“Ha! You wish, Detective. You had your chance to bail on the Caine drama. You’re in for the long haul now …”

  * * *

  Quinn waltzed in, took one look around, and couldn’t help but ask, “What are you doing here?”

  Daria placed her glass of wine down. “Well, isn’t that a fine How do you do, cousin? I was invited—a bit last minute, but invited nonetheless.”

  “That’s my fault.” Rachel half raised her hand. “When Mom told me to invite the Caines, I was only thinking of immediate family, but she meant everyone. My bad.”

  Mrs. Slingbaum came out of the kitchen. “Well, it’s all fixed now. What can I get for you two?”

  Quinn scanned the room: Aunt Johanna had wine; so did Daria. Her uncle Jerry had a Scotch neat nestled in his palm. “Oh, I’ll have a glass of whatever’s open.”

  “Nothing for me,” Aiden told her. “We’re in the middle of a case. I need to stay sharp.”

  “Seltzer, then? Something else?”

  Bash, meanwhile, couldn’t sit still. “I can’t believe my parents are late.”

  “They’re not late,” said Mrs. Slingbaum. “I told them to come at six thirty to give you two a chance to calm down, get a drink or two in you.”

  Bash stopped pacing. “Oh, well, now I feel like an ass.”

  Mr. Slingbaum handed him a beer and clinked the bottles. “Son, have a seat. You’re making everyone nervous.”

  Bash plopped into the love seat next to his bride-to-be, taking her hand in his. He kissed her knuckles. “You okay?”

  “Here you go.” Mrs. Slingbaum handed Aiden and Quinn their drinks. “Please, sit. Relax.”

  Quinn did as she was told, but Aiden perused the perimeter of the room, taking note of the books and the art collection. “Is this an original Harvey Dinnerstein?”

  “It is.” Rachel’s father grinned. “You’ve got a good eye, Detective.”

  “Call me Aiden.”

  “Why is no one eating the chopped liver?”

  Rachel gave her mom a look. “Mom, I told you, these are WASPs; chopped liver is going to scare them off.”

  “It’s Break Fast, Rachie. You serve chopped liver, bagels and cream cheese, blintzes and a kugel. We made two for tonight. Don’t hide who you are—or where you come from.”

  Dr. Caine’s face brightened. “Are we having breakfast for dinner? I love brinner, but Jo-Jo never lets me have it.”

  Daria’s mom frowned. “That’s because your cholesterol’s a thousand and five! How much breakfast meat can one man eat?”

  Bash tried holding back a cackle but failed. “No, Uncle Jerry—not breakfast, Break Fast, as in Breaking the Fast for Yom Kippur.”

  The lines between his eyes deepened. “Is that the holiday with the apples and honey?”

  “No, Jerry, that’s Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year,” Aunt Johanna piped in. “See? I know my holidays. And I’m going to try this liver. I bet it’s delicious.”

  “You’d be right.” Mrs. Slingbaum seemed satisfied someone was finally eating it.

  Aunt Johanna put some of the chopped liver on a thin cracker, then popped it in her mouth. “That is absolutely scrumptious! You must give me the recipe for it.”

  She turned to Rachel. “See? What did I tell you?”

  Meanwhile, Daria’s father was still trying to winnow down the holiday list. “Oh, I know! It’s the one with the trees?”

  “For heaven’s sakes, Dad, Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement,” Sister Daria informed him, downing the rest of the wine in her glass. “Rosh Hashanah celebrates the Jewish New Year, and then for the next ten days, Jewish people work on righting any wrongs they committed, culminating in Yom Kippur. It’s like confession, but more condensed. Get it?”

  Everyone stopped and stared at Daria.

  “What? I was a religious studies major at Georgetown.”

  Just then the doorbell rang, and Rachel startled, almost spilling her wine. She offered a weak smile. “I guess I’m more nervous than I realized.”

  Her father patted her shoulder. “Don’t be nervous.”

  “Really? You just said that to me.”

  “What?” he asked.

  She rolled her eyes, exasperated. “Dad, isn’t it true that, when I was a kid, you were the one who taught me that Albert Einstein said, ‘The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results’?”

  “That’s true.”

