Page 154 of While You Were Trending

Monday morning,I’m in my office, trying to concentrate on a proposal for an old client who asked for more work, but mostly reliving showering with Declan in his apartment this morning, when the mudroom door in the kitchen slams shut.

“Ginny? Mabel?”

It’s Olivia, and her voice is high and tight.

I shove back from the desk, accidentally slamming my chair into the built-in bookshelves behind me, but I’m on my feet and dashing to the kitchen before the thud has stopped echoing in the room.

“I’m here. What’s wrong? What happened? What is it?”

Olivia stares at me wide-eyed as she holds up a white envelope.

The same kind of envelope we found last month.

“It’s another ten thousand,” Samantha breathes behind Olivia.

“We found it in the stockpot,” Olivia says.

“Found what in the stockpot?” Mabel strolls into the kitchen too, swiping her bangs out of her bloodshot eyes. She has a piece of brown felt stuck to her boobs over her usual all-black outfit, and her ponytail’s lopsided. Definitely pulled another all-nighter for her costume clients.

“More money and another note,” Samantha says.

“Are you fucking serious?” Mabel says.

I wince on her behalf. She’s tired if she’s dropping fuck-bombs. We need to get this winery profitable immediately so that she can start sleeping again.

“We got an order for caramel pecan rolls—” Samantha freezes and leans like she’s looking around Mabel to make sure Adelaide didn’t hear her saypuh-cahn.

“For caramel rolls,” Olivia says.

“So we went into the pantry for the stockpot to make the caramel?—”

“—And there it was?—”

“We haven’t touched the pot since the wedding.”

“We only make caramel rolls for special orders, and we haven’t had any since well before the wedding, so it could’ve been there for weeks,” Olivia says.

Samantha winces. “Or it could be more recent. The door to the kitchen over there was unlocked when we got there two days ago. We assumed it was Lav, but…”

She trails off and leaves the rest unspoken.

That whoever’s leaving money might have a key, or they could’ve picked the lock, or Lav unlocking the door shortly before money was found was just a coincidence.

“They want the zin.” Olivia’s dark eyes dart between us. “How would they know the zinfandel hasn’t been claimed unless they’re here?”

They all look at me.

I gape back. “What?”

“Declan’s doing this,” Mabel says with an air of certainty that makes my stomach turn.

“A dead clam’s screwing fish?” Pip says behind her.

“Do Cricket and Dori and Heath know?” Mabel asks Olivia and Samantha.

They shake their heads in unison.

“I’d say that’s a gory show,” Pip says.