I parked in the drive and looked in my rearview mirror. My hair was longer than it had been on my last visit, slightly past my shoulders now, and it didn’t look too bad. I did a quick finger comb, and considered putting on some lipstick, but that was Caroline. Carly was usually makeup-free, or just mascara and a bit of concealer. I hadn’t taken the time to apply anything this morning, so Emily was getting me au naturel.

I pulled the recorder out of my purse, flipped the cassette over and pressed play, then set it back in my bag. I only had thirty minutes left. I would either need to get more tapes, or review what I’d recorded and start taping over it.

With my purse slung over my shoulder and a bundle of white and red tulips in my hand, I walked up to the front door and rang the doorbell next to the large double wooden doors. They opened about five seconds later. A woman in her late fifties—the same one who’d turned up her nose and pointed me to the servants’ entrance at the end of the house last December—answered, looking just as disgusted by the sight of me today as she had before. At least I’d worn a dress last time. Today I looked like a ranch hand.

“Mrs. Drummond was expecting you for tea,” she said, her gaze sweeping my attire. She looked extra revolted when she took in the bouquet of flowers dripping water on the front step.

“I hadn’t realized there was a dress code,” I said in a breezy tone I hoped would piss her off.

For a moment or two, I thought she was going to turn me away, but she backed up with a look of utter disgust and let me in.

The entry way was two stories tall with a massive wooden chandelier over our heads. If the Drummonds wanted to kill someone and make it look like an accident, they could pull it off with that light fixture. All they’d need to do was arrange for someone to cut the chains at the right moment. A curved marble staircase was off to the right, a pair of open French doors to the left.

The woman released a huff of disapproval—I wasn’t sure of what: my attire, the flowers, my existence?—and ushered me through the doors into a very fancy living room with twelve-foot ceilings and a large stone fireplace with an enormous hearth. Perpendicular red velvet couches formed a little conversation area near the fireplace, separated by a coffee table with a white marble top and a gold base. A black grand piano was to the left of the massive, nearly floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the drive. Multiple other seating arrangements filled the nearly thirty-foot-deep room, with windows on the opposite wall, which I presumed looked over the backyard.

A silver tray with a silver tea pot sat on the coffee table, and a three-tiered silver caddy filled with tiny cakes and cookies sat on a gold and marble cart next to the sofa, along with a stack of two blue and white china plates. Two blue and white china teacups were arranged on the silver tray next to the pot.

Emily sat at the end of one of the sofas wearing a black and white tweed blazer and skirt, a black-and-camel-colored scarf wrapped around her presumably bald head.

“Mrs. Drummond, Miss Moore has arrived,” the housekeeper said in a condescending tone.

“Now, now,” Emily said with a wave of her hand. “Be nice, Annie.”

Annie pierced me with a dark look, then shut the doors.

“Oh, Carly,” Emily said in delight. “I’m excited to host you today. You have no idea how happy I was when Bart said you asked if you could call for tea.”

An interesting way of putting it, given Bart had been the one to invite me. I hurried toward her when I saw she was struggling to get up.

I leaned over, extending my hand. “Thank you so much for having me. I’m sorry I’m not more dressed up. I had some errands to run earlier, and I never made it home to change.”

“Don’t you worry about a thing,” she said, dismissing the matter with a flick of her hand. “No need for formalities. We’re friends here.”

“I brought you these,” I said, holding them out. “Emmaline Haskell has the prettiest flowers, better than you’ll find in any shop. She sells them on the street corner in downtown Drum.”

She took the flowers and sniffed. “Ah, Emmaline. She’s still around? She’s been selling them for years. I’ll ring the bell and have Annie bring a vase.” She picked up the bell from the side table before I could stop her.

“I could have gotten you one,” I said, taking a seat opposite her.

“Nonsense. You’re my guest. It’s Annie’s job.”

The French doors opened, and Annie stood in the doorway. “You rang, ma’am?”

“I need a vase for Carly’s bouquet. She got the flowers from Emmaline Haskell. Can you believe she’s still selling flowers downtown?”

“No, ma’am,” Annie said in a dry voice. “I’ll get your vase right away.” Then she walked out and shut the door.

The tension in the room eased after Annie left, but I still resisted the urge to glance around the room for Bart. Hopefully, the fact that there were only two cups indicated we’d be alone. “I take it that it’s just the two of us today.”

“Bart so wanted to be here, but he was called back to the construction site. We’re all so relieved it’s been reopened.” She reached for the tea pot and poured some into a cup. “I’d have Annie serve our tea, but she’s on the grumpy side today.” She leaned closer and held the edge of her hand to her cheek as though hiding her mouth from the doors. “I think she’s going through the change.”

I suspected her attitude ran deeper than some errant hormones but held my tongue. “I can get you something from the cart.”

“Oh, that would be good. Go ahead and put the two plates on the coffee table, next to the teacups.”

I realized both cups had been poured and set before our respective seats. I passed out the two plates.

“Now grab the tray and bring it over. I suppose we’ll just serve ourselves,” she said with a sigh as though she’d been asked to climb Mount Everest. Personally, I’d much rather serve myself than have someone else do it. Especially Annie.

But as though she were Beetlejuice and could be summoned at the mere mention of her name—or, in this case, a manifestation of my thoughts—she walked into the room with a crystal vase with a small amount of water at the bottom. She snatched the flowers off the side table where Emily had placed them and dropped them into the vase as though touching them were offensive, and I knew it was partly because I’d bought them off the street.

It took everything in me not to snatch them back, not on my account but Emmaline’s.

Once Annie set the vase on the fireplace mantel, she practically bolted from the room.

Emily selected a cookie and a white petit four with pink frosting and put them on her plate. I took a petit four too before setting the tray back on the cart.

“Did you and your mother have tea?” Emily asked as she placed a lump of sugar in her cup.

“Uh… no.” I wondered what she knew about me, if anything. Did she know my real identity? I suspected not, but then a forgotten memory surfaced, one that caught me off guard. “But I remember having a tea party with my dolls.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “With my dad.”

“How lovely. I always wanted a daughter, but I’m not sure Bart would have lowered himself to having tea parties,” she said wistfully, stirring her tea. The spoon clanged daintily against the thin china. “I would like to think he would have treated his daughter different than he did his sons.”