Page 37 of The Lonely Hearts Book Club

“You,” he said at almost the exact same time. “You trapped me in an elevator.”

I had no idea what any of these things meant, but I easily recognized the flush that sprang to both of their cheeks.

“I don’t… I’m not…” Sloane turned to me, her color still heightened. It was a nice look on her, like the bloom on a rose. I hadn’t yet found an opening to tell her so, but I always thought Sloane looked her nicest when she was animated—usually because she was in the middle of taking Arthur down a peg or two—but this embarrassed surprise was nice, too. “What’s going on?”

“I see you’ve already met Greg, Arthur’s grandson,” I said, stepping cheerfully into the breach. “Greg, this is Sloane Parker, the woman I was telling you about.”

“Wait.She’smy grandfather’s caretaker?”

I bit back a sigh. Of course he’d have to say theoneword I told him not to.

Arthur struggled to get into an upright position. “Of course she’s not my caretaker, you dolt. What am I, a baby? A seedling? An ancient manuscript in need of climate control?”

That last one sounded pretty accurate to me, but I’d once again become the least important person in the room.

“No, you’re a stubborn old man who’d rather spend hours buried under a pile of books than admit he needs help,” Greg retorted.

“You’re right. I would,” Arthur said with a sniff. “Books are more reliable than you’ll ever be.”

“All the books in the world won’t save you from yourself. You need an exorcism for that.”

As I watched the argument progress along its predictable lines, I stepped back until I was out of the line of fire. I expected Sloane to range herself with me, but she didn’t. Instead of shrinking under all the anger in this room, so thick I could wear it like a sweater, she only seemed to grow taller.

“That’s enough,” she said in a sharp tone that made me realize what a great librarian she could be. “Arthur, if your grandson has come all this way to see you, the only thing you should be doing is thanking him. And as for you…” She turned to the younger man, faltering a little. But only a little. As if forcing herself to remember her self-appointed role, she said, “Yelling at your grandfather isn’t going to help this situation. He’s been through a lot. What he needs right now is peace and quiet, not someone who’s going to cause a relapse every time he opens his mouth.”

There she ran out of steam—or courage—or both. Not that it mattered. Her message had made it through loud and clear, causing Greg to stare at her like she’d just pierced a sword through his chest. His grandfather took one look at his expression and laughed like the devil himself had just delivered the punch line.

“See?” Arthur said, almost gleeful. “I told you I don’t need you. I already have all the meddling outsiders I can handle.”

***

“Don’t you think we should go back to the living room?” Sloane asked as she shot an anxious glance at the kitchen door, her lower lip between her teeth. “It’s awfully quiet. What if they’re murdering each other in there?”

I continued layering lasagna noodles in the rectangular pan in front of me, the scent of garlic and roasted tomatoes filling the air. Cooking had always been a soothing activity for me. My love language, a therapist used to call it, and the reason we were fighting an obesity epidemic in America. We didn’t last long, that therapist and me. She used to throw away the cookies I brought her when she thought I wasn’t looking.

“I have a freezer in my basement that would easily fit Arthur’s body,” I said as I started tossing fistfuls of cheese into the pan. “But Greg’s might need to be chopped up first. I have an electric carving knife that should do the trick. It cuts through my Thanksgiving turkey every year like butter.”

It took Sloane a startled moment to recognize the joke. “Maisey, you can’t kid about things like that! I’m emotionally vulnerable right now.”

I knew that, which was why I was cooking up a storm and cracking jokes about the cold storage of dead bodies. “I’m sure they’re behaving themselves. You made sure of that when you raked them both over the coals.” I paused, smiling. I’d enjoyed few things lately as much as I did that little altercation in the living room. “Did you really trap Greg in an elevator? Who’d have thought a sweet thing like you would have the nerve.”

I held out a bunch of oregano that I’d plucked from my herb garden and gestured for her to start chopping.

“It wasn’t my fault,” she said as she picked up a knife and started hacking away. She was going to bruise the crap out of those poor herbs, but I suspect she needed the outlet. “He scared me.”

I snorted. “I think you have that backwards. From where I was standing, he lookedwaymore afraid of you.”

She glanced up at me, her knife poised in midair. “That’s not true. No one has feared me a day in my life. Especially not a guy like that.”

I didn’t bother to reply to this. Sloane obviously wasn’t ready for the full force of the Maisey Phillips psychic experience.

“Careful with that knife,” I suggested instead. “The last thing we need is another superglue incident.”

She gratefully accepted this way out. “What do you think happened to cause such a rift between them? I don’t get along with my parents, but I’dnevertalk to them the way Greg does to Arthur.”

“The only things that ever seem to cause that kind of drama inFlames of the Worldare money and betrayal, but I get the feeling it’s not either of those things,” I said.

“So what does that leave? A love affair gone wrong?”