Maya must have agreed, because she shuddered as she set the glass on the table. “Okay, so what’s up, buttercup? Why the tears? I mean, beyond the obvious ‘Lucille’s dead’ thing. I feel like there might be more going on?”

“I’m…” Eve looked around. She hadn’t told anyone. Not even her parents. She’d started to call them but had decided to wait until she saw them in person for the funeral.

But she needed to tell someone, suddenly. It felt too big for her body, this knowledge, this burden Lucille had left her.

Well, clearly it was too big for her body if it was causing her to break into spontaneous sobs at Lawson’s Lager House. She took a deep breath. “I inherited the Mermaid Inn, and I was going to sell it, but I just found out there’s this wackadoodle clause in Lucille’s will that makes it so I can’t sell it for a year. But I can’t afford to keep it for a year, either.”

Maya blinked rapidly. It was a lot to take in. “Are you kidding me? Because I had the best idea the other day, and I was thinking what a shame it was that Lucille had passed. I mean, it’s a shame that she passed regardless, but I feel like she would have been really into this idea.” She slapped the table. “Are you ready for this?”

It was Eve’s turn to blink. “Um, maybe?”

“Murder mystery theater in the Mermaid.”

“Pardon me? Murder what?”

“Well, so I’m the artistic director of the Moonflower Bay Theater Company, right?”

“There’s a Moonflower Bay Theater Company?” Eve remembered Maya directing those plays on the green, but nothing beyond that.

“Yes! This summer will be our second anniversary. We do most of our shows in the old movie theater.”

That was actually a nice bit of news. The town had a grand old art deco movie theater that used to show classic films, but it had been shuttered when Eve was sixteen. She remembered going to Casablanca, the last movie they showed before closing, with Sawyer.

“Every summer we do a big musical. We’re sold out the whole run—the tourists love it.” Maya sniffed. Clearly her taste did not align with that of the tourists who paid her bills. “Then, in the fall, I do a real play. That one’s usually outside, like in the old days.”

“Like The Crucible?”

“Yes! And don’t take this the wrong way, but you made an excellent Puritan.”

“But I was just an extra. I didn’t have any lines.”

“You had a real presence, though.”

“Puritanical presence?”