Page 85 of Deep Feelings & Shallow Graves
A volunteer approaches with the prize: a fair queen tiara.
It’s perfect. Hideous. Magnificent.
Bedazzled with hot-glued sprinkles and a sad little lemon-shaped plastic gem at the center, like a tiny citrus crown jewel. They place it on my head with solemn ceremony.
Blake actually cries. He wipes a tear and whispers, “She’s so majestic.”
Edgar nods gravely. “Our citrus sovereign.”
Carson doesn’t say a word. He just changes his phone background to a photo of me wearing the sprinkle crown and licking icing off my finger like a menace.
And I bask. Sticky. Victorious. Crowned in chaos and sugar.
Long live the Lemon Queen.
Someone demands a group photo. I don’t remember who. Possibly the same volunteer who handed me the glitter-glued tiara and bowed like I was ascending to the Sprinkle Throne.
Either way, I’m suddenly corralled into position. Centered. Triumphant. Holding my blue ribbon in one hand and the world’s ugliest stuffed rooster in the other.
My sugar-slicked, morally flexible Avengers surround me. Blake stands to my left, smiling so wide it might split his face. He leans in and whispers, soft as cotton candy, “We did it.”
My chest flutters.
Edgar is on my right, his vest like this is a wedding portrait. “Shall we go get celebratory corndogs?” he says, voice rich with amusement. “I believe the funnel cake stand has regained its composure.”
Carson, dead center behind me, arms crossed like a human wall of brooding protectiveness, tilts his sunglasses down just enough to make eye contact. “Only if Jennifer promises not to stab anyone with hers.”
I grin. Sharp. Unapologetic. “No promises.”
The camera clicks.
And just like that, it’s immortalized.
Me. A lemon-scented lunatic in a sprinkle crown. Blake with frosting on his collar. Edgar somehow untouched by fair grime. Carson radiating cop energy, but the filthy, complicit kind.
We look insane. We look glorious.
We look like family.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Edgar
The moon hangs low and bloated, the same sick yellow as overripe lemons. It reflects in the bakery windows, casting the place in a pale, waxy light. I walk slowly, the heels of my boots whispering against the wet sidewalk. Each step is measured. Intentional.
I wear gloves.
Not because I expect fingerprints to matter. Cookie is many things, but meticulous is not one of them. Still. There’s something comforting about the ritual. Precision is a comfort, and murder, when done properly, should always be a comfort.
I rap my knuckles against the glass door, just once. Sharp. Crisp. Like a crack in crème brûlée.
It opens a moment later, hinges protesting. Cookie stares out at me, her hair a frazzled halo of split ends and dry shampoo, flour dusting her apron in frantic handprints. She smells like burnt sugar and desperation.
Her eyes narrow, already bloodshot. “Came to gloat?”
I smile. Slowly. Like butter melting on warm cake.
“Came to talk,” I say. “And to taste.” I glance past her shoulder, into the chaos of her failed attempts and collapsed centers. “Maybe bake.”
