Nine Lives (Lily Dale Mystery #1)(13)

She makes a mental note to ask him again later, though she suspects she already knows the answer. “Because she’s a cat.”

Max, too, has his own unique brand of logic.

Odelia wants to know where they found the animal, and Bella explains how Chance was perched in the road not far from the exit and refused to budge.

“I knew it!” Odelia nods triumphantly. “My guides were pointing me to the south. In her condition, I’m impressed that Chance the Cat could travel that far in . . . let’s see, she’s been missing for over a week now.”

“Your guides?”

“Spirit guides,” Odelia cheerfully tells Bella over another thunderous boom and rain drumming on the porch roof. “I’m with the Assembly . . . you know, a psychic medium.”

“You’re psychic? Like a cow?” That comes from Max; Bella is at a sudden loss for words.

“A cow? Young man, I’ll have you know I’ve lost ten pounds since Christmas,” Odelia informs him with a grin.

“What?” Max looks at Bella.

Before she can explain, Odelia says, “I’m guessing you’ve never met a psychic medium before. Or even a psychic large medium—that’s my new dress size.”

“What’s a psychic large medium?”

“Forget the large,” Odelia grins at him. “A psychic medium is an intuitive, which means,” she adds before he can ask the next question, “that I tune into the energy all around us in order to interpret the past, present, and future.”

After allowing a moment to let that settle, she gives a case-closed nod and moves on—conversationally and physically.

Leading them toward the back of the small house, she says, “I’m impressed that you went out of your way to bring Chance the Cat back where she belongs. Leona will be so pleased.”

Hmm . . . that’s interesting. Bella had assumed Leona had abandoned the cat. Everything about this conversation—and this woman and this place—is bizarre. So many questions fill her head that she can barely manage to articulate even one: “So Leona . . . she’s . . . um, she didn’t . . . um, where, exactly, is she?”

“She’s on the Other Side.” In the cluttered, fragrant kitchen, Odelia lifts the lid from a simmering pot on the stove.

“You mean she’s dead? A ghost?”

In response to Bella’s blurted query and Max’s raised eyebrows, Odelia turns to offer a faint smile. “We prefer to say in Spirit.”

We as in Odelia and the late Leona? We as in Odelia and Gert the cat? Or does she simply refer to herself using the royal we?

It’s hard to tell. Odelia is undeniably dotty, yet she radiates such good-natured warmth that Bella finds herself smiling back despite what should be a somber topic.

But Odelia seems perfectly chipper as she stirs whatever’s in the steaming pot and explains that her elderly neighbor transitioned to the spirit world more than a week ago, the same day the cat went missing.

“She’s been so restless, the poor dear, and I know it’s because she was worried about what had become of the cat. Leona really loved her.” Odelia lifts the spoon to her lips and tastes the red, saucy concoction, tilting her head as if contemplating the flavor.

“What is that?” Max asks.

“Chili.” She opens a glass canister on the countertop and takes a handful of whatever’s inside, tosses it into the pot, and resumes stirring.

“What did you put in there?”

“Chocolate chips, what else?” she replies with a grin.

“In chili?” Bella raises her eyebrows.

“Sure. I can’t think of many things that don’t taste better with chocolate chips, can you?”

A few. Chili is one of them, Bella decides with a smile, but it fades when Max asks Odelia yet another question: “How did she die?”

“Leona? She had an accident.”

“Was she a klutz, too?”

“I suppose we all have our moments, don’t we?” Odelia says with a touch of wistfulness, setting the spoon aside and covering the pot with a decisive clatter.

“What about Chance the Cat? Who’s going to take care of her? And her babies, when she has them?”

“I’ll have to find a new home for them. Leona only has one relative, and I’m planning to ask him to take them, but he’s not very fond of animals—which is mutual,” she adds with a meaningful nod at Bella.

“Why don’t you keep Chance the Cat yourself?” Max wants to know.

“Because my Gert doesn’t do well with other cats here.”

“But she’s her grandma!”

“Cats aren’t like humans,” Odelia says. “Once family members have lived apart, they don’t take to each other very easily. They’re very territorial and set in their ways.”

Bella can’t help but think of her mother-in-law. Sam had always claimed she’d been different when he was growing up, before widowhood, age, and isolation had hardened her. She never got over his moving away and held out hope for years that he’d come back home. That hope had been crushed when he married Bella.

“I’d keep her if I could,” Odelia goes on. “I don’t suppose you’d like to—”

“We can’t,” Bella cuts in quickly, before Odelia gives Max any ideas. “We’re—”