  “So then, explain to me why you always tell me not to be nervous when I’m anxious and expect that’s going to help me calm down.”

  Uncle Jerry cough-laughed before giving his chest a wallop. “She got you there, Phil. Never tell a woman to calm down, even if that woman’s your daughter. Rookie mistake.”

  Meanwhile, Mrs. Slingbaum opened the door. “Adele! Finn! Come in.”

  They offered tentative smiles. “Thanks for inviting us, Jeanie.” Adele handed her a bouquet of peonies. “I heard it’s the custom to bring flowers when you’re invited over for Shabbat dinner or for Passover—and I remembered peonies are your favorite.”

  “They are—and you’re right!”

  Finn held out a box. “We also brought you some homemade baklava.”

  “Thanks, very thoughtful of you.”

  Adele and Finn, holding hands, walked in, their eyes fixed on Bash and Rachel. The awkwardness ate up the oxygen in the room.

  Mr. Slingbaum invited them to sit down, then procured them some liquid courage.

  Everyone took sips from their cups. Strained smiles. Darting eyes.

  Rachel’s father let out an exasperated groan. “All right, I’ll be the one to start. I don’t want this to be a whole drawn-out conversation. We’ve been fasting all day, and that means we’re famished. Trust me, you don’t want to aggravate Jeanie when she hasn’t eaten. It isn’t pretty.”

  “Jerry’s the same way. It gets ugly, let me tell you,” Daria’s mother muttered.

  “Okay, Adele … Finn … you said on the phone you wanted to start?”

  Mrs. Caine took in an unsteady breath. “Yes, thank you for being so gracious and having us over. It means a lot to Finn and I. First of all, we want to apologize to you both for reacting the way we did. Just to be clear, we are thrilled you’re getting married. We love you, Rachel. But our reaction to Bash’s decision to convert to Judaism was inelegant.”

  Finn Caine coughed into his hand. “We were in shock, not that that’s an excuse. We knew you ordered some books on Judaism, but we’d never discussed your interest. Frankly, after talking with our new therapist, we realize we haven’t discussed faith or God with you in years.”

  “We just assumed you felt the same as we did,” Adele added.

  Bash swirled the bourbon in his glass. “In fairness to you both, it was brought to our attention that I could’ve done a better job letting you know where I was at, not sprung it on you two seconds after we announced our engagement. I apologize for that.”

  Adele sighed. “I would like to think we would have taken it better, but your father and I have been learning a lot about ourselves. As I said, we’ve been seeing a therapist.

  “Through our work with her, a couple of issues surfaced for us. The first, you know, is our love for our faith. It sustains us, it’s a comfort to us … it’s the backbone of who we are. Without Christ, I honestly don’t know where we’d be as individuals or as a family.

  “So to hear that the God of our house wasn’t Bash’s North Star—for lack of a better phrase—well, it shook us. Badly. And we handled that … badly.”

  Adele Caine stopped to take a sip of her wine. “The second piece was remembering, when we were growing up, how the few Jewish children at my school would be teased, taunted even. The idea of our future grandchildren having to go through that … that’s another part of where our reaction stemmed from. I know that was a long time ago, but the memory is fresh.”

  “That still goes on, you know,” Rachel informed them. “I was bullied for being a Jew all through my school years.”

  “You were?” Adele’s mouth parted. “I thought such ugliness was a thing of the past. Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

  Rachel tossed her hands up, exasperated. “Because that’s been my reality for as long as I can remember. Northern Virginia is better than most places, but it’s not perfect. People made comments about my ‘Jew nose.’ They said me wanting to be a lawyer was the perfect career for me because I was Jewish. Some of the kids involved in Young Life would try to convert me, asking if I wanted to make up for the sins of my people for killing Jesus. It didn’t happen all the time, but it happened. And honestly, compared to my South Asian and Black friends, I felt guilty complaining. I still have white privilege that they didn’t. Once Bash and I started dating in our sophomore year, no one dared say anything to me. He was the popular golden boy back then.”

  “Babe, I’m still golden,” her brother teased.

  Adele and Finn looked as if they’d been hit in the chest.

