Page 15 of Framed in Death (In Death #61)

Mavis insisted they all go out the front, then around to the side for the Peabody–McNab tour. For the mag start, she claimed, to the ult finish.

“Here goes.” McNab opened the door, one flanked with stone-looking urns holding red and purple flowers.

Peabody had gone for softer colors, more dreamy ones than Mavis. Eve thought they highlighted the dark, original millwork Peabody had loved at first sight.

The fireplace with its old brick cleaned and repointed was topped by a new, chunkier mantel that looked old.

In a good way.

They’d started collecting street art, and it worked against the quiet color of the walls, with the deeper tones of the furniture that brought in a cozy, lived-in look.

The coffee table Peabody had built—because she could do that—looked like it had come from an antiques shop and still invited you to put your feet up.

Flowers, candles, and the throws made by Peabody’s clever hands all added personality.

“And this is all the two of you.”

“I love the lamp to the extreme,” McNab said. “But even the extreme doesn’t reach the Peabody level.”

“It’s true. It’s my favorite thing in this room, and…” As if seeing it for the first time, Peabody turned a circle. “I love everything in this room.”

They wound their way through, a pretty sitting room with a pair of chairs scored from a thrift shop, which McNab had refinished and Peabody had reupholstered in stripes of subtle blue and green. And into their shared office with its energetic paint-splattered walls.

“Fun!” Bella declared.

“It’s all that, isn’t it? But this.” Roarke ran a hand over the partner’s desk. “This is magnificent work. A statement piece.”

“I knew it’d be wonderful. My father makes the wonderful. But…” Like Roarke, Peabody ran her hand over the smooth, silky wood. “It’s way over wonderful. And look.” She opened the center drawer. On the bottom, in the right corner, he’d carved Dee 2061 .

“Over here.” McNab opened his side to show Ian 2061 . “Frosty,” he said. “And means big giant bunches.”

They moved on to Peabody’s craft room. Against the quiet of the walls stood an enormous display holding what seemed to Eve to be every possible color and tone and texture of yarn, along with rolls of fabric, spools of thread, ribbons, lacy stuff, other materials that were all, Eve could only suppose, organized in some crafty Peabody fashion.

One worktable held a sewing machine that looked as if you’d need a license to drive it; another held tools Eve couldn’t identify, with a series of cubbies above holding more.

In the corner stood an actual spinning wheel, and the basket beside it held yet more yarn.

“This to the ult-squared is my happy place. Swear to God, in my wildest dreams, and they can get wild, I never expected to have a room like this.”

She grinned at Bella. “Mine!”

And Bella laughed like a maniac.

Through to the kitchen, where the living wall of plants and herbs thrived, and through the wide case opening stood the table Peabody’s father had built half a continent away in the year of her birth, and she’d found (Chance? Fate?) in a secondhand shop in New York.

Above it hung the blown-glass chandelier her mother had made.

Eve stared at it. “All right, wow. Just… That’s a major wow.”

Transparent glass in Peabody’s dreamy blues and greens formed fluid shapes and combined into a flower in full bloom.

“That’s a masterpiece,” Roarke said.

“A tough word to swallow today, but yeah, it is.”

“Wait. Chandelier on,” McNab ordered.

It brought light, but more, it seemed to glow beyond what it spread over the table so each petal shimmered.

“It’s—like the desk—it’s beyond. You really have to see it at night for the full effect.”

Eve shook her head at Peabody. “No, you don’t. It’s freaking fantastic.”

“Fweaking,” Bella echoed.

They finished the main floor, and Eve found herself ridiculously touched to see they’d designated a space for Bella to play with a pint-sized table and chairs. A toy box here looked—again in a good way—as if Bella’s great-great-grandmother might have used it.

They went through the second floor. Guest rooms, each very individual, and all murmuring welcome and comfort.

A quilt for a bed here made by McNab’s grandmother, a throw there made by Peabody’s.

Family, Eve thought. The house was full of family.

In the main, where Mavis had gone subtle, Peabody chose bolder in walls of deep green, one made to look like panels behind the four-poster bed.

“I always wanted one,” Peabody confessed. “And with the little fireplace. It’s like sleeping in a castle.”

“Our castle.” McNab put an arm around her.

“That’s the end of the interior tour. We haven’t finished the lower level yet. The work’s all done,” Peabody explained, “but we haven’t finished furnishing or playing with it. We’re still picking up pieces. We’ll have it done, or close enough, by big party time.”

“Let’s go out back.” Bouncing a little, stroking the mound of Number Two, Mavis just beamed. “I wanted that last because it’ll make me weepy. And you guys need more bubbly.”

