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“Good luck getting the twins to sleep after that,” said Florence.

“It's summertime. And I'm not an idiot. I'm not going to tell them about hook-handed hitch-hiker killers or anything,” Hadley said. “Have a little more faith, would you?”

“You don't exactly instill me with confidence.”

Hadley sighed. “Fine. I guess you won't be joining us then. Feel free to help yourself to pizza and then go eat at the dining table if that's what you prefer.”

But Florence was already getting a knife and fork from the silverware drawer.

“Oh. My. God,” Hadley said. “Silverware. For pizza. Are you for real?”

But Florence ignored her.

The doorbell rang and Hadley hurried off to answer it and Florence picked up her silverware and a place mat. Pizza was no excuse for bad manners, not in her book. She was going to have to do something about this.

The children needed consistency. Which meant keeping the same routines, doing the same thing every evening. She needed to talk to Hadley about keeping meals at the dinner table.

Her eye caught something out of sync. She put the silverware and place mat down, then straightened up the blue folder that Hadley had so casually tossed back onto the kitchen table. Nice and neat. Then she took herself off to the dining room.

RELUCTANTLY, FLORENCE HAD to admit that the pizza had been delicious. It had been a long time since she'd eaten junk food, and all the high cuisine in the world couldn't make up for some salt and grease every now and again.

Hadley was handling bed time with the kids, and Florence silently wished her luck, knowing that the little ones were more easily frightened than Hadley thought. But it wasn't her problem, she reminded herself as she carefully chose a book from a shelf in the library.

This was her evening off.

She took the book out onto the deck, letting the slight cool breeze of evening brush against her skin, and she started to read.

The light was getting dim by the time Hadley appeared at the French windows. “Hey, do you have the money?”

Florence blinked, coming back to the real world. “What?”

Hadley came out onto the deck. “Do you have the money? I just went to the kitchen to put the change from the pizza back into the folder and it's gone.”

“Ridiculous,” Florence said, standing up and closing her book.

She stalked off to the kitchen, Hadley trailing behind her. Honestly. Hadley couldn't see what was right in front of her face. How could something disappear from inside an empty house?

The kitchen door was open, a pleasant coolness blowing through the house from outside. “See, it's right—” the words stuck in Florence's throat.

Because the blue folder and all its cash and its credit card, enough to run the house for the entire summer and to entertain three children and to buy pizzas and ice creams and who knew what else, was completely gone.

Chapter Thirteen

Hadley waited, leaning against the kitchen doorframe, as Florence pulled out drawer after drawer.

“It's not there,” she said patiently. “I did look.”

Florence obviously didn't believe her, or didn't believe her enough to stop looking. She stooped to look under the kitchen table, then came back up, smacking the back of her head. Hadley winced. “Hey, be careful.”

But Florence just kept looking and Hadley just kept watching and thinking.

Okay, okay, so this wasn't the ideal situation. As far as she could tell the blue folder was gone. No cash, no credit card. At least the important phone numbers were stuck to the fridge.

But on the grand scale of things, it could be worse. The kids were fine, no one was hurt, the house hadn't burned down. It was just a matter of cash. Again, not ideal, but not a catastrophe either.

“This is a catastrophe,” Florence said, pulling out a chair and sinking into it.

“No,” Hadley said slowly. “No, it's not.”