present—but it was close.”

  As she laughed, he tried some of her risotto.

  “And for the second, I found the best man and the bride’s brother in an extremely compromising situation in the men’s room.”

  “You walked in on them?”

  “Lock the door, man.” He pressed his fingers to his eyes. “Use a stall. Rent a room. Before I could back out, they told me to congratulate them. They’re engaged.”

  “Aw. Did you?”

  “Congratulate them? Yeah, while my retinas were bleeding because I’d seen entirely too much of both of them, things I can never unsee. I said congratulations and got the hell out of there.”

  “I hope those crazy kids make it. Your family has exciting weddings. I wish I’d been there.”

  He studied her over a sip of wine. “You actually mean that. I worry about you.”

  “I like weddings. They’re full of color and drama and joy.”

  “And drunken relatives.”

  “The best ones are.”

  “Your turn.”

  “My weekend can’t compare to yours. But there is my mother’s reaction to spending hers with ghosts. Which was surprisingly steady.”

  She told him.

  “It sounds like I had it right. You got a lot of your steady from your mother.”

  “I didn’t realize when my father died how much she had to take on. You don’t think of things like that when you’re twelve. And by the time I grew up enough to realize it, it just was. She gave me stability.”

  “It says something that she senses your dad with her.”

  “What does it say?”

  “That love, the real deal, lasts. The real deal gives you strength.”

  “You must be right because I don’t know anyone stronger than Winter MacTavish. By the way, since she immediately and correctly interpreted my term dating?” She pointed a finger at him, then at herself. “She demands to meet you the next time she’s here.”

  “I’ll look forward to that.” He glanced over. “Here comes Bree.”

  This time the chef scooted Trey over to look directly at Sonya. “I can’t look in your eyes with a text, so tell me again you didn’t overcook the scallops or pasta.”

  “You scared me enough on that. I set timers. My mother was so shocked and impressed she forced me back to the kitchen on Saturday and whipped me through a chicken dish. So my thanks is qualified by fear and annoyance, as she told me she’s going to teach me a different dish whenever she visits.”

  “Didn’t she ever teach you growing up?”

  “She tried. I’d chop and stir if cornered. But I was slippery, and I stand as one of her few failures.”

  Bree nodded, considered. “I still like you. Rock Hard’s back in Ogunquit next week,” she told Trey. “I’m going next Monday. You should come. Bring her. I gotta get back.”

  She hopped up, took off.

  “So.” Sonya picked up her wine. “She and Manny have solidified their thing.”

  “Looks that way. Do you want to go hear some music next week?”

  “I would. Rock Hard and Manny live bold in my imagination. But Cleo’s coming in a few days. I don’t want to ditch her for an evening so soon.”

  “Does she like music?”

  “She does.”

  “Owen will definitely be up for going. We could make it a group thing.”

  “It sounds like fun. I’ll ask her. But then there’s Yoda.”

  “My parents take on Mookie if I’m going to be gone more than a couple hours. They’ll take Yoda.

  “Think about it. Ask Cleo.”

  She would, and did some of that thinking on the drive home.

  “I should get Yoda a doghouse. The weather’s breaking, and he’d have somewhere to chill when he’s outside.”

  “You should ask Owen to build him one.”

  “Owen builds doghouses?”

  “Not for everybody, but Owen can build anything. You should see the one we built for Jones. It’s a dog palace. It’s got Wi-Fi.”

  “Get out of here.”

  “It’s heated, with a circulating fan to cool it in the summer, two bunks, in case he has a pal over like Mookie last weekend. It’s got a frigging porch, windows—with screens.”

  “You said ‘we built.’”

  “I’m just the free labor. He’s the genius.”

  Which explained his workingman hands, Sonya thought.

  “Does Mookie have one?”

  “Mookie’s is more of a playhouse. He’s still a kid, really, and he lacks Jones’s taste for the finer things.”

  “Does it have Wi-Fi?”

  “It does not.” He pulled up at the manor. “Mookie also lacks Jones’s spookily superior intellect. I’m not sorry about that. But it has its amenities.”

  “Yoda wants one.”

  “Discuss it with Owen,” Trey said as they walked to the door. “He believes in the barter system.”

  After the dogs greeted them, and everyone had a walk around, Trey took her hand at the door.

  “I’d like to stay.”

  Her answer was to pull him inside with her. “Did you think you were going somewhere?”

  * * *

  He woke when the clock struck three, and beside him she stirred. Pulling her close, he pressed his lips to her hair.

  “Not tonight. Just sleep.”

  If she dreamed, she didn’t remember, and fell smoothly back into routine.

  By midday she had a selection of photos to consider for the Doyle project. Asking Corrine, she decided, had been the perfect move. Not only good photos, but the woman knew all the subjects, and it showed.

  She didn’t think twice about which to use of Trey.

  His mother caught him leaning back against his desk, his phone at his ear. Untucked shirt, dark jeans, scarred boots crossed at the ankles.

  It captured his calm energy. A contradiction in terms, she thought, but that was Trey Doyle.

  Just as she’d captured her father-in-law, in his three-piece suit, glasses at the tip of his nose as he pulled a law book from the shelf.

