Page 89 of The Game Is Afoot

“Actually, I don’t think anything needs to happenright now, because the killers have been apprehended. You’re welcome, by the way. Soright now…I’m doing nothing.”

“Ms. Miller—”

“Shhhh,” I say, and then take a deep, cleansing breath. Just like Tanya from the meditation app, just like in the yoga videos with the lady and her dog. “Nothing.”

Epilogue

Three Weeks Later

“Would you like to buysome Clover Scout cookies?”

The tiny voice makes me jump, and I immediately feel silly. I’m flanked on either side by Dad and Ms. Joyce. And this eight-year-old in a lavender vest and beret isn’t coming for me, at least not in broad daylight in front of the Knoll Elementary auditorium with all these other lined-up parents as witnesses. Still, to my overeager nervous system, she might as well be a knife-wielding attacker. Apparently, once you encounter one ofthose, it becomes the default setting for all future encounters. It’s very annoying.

“No, that’s all right,” Ms. Joyce tells her and then leans in to pat my arm gently. “You’re okay, baby.”

Ms. Joyce has barely left my side since that afternoon—keeping up with Pearl on her scooter for every pickup and drop-off, mean-mugging the detectives like she’s my hired counsel in every follow-up meeting they’ve asked for, showing up for Pearl’sAnniedebut this afternoon. She even tried to tag along on a date with Jack before I drew the line. But I can’t even complain. It’s only because she and Mackenzie were drinking their tea andlooking forneighborhoodtea out the window that I…well, I don’t like to think about what might have happened if she hadn’t seen Florence and Hank walk up to my house and called Corey because they didn’t look like any friends of mine she’d seen before. (She said it was the silly hats that tipped her off.) If she hadn’t been so nosy, so in my business, there could have been a very different outcome, so I’ll gladly have her be all up in my business as long as she wants.

“Thank you,” I say, linking my arm with hers.

I take a long, deep breath—something I’ve done so much in the past few weeks it’s basically just how I breathe now. And then I start one of the other practices I’ve picked up from one of my many Google searches to stay present and calm.List three things you can see.Crowds of families on either side of us, buzzing with excitement for their star’s debut, the giant banner Trisha had made with Anabella in her orange afro wig and red dress…this Clover Scout still staring at me for some reason.

“Would you like to buy some Clover Scout cookies?”

“Well, aren’t you precious,” Ms. Joyce murmurs.

I realize I recognize this little girl with brown pigtails, beaming an aggressively cheerful smile like she wasn’t already rejected. It’s Harlow, Christine’s daughter, so she’s in the same troop as Pearl. I vaguely remember now, from one of Christine’s long-ass emails, that some of the girls are selling at a booth outside of today’s performance ofAnnie.

“Oh, no thank you. We have plenty at home. I’m Pearl’s mom.” I nod toward the auditorium. “She’s in the show.”

Harlow maintains her unblinking smile, holding out her wares. “We have Peppermint Patties and Caramel Connies. And they’re only eight dollars! That’s a deal!”

“Did you hear—um, I already have some.” A dining room full of some we have to off-load by the end of the month.

She’s still not blinking. Why isn’t she blinking? Maybe I was too quick to write off the knife-wielding attacker possibility.

“I have Shortbread Sallies, too.” Does this child have eyelids? I feel like I’d remember if she didn’t have eyelids. “And I take Square.”

“Um, sure.” I give in, digging in my bag for some cash. At least I know the money isn’t going somewhere terrible. Christine walked back their commitment to donating to Balanced With Bethany real quick, once her scam was revealed. At the pre-cookie-kick-off parent meeting, the moms decided to donate to cancer research and fund a beach cleanup instead. At the girls’ cookie kick-off meeting the girls voted to use their money to go to Disneyland. Any of those options are fine, I guess.

“She’s got great technique,” my dad says as she skips off. He takes the Caramel Connies box out of my hand and expertly pops it open. He’s made quite a bit of progress on our dining room cookie situation all on his own.

“Is being creepy a technique?”

“It got you, didn’t it?” he says, offering the cookies to Ms. Joyce. She takes three. “Have you seen her numbers? I want Pearl to do some booths with her, see what she can pick up. This is our learning year, but I know Pearl could give her a run for her money next season.”

Clover Scouts cookie sales have quickly become my dad’s newest obsession. He has a sales tracker up on the living room wall that rivals my heart-and-Shrek murder board, and he’s coveting that lavender stuffed platypus you get after selling three hundred boxes even more than Pearl is. I’m not as horrified by his podcast anymore, now that I’ve listened to a couple of episodes, but I’m also not mad that this is cutting into his recording time.

“Oh, Caramel Connies? Those are my favorites.” Coreystrolls up to our place in line with a bouquet of purple flowers wrapped in newspaper tucked under his arm, probably freshly picked from his garden. He grabs a couple of cookies from the package Dad holds out.

“I know,” I say, taking a cookie of my own since I paid for the damn things. “Pearl says you’ve eaten six boxes.”

Corey throws his head back in a laugh. “I told her to keep that between us. But yeah, I’m gonna have to pick up some more tonight. My stock is running low.”

“I thought this thing started at three,” Dad says, twisting his head to look around the small crowd in front of us to the closed door of the auditorium “They’re cutting it close, aren’t they? I need time to set up my equipment.” He pats the bag around his shoulder that’s holding a camera and one of his fancy mics.

“Now why is that woman in the front of the line carrying ‘reserved’ signs?” Ms. Joyce asks. “She can’t be putting those down. It’s first come, first served.”

I follow her steely gaze to Trisha, who does in fact have a stack of neon-pink papers in her hand, withRESERVEDprinted on them in all caps. I don’t know how she got her restraining order lifted for this event. Maybe when it comes out that someone else was going around poisoning the music teacher and the soccer coach, it automatically makes you the lesser of two evils.

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