Believing (Lily Dale #2)(59)

She’s playing with fire here—and having been once burned by her old flame, she’d be smart to douse this new flame. For now, anyway.

“Can I come in with you, Calla?”

“Yes,” she says weakly, then, getting hold of herself, “I mean, no. No!”

“No?” He seems taken aback.

“My grandmother doesn’t want me to have anyone in the house when she’s not home.”

“Odelia said that?” he sounds doubtful.

Yeah, well, he knows her grandmother. Everyone in Lily Dale knows her grandmother, who sticks an expired parking ticket on her own windshield to keep the traffic cops away whenever she parks illegally. She’s not exactly a stickler for rules—following anyone else’s or imposing her own.

Still . . .

“She’s way more strict with me than you’d think,” Calla tells Blue in a rush. “She said no one’s even allowed on the porch when she’s not home, so . . . I’ll just say goodnight here.”

“Wait, Calla—”

“Goodnight!” she says brightly, and springs from the car, then leans back in to say politely, “Thanks so much for everything.”

“Wait one second, will you?” He grabs her hand.

“I have to—”

“Can I just ask you one question?”

“What is it?” she asks, slightly breathless and wondering if she can stick to her guns if he asks her again if he can come in.

But he doesn’t. He asks, “Want to go to the homecoming dance with me?”

She gasps. “Yes!”

“Great.”

Blue grins.

Calla grins back. Then she remembers something. “What about Willow?”

“What about her?”

“I thought you were . . . you know. Talking to her about homecoming.”

“About being on the committee? Yeah. She won’t leave me alone about that, but I keep telling her, I’m too busy with other stuff.”

So that was it. Blue was e-mailing Willow about the homecoming dance committee, not about going to the dance itself. That was all.

“Are you sure I can’t come in even for a few minutes?” he asks Calla, and she jolts back to the present.

“Oh—uh, yeah, I’m sure. Sorry. Goodnight!” With that, she practically flies up the path, onto the porch. Turning back toward the car, she gives Blue one last wave.

He blinks the headlights at her and the engine roars to life.

Calla reaches for the knob before remembering that her grandmother said the door would be locked tonight.

Again, she wonders if Odelia had some kind of premonition about something happening to her.

She turns abruptly back toward Blue’s car, suddenly not anxious to be alone in the house, even if it means being alone with Blue. Too late. He’s already pulling away.

Okay.

No big deal.

You’ve been alone before in this house at night. Right? Right.

She unlocks the door, closes it behind her, and locks it again securely.

There. Better already, she tells herself. Right?

Wrong.

Her heart is pounding as she walks through the quiet house, hoping the kitten doesn’t jump out at her again tonight. Her nerves can’t handle that.

“Gert?” she calls, and notices her voice warbles a little. Oh, please.You’re such a chicken. Get a grip, will you?

She turns on the light as she passes through the dining room toward the kitchen.

“Where are you, kitty?”

No meow or scampering paws in response.

Okay, that’s strange.

In the few short days Gert’s been here, the kitten has learned to come running when Calla calls.

“Gert!” she calls, more forcefully this time.

In response, she hears a faint meow from the back of the house.

Creeping into the kitchen, she sees that the door to Odelia’s sunroom is closed.

“Gert?”

Again, she hears the kitten mew—this time, obviously from behind the door.

How did she get in there?

Maybe Odelia came back home at some point after Calla left and put her in there.

But why would she do that?

Who knows? Maybe because the cat got into something.

Then again, yesterday Gert knocked over a vase of cut flowers, breaking the vase and showering the carpet with water and broken stems, and Odelia barely batted an eye. “Cats will be cats,” she said with a shrug.

Okay, so even if she’s not worried about the kitten wrecking the house, maybe she was worried that Gert would hurt herself by getting into something dangerous.

Dangerous.

Calla walks stealthily toward the door, growing more uneasy with every step.

Aside from the wedge of light falling across the linoleum through the doorway of the dining room, the kitchen is dark. Even the light under the stove hood, which Odelia usually leaves on, is turned off tonight.

Wait a minute.

In that corner, by the sink . . . there seems to be a faint glow coming from somewhere, Calla realizes. Her eye goes to the window above the sink, but the curtains are drawn.

Somehow, though, a pool of light reflected from . . . somewhere . . . is falling over the pile of clean dishes Odelia left to dry.

Seeing something glint, Calla steps closer, frowning.