  “And you got to relive those horrible memories on the night of your engagement,” Quinn’s dad said, his voice hoarse from emotion. Adele took his hand. “If you could find a way to forgive us, I promise you and your parents, Rachel, we will spend the rest of our lives making sure you feel welcomed and loved. And son?”

  “Yeah, Dad?”

  “We support your conversion—and we would love to be part of it, in whatever way you want.”

  Quinn felt the tears coming. Whatever tension Bash was holding on to evaporated.

  “That’s good to know, because about that bar mitzvah you mentioned …” Bash teased.

  Everyone laughed, expelling sighs of relief, except Aunt Johanna, whose focus was back on the chopped liver.

  Rachel finished her wine. “Listen, there’s a reason why no one wants to talk politics or religion. I know this won’t be a one-and-done conversation. Let’s just promise to keep talking and remember we all love each other and trust we’ll figure it out?”

  Quinn butted in. “Mom and Dad, keep going to counseling. It’s working.”

  “Babe.” Aiden brought her in for a one-arm hug, trying to hold back laughter. “That’s supposed to be the stuff you keep to yourself.”

  She shrugged.

  “Okay, enough talking,” Mrs. Slingbaum insisted. “Let’s eat!”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.

  —Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well

  “Good gawd, Quinnie! What on earth are you burning?”

  Quinn blew the aromatic tendrils away from her dad. “Relax, it’s just dried rosemary and lavender from Mom’s garden. I’m using it to energetically clear the space.”

  His glasses hung from the tip of his aquiline nose, eyes boring over their silver rims. “Can’t we just get Daria to say a blessing or something?” He waved his hand back and forth. “Never mind, I’m getting some air.”

  Sol called after him. “You should be proud of your daughter! Lavender is calming, and rosemary protects the space from negative forces.” They stopped talking when they noticed Mr. Caine shaking his head as he opened the door and stormed across the parking lot toward the Pure Pasty Vienna Shop.

  Quinn kept waving the smoking herbs around. “Don’t mind him. He’ll either get their traditional beef pasty or go for their digestive biscuits. He’s an emotional eater when he’s aggravated.”

  “To each his, her, or their own.” Sol grabbed the middle-grade bookshelf and pushed it off to the side. Almost all the shelving at Prose & Scones was on wheels so it could be maneuvered when more space was needed. For example, tonight’s party.

  “Your father has always had an overactive olfactory system.” Her mother whizzed by with bunches of gorgeous autumnal flower in her arms. “His nose has prevented me from wearing perfume for over thirty-three years.” She laid the flowers out across the bar, glass vases already lined up. “In my opinion, the shop smells divine. What could be better than the scent of flowers, herbs, and books fresh off the press? Leah, come help me with these?”

  “Absolutely! But fair warning, I have no idea how to arrange flowers.”

  Adele Caine grabbed two pairs of shears from her gardening apron pocket, handing one set over. “Well then, it’s time you learned. Saddle up!”

  Under her breath, Quinn told Sol, “I burnt the herbs to clear any negative juju that may have been lingering from the last time we all got together in honor of their engagement, not to scent the air for ambience.”

  “Oh, I know. Respect that you didn’t burn white sage. By the way, the shop looks rad.”

  Quinn completely agreed. The night of the Slingbaums’ Break Fast dinner slash healing circle was when they had all decided the couple deserved a do-over. The Caine family had insisted on throwing them a proper engagement party at Prose & Scones.

  In one week’s time, the bookshop crew had hired a caterer, invited all the guests, drafted an engagement announcement for the Washington Post, and arranged for the decor. Quinn’s mom, being an avid gardener, oversaw the flowers, which she was well on top of, with Leah’s assistance. It had been up to Quinn to procure pictures of Rachel and Bash through the years, then have reproductions made and put on display around the store. The two of them had attended their share of homecomings and proms together, photos of which she placed in the entertainment section. Every other year at the high school baseball team banquet, they’d been allowed to bring a date, so those photos were perched in the sports section. And as soon as Bash had a car, the two of them had taken day trips to West Virginia, Maryland, DC, and lower parts of Virginia. Those framed memories ended up in the travel section.

