“Oh my God,” I said, dripping crumbs onto the table. “This is so good!”
Gertie wiped up the crumbs and handed me a napkin. “I swear, we can’t take you anywhere.”
“Me?” I asked, giving her an incredulous look.
Ally laughed again, looking pleased at the compliment.
“It is really fabulous,” Ida Belle said. “Mint is so hard to get right. Too little and there’s no point. Too much and it overpowers everything and you might as well have eaten a breath mint.”
Gertie nodded. “It really is perfectly balanced. You have so much talent, Ally. When are you going to ditch the café and open your bakery? I really need a batch of those cookies before I die.”
“Well, unless you plan on dying today, I have enough dough made for another batch,” Ally said. “I can put them on now if you’d like.”
“I’d definitely like,” Gertie said. “And my question about the bakery?”
Ally shrugged and rose from the table. “I don’t know. I mean, I have money saved and could probably swing a small shop now, but I worry about things. There’s no way I could keep waitressing and run the bakery, so I’d be cutting my income off immediately and I do pretty well at Francine’s. She’s got good food and tons of regulars and most of them tip well.”
“How long can you get by without working?” Gertie asked. “And feel free to tell me it’s none of my business.”
“It’s none of your business,” Ida Belle said.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” Gertie said.
“I know,” Ida Belle said. “But since Ally’s too polite to say it, I figured I’d help out.”
“It’s okay,” Ally said. “My expenses are pretty low so I could probably swing a year or better with no income at all. But that’s if things don’t change with Mother. Right now, her expenses are mostly covered but if anything changes, I’d have to find a way to pay. I wouldn’t want her moved and I’m not capable of taking care of her myself.”
“How is she doing?” Ida Belle asked.
“It’s hard to say,” Ally said. “Her doctors didn’t figure she’d be around this long, so they can’t really give me an idea of a timeline. She’s so stubborn she’s probably sticking around just to prove the doctor wrong. She’s never liked him although I don’t think she remembers that now. She doesn’t remember much. They said it’s the meds.”
“If stubbornness is the secret to longevity,” Ida Belle said, “Gertie is going to live forever.”
“You might give me a run for my money,” Gertie said. “I’m pretty sure ‘stubborn’ is your middle name.
“My middle name is Belle,” Ida Belle said. “You only call me by it ten times a day.”
“I’ll get out that icing,” Ally said.
I gave her an approving nod. Distraction was always the best course of action when Ida Belle and Gertie were in one of their disagreements. I usually distracted them with gunfire and explosions and bad guys, but Ally’s way would probably work. And it would be a lot less exercise.
She sat four containers of white icing on the table and a stack of disposable spoons.
“No double dipping,” she said.
“They all look the same,” Gertie said.
“A wedding cake needs white icing,” Ally said. “But they don’t taste the same. I don’t want to tell you the flavors because I want an unbiased opinion.”
We started dipping into the icing and I swear each one got better and better—another mint flavor, traditional white, buttery creamy, and one that I swear tasted like cotton candy. Gertie, Ally, and I waited until Ida Belle did a second round, then when she selected the cotton candy flavor, we all cheered.
“I’m so glad you picked that one,” I said. “I was afraid I was going to have to push Carter into marriage just to get it.”
“I don’t think you’d have to push all that hard,” Ally said. “You two are practically tied at the hip unless you’re working.”
“Well, since one of us is almost always on the job, I guess that works out well,” I said. “How in the world did you make icing taste like cotton candy?”
Ally smiled. “Magic.”
“I believe it,” I said and grabbed a new spoon to load up a huge scoop. “I wish the wedding was tomorrow.”
“Not me,” Ida Belle said. “We still have to figure out the sides.”
Ally gave her a sad nod. “I’m happy to help but I won’t have enough time for anything that needs to be done that day or the day before. The cake and other desserts will take every spare minute.”
“You’re already doing enough,” Ida Belle said. “I’ll pull together the Sinful Ladies and have a chat with Francine. I’m sure among all of us, we can fill in the gaps.”
Ally bit her lower lip. “I guess there’s no chance…”
“I wouldn’t say there’s no chance,” Ida Belle said. “But you know the odds.”
“Yeah,” Ally said. “It’s just so wrong. A strong, capable woman like Molly going out like that. I mean, not that there’s a pleasant way, but it doesn’t seem right.”
“It doesn’t,” I agreed.
I’d been thinking about nothing else the entire night when we combed the marsh and then when I’d showered for an hour to try to get saltwater residue off me and the smell of dead fish and bayou mud out of my nose. Then I’d pondered it some more while I tried, marginally successfully, to fall asleep. But no matter how many angles I looked at it from, it still smelled as rotten as the dead fish I’d inhaled.
There was a knock at the front door and Ally jumped up. “Oh my God, you don’t think he’s come back, do you?”
“Don’t worry,” I said as I stood. “Dexter wouldn’t knock that politely. My guess is Carter got something out of him and is coming to try to fill in the blanks. I’ll let him in.”
Sure enough, Carter was standing at the front door when I opened it. He didn’t look surprised to see me, but he didn’t look overly pleased either.
“Ally was nervous, so we stuck around until you knew something,” I said as we walked.
“And we got to try excellent icing,” Gertie said as we entered the kitchen. “You should try it. Might make you want to get married just to get it.”
Carter’s expression was a blend of a tiny bit of fear and a bit more dismay, and I struggled not to laugh. I had no doubt about his commitment to me or mine to him. But neither of us was ready for legally bound and definitely not ready to cohabitate. The best icing in the world couldn’t rush that one.
Ally jumped up and started pouring Carter a glass of tea. I could tell she was nervous.
“Did you find out what he wanted?” she asked as she handed him the glass.
He nodded. “Sit down, please. I would ask to speak to you alone, but there’s no point as I’m sure you’ll tell them anyway.”
Ally sat but she was perched on the end of her chair, not relaxed at all.
“Molly had a safe in her bedroom,” he said. “I was hoping to get someone in today to open it but apparently, Dexter decided to beat me to the punch with a blowtorch. There was an empty bank envelope inside that had Ida Belle’s name on it in Molly’s handwriting. I assume that was your catering money.”