“Dinner. You come-a together?”

Unfortunately, I catch Drake’s eye. He’s grinning at me. Bastard.

“Yes,” he tells Nonna. Double bastard. “We came together.”

“So you-a dating? Noella! You-a dating?” She spins around quickly, the spoon still in her hand. White sauce splatters across the cupboards. “You-a really-a dating?”

“Dating is a strong word,” I hedge, shooting a fuck-you look to Drake over the top of Nonna’s head. “We are…trying not to kill each other every time we see each other.”

“So you-a dating.”

“Not every relationship has to be defined, you know.”

“So you-a admit-a it is-a a relationship?”

“Not all relationships are romantic ones. Some of them really do come with murderous tendencies.” I scowl at her, but it goes right over her head.

“Oh! Noella, you-a dating!” She drops the spoon and shuffles into the front room. “Antonio! Noella is-a dating!”

“You’re dating?” Dad and Trent ask at the same time.

“You’re taking the word of this crazy old woman? I’m already married inside her head!” Seeing her hopeful grin, I point my finger at her. “No. No. Put those wedding bells down, Nonna!”

“You’re dating?” Trent repeats, turning on the sofa so he’s facing us. “Really?”

“No!” I protest.

“We’re apparently tryin’ not to kill each other,” Drake adds. “Which is a good start, I reckon.”

“Well, if that’s what you’re callin’ it,” Mom sighs, “then no wonder she thinks you’re dating. Her whole marriage was spent trying not to kill Nonno.”

“She’s crazy,” I tell her. “Look at her. She can’t walk to the car without her cane, but she’s dancing—why is she dancing? Dad, make her stop dancing. That ain’t right.”

Nonna cackles and walks between me and Drake, humming the wedding march.

Devin looks at me sympathetically. “If you ever get married, you know you need to elope, right? Because she wasn’t even that happy when I proposed to Amelia.”

“Dev, if I ever get married, I’m eloping and I’m damn well staying there.” I snort, perching on the arm of the chair next to Trent.

“Oh, no. I’m still mad at you,” he says, shoving at me.

“Trent, get over it,” Alison sighs.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were workin’ with us?” He looks up at me.

I shrug. “Because you’d have staged an intervention. Think about it this way though—I won’t have to bug you for information because I’ll have access to it. So that’s a plus.”

He holds my gaze for a moment. “Yeah, I’m sold.”

I bat at his arm.

“How did it even happen?” Brody asks, leaning forward to see me.

I explain everything from the phone call to—

“You went for the free food,” he surmises.

I shrug again. “I was hungry.”

“What did he say to you?” Drake asks.

“He did the usual. I might have been too hungry to remain completely polite, but he said something odd when I left.”

Dad stills, but his eyes slide to me. “Odd? Odd how?”

“He told me that whoever killed Natalie needed to be found as quickly as possible but without much investigation. He said there are things about her that I won’t like. Secrets and stuff.”

“What kinds?”

“Well, if he told me, it wouldn’t be a secret, would it?”

“How does the mayor know her so intimately?” Alison questions. “Isn’t that odd?”

“No.” I bite the inside of my cheek. “She was best friends with his daughter forever.”

“It’s more than that,” Drake inputs. “I did some research earlier, and it turns out that Mayor McDougall has been grooming Madison to eventually take over as mayor—or at least the mayor’s wife.”

And after he made that bullshit sexist comment to me, too. I guess the good mayor believes that his daughter is a class above the rest of the women in the world, huh?

What a pig.

“But,” he adds, “he was also teaching Natalie the same thing. I checked the council’s employment roster, and she’s on it.”

“Huh.” Brody scratches at his chin. “I didn’t think she’d ever stepped foot in the building.”

“Me either.”

I frown, looking down. What could she have possibly done for the mayor that would mean she didn’t have to go into the town hall building?

“Maybe she did online stuff she could do at home?” I suggest. “Like social media management or something?”

Drake snorts. “I don’t think the mayor knows what social media is, Noelle.”

“Well, I don’t see you coming up with another idea.”

“Maybe I haven’t said it yet.”

“Spit it out, then.”

“I see not killing each other is going real well,” Alison remarks with an amused twist of her lips.

“Hey,” Drake protests. “We lasted, what, maybe two hours?”

“Give or take a few minutes, pretty much,” I agree. “I think we’re about due for a fight.”

He laughs, and I hear Nonna’s cackle from the kitchen. Then Drake’s phone rings, and he pulls it from his pocket.

“It’s Tim,” he says, glancing at the screen. “Excuse me a second.” He walks into the hall and opens the front door, saying, “Nash,” into the phone.

Brody, Trent, and I all stop, our eyes meeting. Tim wouldn’t call Drake on a Saturday evening about the autopsy unless something came up in it—something that could change this investigation. My stomach rolls as the minutes tick by and he doesn’t come back in.

“Dinner is-a ready,” Nonna calls.

We all make our way into the dining room where the long table is set, and Trent lifts Silvio onto his chair.

“Thanks, buddy,” he says, wrenching the Innotab from his hands. Silvio narrows his eyes as he takes it and puts it on the top shelf of the bookcase.

My four-year-old nephew points his fork in Trent’s direction and yells, “Pew-pew!”

A fork gun. Now, I’ve seen it all.

“Put the fork down, Sil,” Alison orders. “The longer you play with the forks at dinner, the longer Mommy keeps your Nerf gun.”

“No fair,” he grumbles. “Everyone else has guns.”

“Everyone else is grown up, pal,” Dad reminds him. “And when you’re grown up, you can have one too.”

“Promise?”

“What the heck? Sure. I’ll buy you one.”

“Excellent,” Mom drawls. “Another generation of gun-loving Bonds. There simply aren’t enough of those in this family.”

And everyone wonders where my sass comes from. Really.

“For-a once, I-a agree.” Nonna sets the large bowl of creamy pasta in the middle of the table and scoops a portion onto Silvio’s plate with a wink, then Aria’s. “Too-a many guns. Noella, why-a do you need-a three?”

“Because I forget stuff all the time, and this way, I always have one I can get,” I reply, digging my fork straight into the bowl and spearing a piece of pasta.

“No!” She taps my hand. “We-a wait for Drake!”

Devin grabs the spoon from her. “Don’t worry, Nonna. If he’s still on the phone, he’s probably walked his way down to the station to carry his conversation on in person.”

“I still don’t understand why Bates moved the morgue to the station basement,” Dad adds.

“Because the mayor cut the funding, remember?” Trent takes the spoon. “It was either his driver or the morgue.”

“Why does the mayor need a driver?” Alison asks.

“More worryingly, why do his driver costs equal the morgue’s?” Brody counters.

“Why does he even need a driver? You can walk anywhere in Holly Woods in five minutes. Hell, even Nonna can get across town in ten.” I take the spoon from Trent and point it in her direction.

“Hey-a,” she protests.

“Why do you have a car, then?” Dev asks me.

“Because there isn’t a Gigi’s in Holly Woods. Duh.”

Dad is shaking his head in resignation when Drake comes back in the house. He enters the dining room with a grim look on his face, and Dad, my brothers, and I all look at him, frozen.

“We need to go to the station. Now,” he tells us.

“What’s happened?” Trent asks, already moving to stand.

“She was murdered,” he answers. “That’s all I can say here.”