Page 25 of Say Yes to the Death

She hung up and walked back to the kitchen. Rachel was examining her reflection in her wineglass.

“I’m sorry, Rachel. I’m needed at work. There’s banoffee pie and coffee if you’re interested.”

Claire whistled for Rosie and bolted from the house, leaving her lying boyfriend locked in his office and his wretched old mop of a mother slumped at the island. That was enough Islestorm interaction for one day.

CHAPTER SEVEN

To Do:

- Find a way to legally murder Rachel

- Call Sawyer for self defense class—throat punching?

“Mom, you could have killed us,” Claire sputtered as she frantically stabbed the button to roll down the heavily tinted window of Luke’s new black sedan. Thick white smoke billowed out into the warm morning air. The imposing structure of the West Haven Courthouse was barely visible through the smoke. It looked more like a museum than a courthouse, with wide, sweeping stairs and dramatic brick arches. “You can’t just fill a moving car with smoke.”

All she wanted to do was get through the hearing without any shenanigans. And here she was, rolling up to the courthouse like she had just left a Grateful Dead concert.

Beside her, Luke put his window down too, wafting the smoke out into the balmy summer morning. He looked amused despite the fact that he clearly hadn’t slept. She wasn’t speaking to him after the George incident—they had tabled their discussion regarding his surprise secret brother until after the hearing.

“Claire Aurora Hartley, I can’t believe you got in a brand new car without saging it first,” Alice Alejo said sternly. Claire’s mother had arrived that morning, fresh off a plane from Florida, the way a hurricane does—infrequently but with dramatic flair and potentially catastrophic fallout.

“Did you not get the kit that I sent you? The energy is so stale in here it’s like an abandoned law library,” Alice continued. She unbuckled her seatbelt and thrust her smoldering bundle of sage into the front seat, leaning as far as possible toward the windshield.

Claire was engulfed in the earthy smell of angelica root, which her mother swore by for protection. She and Luke made eye contact over her mother’s mass of perfectly coiffed blonde hair. He shrugged.

Claire bit her lip. Luke had sprung for a new car with tinted windows before Claire had even made it home from the hospital. He still had his dad’s old, beat-up truck, but any time they went somewhere together, they took the new car. But all the tinted windows in the world wouldn’t save her from the microscope she was about to be under.

Alice swung her arm counterclockwise in a half circle. She likely would have fallen into Luke’s lap if her gargantuan breasts hadn’t been lodged between the driver and passenger seat. Apparently satisfied, she returned to the back seat. Flinging her curly blonde tresses over one shoulder of her hot pink pantsuit, she dug one well-manicured hand through her designer purse. “It’s no wonder you keep getting followed by the paparazzi.”

“Mom, I’m being followed by the paparazzi because I was almost murdered, not because I didn’t smudge Luke’s car. What are you doing? Put the spray bottle down.”

“We have to follow the smudging with rose water for protection and warmth.”

“It’s eighty degrees, Mom. We don’t need more warmth.” Claire clutched the door handle. She wasn’t ready to face the horde of reporters who were frantically approaching the car, but the smoke was giving her a headache. Luke reached over and stopped her. He got out first, leaving Claire to stew in the suffocating smell of rose water and sage.

He opened Alice’s door first and helped her out. Alice extinguished the smoldering bundle with a bottle of water and hid it a sandwich bag in her purse. With any luck, it would be confiscated by courthouse security.

Detective Smith trotted down the stairs in front of the courthouse, having apparently spotted Claire and the small circus she had brought along. His shrewd blue eyes swept over the crowd before zeroing in on her. He wasn’t tall or particularly big-boned, but he had a quietly commanding presence, and the people clustered around the courthouse stepped aside as he approached.

“Wait,” Alice said to Luke as he reached for Claire’s door. She reached into her purse once more and withdrew a small quartz stone. She tossed it into the back seat of the car before opening Claire’s door.

Claire shook her head as she stepped out into the harsh sunlight. As soon as she exited, dozens of reporters converged on the car. Shouted questions didn’t even register. Luke and Alice flanked her and shoved a path through the crowd. Alice had almost certainly just delivered a sound elbow to the abdomen of a reporter who tried to thrust his microphone in Claire’s face. Luke’s jaw was clenched, and there was a tic in his right eye.

Detective Smith met them halfway, calling a couple of cops over to help control the crowd. Other than his unusually large ears, he was an unassuming man, which was probably ideal for a detective. He shook her hand briefly before turning back to the throng. He turned his head to speak to her over the shoulder of his neatly pressed charcoal suit.

“Miss Hartley. I know this will be a challenging day for you,” Detective Smith said as he strong-armed a particularly aggressive reporter.

Claire followed behind him, ducking her head as they made their way to the steps. “You could say that.”

The detective’s badge glinted in the sunlight as he led the way. A low-hanging boom microphone mussed his neatly parted salt-and-pepper hair.

Tension radiated from Luke. He stepped half in front of her as they walked, shielding her as much as possible from the desperate horde screaming questions at her.

“Miss Hartley, how do you feel about being in the same building as the West Haven Widowmaker?” one woman shouted.

“Widowermaker,” Claire muttered under her breath. Was that the same toothy reporter who had accosted her outside her warehouse a few days earlier?

“What do you say to the families of the other victims?” a woman with startling blue eyes yelled at her.

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