Panic Button

by Kylie Logan

  “And the cat!” I butted in before Kate could get even more carried away. “Don’t forget the freakin’ cat!”

  Honestly, I hadn’t even noticed that there was a thick legal book on Alvin’s desk until he picked it up and slammed it back down.

  That got our attention. So did his voice. He spoke in what was nearly a whisper, each word so clipped and so precise, there was no doubt that he meant what he said.

  “I’ve had enough. We’re going to solve this problem once and for all. And we’re going to do it right now.”

  “Make Bea close her B and B?” Kate asked.

  “Make Chandra keep her cat inside?” I countered.

  “Make Kate turn off that horrible music?” Chandra retorted.

  Alvin banged a fist down on top of the book. “No. None of those things. What you women need to do…” His gaze moved from one to the other of us. “What all of you need to do is learn to get along. You’re neighbors. Start acting like it. You have to stop talking at each other and start talking to each other. And I’ll tell you what, I’m going to go down in South Bass history, because I’m the one who’s going to make sure you do it.”

  Yeah, I sounded as skeptical as I was feeling when I asked, “You’re going to sentence us to talk to each other?”

  Alvin’s smile was sleek. “I’m going to do you one better than that,” he said. “I’m going to make each of you report to the library at seven o’clock, this Monday, and every Monday for the next year. I’m sentencing you three to be a book discussion group.”

  Marianne’s miserable expression morphed into a smile.

  Chandra’s mouth dropped open.

  Kate (do I even need to say it?) rolled her eyes.

  Good thing one of us didn’t lose her head. “You can’t do that,” I said. “It’s not legal.”

  “Well, it’s not illegal,” he told me. “And believe me, it beats all the other things I could do to you. You don’t want to find out what those things are.”

  I had to agree with Alvin there.

  But just for the record, that didn’t mean I had to like it.

  From the looks on their faces, I’m pretty sure Kate and Chandra didn’t either, and I left the town hall with a cynical smile on my face, thinking it was the first thing we’d ever agreed on.

  No, at that point, we didn’t think of ourselves as the League of Literary Ladies. Not yet, anyway. I’m pretty sure we didn’t think of ourselves as anything but royally pissed, not to mention inconvenienced.

  But then, that was before the murder. And the murder?

  Well, that changed everything.