Discovering (Lily Dale #4)(55)

“That’s a chance we’ll have to take. Are you game?”

Calla nods slowly. “I’m game.”





TWENTY-FIVE

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Friday, October 12

7 p.m.

The address Odelia wrote down for Calla and her father is located in a hilly, working-class neighborhood on the south side of Pittsburgh.

The two-story white house itself is pretty basic— two windows upstairs, two down, and a door in the middle. No porch, ornate woodwork, or flower garden like the ones in Lily Dale. In fact, the only thing this one has in common with the cottages there—besides being over a century old— is that it could use a paint job.

As Calla and her father head up the front walk in the dark, she fights the urge to run back to the car. They rehearsed what they’re going to say. Dad is going to do most of the talking— or all of it, if she can’t find her voice.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”he asks her as they climb the steps.

No. But she sees a curtain part at the window beside the door.

Too late to back out now.

“I’m sure.”

He rings the bell, and Calla braces herself to meet her grandfather.

But it’s a woman who turns on the outside light and answers the door.

She’s stocky, with gray hair and a tired, weathered face.

“Are you Mrs. Lauder?”Dad asks.

“Yes.”

“Is Jack at home?”

“Yes.”

“Can we please speak to him?”

“About what?”

“About . . .”

Dad hesitates. He doesn’t want to say anything about Jack having a daughter, Calla realizes. Just in case his wife doesn’t know .

“Tell him it’s about Lily Dale.”

“Lily Dale,”the woman repeats. She looks at Calla. “And that’s you?”

“Um . . . what?”

“You’re Lily Dale?”

Oh! The woman thinks it’s a person’s name, not a place. Which means Jack, just like Mom, wanted to put his life there behind him when he left, not even telling his spouse about it.

Dad answers for Calla. “No, her name is Calla, and I’m Jeff.”

The woman nods and closes the door, saying, “Wait here.”

Calla hears the click of the lock inside and looks at her father.

“You can’t be too careful these days,”he tells her.

Less than a minute later, the door opens again.

This time, a man is standing on the threshold.

Calla’s grandfather.

Knowing Odelia as she does, she never pictured Jack Lauder to be quite so . . . elderly.

He’s of medium height but slightly stooped over. He has very little hair, but what’s there is pure white. His face was once handsome, but is now trenched with deep wrinkles.

“I’m Jack Lauder,”he tells Dad, and shifts his eyes— hazel, and startlingly familiar—to Calla.

She sees his bushy white eyebrows shoot up, sees the unmistakable flash of realization in his eyes. But he says nothing more.

“I’m Jeff Delaney, and this is my daughter, Calla.”

The old man nods.

“We came here from Lily Dale, New York.”

Another nod.

Then, “How did you find me?”

Dad hesitates. “Is your wife . . . ?”

“She’s in the kitchen.”He steps outside and pulls the door closed behind him.

“We found you through Odelia, your . . .”

“Ex-wife.”He doesn’t ask how Odelia found him. But then, he knows her. Maybe he’s not surprised.

“Yes, your ex-wife. And my mother-in- law.”

The man looks from Dad to Calla, as if calculating the connection.

Then, softly, he says, “You’re Stephanie’s daughter.”

For the first time, she manages to speak. “Yes.”

“You look like her.”He swallows hard. “And Stephanie? Where is she?”

Calla and her father look at each other.

“She passed away,”Dad tells Jack Lauder gently. “I’m sorry.”

A sound comes out of the man— not a moan, not a sigh, not a sob, but some combination of the three, and it sends chills down Calla’s spine.

“I—we—thought you should know .”

Jack Lauder nods sadly and bends his head, gingerly lowering himself onto the step.

Somewhere in the distance, sirens wail and a fire truck honks its guttural horn. A gust of wind kicks dry leaves against the concrete steps.

Yet again, Calla remembers what Ramona said about the bond between parent and child.

Maybe that’s only true when the parents are psychic. Maybe Mom’s father had no idea that she was no longer on this earth.

Seeing him wipe a tear from his eye, Calla finds that her sympathy for him is tainted by a flicker of anger.

“Why did you leave?”she hears a voice ask— and realizes, to her shock, that it’s her own. She didn’t mean to bring that up, especially at this moment, but she can’t seem to help it. She’s been waiting a long time to find out the answer to that question.

Jack looks up. “Why did I leave?”

The words seem to hang heavily in the air.