Free CELEBRITY STATUS (The Kate Huntington mystery series #4) by Kassandra Lamb Page A

pissed-off type. Skip and Dolph talked to him last week. I can’t help wondering if maybe that interview gave him ideas. He may not be the guy who sent the earlier notes.”
                “Good point,” Rob said.
                “Anyway, I don’t want to talk about you-know-who anymore. Back to the party plans. If we’re doing this the week after Liz’s birthday, won’t she be disappointed when not much happens on her birthday?”
                “Ah, but that’s the beauty of it. She said she didn’t want a big fuss. This from the woman who announced my fiftieth birthday to everybody we know by inviting them all to that big bash.”
                “Come on, you loved every minute of it.”
                “Once I recovered from the heart attack when you all jumped out at me.” Rob chuckled. “Anyhow, the girls and I are taking her out to dinner on her actual birthday. Someplace nice. She’ll feel sufficiently feted. And then the next weekend we’re just coming over to your house for a cookout, and, lo and behold, your backyard just happens to be full of thirty or forty of our closest friends.”
                “Heaven help us if it rains. We’ll never get all those people in my house. Did you send out the invites yet?”
                “Fran insisted on taking charge of them. I told her it wasn’t appropriate for me to expect my admin assistant to do that. She pointed out that she’d offered, I didn’t ask, and she’s doing it as a friend, not an employee.”
                “That woman’s been hanging around you too long. She’s starting to argue like a lawyer,” Kate said.
                “So can you and Maria take care of the food? As in you buy it and she cooks it, I mean,” Rob teased. Kate was a notoriously bad cook. “Keep track of what you spend and I’ll reimburse you.”
                “No way. I’ll pay for the food as my contribution. You just concentrate on getting Liz there without her becoming suspicious,” Kate said.
                “Ha! Easier said than done. I swear she’s clairvoyant.”
                “No, she’s just very bright and she knows you very, very well.”
                “The girls want to come by that afternoon and decorate. Is that okay?”
                “That’s wonderful. I think we’ve got it all covered,” Kate said, then gleefully rubbed her hands together. “If we pull off surprising her, it’ll be the coup of the century.”
                Rob glanced at his watch. “Gotta go. Partners’ meeting this afternoon.” He dug a ten and a five out of his wallet to cover his half of their lunch. Kate had long ago insisted they split the tab, rather than wrangling over the check each time.
                He stood up. “Let me know if there are any glitches in the plans.” With a sly smile on his face, he leaned over and kissed Kate on the forehead. “And I’m paying for half the food for the party,” he added, then made a quick exit before she could argue.
    * * *
                Having caught the noon Acela express back, Skip beat Kate home by an hour. When she arrived, the kids and their nanny were already on the way to the park. Maria had a twinkle in her eye and a twenty in her purse to buy dinner at McDonald’s afterwards.
                Skip was stuffing the roses he’d bought from a street vendor outside Baltimore’s Penn Station into a vase when he heard the front door open. The vase was hastily placed next to the champagne bottle, chilling in an ice bucket, and the small Tiffany’s box on the kitchen table.
                Kate came around the corner and stopped in her tracks. Taking it all in, she put hands on hips and said, in a mock stern tone, “Okay, Skip Canfield, what have you done?”
                “Nothing,” he exclaimed