  “These are good, they’re damn good. Let’s make them work.”

  She spent the rest of the day on it, and most of the next.

  And in her opinion, it did work, and well.

  In anticipation of Cleo’s arrival the next day, she took Yoda into the village for some supplies and flowers.

  On her way out again, her phone rang. She tapped the button on the steering wheel to answer.

  “This is Sonya.”

  “Hey, Sonya, Anna. I’m right behind you.”

  Sonya glanced in the rearview. “Oh, well, hi.”

  “I don’t suppose I could talk you into turning around. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee. I was going to text you. I’d like to talk to you about a couple of things.”

  “I’d turn around, but I’ve got the dog with me. Why don’t you come up? I’ll buy you the decaffeinated beverage of your choice.”

  “Love it, thanks. I’ll see you in a few.”

  * * *

  While Sonya chose happy daffodils for Cleo’s room, Cleo pulled up in front of the manor.

  As she didn’t see Sonya’s car, she considered the wisdom of her one-day-early surprise. With a shrug, she decided she’d just haul some of her things to the front door, then send Sonya a text.

  She muscled out a suitcase, pleased that spring teased the air instead of winter biting it. If Sonya planned to come back soon, she’d wait. If she planned not, well, she’d just drive down to the village and do some exploring until.

  After dragging the suitcase to the door, it opened.

  “Hey. I didn’t think you were home, I…”

  Sonya didn’t stand there. No one did.

  She hesitated, then squared her shoulders. She’d live here, so she’d better get used to it. When she walked in, the music pumped. Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s “Welcome Back.”

  “I’ll take that as a good sign.”

  As a precaution, she propped her suitcase against the door. It weighed a ton because she had a ton of clothes. And wasn’t sorry.

  She hauled her second one, then her weekender, then the last of her boxes before shutting the door.

  She looked at the staircase, looked at her suitcases. Sighed.

  She still wasn’t sorry.

  She’d pulled, yanked, carried the first to the landing when the banging started.

  And the servant’s door creaked open.

  She heard the bell, dim but insistent. She stepped toward it.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Sonya spotted Cleo’s car when she made the turn, and everything in her lit up bright.

  She pulled up, jumped out. She expected to see suitcases, boxes when she peered in.

  “Either you bought a second car or you already have company.”

  Anna walked over to Sonya.

  “It’s Cleo’s. I didn’t expect her until tomorrow.”

  “The friend who’s moving in. What a nice surprise. Listen, I’ll take off, leave you two alone to get her settled in. We can do this later.”

  “No, come in.” From her car, Sonya grabbed the flowers and grocery bags. “You should meet her. Wherever she is. She must be inside. I don’t know how because I always lock up when I leave.”

  They walked to the house together.

  “See?” At the locked door, Sonya took out her key. Yoda raced in first and sniffed at the suitcases.

  “Her things. Cleo!” Her voice just echoed back. “Hell with that.” Taking out her phone, she texted.

  Where are you?

  The response took a minute.

  Brt.

  “Be right there from where?” Sonya muttered. “That’s another of her bags up there. Maybe she—”

  She broke off as the servant’s door opened.

  Cleo stepped out. She shoved a hand at her hair, then lifted her arms in the air. “Surprise!”

  “You scared the crap out of me.”

  “Sorry. I got everything done, and thought why the hell should I wait until morning? So here I am,” she continued as she walked down the stairs.

  “How did you get in?”

  “The door opened. Just like that one did.” She pointed up. “But manners first as my Mama says. Hi, I’m Cleo Fabares.”

  “Anna Doyle.”

  “I know. I recognized you from your website. Wonderful work, by the way. The site and the pottery. And would you look! It’s now five-oh-two. Give me some wine, Son. I’ve had my first solo adventure.”

  “Sit in the parlor with Anna.”

  “Anna doesn’t need to sit in the parlor,” Anna said. “The kitchen’s fine. I’d like to hear about the solo adventure. You don’t seem worried about it.”

  “Got some chills, literally, but no, I’m not worried. We have this fierce guard dog.” She crooned to Yoda, gave him some loving rubs. “You’re even more adorable in person.”

  She straightened, and continued as they started back, “And I’ve got one of my grand-mère’s charms in my pocket.”

  “Her grandmother’s a Creole witch. Maybe.”

  “You’ve got my full attention.”

  “You get the drinks, Sonya; I’ll put the groceries away.”

  “What would you like, Anna?”

  Still studying Cleo as if fascinated, Anna said, “Ginger ale if you have it.”

  “Okay. To start,” Cleo said to Anna, “a friend’s taken over my apartment. A friend I’m fond of, but grew less fond of every day since she moved in. She’s not easy to live with. Sonya is. So when I realized I had everything done, I ran. Since I’m also fond of the surprise, I didn’t give Sonya a heads-up. That’s on me.”

  “I would’ve been here.”

  “Yeah, but then I wouldn’t have had my first solo adventure. You got Toaster Strudels! She knows I have a weakness. So, when I didn’t see Sonya’s car, I realized my surprise might have been a little ill-conceived, but what the hell. She’d be back. I hauled one of my ridiculously heavy suitcases to the door. And it opened.”