Chapter 81

Zane POV

I’d gone into the kitchen earlier for coffee, but when I was ready for breakfast, I was the last to arrive. Sarah, looking lovely and fresh in the mornings as she always did, was inhaling her coffee and chewing on toast. The girls were having their overnight oats and greeted me with smiles.

“Any news?” Sarah asked. She didn’t have to ask about what.

“Travis is still putting all the pieces together. We’re looking at a couple hundred solid convictions just on the money trail alone. The actual handlers of the human captives have all vanished, of course, but we’ll sniff them out.”

I thought about making eggs, but they didn’t appeal. “We’ve found the fAmelies of about thirty of the human captives, but the reunions sometimes go very poorly. We’re offering counseling for everyone, of course.”

“What’s an example of ‘poorly’?”

“One woman discovered her husband had remarried. A boy who was taken as a child is now twenty and doesn’t want to be with his family because he’s so ‘unclean.’ Another woman who was taken as a teenager went home only to be scolded by her parents for being so careless.”

“Goddess,” she muttered, looking highly irritated.

I nodded. “We’ll be setting up some sort of halfway house with counselors and invite whole fAmelies, but some of the ex-captives are going to slip away, and I can’t blame them.”

Sarah lowered her voice, though the girls seemed absorbed in their tablets doing some lesson with cute animals that Dr. Hayes had sent to them. “And the deceased?”

“Returned, though we haven’t been able to identify one young woman. We’ve just started all this, though, and we’ve sent out her DNA. Something will turn up.”

She nodded sadly, then realized Chloe was looking at her and smiled sweetly. “So, I’m a little nervous about my meeting today.”

“Who with?” Chloe asked as Grace looked up.

“Lainey Wilson.”

“From the center?” Grace asked. “Judy’s friend?”

“Yes. Your father and I have asked her to become my personal publicist, and I’m meeting her today.”

“Why does that make you nervous?” Chloe asked.

“Well, I’ve never had a publicist before. I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to ask her.”

“We’ll help you think of things,” Chloe said confidently.

“Oh?”

“Yes, when we’re talking with her, we can all ask questions.”

Grace nodded.

I had to hide my surprise that the girls just expected to be included, but Sarah didn’t miss a beat. “Yes, that will help me a lot. I can’t be without my personal stylists, can I?”

The girls both shook their heads.

“We’ll be meeting her at one o’clock in my study,” I told them. I told Sarah, “I’ll ask Emelia to serve coffee.”

“Tea,” Chloe said.

I looked at her curiously. “You think she’d prefer tea?”

“High tea,” she clarified.

“Oh!” Sarah lightly clapped her hands together. “That’s a wonderful idea!”

She turned to me. “That was our little treat when something special was happening. Chloe and I would go to high tea at the Lavender Pot.”

“Can we, Daddy?” Grace asked.

“Grace, honey,” Sarah said. “Part of the meeting is for her to see where I live and how I spend my days.”

“Fear not,” I told my daughters while I got out my phone. “Chef?” I asked when the line picked up. “Excellent. Can you come in an hour early today? We need a high tea for a special guest.”

I winked at Grace, who giggled, then realized what Emelia had said. “Two hours early? We’ll see you then. Thank you.”

“This will be wonderful. Thank you, everyone,” Sarah said, her smile warm and enchanting. I’d thought I’d do a lot more than arrange for tea to see that smile.

True to her word, Chef Emelia came in two hours early and asked the housekeeper, Elliot, for help. He assigned someone to make sure the fine bone china was clean and unchipped and to shine the silver tea set.

Travis showed up around that time, and while I had planned to discuss the ongoing issues with him in the study, he and I both ended up in the kitchen with the females.

“Now,” Emelia told my Chloe, having figured out weeks ago that anything involving my daughters had to be cleared with Chloe first. “This is hardly my first high tea, and I have to say I’ve missed doing them since, well, these past few years.

I remembered only then that Olivia had sometimes served tea when hosting a meeting at the villa, but I hadn’t realized it was such a production.

“The first step for any high tea,” the chef continued, “is to pick the tea. Now, does anyone have a favorite?”

“Mommy orders herbal teas at the Lavender Cup. She says I’m too young for the black stuff,” Chloe said with a little pout.

“That black stuff?” Travis asked. “Black teas are the traditional for high tea.”

“There’s more than one black tea?”

“Absolutely,” he told her. “There’s pekoe, earl grey, Ceylon, Lapsang souchong.”

The girls laughed. “That’s not a real tea!” Chloe protested.

“I assure you it is.” He smiled. “Would you like to know my favorite?”

The girls nodded.

“Oolong. The name is Chinese and means ‘black dragon.’”

“Oolong it is, then,” Sarah said, smiling at the enchanted looks on the girls’ faces.

“And do we get any?” Chloe demanded.

“One cup with milk. So, sip slowly.”

My daughters smiled in excitement.

“Oolong,” Emelia said with a nod. “Good choice. Now we can choose the tea sandwiches to go with it. We’ll have BLT sandwiches on wheat along with cucumber and cream on white and smoked salmon with caviar on sourdough. Then the scones and fruit tarts.”

That was evidently settled, and Emelia took one of her long strides over to the cupboard to start setting things out. She had unusually broad shoulders, the “result of chopping a million vegetables,” and always looked like she was about to tackle whatever she was preparing. Yet her food was often so dainty you’d think fairies made it.

“So, just what makes a sandwich a tea sandwich?” Grace asked, and I cheered inside that she would ask something so boldly, for her. Chloe and Sarah were wonderful influences on her. Even the attack from the rogue was a distant memory when I looked at her now.

And there was that concern again about Ella. Had I done Grace a disservice letting her spend so much time with my sister-in-law? Ella was so dazzling, and Grace would hide in the shadows she made.

“The cut, mostly,” Emelia said. “Geometry is sacred. Some like squares and rectangles, but the standard is the triangle.” She looked over at her and realized she was truly interested. She sent me a little smile of celebration and waved Grace to her side.

Grace obliged, and Travis set up her chair so she could watch what Emelia was doing on the counter.

Emelia laid two pieces of white bread on her cutting board and reached for the butter. “Butter is very important for tea sandwiches because it makes a little seal over the bread. See how I’m spreading it so thinly but making sure to reach all the corners?”

Grace nodded, and Emelia handed her the butter knife. “You do the other one.”

With great care, Grace covered the second slice of bread with butter.

“Excellent. Now, we’re going to take some of this cheese and a few slices of this tomato and lay them over the bread, and then we put the other slice on top. Now, see? The butter is protecting the bread from the tomato so it doesn’t get soggy.”

“I see,” Grace said, utterly rapt.

“Good. Now, I take this very sharp knife—and what’s my rule about sharp knives in the kitchen?”

“Don’t touch.”

“Yes, very good. Now, I cut off the crusts and put them over here for the compost bin. And then I but here and here, and I have four triangles.”

Emelia picked up a triangle and handed it to Grace and then handed another one to Chloe. The girls looked to Sarah, who nodded. Then they ate them and declared them the “best food ever.”

“You still nervous, Mommy?” Chloe asked.

“Of course not, not with you girls to help me.”

Looking at Sarah, I thought the same.