The lines of worry were creasing Delilah’s face. Delilah bit her lip and watched her anxiously. “We’ll compensate you very well, of course.”
Fran smiled, a smile that came from deep within and spread onto her face, lighting up her whole demeanor, but it was nothing to do with the money. “Of course I will. I would absolutely love to.”
“Oh!” Delilah said joyfully, her eyes filling up with tears again. “You have no idea how much this means to us.”
Fran felt a warmth all through her, and in that moment, she knew she was in the right place, at the right time. Doing what she was meant to be doing with her life. “You’re so welcome,” she said. “I can’t wait. We’ll make it such a special day.”
“Thank you,” Delilah said, wiping her eyes. “Oh, thank you so much.” Then, quite without warning, she launched herself at Fran and wound her arms around Fran’s neck. “You dear, sweet girl.”
Fran found her own eyes filling up with tears then, which was a little strange. She wasn’t the type to cry at the drop of a hat, but the thought of Oliver and his family needing a party, and it aligning with her trying to build on her life purpose… Well, the whole thing just felt a little bit magical, and Fran found herself wiping a couple of silent streaming tears away, too.
“Oh, look at us!” Delilah said as she pulled away. “Let’s wipe our eyes and hurry down. We don’t want to miss this party!”
The food was meant to be saved for much later, but Waverly had demanded ice cream, and since it was her day, Emily had ordered the catering staff to bring down the ice creams, sauces and toppings, and lay them out in an ice cream buffet in the marquee.
Fran had found, to her total and utter surprise, that she’d arranged everything so efficiently that she actually had time to sit down and savor her very own sundae. She’d picked out a scoop of strawberry shortcake, with strawberry sauce, for her first layer. Next came a couple of mini brownie squares. On top of that was a scoop of vanilla choc-chip drenched in PB&J sauce. And on the top was a scoop of rocky road, which didn’t need any sauce at all, in Fran’s view. She could make much more sophisticated desserts, for sure. “But this isn’t a day to be chic and classy,” she’d said to Emily with a wink. “Today is the day to be a big ole kid and enjoy it!”
Emily herself had piled brownie squares and chocolate ice cream scoops into her own sundae glass, and drizzled them liberally with layers of chocolate and caramel sauces.
When Anna gave her a pointed look, Emily grinned and said, “Fran told me to be a big kid, so that’s exactly what I’m going to be. Kids don’t go on diets, so neither do I. It’ll have to start tomorrow.”
“You said I should keep you accountable, even today,” Anna said, raising her eyebrows.
Emily was already eating her second sauce-drenched scoop. “I say a lot of things.”
“And I’m breaking my no sugar diet,” Anna moaned.
“Ooh!” Emily said dramatically. “Cops, come and lock her up!”
As Fran sat down and savored her ice cream, watching the little kids sitting at their tables and devouring scoop after scoop, she noticed she hadn’t seen the tall willowy figure of Vanessa all day. “So where’s Waverly’s stepmom?”
Emily rolled her eyes. “Probably still locked up in the library.”
“Even today?” Fran said, incredulous.
Anna slid down into a seat beside them, her own sundae glass looking miserably empty with just one scoop of strawberry.
“I think it’s downright rude,” Emily said.
Fran crinkled her brow. “I just don’t get why you would do that.”
“I know why,” Emily said. “I overhear everything in this house. For one thing, she’s severely annoyed with Byron. And for the other, she hates crowds. Like, really hates them. I kind of feel sorry for her, actually.”
Fran watched Waverly as she got up from her piled up rocky road sundae to twirl in her dress. She didn’t seem to even notice that Vanessa was gone. “What’s Vanessa’s beef with Byron?”
“His whole becoming the mayor crusade,” Emily said. “She can’t do crowds, public appearances, lunches, meetings, public attention, or any kind of attention at all really. All of a sudden, he wants a trophy wife to hang on his mayoral arm, you know. And she’s not down with that. Not one bit. Personally, I think it sounds pretty good. You get to be on TV and stuff.”
“I get where she’s coming from, though,” Fran said. “It’s his dream, not hers.”
