Bryony wiggled her eyebrows. “I love it. Plus, I get to see all the mysterious guests who book in. Look at this one.” She swiveled her laptop around to show Emily the accommodation spreadsheet which was automatically populated by website bookings through the magic wizardry of computer code. “The carriage house has been booked out by Mr. X. I’m hoping he’s another Roman Westbrook.”

Emily raised her eyebrows, excited also. “Or a James Bond villain.”

Just then, a group of three men walked into the inn. They were all wearing beige slacks and polo shirts, and had varying shades of gray hair. Emily noticed then that each had a large roll of paper under their arms and realized that they weren’t some kind of traveling barbershop quartet but the architects from Erik & Sons, with their initial sketches for renovating Trevor’s house.

She and Daniel had approached a local family firm, hoping they’d have a more sympathetic approach. As she leaped up now and walked toward them, she realized by their eerily similar appearances that they were the “& Sons” contingent. She shook each of their hands, blinking, feeling like she was looking at the same person three times over.

“We’re triplets,” the man with the lightest gray hair explained. “I’m Wayne. This is Cain. And that’s Shane, the youngest by five minutes.”

“My chances of remembering whose name belongs to who are more or less zero,” Emily confessed.

“We don’t mind,” Wayne Erik continued. “We’ve had fifty-five years of being confused with each other. If we had a problem with it, we probably wouldn’t dress the same.”

He grinned, indicating their matching Erik & Sons navy blue polo shirts.

“Please,” Emily said, “let us go and find somewhere quiet where we can spread these out. I know we’re meeting for a tour of the house later today, but I’m so happy to take a look at these now.”

She led them from the bustling foyer and into the empty dining room, whereby the Erik triplets unrolled their sketches onto the large walnut table.

Emily peered down at the designs, one scroll per floor of the house. The plans looked phenomenal, grand and rather exciting. But seeing Trevor’s house pared down to lines and measurements on pieces of paper felt so odd to her, so unpleasant and final. She felt herself getting choked up.

“I’m sorry,” she stammered, as tears suddenly sprung into her eyes. “The house belonged to my late friend. I still haven’t gotten my head around the fact he’s gone.”

“It was Trevor Mann’s house, wasn’t it?” Wayne asked, softly.

“Yes,” Emily said, dabbing her tears with her shirt sleeve. “Did you know him?”

“Of course,” Cain confirmed. “Mr. Mann was on the zoning board so we had a lot of contact with him. He was quite a guy.”

Emily could tell from the way he said it that he was being polite about the fact that Trevor was a difficult person to get along with.

“He was a curmudgeonly old so-and-so, I know,” Emily said with a wistful smile. “He hated me at first. But we were great friends by the end.”

The Erik brothers look at her kindly.

“We’ll leave the plans with you,” Wayne explained. “Then we’ll talk more when we go through the house later.”

“Thank you,” Emily said, glad that she and Daniel had chosen to go with this firm. That they were local and knew Trevor Mann was immensely reassuring. But something about Wayne Erik’s kindness made her tears come more readily. She flushed with embarrassment as she found herself suddenly unable to stop them streaming down her cheeks.

“I’m also pregnant,” she confessed with a shy giggle. “The hormones are making me crazy.”