The Trouble With Murder by Kathy Krevat

Author:Kathy Krevat [Krevat, Kathy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781516102983
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2017-12-12T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

There’s no such thing as a day off for a small business owner, but Sundays usually included some amount of down time. I always made a big breakfast for Elliott, and now my dad, and tried to do something fun. Of course, I still had to fit in some of the background stuff, like catching up on accounting and getting as much of the social media marketing out of the way as I could. I scheduled the upcoming week’s outgoing messages ahead of time so I didn’t have to think about them.

And today I had the added fun of working on my proposal and questioning Bronx while she groomed my dog-for-a-day.

In honor of Elliott’s musical, this morning’s special was pancakes in the shape of The Cat in the Hat, with cherry juice dribbled over whipped cream to decorate the red bow and make the lines in the hat, and chocolate sauce for the body.

“Elliott!” I called upstairs. “Breakfast.”

I opened the back door to let my dad know it was ready and took a moment to appreciate the view. The marine layer was moving back to the west and the sun was peeking through, throwing shafts of light onto the cornfield in the distance. “It’s beautiful out here.”

He patted the chair beside him. “Come have a sit.”

“Maybe later,” I said. “Breakfast is ready and the whipped cream will soon be ‘soupy cream.’”

He needed both armrests to push himself to his feet, making me worry yet again. He’d always seemed so big and strong to me. How could one illness do this to him?

I watched him take a seat at the table before walking over to the stairs again. “Elliott,” I called up, my mom voice clearly saying, “Now.”

“Sorry,” he said, yawning as he came down the stairs, slowly for once. “I was up late learning lines.” Then he saw the pancakes. “Cat in the Hat? Cool!”

“Sit down so we can eat,” my dad said with pretend grumpiness, and we all dug in.

“I’m going to visit the chicks, later,” Elliott said, with food in his mouth.

I raised my eyebrows and he swallowed before adding, “Sorry.”

That gave me the opportunity to ask the burning question. “I didn’t know Joss had a daughter.” I tried to sound nonchalant.

“Yeah,” Elliott said while he started mixing the cherry-flavored cream with the chocolate. “This is like a banana split. For breakfast!”

I brought him back to the topic at hand. “How old is she?”

He shrugged. “Never met her.”

My dad answered. “She’s ten. Her name’s Kai. It’s Hawaiian or something. He’s divorced. That’s why he moved here from Alaska to be closer to her.”

“He’s from Alaska?” It sounded so exotic. But I guess people from Alaska thought Southern California was exotic.

“Yep,” Elliott said. “He’s got a bunch of art from there. And a moose head named Joe!”

“Joe?” I asked. “He brought a moose head all the way from Alaska?”

“It’s special to his daughter,” my dad said, sounding a little defensive.

Elliott changed the subject, sounding both excited and anxious. “My old group never did a whole musical at camp.

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