“Good question,” Irene said. “You should ask your grandmother.”
“I did. She wouldn’t tell me.”
Frances exchanged a look with Joan. It was funny how, after all these years, one look was enough to communicate. “We had a falling-out, I guess,” Frances said. “Like I said, it was probably totally all my fault.”
“Oh, Fran, don’t do that to yourself,” Joan said, playing along. “It wasn’t your fault. Honestly, I can’t imagine what happened. Do you think it’s possible she remembers something the rest of us don’t?”
Marcy looked dubious. Her eyes were just like Edie’s—pale green and quite expressive. “She said she didn’t want you to stay because of my grandfather. Did you know him, too?”
“Oh, ah … did we?” Joan asked clumsily. “What was his name again?”
“Simon,” Marcy supplied.
Irene opened her mouth to say something, but Frances cut her off. “Nope. We never met him. Just heard about him.”
Marcy folded her hands carefully on the table before her and looked at each of them in turn. “Maybe you could come back to Songbird Hill when he’s not there and find out what Nana is mad about.”
Frances resisted the urge to cast a triumphant look at Irene and Joan. “As lovely as that sounds, I’m not sure we can.” She stirred her coffee. “We need to get back to our families. Unless maybe we could see her today?”
Marcy glanced at her watch.
“You know, we wanted to tell her in person that one of our friends died,” Irene said. “She’d want to know.”
“Really?” Marcy asked. “Who?”
“Diane Miller,” Irene said, and smiled sadly. “Car wreck.”
“Just terrible,” Frances added.
“Maybe,” Marcy said. “Maybe … I could arrange it?”
They had her. Frances had to work very hard to keep her face neutral—they weren’t done yet. “Arrange what, dear?”
“For you to see Nana. I could get her to come down to the gazebo. Pappa never goes down to her gardens. You could talk there without anyone around.”
“That is so kind,” Frances said. “But we wouldn’t want to impose.”
“No, it’s fine, really.”
“If you really think it’s okay,” Joan said.
“Yes, of course. There is just one thing,” Marcy said.
“Of course. Anything,” Joan said.
“Are you really planning a heist, or whatever you called it?”
The silence that befell that table was remarkable. It was rare that one of them was caught flat-footed, and never all of them at once. Frances was pretty sure her head might choose this moment to explode. The thudding at her temple had started up again. She was thinking how poetic it would be to be brought down by Simon Kessler’s granddaughter after all these years. She didn’t dare look at Joan. “Pardon?” she said sweetly.
“I, ah … I heard you talking,” Marcy said.
Joan said, “Oh, that. I think you misunderstood, Marcy. It’s a silly game we play—”
“No, I heard you,” Marcy said calmly. “I was sitting right there,” she said, pointing to a barstool. “I’m assuming that’s why you want to see Nana? She was the fourth, wasn’t she? And now you’re trying to think of someone to take her place.”
Frances was completely dumbfounded and couldn’t think of what to say. That all three of them were dumbfounded did not bode well for their enterprise.
Marcy laughed softly at their blank stares. “No wonder Nana never talks about her past. But here’s the thing, ladies. I recently lost all my money, and I’d like to recoup some of that loss. Maybe I could be the fourth? And I don’t need twenty-five percent,” she said, resting her hand on Frances’s arm to assure her. “I mean, I don’t think I do. Unless we’re talking peanuts. How much do you make on one of these things, anyway?”