  Ryan, Leah’s husband, perused the shop’s Spotify. “Ah, sweet! You made a playlist for tonight.”

  “Well, of course Quinn did, silly.” Leah had been a quick study and was putting the finishing touches on the flower arrangements. “If the shop had an official DJ, she’d be it. Well, go ahead, handsome, hit play!”

  He complied with his bride’s instructions. Music gamboled through the mini speakers. The minute Leah placed the last vase of flowers down, Ryan grabbed her by the hand as she walked by. ”Dance with me, gorgeous.” He twirled her around, her red curls bouncing in time to the beat of Stevie Wonder’s “For Once in My Life.” Her laughter filled the air.

  “Ah, young love,” Adele Caine tittered before giving her daughter a sympathetic smile. “I’m sorry Aiden can’t make it to the party tonight. I know you must be disappointed.”

  “I am, but I get it.”

  Quinn’s mother studied her expression.

  “Stop using your mamma bear superpowers. I’m a grown-up, and there will be other celebrations.” Quinn gave her a pointed look. “As long as there’s an active investigation for a serial killer in our town, someone who wants Bash dead, I’m more than good with Aiden and his team doing what they need to do.”

  Adele Caine’s mood sobered. “Yes, yes, of course you’re right.” She sighed. “Let’s finish up.”

  Several hours later, the shop was shoulder to shoulder with their closest family and friends celebrating love and commitment and the upcoming marriage of two of their favorite people. Quinn had managed to get home and clean up just in time and was enjoying the party from the sidelines.

  Daria came over and bumped shoulders with her. “Why so glum? The party is a hit! You definitely exorcised whatever negative vibes may have lingered from before.”

  “Is that a professional opinion?” Quinn joked, before taking a second glance and noticing her cousin looked, well, a little fancy, especially for a nun. “Excuse me, are you wearing makeup? And a new dress?”

  Her cousin gave her the stink eye. “Tinted ChapStick does not count as makeup, and the dress is one of mine. I was getting ready at my folks’ house, and they still had some of my old clothes.”

  Quinn sniffed Daria’s hair. “You smell ready good too.”

  “What? Like I don’t usually?”

  Quinn chuckled. “I didn’t say that. You smell like the old you—jasmine and sandalwood.”

  Her cousin didn’t reply and pretended to be really focused on the crowd.

  “Let me guess,” Quinn went on, “your parents just happened to have your old favorite shampoo and conditioner at their house too.”

  “Yes, is that a sin or something?”

  Quinn was having a little too much fun, but they always teased like sisters.

  She was just about to apologize when she noticed Daria wasn’t staring at the crowd in a glazed, aimless manner; her eyes were pinned on a certain mohawked business owner, who from the looks of it was making a beeline toward her cousin. Or at least trying to.

  Realtor bombshell Trina Pemberley had blocked his path, trying her darndest to capture his attention. Hair flipping. Touching his arm. Giggling in a way you just knew was fake. Daria noticed Quinn watching her.

  “They would be a good match, wouldn’t they?” Quinn knew her cousin almost as well as she knew herself. But she’d play along, going at Daria’s pace.

  “What makes you say that?” Daria grumbled.

  “Well, they’re both single. Trina’s been through a lot. I mean, her twin was murdered. It must be like losing your other half.”

  Quinn eyed where Trina and Lucas were standing and bit her bottom lip to keep from smiling. “You’re right. She has been through the wringer, but I don’t think he has a scintilla of interest in her.”

  Daria glanced down at her dress. “This old thing has seen better days.”

  “Hey.” Quinn touched her upper arm. “You would look amazing in a burlap bag—which, for the record, isn’t far off from your novitiate uniform.”

  Daria bumped her shoulder with her cousin’s, holding back a laugh. “Facts. But stop it.” She met Quinn’s eye. “I’m being ridiculous, aren’t I?”

  “Nope. Not even a little bit.”

  Daria wiped the tint off her lips with a cocktail napkin. “Yes, I am. I’m supposed to be taking my final vows as a nun. What am I doing, getting dressed up for a guy who would probably dump me as soon as he got bored, or when his mother denounced him for not marrying a Latina? Or some other reason out of my control.”

 

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