Page 5 of Always Murder

Head down, Keme slunk out of the room after her.

Meanwhile, Christine had hauled Ryan off Paul, and Paul was retreating from the dining room, one hand pressed to a red mark rising on his cheek.

Kassandra and Angeline were simultaneously not looking at anyone and, somehow, managing to resemble two cats who had gotten into the cream.

And next to me, Bobby looked like he was about to arrest everyone and send us all to the nuthouse.

“Excuse me for a moment,” Christine said in her hostess-on-the-brink-of-madness voice.(I’m a writer, remember?) And then she dragged Ryan out of the room by the ear.

Kassandra was studying her press-on nails.She managed a clear, articulate “Ugh.”

“She’s so dramatic,” Angeline said, flipping her hair over her shoulder.“Did you hear her?It was all night.Why does she have to make everything about her?”

This time, Kassandra’s noise was more of the scoff-disgust-contempt variety.

Angeline looked at me.“I don’t knowhowyou put up with her.”

“We don’t put up with her,” I said.“She’s our friend, and we love her.”

Angeline’s mouth dropped open.

Kassandra made a sound like I’d been unspeakably rude.

“Excuse us,” Bobby said.“Please thank your parents for inviting us.”

Bobby didn’t exactly throw me over his shoulder and carry me out of there, but he did have a firm hand on my arm as he escorted me—that’s a word law-enforcement types love to use—out of the dining room and toward the front door.

“Should we check on Millie?”I asked.

Bobby shook his head.“Keme’s here.And I think she probably wants some time to compose herself.”

“Good luck in this nuthouse,” I muttered.

(You can saynuthousetwice, if you’re a writer, if one time it’s in dialogue and one time it’s in your head.)

“Remind me why it was so important for us to be here tonight.”From anybody but Bobby, I would have called it a grumble.

“I don’t know.Millie kept telling me how fun it would be.”

“And you believed her?”

“She begged me, Bobby.I mean, I get it; she obviously didn’t want to face these jackals all by herself.Besides, I thought it would be, you know, like a cultural experience.You know—ethnography, field work.A groundbreaking anthropological study as we mingle with the locals.”

“And how’d that turn out for you?”

“Uh, not as I expected.”I gave a quick glance back at the dining room and remembered the look I’d seen in Kassandra’s eyes.“Remember how field work turned out for Indiana Jones?I feel like we’re trying to escape the secret temple, and if we don’t hurry, that giant rock is going to smush us—”

A shadow lurched into our path, and I remembered how that had ended for Dr.Jones—he’d escaped the boulder only to come face to face with a lot of people with pointy things.

But it was only Millie.Her eyes were red.Her nose was red.She stood in a strange, huddled stance, trembling, and I realized she was trying not to cry.

Bobby spoke first.“Millie, I’m so sorry about tonight—”

“Don’t leave,” she said, her voice scratchy.“Please.I need your help.”

Chapter 2

Millie’s request hung in the air.

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