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at that fancy California cooking school? To make steak taste like this?”
    â€œAmong other things.” Like how to care for my knives and how to season food and the right way to julienne a carrot and how to keep a soufflé from falling. I would have learned none of them if Coco hadn’t encouraged me to go, hadn’t insisted I go, hadn’t held my hand and led me out of Grand Lake, then held my hand again and led me back. I held up my wineglass. “To Coco.”
    Dan, Haley and Garrett all lifted their glasses and echoed, “To Coco.”
    And then they all gave me the best compliment a person can give any chef: They stopped talking and ate.
    *   *   *
    Our plates were empty, but no one was leaving the table. It was one more reason it was so weird to be back in Grand Lake. My parents’ dinner parties had always been like this. Everyone leaning back in the upholstered chairs, finishing the last of their wine from the Dublin Crystal goblets, laughing and arguing about all the things you’re not supposed to bring up in polite company like politics and religion and money. I remembered it all with a golden glow on it. Maybe I romanticized it. I didn’t care.
    Tonight with the specter of Coco floating over us, there wasn’t so much laughter. Other than that, it was pretty much the same. Same two-story house. Same dining room with the same bay window and floral drapes. Same dining room table with its extending leaves. Same floral-patterned china. I twirled my glass, watching the legs the wine made on the side. I thought it might be the same damn Dublin goblet.
    The one thing that was definitely not the same: me. I’d left here a wild child full of anger and returned a chastened woman. Humbled by the big bad world. Down, but not out, thanks in large part to Coco.
    I went to the kitchen and got my popcorn balls. I brought them out to the table on a platter with another smaller platter of special ones for Haley. “Everyone ready to be my guinea pigs? Except you, Sis. I made you nonalcoholic ones.”
    I got pretty much the same reaction from Dan and Garrett as I had from Annie. This time I allowed myself the sense of satisfaction I generally got when my food was well-received.
    â€œHow many of these would I have to eat to get a decent buzz on?” Garrett asked, leaning back in his chair.
    â€œProbably a lot,” I admitted. “It’s more the spirit of the thing, you know? That and the flavor.”
    â€œI’ll keep that in mind.” He grinned, then turned to Haley. “And how is your dessert?”
    Haley licked the last of the unadulterated chocolate sauce off her fingers and then said, “Fabulous.”
    â€œI was working on these with Coco,” I said, brushing off my own fingers. “I wish she’d had a chance to try this batch. I think she would have approved.”
    â€œSo what have you found out, Dan?” Garrett asked.
    Dan leaned forward onto his elbows. “Not a whole hell of a lot, to be honest. Jessica left the shop at around four thirty, so Coco was alive then.”
    â€œWhy did Jessica leave so early?” Jessica usually stayed until at least close to closing time. She taught preschool at the church in the mornings and then helped Coco in the shop in the afternoons and then walked around with butter not melting in her mouth the rest of the time. She also ran the church youth group and helped out with the historic preservation committee. She was everywhere. I was finding it harder to get away from her than it was to get away from Antoine.
    â€œSomething about doing some shopping for the Thursday night teen social at the church. Honestly, it got a little garbled, but I guess she’d promised the kids a make-your-own-sundae night and she had to get everything ready.” Dan shook his head. “She feels terrible that she might have been able to stop whoever broke in if she’d stayed