Born to Die - Lisa Jackson [68]
“I’m Hattie,” she said with a warm smile. She was actually wearing a strand of pearls and one of those flimsy, useless aprons that wrapped around her wasp-thin waist. Her hair was pulled to the back and pinned with a fancy comb of some sort. She looked as if she’d just stepped off of a 1950s television soundstage.
“Selena,” Alvarez said, feeling awkward as she handed the woman, obviously the hostess, the bottle of wine.
“So glad you could make it. And just in time!” To Grayson, she said, “You could offer to take her coat. Geez, Dan, sometimes I wonder!” She glanced at the wine. “Cabernet! My favorite!”
Save me, Alvarez thought and mentally kicked her way into the dining area, where the old beat-up table had been covered with a pressed cloth, and fresh greens and a sprig of cranberry surrounded fat white candles as a centerpiece. Four place settings, chipped china on faded place mats, screamed that she hadn’t been expected.
“Dan, can you open this?” Hattie asked and actually winked at him as she handed him the bottle, then hurried through a doorway to what was obviously the kitchen.
“You got it.” To Alvarez he said, “Hattie is . . . was ... my sister-in-law. The girls are my nieces.”
“Oh.”
That didn’t explain a lot, and as if he could read the confusion in her eyes, he added, “Hattie’s my ex-wife’s sister.”
Oh, God, this was getting more and more complicated.
They walked into the kitchen, where Hattie was pulling another plate from a cupboard and a turkey, roasted to perfection, was cooling, waiting to be carved, an open bottle of Chablis standing next to two mismatched wineglasses.
Inwardly, Alvarez groaned as Hattie rattled in the cutlery drawer and came up with a place setting.
Make the best of it, she told herself. Just get through the next couple of hours and smile. Even though this is your own private nightmare, you can handle it. How difficult is small talk compared to searching for clues to Jocelyn Wallis’s death or studying the crime scene left by a sadistic, brutal killer? It’s only a meal, for God’s sake!
“Dan, why don’t you start carving?” Hattie asked as Grayson uncorked the bottle of red.
“Good idea.”
Alvarez buried her nose in the glass he offered her. This was a side of Grayson she’d never seen. The relaxed family guy. Dear God, what had she been thinking?
Hattie glazed the sweet potatoes to perfection, then whipped up gravy for the white potatoes as well. There was cranberry sauce and a pumpkin pie cooling on the counter ... just too damned Martha Stewart for Alvarez. Why the hell had she decided to come ... no, make that intrude?
They were all crammed around the table, Alvarez seated opposite the twins, Grayson at one end of the table, Hattie at the other, and Alvarez thought of all kinds of ways to escape. Hattie insisted the girls say some kind of grace. Mallory clammed up, but McKenzie said a sweet prayer that Alvarez thought she’d memorized in anticipation of the request.
The meal was tasty, the turkey succulent, the sweet potatoes a concoction that melted in her mouth, and yet Alvarez couldn’t enjoy it at all.
As Hattie served dessert and was literally beaming at Grayson, Alvarez found her cell phone and managed to hit a button that would make an alarm. When the phone beeped, she grabbed it and said, “Alvarez.” She managed to appear concerned, held up a finger, and pushed her chair back. “Yeah? Okay, go . . .” She walked to the entry hall and made all the appropriate noises into the phone, then, after three minutes, clicked off and returned to the dining area. “Sorry, I’ve got to run,” she said. “Don’t get up. I’ll find my coat.”
“Trouble?” Grayson was already on his feet.
“Nothing serious.” At least that wasn’t a lie.
“Then, please, stay for pie and coffee.” Hattie’s perfectly arched eyebrows had drawn together in concern, little lines of worry evident between her brows. McKenzie imitated