What Doesn't Kill Her (Cape Charade #2)(84)

Wait a minute... From some depths of forgotten girlhood, rebellion rose. “You can be my bridesmaid, but you can wear pink at your wedding. That’s your color.”

“What’s your color?” Rae demanded.

What was Kellen’s color? “Purple!”

Rae’s eyes got big and shiny. “Like ThunderFlash and LightningBug!”

“Purple?” Verona muttered. “She wants purple?”

“Can I wear a purple sash and a purple ribbon in my hair?” Rae asked.

“And carry a purple bouquet,” Kellen assured her.

“That’s almost pink,” Rae said and dug into her stew.

Kellen knelt there on the floor, feeling as if she’d been outsmarted by a seven-year-old. She looked up to see Max and Verona smirking at her. “Oh, shut up,” she muttered and sat to eat while they returned to arguing about a wedding that would take place in exactly two weeks’ time.

The old-fashioned avocado-green kitchen princess wall phone warbled uncertainly like an opera diva whose prime had passed. Verona slid out of her chair and said, “I shouldn’t answer. It’s probably another spam call,” and answered. “Hello? Who? Why? Yes, I remember you. But why? Hmm.” She took the phone away from her ear. “Rae, it’s for you. It’s Mr. Brooks.”

Max and Kellen looked in consternation at each other.

“Yay!” Rae hopped off her chair and sprinted to the phone. “Hello, Mr. Brooks! What did you figure out?”

Verona sat back down.

Max and Kellen leaned forward to eavesdrop.

“Why does that bastard Nils Brooks want to talk to my daughter?” Max whispered.

“Our daughter,” Kellen corrected.

Into the phone, Rae said, “That’s pretty close. How soon?”

Verona looked between her son and his fiancée. “He said they were negotiating.”

“Negotiating what?” Max’s voice got louder.

Verona lifted her hands and her shoulders in a massive shrug.

“It sounds pretty. She would like it there.” Rae frowned deeply. “How long can she stay?”

Pause.

“When can she come back?”

Pause.

“Why can’t she stay there forever?”

Pause.

“That’s bullshit!”

Verona turned in her chair. “Rae!” She turned back and glared at Kellen. “And you!”

Kellen wanted to protest she hadn’t taught her that. But she had taught Rae to wipe her nose on her sleeve, so she kept quiet.

“No.” Rae spoke into the phone, and her childish indignation was emphatic and massive. “She needs to be someplace high and pretty where she can see and at night when everybody’s gone she can wander around!”

Kellen looked at Max, who looked at Verona, and they all shrugged, without a clue about what was being discussed.

“You can do that,” Rae said into the phone, her voice a stern imitation of her grandmother’s. “You should do that. Let me know—but I expect you to do your best. Bye-bye.” She came back, sat down in her chair and, without a word to them, started eating again.

When Rae looked up, Kellen said, “So...what did Mr. Brooks want?”

“When we were in the helicopter, I wanted him to give me the Triple Goddess. He said he couldn’t, she’s too important and someone mean would take her from me.” Rae stuck out her lip, not pouting, but thoughtful. “So I told him about how the goddess is our talisman—” she pointed at Kellen and at herself “—and he said he would fix it so we could see her sometimes. But I want her to be able to see us, too. You know?” She went back to eating.

Kellen reflected that most of the time she didn’t know what Rae was talking about; half that time was because Rae was being a seven-year-old, and the other half was because Rae was being a genius.

“The Triple Goddess can’t see you because she’s stone. You know that, right, Rae?” Max sounded honestly anxious, like he was worried Rae was confused.

“Really, Max? That’s what’s bothering you about all this?” Kellen rolled her eyes at him, then turned back to Rae. “I understand why we want to see the Triple Goddess. And Nils Brooks is arranging to put her into a museum somewhere close?”

Rae nodded and kept eating.

“Where’s he going to put her that she can see us?”

Rae pointed up. “He says there’s a big house in Portland on top of a hill and he’ll arrange for guards and stuff. But he says she can’t stay there forever. I said that was bull—” She pulled herself to a stop and looked up guiltily.

Three pairs of adult eyes scrutinized her.

Rae shrank down in her chair and bent back to her plate. In a tiny voice, she said, “Pucky.”

“Rae!” Verona said.

“Sorry, Nonna.” Rae slid a sideways conspiratorial glance at Kellen.

Kellen pretended not to see it.

In between bites, Rae said, “He said she has to be researched more. Then she goes to live in a museum with locks and alarms. She won’t like that. She does get to go on tour. She’ll like the tours. She likes people admiring her. I told him she wanted to stay close to Mommy and me, and she likes Mr. Zone, too. Mr. Brooks said probably the closest she’d be is in a museum in San Francisco. I told Mr. Brooks she’ll arrange something else.”