“But you’d think she’d be a bit more grateful, wouldn’t you?” Anna’s voice was quite bitter. Fran had noticed she often sounded more emotional than was really warranted by a situation. “I mean, I heard she was just a librarian before they met. And now she can sun herself in his Hamptons mansion, reading all the books that money can buy, eating what she wants, going anywhere, having total freedom. The least she could do is make an effort.”
Fran shrugged, thinking it was really none of her business. In fact, it was feeling quite uncomfortable, and she wanted to change the subject. “Oh, and someone else is missing too,” she said, grateful the thought popped into her head.
“Who?” Emily said.
“Mr. Tanned, Ripped, Dark-Eyed and Gorgeous, of course,” Fran said, nonchalantly.
“You’re right!” Emily said. “Where’s Toby?”
“I saw him earlier in the hallway,” Anna remarked, then scanned the marquee. “Doesn’t look like he’s here.”
“Maybe he went home,” Fran said. “He did look kind of uncomfortable when Byron invited him in the first place.”
Emily nodded. “Well, it is a little random, seeing as they’re not personal friends or anything.”
“No, Daddy, I want to do it now!” Waverly’s voice was loud and clear and strong and aggressive. “Tell everyone. Now!”
Byron gave a smile and then clapped his hands. “Excuse me, everyone! Though I am aware many of you have not finished your sundaes, of course it is Waverly’s party. She would like you all to join her, to play her favorite game, Murder in the Dark, in—”
“It’s not Murder in the Dark!” Waverly said, furious. “It’s Murder in the Park! Because it’s outside! Let’s go now. I want to play right now.” She flicked her long pastel-colored braids, which were curled at the ends, and marched out like an angry little flower fairy.
Fran couldn’t help but laugh a bit. “It’s my party and I’ll have a darned tantrum if I want to.”
“Why are you just sitting here eating ice cream?” Byron came storming up to Emily, furious. “You’re not worth half the money I pay you, are you? Just sitting here, casual as a pair of jeans, eating up my money. God knows you don’t need it,” he said cruelly, looking her up and down. “You should be supervising Waverly at all times.”
Sandrine and a few others were sitting at the next table, and they turned to watch. Emily, flushing a deep shade of red, rose slowly to her feet, then said in the sweetest voice ever, “Sorry, Mr. Stratford. You’re right, I’ll go catch up with her now.” Fran knew that Emily only ever used that voice when she was seething with rage. She probably was itching to give Byron a good hard slap. Fran certainly felt like giving him a good talking-to, but of course, being that he was her client and Emily’s boss, it wasn’t a risk she could take right then.
“I think we’ll come along as well, won’t we, Anna?” Fran said cheerfully. “This Murder in the Park thing sounds quite fun.”
“I’m sure,” Mr. Stratford said, with no enthusiasm. He kept glancing toward the mansion, and Fran was sure he was desperate to go back upstairs and lock himself up in his office with some accounting paperwork. He looked totally out of his depth, and it still annoyed her that he hadn’t followed the dress code. Still, it’s on his dime, I guess, she thought.
Chapter 6
“Okay!” Waverly announced dramatically. “This is how you play Murder in the Park! Everyone gets a piece of paper, and one of them is blank. No, one of them says murderer on it, and all the other ones except
that one is blank? I forget.” She went over for a whispered consultation with Emily.
Meanwhile, Fran perked up, hoping to catch some snatches of overheard conversation—they were standing at the entrance of what she’d transformed into the Rainbow Grove, and she wanted to see what the verdict was.
That part of the garden was naturally quite gorgeous already. When Fran had first gone in, it had actually taken her breath away. It was a maze of pathways, with pergola style trellises running alongside and over the top, thick with foliage and flowers in bloom. But Fran had gone the extra mile, bedecking it with tiny fairy houses and trailing sequined streamers, glittering in the sunlight. The guests stood at the gate, half-listening to Waverly as she stood up on the bench and resumed her monologue.
“Sandrine says she’ll lose her house if he doesn’t allow her to publish her book, you know,” a very glamorous mommy said in a low voice as she ruffled her little boy’s hair. “Why is he such a grumpy old guy anyway? He won’t give her any more money. What is she supposed to do?”
