"These?" asked Solomon, leaning over to hand her two cards.

"Yes. How did you..." Juliet checked the cards. "These are mine."

"Anything else?" he asked, ignoring her question.

"I think twenty dollars is gone, but I'm not sure."

"Actually," grinned Delgado, producing a couple of crumpled bills, "it was thirty. Here."

Juliet took her cards and money, stuffing them into her purse. "I don't get it."

"I took your cards only minutes after we arrived and instructed Delgado to take something from your purse when he could. The point, Juliet, is to show you that even when you're in the house, your private things can be stolen, and even returned, without your knowing. Take another look in your purse."

We watched as Juliet opened her wallet, searching through the compartments. Finally, she unsnapped the middle money section and extracted a small piece of paper. "What's this?" she asked, unfolding it.

"Read it out loud," instructed Solomon.

"I can put things in your purse without you knowing too," Juliet read. She looked up as she snapped her wallet shut. "Okay, I get your point. You can take things and put them back without me knowing, so someone else could have too. That's what you mean, isn't it? That Penelope could have easily done the same?"

Solomon gave a curt nod. "Yes, and that includes anyone you trust to be inside your house. They could do the same thing when your back is turned."

"I still don't believe Penelope would do something like that. She's the mother of Rob's son! I had nothing to do with their breakup and we've been friends a long time."

"Were you always friends?"

"Not always. It was awkward at first. She used to give Rob a hard time about Robbie spending time with us both. She was super involved with his family and never gave us any space for our relationship to develop. Later, we started to talk, and Penelope came around; and it's been great ever since," she said, moving towards the front of the house, and leaving her purse behind.

As we entered the living room, a car door slammed outside and Juliet jumped, placing a hand on her heart while taking a deep breath. I looked toward the street. Penelope's car had returned and Robbie climbed out, racing towards the house, a balloon attached to a long string in his hand. Juliet moved over to the door, leaving Solomon, Delgado, and me to observe Penelope and Rob embracing before he too began to walk towards the house. From the doorway, unable to see the lingering hug, Juliet said, "What possible reason could she have to hate me?"

Chapter Fifteen

The supermarket aisles were full of people who didn't seem to understand how desperate my situation was. Never having cooked for so many people before, never mind shopping for the groceries, seeing aisle-after-aisle of produce left me confounded. Just what could one person cook for a huge family that could easily have eaten for the whole nation? That thought reminded me, did I have enough forks? And why didn't I borrow the menu from O'Grady's for inspiration when I had dinner there with Lily the previous night? Or do the grocery shopping earlier in the day? Instead, I was busy scouring Juliet's phone records, looking for connections.

Pushing the cart forwards, I frowned at the vegetables, anxiously waiting for creativity to strike. Instead of a smart recipe whirling together in my mind, the only image I had was the wounded expression on Juliet's face. After Solomon, Delgado, and I dropped the bombshell that we thought her best friend was behind all her recent calamities, and no, we had absolutely no proof, I wasn't eager to return. Of course, Juliet insisted that we look elsewhere for another suspect. Currently, I was still her best and only shot at proving her innocence and identifying the stalker. I hoped she realized that, and preferably, without firing me first.

Since my inspiration still wasn't available, and haute cuisine wasn't one of my strongest skills, I resorted to snatching a stem of baby cherry tomatoes, along with a couple bags of potatoes. I threw in a sprig of chives for a potato salad, adding carrots and cucumber for crudités as I moved past. Solomon was right; easy finger food was my best option. I just wasn't sure how much of it to buy. Thankfully, I did know an expert in large-scale cooking.

"Hi, Mom," I said, when she answered her phone.

"Alexandra, dear."

Uh-oh. I knew my full name meant trouble of some kind. "That's me," I said simply. "I'm at the market and I need your help."

"Really? Did you call 911?"

"No. Why?"

"You're not being held up?"

I looked around at the small array of people browsing the shelves. None of them looked armed. "Not right now," I told her.

My mother breathed a sigh of relief. "I wasn't sure. I assumed you were in trouble."

"Trouble doesn't follow me everywhere I go!"

"I think you send trouble an engraved invitation."

"Trouble never RSVPs. Actually, I need help with the dinner."

"Dinner? Are you cooking for Solomon? Enticing a man's stomach is the best way to his heart. Perhaps you should cook more often."

"No, and I cook plenty, but he cooks better. It's about our family dinner. I'm shopping and I don't know how much to buy. Or what ingredients."

"Ingredients?" My mother's voice came in a breathless whisper. "Did you hear that, honey? Ingredients! Lexi is buying ingredients!"

"Who's that?" I asked as a muffled voice spoke in the background. "Is that Dad?"

"No, it's your sister."

"I thought we'd order Chinese," said Serena, louder so I could hear her over the phone line. "Alexandra plans to cook? With ingredients?"

"We're not ordering Chinese," I told them.

"Serena wants to know if we should bring the takeout menu anyway?"

"No!"

"She also wants to know if you're done with Antonio yet?"

"I think he's on the surveillance shift, but she could have called him, herself, to ask. What's the rush?"

"We're having dinner together and we're waiting on him."

"I thought your kitchen was ruined?"

"It is. Serena is taking your father and me to Alessandro's."

"And the baby?"

"Victoria, too. She loves their spaghetti."

"Sounds nice."

"I have to go, but let me know if you need me to bring anything for dinner. You'll do fine. Bye, honey!" My mother hung up before I had a chance to quiz her on how many volumes to buy. Instead, I pulled a face at the lonely produce in the cart and pushed on.

An hour later, I had everything I could think of from brand new napkins to paper party plates and plastic forks for my nieces and nephews. I added a few bags of chips and rolled my cart to the clerk, trying hard not to wince as I handed over my card in return for several bags of food that wouldn't last more than an hour. I had to lean against the cart's handlebar to get it to roll out of the supermarket, pointing it towards my car while hoping the momentum would keep it going. I loaded it all into my trunk, returned the cart, and headed for home, wondering about the surveillance on Juliet and whether the new security cameras managed to catch anything yet.

I tried to find a solid connection between Penelope and the stalking incidents, but drew blanks at every turn. Same with the emails Juliet claimed she never sent to work colleagues, and the rude texts to her friends. Everything was circumstantial, at best. At worst, the evidence was non-existent. I even accessed Rob's emails (with his permission) and read through his messages with Penelope. There was nothing that indicated they were anything more than co-parents now; no suggestions or pleadings to get back together, no cruel jibes aimed at Juliet, or his relationship with her, nothing but pleasant exchanges about Robbie's schedule. A cursory check of the trash file didn't reveal any deleted messages from either of them. Not that it meant anything; even I knew verbal conversations could tell a different story, if one or both of them were being careful.