“Took you long enough,” Edna grumbled when Hannah came through the kitchen doorway. “We’ve got a crisis here.”

“What?” Hannah asked, feeling her heart rate gear up to what she thought was crisis mode.

“It’s not on the table!”

“What’s not on the table?”

“Your mother’s cake knife!” Edna wailed, reaching out to grab Hannah’s arm. “It’s missing, and I can’t find it anywhere!”

<9>

Hannah groaned as Edna’s words sank in. “Mother’s cake knife is missing?”

“That’s what I said.”

“And you looked on the dessert table?”

“That’s what I said, too!”

“All right. Don’t panic. It’s got to be here somewhere.”

“Where? I looked everywhere!”

“Take a deep breath and let it out slowly,” Hannah advised, taking a moment to do exactly that. “When is the last time you saw it?”

Edna did exactly what Hannah said, inhaling and exhaling slowly. It was proof of how upset she was, since Edna rarely took anyone’s advice about anything. “It was on the dessert table when I carried out the second crock of meatballs. I remember thinking how pretty it looked under the lights.”

Hannah glanced at the elaborately carved wooden container on the kitchen counter. “Maybe someone put it back in the chest?”

“Nope. I checked that right off. That box is as empty as Redeemer Lutheran on the Sunday after Jordan High’s homecoming game.”

Hannah bit back a laugh at Edna’s description. It was true that most people celebrated too much on homecoming weekend and not that many had the urge to get up early on Sunday morning and make it to church.

“I’m sure you’re right, but … I just have to check for myself.” Hannah walked over to the box and raised the lid. It was empty, just as Edna had said. “Sorry, Edna.”

“That’s all right. I checked it twice myself.”

Both women leaned up against the counter to think about the seemingly insurmountable problem at hand. They were so quiet Hannah could hear the kitchen clock ticking as the minute hand moved up a notch.

“Do you think someone could have used it for something else?” Hannah finally asked, after another notch had clicked off. “I mean, picture this … someone in the buffet line needs another knife for the turkey, or whatever. They’re about to go back to the kitchen to get one when they notice Mother’s knife on the dessert table. So they take it and use it and … “

“And they leave it on the entrée table!” Edna interrupted, somehow managing to look doubtful and hopeful at the same time.

“Exactly right. It could have happened that way.”

“That means we’d better check the other buffet tables. I don’t want your mother to know it’s missing until we know for sure. Will you do it … um … you know … “

“Surreptitiously?” Hannah supplied the word she thought Edna was trying to say.

“That’s exactly what I mean. I’m so upset, I couldn’t think of the polite word for sneaky.”