My best friend sniffed and went back to sifting sugar on top of the custard-filled ramekins. “Back to what you were talking about. After coffee with Keegan, you went online and stalked Pug. What did you find out?”

I wasn’t sure “stalking” was the right term, given the circumstances of his being dead, but it was close enough. “Like I told Rafe last night,” I said, “there wasn’t a bad word to be found about him.”

“Of course not.” Kristen rolled her eyes. “The poor guy is dead. No one disses a dead guy.”

“Sure, but I went back to before he died. Found posts from when he was still a manager with that car-parts manufacturer. And not just social media—from those job-seeker sites where people rate their former employers.”

Kristen smiled in a sharklike manner. “Yeah, I check those every once in a while for here. But no one gives real names on those sites, so how does it help you?”

“Given the dates and Pug’s job title, it wasn’t too hard to figure out which of the people posting might have worked with him.”

“And?” Kristen fired up the scary blowtorch tool.

“And I reached out to them.” It had been easy enough, thanks to the fact that most of the sites allowed a method of anonymous contact. Once Pug’s former coworkers heard that he’d been murdered, they’d been more than happy to e-mail me with information. “They all said he’d been a great guy to work with, and that whoever killed him must have been a stranger, because no one who knew him would ever want to do something like that.”

“Really.” Kristen aimed the pointy flame at our future dessert. “What’s that thing you say? That anyone can kill, given . . . whatever.”

“A certain set of circumstances,” I said under my breath, not wanting to distract her. I’d grown used to Kristen wielding knives of all shapes and sizes, but Kristen with a flamethrower—and extremely pregnant to boot—wasn’t in my comfort zone.

She inspected her work and must have considered it good, because she turned off the frightening device, slid the desserts over, and, groaning, sat on the stool next to me. “Cheers,” she said.

We tinked spoons and dug in. For a few blissful moments, there was nothing but sweet crackling goodness and a friendship that had stood the tests of middle school, high school, college, adulthood, careers, and marriage. And now . . .

“It’s okay,” I said, “if we can’t do Sunday dessert after the baby is born.”

“What? Of course we will. Why wouldn’t we?”

I slid her a look. “Do you really need me to start counting reasons?”