Kate continued. “That there’s strength in numbers. If we could get them together, and one said a bit, then another—”
“Would say more,” Sara said.
“So how do you get a passel of women together without setting off alarms?” Jack asked. “Advertise a murder evening? Put on a grand ball?”
Kate gave a little smile. “If only we knew someone who had something everyone wanted.”
Jack seemed to understand and they looked at Sara.
She backed away. “Oh no, you don’t. There will not be another open house! The town has seen every inch of where I live. There are photos of my bathroom online. The caption says—”
Kate grabbed one of Sara’s novels from the bookcase and waved it around.
“Oh,” Sara said. “You mean a book club, don’t you? One of those things where they ask me questions. What computer do I use? I say that I write by hand. Then a woman will start telling me that I could use a computer if I’d just have confidence in myself. Then another one says she’ll help me...” She looked defeated. “Couldn’t I just slice open a vein and bleed a quart or two?”
“You’d be given crackers afterward and they’re not keto,” Jack said.
Sara sighed. “Please not a book club.”
Kate’s face didn’t soften. “We’ll have an invitation-only book club and a reading of—”
Sara gasped. “Read from my own book?! I can’t—”
Frowning, Kate got louder. “We will promise whatever we have to to get them here, then we’ll drill them about Janet Beeson. No reading, no questions.”
Sara’s face lo
st twenty years of accelerated age. “Yeah? We talk about murder? I don’t have to read a scene I wrote thirty years ago, then explain why I wrote it, and by the way, what do I do about writer’s block—which they assume I have often?”
“Nope. None of that.”
Sara stood up. “I’m going to make a pitcher of strawberry iced tea. Anybody want some?”
“I’ll take a beer,” Jack said. “And some of the leftover junk from the kids.”
“It’s too early in the morning for beer,” Kate said. “And besides, it’s bad for the boys to see.”
“You dressed up for them, but I can’t—” He broke off because Sara and Kate were staring at each other. “What?”
“The boys can deliver the invitations,” Kate said.
“We’ll dress them up.”
“Jack’s clothes should fit but they may be a bit small,” Kate said.
“Small?” he sputtered. “Like hell they are. I can deliver the damned notes. We don’t need—”
“Need what?” the twins asked as they entered the kitchen. They had bed-tousled hair, no shirts on, and low-riding jeans. They looked like tall angels come to life.
Jack saw the smiles on the faces of the women and stood up. “Get dressed, you brats.”
When no one moved, Jack half pushed the boys down the hall. The giggles of the women echoed behind him.
* * *
It took them less than an hour to make out invitations to a book club for that afternoon. Tea with Sara Medlar, it read.
“It’s very short notice,” Kate said, “and it’s a weeknight, but I still think they’ll come.”