Discovering (Lily Dale #4)(39)

The coincidence was so startling that she found herself drawn from the sidewalk to the door, mesmerized.

Then the door opened, and a man dressed in black with a white collar stood smiling down at her.

“Down south, it wasn’t considered hot unless the thermometer broke a hundred,”Liz chatters on. You’re not used to this kind of heat, though, are you, Laura? Coming from Minnesota.”

For the hundredth time, Laura regrets the lie she told Liz Jessee when she moved in.

Why Minnesota?

Why not someplace she’s actually been?

Because you haven’t been anywhere that wasn’t too close to Geneseo for comfort, she reminds herself.

Anyway, she knows enough about Minnesota to realize the temperature doesn’t break a hundred degrees there on a regular basis.

“Back home,”she tells Liz, for good measure, “it isn’t considered cold unless the thermometer drops below zero.”

“Is that right. Well, it’s supposed to turn colder tonight— a front coming in from the west—but nowhere near zero. I’ll bet you’ll be homesick for that kind of weather when December rolls around, because we don’t get much snow around here. Unless you’re going to be going back home for the holidays?”

“I . . . I’m not sure.”

“Well, if you don’t, you’ll have to join Jim and me for Christmas dinner. We have a whole big crowd.”

“I couldn’t intrude on your family celebration.”

“Oh, it’s not family, other than us and our daughter. Every year, I invite people who have nowhere else to go.”

That pretty much describes me, Laura thinks. It describes her even before she landed in New York, alone.

“This year, we’ll have a couple of the other new neighbors, and some of Jim’s coworkers, and José who runs the bodega two blocks down on Ninth.”

Laura buys her New York Post at that bodega, when she can spare a couple of quarters. José must be the silent, smiling man who is always behind the counter. “Is he a friend of yours?”

“Sure. I mean, we don’t get together for lunch, or anything, but I consider him a friend. I love meeting new people. Someone once told me I could talk to a wall,”Liz confides cheerfully. “One of my favorite things to do is people-watch. You know—see a stranger and try to guess what his life is like by the way he dresses or talks, or by his body language. Know what I mean?”

“Yes.”

And people who like to people-watch make me ner vous.

All she wants is to live an anonymous life, and she came to the largest city on the East Coast hoping it would be possible.

She can’t find you now, though.

She’s in jail.

Unless . . .

What if, by some fluke, she’s out?

What if she follows the trail Laura tried so hard to cover and finds her way to New York City?

If she finds her way here, to this Hell’s Kitchen address, and asks Liz about Laura, Liz— who can talk to a wall—is bound to spill the details.

I can always ask her not to, if anyone comes looking for me.

But that might make her suspicious.

She might go to the police.

Then what?

Laura glances at her watch and tries to sound casual as she tells Liz, “I have to get going. I’ve got a new temp job and I’ve never been to this address before.”

“Oh, where is it? Maybe I can give you directions.”

“I’m pretty sure I know where I’m going.”

“But you don’t want to get lost,”Liz persists. “What’s the address?”

Laura consults the scrap of paper in her hand. “It’s Thirty Rocke feller Plaza.”





SIXTEEN

Lily Dale

Thursday, October 11

3:31 p.m.

“Wow, you’re moving in slow motion today,”Evangeline comments as she and Calla head toward home after school beneath a shared umbrella. “Are you feeling okay?”

“It’s not that, it’s just . . .”Calla hesitates, idly watching a pair of spirit orbs floating past them.

This morning, she had been planning to tell Evangeline on the way to school about the detectives. But then they started talking about Jacy, and about Cornell, and then Blue gave them a ride, and she didn’t get the chance.

Now that the meeting is imminent, she’s not sure she’s in the mood to discuss it.

Then again, Evangeline knows something is wrong.

And sometimes, she reminds herself, it helps to talk about things. Lately, her tendency has been to keep things bottled up until her emotions explode every which way. That’s not good for anyone.

And the Lily Dale gate is visible just ahead. Time is running out.

“So, remember how I told you that I had to talk to the police back in Florida about what happened?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, they’re here now, and they want to talk to me again. And I’m kind of scared.”

“About what they’re going to tell you?”

“About that,”she takes a deep breath, “and about what I’m going to tell them.”

Quickly, she fills in the details Evangeline didn’t already know about the baby, about Darrin’s murder and the connection to her mother’s.