The equally glamorous mommy next to her leaned her brunette head in to meet the blonde’s. “I mean, it’s not like she’s qualified in anything. I heard he was going to sue. Can you believe that? What a mean man, huh?” Then she made a quiet gasp. “Ooh, do you think he’s getting his revenge for, you know, her…episode?”
“Seven years later? Seems a long time to hold a grudge.”
“Yeah, but, look who she did it with. He does have a right to be mad.”
The blonde cast a quick look around her, and Fran quickly pretended to be looking at Waverly. “Listen, don’t repeat this, Alice, but I heard that’s still going on.”
The brunette paused, then shook her head. “No. It can’t be.”
The second person nodded. “Uh huh. Trust me.”
“So let’s start!” Waverly said, while Emily was in the middle of frantically tearing out sheets of a notebook and folding them into tiny squares.
“Just a minute!” Emily called out. “We’ll be ready to start in a couple seconds.”
Fran rushed forward to help, weaving her way through the crowd, then joining her on the bench. “Hey, Waverly,” she said. “You look like you’re enjoying yourself.”
Waverly was hopping impatiently from one foot to the other, making a metallic clang on the decorative iron bench as she did so. “Murder in the Park, Murder in the Park,” she kept saying over and over, like it would make Emily go faster.
Maybe it worked, as Emily kept up a rhythm so fast that her hands almost blurred. Fran helped, and a couple moments later, Anna joined them, too. “Many hands make light work,” she said.
“Many spoiled brats make your hands cramp,” Emily murmured under her breath.
Fran grinned. “Many said spoiled brat’s parents pay nannies extortionate amounts of money for their hands to cramp.”
Emily stuck her lower lip out and nodded. “Many said parents…oh, my brain’s getting all fried. Basically, yeah.” She grinned. “I guess I’m not, I dunno, pulling out chicken giblets in a factory. So I can be grateful for that.”
“Hurry up!” Waverly said. “Why are you talking about chicken?” Her eyes lit up. “After Murder in the Park, I wanna eat chicken. Ooh, can I be the murderer? And the detective?”
Emily sighed deeply, her eyes weary. “I’ll think about it.”
Fran felt a little more upbeat, so she stepped in to help her friend out. “You, Miss Fairy Princess Hair, will be whatever the magic decides you to be. You see, first we fold these papers up. But after that, it’s a special kind of magic called chance that decides who is the murderer and who is the detective.”
Since Fran had told it all with such a magical voice, Waverly nodded. “Chance,” she said. “Interesting.”
Before long, everyone was lining up, getting ready to go into the Rainbow Grove and begin the game. Surprisingly, Waverly wasn’t at the head of the line. She hung back till the end, saying she wanted to watch the ‘chance’ as Emily and Anna handed each player a slip of paper.
Fran took hers from Emily, who was still lounging on the bench. “Not playing, Em?”
Emily took her sunglasses out from where they’d been hanging on the front of her dress and slipped them on. Then she spread her arms wide over the bench and tipped her head back to look up into the fair blue sky. “Not a chance.”
“Well, I’m gonna play,” said Anna, taking the last slip of paper. “I always loved this game, though it was in the dark then, and not, in fact, in the park.”
Fran laughed and closed the gate behind them. She then glanced down at her slip of paper, and found the word Murderer.
Oh, man.
“You do the time, Daddy, because you’re the detective,” Waverly demanded, standing under a pergola trailing with jasmine flowers. “Don’t you even know how to play?” she said, as if at the absolute end of her tether with him. “What you do is time it for two whole minutes and then you call out ‘time’ and then everyone comes to you and you have to guess who killed the person.”
“Who killed what person?” Byron said.
“Daddy!” Waverly screeched in aggravation.
Anna leaned in to Fran and whispered, “Isn’t it supposed to end when someone screams?”
Fran shrugged with a smile. “Waverly’s party, Waverly’s rules.”
Then Sandrine stepped in, speaking in honeyed tones. “Come on, Waverly, honey, you’re getting to be a big grown-up girl now. You have to speak more sweetly. Be more charming, dear. Clap your hands and say, ‘Begin!’” Then her voice turned snappish as she said to Byron, “Time it for three minutes. Then once three minutes is done, you’ll call out and everyone can rush over to you. Think you can handle that?”
