Free Murder à la Carte by Susan Kiernan-Lewis Page A

total mess―”
    “We can’t now because her mother has validated her insistence that she not have it. After all this,” Windsor waved both arms angrily around the room. “You caved in, Grace.”
    “I did, Windsor, I admit it.” Grace eyed her child with resignation and took another long drag off her cigarette. “Can we clean up the pink goo now?”
    “Touch that bottle and I’ll break your arm,” Windsor said, his body tensed toward her.
    Grace looked at him in frank astonishment. "What?" she said.
    “Mommy, I don’t want to go to school today. I want to stay home with you, Mommy.”
    Taylor edged away from her father and closer to her mother. Taylor’s long, golden mass of curls tumbled into her eyes and down her shoulders. Even at four years of age, the child was intensely vain about her hair, and could be found staring at her image in the mirror for hours, fluffing and tossing and winking at herself. Grace didn’t stop her― although she knew Windsor would have―because they were practically the only times the child wasn’t sneering or whining.
    “Taylor made the mess,” Windsor said, straightening his back and pointing a shaking finger at his first-born. “Taylor will clean it up.”
    “She’s four years―”
    “She can lick, can’t she?”
    “Honestly, Windsor, you’ve come unstrung.” Grace stabbed out her cigarette in a crystal ashtray and marched into the kitchen to get a sponge.
    “Don’t do this, Grace,” Windsor shouted after her.
    “Mommy,” Taylor whimpered, keeping an eye on her irate father.
    Grace returned to the room with a handful of paper towels and a soapy sponge. She looked straight at Windsor.
    “This rug is over ten thousand dollars,” she said to Windsor as she clapped the sponge into little Taylor’s unwilling hand. “But if making a point to a four-year old is more important than saving―”
    “It is,” Windsor said firmly, crossing his arms.
    “This is going to be more trouble than it’s worth, I promise you.” Grace knelt down and smiled at Taylor. “Go on, Taylor, darling. We clean up the messes we make―”
    “No! I don’t want to!” And with that the child pushed past her parents, ran through the globbing pink medicine and fled upstairs. Grace and Windsor could hear the loud bang of the child’s bedroom door slamming shut.
    Grace looked at the little sneaker tracks of pink that now ran the full length of the rug and onto the parquet flooring beyond it. 
    “Well,” Grace said, slowly standing from her crouched position. “I’d say that went about as well as could be expected.”
    “The child’s totally out of control, Grace,” Windsor said.
    “I know.”
    “All the shrinks say there’s nothing wrong with her. She’s intelligent, well-adjusted... “
    “Just incredibly bad-tempered.” Grace looked up at him and smiled wanly.
    Windsor grabbed his hair with his hands and pulled. “God,” he said looking at the pink trail. “She’s such a little shit, you know?”
    They both laughed briefly and Grace walked over and put her arms around him. Instantly, he held her in a tight hug. Then, looking into her eyes, he smiled and touched her chin with his finger.
    “We’re not trying to have a baby to replace Taylor, are we?”
    “Don’t be silly.” Grace nuzzled his neck. “It’s nothing like that. If anything, a baby brother or sister will probably settle her down a bit.”
    “You mean like teach her humility or something? Because I gotta tell you, I quake to imagine Taylor jealous.” He gently kissed his wife’s cheek and brushed his fingers against her perfect skin. “You had the last ultrasound yesterday, right? in Aix? How’d it look?”
    “All systems go. Two follicles ready to pop. One last shot tonight to spur ovulation.”
    “And when are we due to do the dirty deed, as it were?”
    They could hear the slow but insistent howl of their daughter from her bedroom upstairs. Grace pulled away from him and laughed.
    “God,