Connecting (Lily Dale #3)(51)

“Calla?” Odelia opens the door and a wedge of light spills in from the hall. “Oh! You’re sleeping?”

“I . . . guess so.”

Sleeping. And dreaming.

Mom . . . the envelope . . . the stairs . . . the blood . . .

Again.

But this time, there was more to it.

The hand . . . the ring . . .

“Are you feeling okay, sweetie?” Odelia flicks on a bedside lamp and Calla blinks.

Darrin’s hand?

Darrin’s ring?

“You look like you might be coming down with something.” Odelia hovers over her looking worried, presses a hand against Calla’s forehead.

Just like Mom used to do.

Without warning, the gentle maternal concern unleashes a tsunami of grief.

“Oh, my goodness . . . you’re crying! What is it? What’s wrong?” Odelia sits on the bed and takes Calla into her arms.

“I . . . just . . . miss her.” Overcome, Calla collap ses against her grandmother’s ample, sturdy body with a sob.

“Oh, sweetie, I know . . . I know.” Odelia strokes her hair, lets her cry, cries with her.

Finally spent, Calla accepts the crumpled tissue her grandmother produces from a pocket.

“It’s clean,” she says, and presses another to her own nose with a weary sigh.

Lost in their own thoughts, they wipe their eyes and blow their noses.

Then Odelia stands again and holds out a hand. “Come on.”

“Come on where?”

“Downstairs. We can sit in front of the television and watch something mindless and trashy and eat dinner. I made soup.”

“What kind of soup?” Calla asks warily. The last time Odelia made soup, it was Spicy African Peanut Gumbo— which was pretty tasty, but not exactly soothing.

“Chicken noodle.”

Calla raises an eyebrow. “Really?”

Odelia nods. “I had a feeling you were under the weather today. You’ve been so quiet, hiding yourself away. Come on. It’ll make you feel better.”

Calla doubts it, but she follows her grandmother downstairs, anyway.

A half hour later, she has to admit Odelia was right. A steaming bowl of soup—and the tail end of a Ben Stiller movie she’s seen a million times—proves to be an effective remedy. She had been planning to make a beeline back to her room after eating, but instead she settles back against the couch cushions.

“I’ll go see what I have for dessert.” Odelia picks up their empty bowls and hands Calla the television remote. “See if you can find us something else to watch.”

Left alone in the living room, she begins to channel surf past the evening news, a paper-towel commercial, a Hispanic soap opera, more evening news . . .

A stirring of uneasiness creeps over her again as snatches of her dream begin to filter back into her mind.

She finds herself glancing furtively around the room.

A sad-eyed spirit child she’s seen around before is off in the corner, but that’s not really a concern—not at the moment, anyway. She’s not worried about dead people right now. Just live ones.

She looks at the windows to make sure Darrin Yates isn’t out there in the night, peering in at her.

Impossible to tell in the glare of lamplight on the glass.

But I feel like he’s around here again. Watching me.

She shudders. Maybe he really is.

Calla tosses aside the remote, gets up, and closes the curtains.

There. That’s a little better.

At least now if he’s out there he can’t—

Turning back to the television, she gapes at the onscreen image of a white-haired woman with gold-rimmed glasses on a chain.

Calla recognizes her instantly.

Betty!

She’s alive and well, obviously, and standing in front of a low redbrick house with dormered windows on the second floor.

“Oh my God.” Calla fumbles for the remote and turns up the volume to better hear the newscaster’s voice-over.

“. . . and that was when Fredonia resident Elizabeth Owens discovered the theft from her home of several old stock certificates valued at close to seven figures.”

The chicken soup is churning in Calla’s stomach.

“They were left to me by my late husband,” the elderly woman informs the on-the-scene reporter, “and they were hidden behind a painting I’ve had on the wall for years.”

The scene changes to an interior shot: the reporter indicating the underside of a large wooden frame. “The certificates were cleverly concealed in a secret compartment behind the backing of this framed art. Ms. Owens believes the thief must have stumbled across them by accident, as she never told a living soul where they were hidden—or, for that matter, that she was in possession of the valuable stock.”

“Only one living soul even knew I had the stock, and he did know that it was hidden somewhere in my house, but I never told him where. I guess he somehow figured it out.”

Back to the voice-over. “That person is her current and estranged husband, Henry Owens, who met the longtime widow on a Caribbean cruise last spring and married her after a whirlwind courtship.”

“I thought Henry was too good to be true,” Betty’s voice warbles, and her eyes are sorrowful. “I guess he was.”

The reporter turns over the frame to reveal the other side.