Her brown eyes narrowed slightly, taking in the two of us. “Are you girls here to volunteer? Because I am not gonna lie, I could use some help, especially from someone as organized as you, Harper. From the way I heard it, you practically ran Cotillion back in the fall.”

She shook her head, glossy waves falling over her shoulder. “Of course, not even you could hold off a freaking earthquake. What a mess.”

That was one word for it. But I smiled at Sara and shook my head. “Actually, we’re here to sign up. For the pageant.”

Sara’s heart-shaped face wrinkled in a frown. “Well, that’s real nice, honey, but sign-ups were last week. You know I love you, but I can’t let you join up this late. It wouldn’t be fair.”

I bit back a smart reply. There were maybe twenty girls in the whole pageant, so it wasn’t like me and Bee joining up was suddenly going to tip the whole thing into chaos. But snapping at Sara wasn’t going to get me anywhere, and Aunt Jewel always said you gathered more flies with honey than vinegar.

So I put on my most honeyed smile and let my own accent drag out a little as I simpered, “I knooow, I’m so late. But to be honest, I wasn’t sure if I’d have time to do the pageant this year, and then I was dusting Mama’s curio cabinet. You know, the one right by our front door?”

Sara nodded, a little hesitant, and I decided it was time to lay it on thick. “And I saw Leigh-Anne’s picture in there, from back when she won, and I...” I let myself trail off before biting my lower lip. “I felt like it was something I needed to do. I’ve followed in her footsteps in so many things, and the Miss Pine Grove pageant seemed like the final piece.”

It was loathsome and heinous and probably made me a bad person, taking advantage of Leigh-Anne’s death. But being a Paladin sometimes meant doing things like this, no matter how yucky I found it. If Bee was right and the last trial was tied to this pageant somehow, I sure as heck was going to be in it.

And yucky or not, it worked, because a sheen of tears suddenly appeared in Sara’s eyes. She looked up at the ceiling, dabbing at the skin under her eyes with those French-manicured nails. “Oh, honey,” she said, her voice thick. “You are exactly right. I don’t know why I was fussing about deadlines and sign-up sheets.”

She pointed one of those sharp nails at us. “But promise me that neither one of you is planning on singing ‘The Greatest Love of All’ or ‘Hero’ as your talent. If I have to hear either of those two songs again, I will eat a gun.”