Byron’s face was a storm cloud and when he opened his mouth, Fran expected all hell to break loose, but Sandrine was already talking again. “Well, of course, Mister Mayor, you can handle anything, can’t you? Except the truth, that is.”
“Let’s play now!” Waverly announced. “Everyone go in different ways. Then the murderer puts their hands on another person and whispers, ‘You’re murdered.’ Okay, time us, Daddy!”
Then she was off into one of the maze’s alleyways, a flash of lilac braids and floating dress. All the other kids dashed off here, there, and everywhere, while the adults chattered amongst themselves and rolled their eyes, wondering what they’d gotten themselves into.
Anna grinned at Fran. “Ahh, I love this game. Wonder who the murderer is?”
Fran smiled back. “I wonder.” She was considering killing her right there on the spot, but there were still adults lingering around, reluctant to get in the spirit of things. “I’m going to go hide somewhere. I sure don’t want to get killed.” She hurried away before Anna could follow her. Byron was looking in their direction and it would have been too obvious if Fran killed her. Fran loved any kind of game, and given that she was the party planner, she felt it was her duty to make it interesting. The problem was that nearly every alleyway in the maze was full of adults still sipping from champagne flutes and chatting. If she murdered anyone, there would be multiple witnesses.
“Aha,” she whispered to herself with delight, finding a small secret spot at the end of one of the winding maze paths. It was boxed in with a hedge. Perfect. When some unsuspecting innocent took a wrong turn and ended up on that dead end path, she could lure them in behind the bush and murder them. No one would ever guess it was her.
“Oh!” she said, her heart beating wildly as she bumped into someone’s back.
The man had gasped too. He turned around, laughing with relief, his hand to his chest.
They were ever so close, their bodies practically touching, and Fran’s heart kept up its unusual rhythm, but for different reasons. It was his eyes Fran noticed first, gray eyes with flecks of brown that made them warm and inviting. His chocolate brown hair was immaculately styled and he wore a sharp light gray linen suit with perfect tailoring. Fran guessed that the silver watch on his
wrist cost more than her whole wardrobe put together. Her normal type was scruffy, artistic guys with dreamy eyes and visions of making the world a better place. This guy certainly didn’t fit that mold. So why were her hands sweating? Why did she feel his gaze all through her?
“Hi,” she said, suddenly feeling nervous. “Sorry about that. I, well—”
“You don’t have to apologize,” he said. “I should apologize for skulking in quiet corners.” He laughed in a carefree, confident way. “It’s dreadfully shallow, I know, but I was hoping I wouldn’t get murdered. I don’t much fancy lying down on the gravel in this suit. It’s new, you see.” Fran wasn’t usually attracted to men in sharp suits, but his voice was deliciously deep, reminding Fran of rich, melted dark chocolate.
Fran grinned. “Well, you’re actually out of luck, because I’m the murderer.”
He rolled his eyes. “Then I consider it meant to be. Pleased to meet you, murderer.”
“When I’m not a killer, I’m known as Fran,” she said with a laugh. “And you, Mr. Soon-To-Be-Victim?”
“I’m Matt.” He gave her the loveliest smile, and she felt a little dipping sensation in her chest. “Do you really have to kill me, Fran? Go on, spare my life. Spare my poor new suit.”
“All right,” Fran relented. “I’ll go kill someone else. I’d better hurry up though, they’ll probably call time soon and I haven’t murdered anyone yet.”
“Okay. I guess I can crawl out of my hole now and join the human race,” he said, pretending to be embarrassed. Then, as she hurried away, he called out, “Bye, murderer,” in such a gently teasing voice that she knew the attraction was totally mutual.
In spite of herself, Fran found a spring in her step as she made her way back along the path, trying to find someone to murder. A successful party and a handsome stranger. Things were sure looking up. She tried to tell herself to slow down. He could have just been friendly, after all. But she couldn’t keep a slow smile from spreading across her face and making her giggle out loud. She felt exhilarated.
Murder in the Park (Fran Finch Cozy Mystery Book 1) Page 4