Party Perils by Patti Benning (reading list txt) 📗

tilting her head as if she heard something, and walked over to the window. “Bucky just pulled up. Perfect timing. He can help us keep an eye on her.”

“I’ll catch him up with what’s going on. You call 911.” Hannah knelt down next to Lacey, touching her cheek gently. “We failed with Edward. We’re not going to let her die too.”

Epilogue

“It’s not a dinner party.”

Hannah looked up from the green onions she was chopping and raised her eyebrows at her friend. “I’m having people over and serving food. It sounds a bit like a dinner party to me.”

“It’s not,” Caroline said. “It’s a… a gathering.”

“A gathering.”

“I think the idea of dinner parties is soured for all of us,” Caroline said with a grim look. “But Lacey wants to start doing normal things again. She’s lost enough already, I’m not going to let her lose her friends too.”

“All right, it’s a gathering,” Hannah allowed. “Not a dinner party.”

Caroline smiled at her, then moved over to the counter and grabbed a bottle of champagne and a bottle of whiskey. Hannah shook her head, but Caroline just nudged her on her way by.

“It was Edward’s favorite,” she called over her shoulder. “We've got to have a toast to him before we eat.”

Hannah returned her focus to the food, going over the ingredients in her mind once again to make sure none of them could possibly contain an allergen for Lucy. She had taken every precaution available, and had only allowed Caroline in the kitchen with her while she cooked, but she knew what happened to Edward was going to haunt her for a long time. She thought Lacey was very brave to trust someone else's cooking so soon after what happened. Though, Hannah had helped save her life. Lacey probably assumed that if she was safe with anyone, it was her.

They were having tomato bisque again, with baked chicken sandwiches on toasted rye, topped with melted Swiss cheese and caramelized onions. The dessert was crème brûlée, a dish that was surprisingly easy to make with only four ingredients. It was a safe and easy dinner to ease them back into the swing of things.

With Rebecca in custody and the mystery of Edward’s death solved, things were beginning to get back to normal. She knew Lacey still had a long road ahead of her, but she was slowly beginning to figure out the shape of her new life. Bucky still shot Hannah hurt looks whenever she happened to meet his eyes, but she didn’t feel too bad for revealing his feelings. It had been an emergency, after all, and it wasn’t her fault she thought he might be a killer, not really. The evidence had stacked up. Still, Lacey considered him a friend and Hannah thought she could trust him not to complicate things between them. There was no telling whether Lacey would ever be ready to enter into another relationship, and Bucky seemed to understand that.

The oven dinged and she opened it to take the chicken out. She checked the temperature, then carefully moved the chicken breasts to a plate and popped the toast into the toaster. It wouldn’t take long for her to put the sandwiches together, and the soup was already done.

This was their first dinner party – no, gathering – since the night of the murder, and Hannah was determined to make it the best non-dinner party they had ever had. And this time, murder wouldn’t be on the menu.

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