But getting back to Mackenzie and her most current hissy fit. The pets and I have been through enough murder investigations together that being benched feels like a personal attack. From the way Sherlock’s tail has stopped wagging and Fish’s ears have flattened, they feel the same way.
“Okay, fine,” Mackenzie snaps, reading our collective outrage. “If you can’t show up without them, then by all means, let them tag along. We’ll say they’re your emotional support animals or something.”
The way she saysemotional supportmakes it sound like a character flaw. And knowing Mackenzie, she probably considers it one.
Huxley puts a hand on her shoulder and starts steering her toward the door. “Let’s get you some coffee, honey. And maybe a muzzle,” he mutters.
“I heard that,” she says, but she goes with him, shooting me one last look that promises this conversation isn’t over.
Emmie steps in close the moment they’re gone. “Lucky for you, I’ve scheduled a playdate for Ella and Elliot. I’ll babysit.” She winks, and I’m reminded why she’s been my best friend since we were old enough to share crayons.
“I guess I’m investigating.”
“Uh, Bizzy?” Nessa looks up from her phone, her expression somewhere between amused and horrified. “Your sister’s shop is trending all over social media.”
“Really?” I turn, already pulling out my phone. “She mentioned something about a big launch today.”
I pull up my Insta Pictures account and immediately wish I hadn’t.
#LatherAndLightDisaster is trending. So is #MacAndCheeseCaramelGate. And, oh my word, is that a video of someone gagging?
“Oh, this isn’t good at all.” I grab the stroller handle and spin toward the door. Fish and Sherlock are already in motion, and I’ve got Biscuit Gravy tucked under my arm like a football.
This is undignified, but I’ll allow it if food is involved,Biscuit Gravy says with a happy little woof.
“I need to get down to Lather and Light,” I shout back at the inn. Because if the internet is roasting my sister this hard, someone is about to die, and I’m not entirely sure it won’t be me for not getting there fast enough.
CHAPTER 6
Main Street in Cider Cove is charming on a normal day with all its cobblestones and window boxes overflowing with petunias, but today it looks like someone called a flash mob and forgot to tell them what they were protesting.
Red, white, and blue bunting swoops between the vintage lampposts, American flags flutter from every available surface, and the flower boxes have been temporarily replanted with patriotic petunias that someone clearly thought was clever and cute.
And honestly? They sort of are.
The crowd is six deep around Lather and Light, and I have to navigate the stroller through a sea of people who are either laughing, filming, or doing both at once.
The afternoon sun is beating down on the cobblestones, making the whole street shimmer with heat, and somewhere nearby a street musician is playing what sounds like a ukulele cover of “America the Beautiful” that’s competing with the general chaos. The air smells like summer—sunscreen and saltwater and the sugar from the cookie shop two doors down. There’s the scent of pizza wafting from Sal’s across the street, and the flower baskets hanging from the vintage lampposts are putting out their best rose and lavender effort.
But underneath all of that is something else. Something wrong.
Does anyone else smell cookies?Sherlock asks, his nose working overtime as we get closer to my sister’s shop.
I smell pizza,Fish counters.Good pizza. The kind with extra cheese.
Pizza is the one human food that Fish actually doesn’t mind eating. And for good reason. She’s no fool.
I smell something really, really weird,Biscuit Gravy adds, and his tone assures me he’s not thrilled about it.And by weird, I mean bad. Like, impressively bad. Like someone took all the good smells and ran them through a garbage disposal.
“Ooh.” I catch a note of it, too. In fact, the closer we get to Lather and Light, the more that smell overtakes everything else—a bizarre combination of sour and sweet that makes my nose want to file a formal complaint, or simply want to jump off my face and run for cover.
Ella claps her hands and laughs, delighted by all the people and noise, completely oblivious to the olfactory assault happening around us.
And now I have to worry about if she has a sense of smell at all.
The shop sits right in the middle of Main Street, less than a block from the inn, with Mom and Georgie’s place—Two Old Broads—directly across the cobbled street.
Normally, my sister’s shop, Lather and Light, is the kind of place that makes you wantto buy everything in sight, but today people are clustering around the entrance with their phones out, filming and taking selfies with expressions that range from amused to horrified.