They trooped down, then out to where Peabody’s water feature spilled and sang.

And Mavis got weepy.

“The birdbath fountain. Look how abso-mag it looks there. Like it was made for that spot. It’s so perfect with the garden, the waterfall, and the sculpture.”

She had to press her hand to her mouth. “Look at us. Leonardo, look at our family.”

The Peabodys had made and shipped the sculpture of Mavis, Leonardo, Bella, and the baby in Mavis’s arms. It glowed with a hint of bronze in the lowering light.

“It’s like a dream. I look out here, and it’s like a dream.”

“Happy cry,” Bella said, and teared up herself in solidarity. “Bella’s.” She pointed to the table and benches by her playhouse.

“And baby’s,” Mavis reminded her.

Bella rolled her teary eyes. “Baby, too.”

Eve didn’t think it sounded sincere, but kept that to herself.

“Here’s what I think,” she said instead. “I think you’ve turned a weird, neglected eyesore of a house and grounds into something special, and uniquely yours. Something that says, yeah, you live here.”

She lifted her glass. “Damn nice job.”

“Damn nice job,” Bella repeated, and got a narrow look from Eve.

“How come you can swear with prefect pronunciation?”

Bella grinned, then hooted before she ran to climb up her slide.

They had more champagne, and bruschetta with herbed-up tomatoes and peppers straight from the garden.

Leonardo—with an assist/kibitz from Roarke and McNab—grilled steaks to go with some of Peabody’s fancy potatoes—also from their own garden.

As was a mix of grilled vegetables. Peabody took over for those, and Eve had to admit, they weren’t half bad.

As they ate, the sun slid away to an indigo sky, and the lights flickered on.

Mavis’s fairyland, Eve thought, twinkling around the garden, sparkling in the trees, glowing along the paths, even, she noted, shimmering against the rocks in Peabody’s waterfall.

“I thought maybe we went totally over the board,” Mavis said to Peabody. “But we didn’t. All the lights? I mean, check it. Way mag.”

“The effect’s charming,” Roarke told her.

“As for security.”

“Got it covered,” McNab said to Eve. “Got cams, got sensors, anti-jammer shields, lockdown switches. The same system you guys have, house, grounds, gate, and the system rocks it hard. I’ll be running weekly checks.”

McNab wasn’t Roarke, but who was, so Eve relaxed.

And after an evening with friends, with murder locked in a box, she stayed that way as they drove off.

“I need to make a stop on the way home, talk to some street LCs.”

“What an interesting evening.”

“And I might get more out of them with you along.”

She gave him the block location, settled back.

“It’s going to work, the five, soon to be six, of them in that house. They’ve got their separate spaces, yeah, but they like the together. None of them would be as stupid happy as they are without the together.”

“They fit well, don’t they? Five distinct personalities, but with a great deal of common ground. And what you said there, about them making it special and uniquely theirs? As true as it gets.”

“It was good to see it, and yeah, to feel it. Plus, now I won’t have to hear about tile samples and paint colors every day.” She shifted to him, spotted the red ribbon.

She pulled it out of his hair, then removed her own blue bow.

“Party’s over. You did a hell of a job, pal.”

“I was, for the most part, an observer.”

“Bollocks to that. I know all parties involved, and I can hear you saying, ‘Well, now, Mavis, there’s an idea, isn’t it?’ That would be when she talked about something like putting a koi pond in the foyer or a chicken house in one of the play areas.”

“Coop, a chicken house is a coop.”

“Whatever. You’d give her the ‘well now,’ then wind it up with alternatives.”

“There was little of that, actually. She had a vision, and one that reflected her family. There is talk of chickens, as it happens.”

“What? Seriously?”

“That came from Peabody.”

“Of course it did.” Why was she surprised? “Once a Free-Ager.”

“They wanted to get in, settled, live awhile, but they’re wanting a little coop, a few laying hens, and there’s room, of course. Fresh eggs, amusement for Bella—and a chore she can learn.”

“And a lot of chicken shit.”

“Which, Peabody points out, can be used in the garden.”

“Chickens inside a thing? I can deal with that. But if they end up with a cow, I’m out.”

He turned onto the block, and with the luck of the Irish—if that was really a thing—slid into a spot at the curb.

“And why are we talking to LCs on this fine September night?”

“The vic worked this block. My best take is the killer hired her. I want a timeline, and whatever else I can get out of her coworkers. Maybe, jackpot, description of the killer.”

She’d scanned their IDs, so even with the red wig with blue spikes, she recognized Dana Chumbley, and Monique Varr in her crotch-skimming skirt and spiral-curl blond wig.