“Absolutely.” Hannah crossed her fingers and hoped her words would be prophetic. She now had triple incentives to solve the case. She wanted to prove that she could do it alone in her own way, she wanted to catch the person who’d dumped her beautiful cream puffs on the floor of the gazebo, and her mother was depending on her to do it. “Nothing’s going to spoil your party, Mother. You have my word on that.”

Delores gave a relieved smile. “Thank you, dear. I certainly feel better now. You’re very good at investigating. I’ve said so to everyone I know. Is there anything Carrie and I can do to help?”

“Yes. You can help a lot if you’re willing to make some phone calls for me.”

“Of course we are! Just tell us what to do. But before you do, give me another one of those cookies. I’m not sure if it’s the cookie or the frosting, but they’re addictive.”

Hannah got up, plucked a cookie off the counter, and carried it to her mother. She couldn’t remember the last time Delores had eaten three cookies in one sitting, and that meant Terry’s Carrot Cake Cookies were an unqualified hit. Then she cleared her throat, trying to think of a polite way of saying it. “You’ve probably heard that Ronni was flirting with various men around town.”

“Much more than flirting, the way I hear it, dear. Say involved. It’s a much better word. And do stop trying to spare my sensibilities. I know what Ronni was.”

“You do?” Hannah still wasn’t sure her mother actually knew what was going on.

“Of course I do! I wasn’t born yesterday, you know. And here’s one you don’t know, dear. Did you know that Mayor Bascomb is putting in that indoor swimming pool and hot tub that Stephanie always wanted?”

“No. I had no idea. That must be terribly expensive.”

“Oh, it is.” Delores took another sip of her coffee in preparation for delivering her punch line. “But it’s not as expensive as divorce.”

“I didn’t know that!”

“I know, dear. I have my ear to the pulse of Lake Eden. Now what, exactly, do you want Carrie and me to troll for.”

Hannah laughed. She couldn’t help it. Her father had been an avid fisherman and Delores was using fishing terms again. “I want you to troll for trouble. Find out who Ronni was flirting…”

“Involved,” Delores interrupted her.

“Right. Find out who Ronni was involved with and how it affects or affected their lives. I don’t need dates, or times of…assignations, or anything like that. I just need to know who might have wanted to…”

“Put a period to Ronni’s existence,” Delores interrupted to finish the sentence for her in Regency romance phrasing.