Chapter 1
GODIVA
“A tea party?”
The other three women in Godiva’s Gang of Four stood in a row staring at her.
Godiva put her hands on her hips. “Why are you looking at me like I just suggested a wild and drunken game of three-pack Canasta?”
Godiva’s three closest . . . no, she didn’t let anyone get close. Her three oldest friends reacted in completely different ways, which were characteristic of them all. Bird, a sweet-faced woman with soft graying curls, blinked at the idea of wild and drunken anything. Doris, unflappable after decades of teaching high school, merely murmured dryly, “It’s just that I don’t remember you ever suggesting a tea party before.”
“And so, what better time to begin?”
Jen, towering over the two shorter women, gave a belly laugh. Jen had always been striking, but now she looked magnificent. Though she had her queasy mornings, this wasn’t one of them, and she definitely had the proverbial glow. Or maybe it was just happiness at the prospect of her coming wedding.
The three old friends were the center of the Baker Street Writers’ Workshop, a group Godiva had championed years ago when the tiny town of Playa del Encanto had an equally tiny library struggling to survive. Starting the writers’ group had been a way to draw people to the library, until there were too many writers to fit into the library’s cramped study room.
The Gang of Four had stayed a solid unit until this last year or so, when it had stretched into a Gang of Seven, now that all three of Godiva’s friends had unexpectedly found romance. Despite being well past fifty.
Romance. Tchah! While Godiva was the world’s champion fan of her fellow woman grabbing some lips-and-hips action while the gettin’ was good, she did not believe in romance, true love, or oaths of everlasting whatever.
However, she also didn’t believe in raining on others’ parades, so she cheered her friends’ starry eyes out loud, attended one wedding, organized the second one, and planned to attend the third.
And then?
Was it time to move on, and make a graceful exit? Four was a good, square number, but seven was awkward no matter how you looked at it.
Godiva loved the town and its people. Yeah, well, most of them. She’d done good work here. But instinct had been itching at her lately, making her restless. It wasn’t her age. She knew her age—it wasn’t like she’d woken one day, and whoa, how did I get to be in my eighties? She counted every year, because . . . well, because.
This was something different. Maybe it was time to move on. Quietly. No fuss. Here one day, gone the next. She was pretty good at that.
She could get used to being on the move again. She wasn’t dirt poor anymore, so moving would be easy for a change. She could always come up with a fresh new identity, and leave her friends to get on with their happy lives.
“A tea party.” She forced a smile. “My new mystery starts with a tea party.”
Three versions of “Oh!” sounded around her.
Doris led the way to one of the tables in the Baker Street Bakery, run by Linette, another of the writers in the writing group. This table sat in a corner where adjacent windows let in plenty of light. “This will film well. How do you want us?”
“Just sit down.” Godiva carried over the tray of pastries she’d bought. “Your coffee mugs are now a fancy tea service. You are wearing silk, pearls, and fancy hats. Gloves! I’ll asked Linette if she can handle the camera, because—”
At that moment, the little bell on the front door tinkled, and slim, dapper Joey Hu entered. Silvering blond hair fell in waves above a handsome face that showed his Asian heritage. His quiet smile warmed the entire room, though it was mostly aimed at Doris—their wedding was the one Godiva had organized herself.
“Joey! You made it just in time,” Doris said with a beaming smile.
“Mikhail and Nikos are right behind me,” Joey Hu said. “They . . . got delayed.”
Godiva heard that slight pause, and though no one reacted, she felt—as she often had lately—that another conversation was going on beneath the surface. Not that her friends were the type to play social exclusion games. Maybe it was just one of those inevitable romance things, two against the world, la la la.
One of the reasons why she wrote mysteries instead of romance.
“Joey, can you handle the camera?” Doris asked.
“Be glad to.” Joey said took the cell phone from Doris and turned to Godiva. “What type of mystery are you writing now?”