Nine Lives (Lily Dale Mystery #1)(26)

But around here, who isn’t? Bella thinks, having overheard Odelia having a conversation with an invisible companion as she folded towels in the tiny laundry room off the kitchen while Bella made the sandwiches.

“I’m going to pay you,” Odelia says firmly. “It’s what Leona would want. Grant—if I could ever manage to get ahold of him—would agree. Besides, you do need the money.”

Bella doesn’t bother to argue with that or ask how she knows. Having spent so much time with chatty Max, Odelia is undoubtedly privy to their dire financial status and more.

“All right,” she agrees. It does seem like a win-win prospect. How else would she possibly cover the car repair costs?

“Wonderful.” Odelia leans back in her chair, smiling. “And you can use Leona’s car, too, while you’re here, as long as you know how to drive a stick shift.”

“I don’t.”

“I can teach you, but until you learn, you can use my car. It’s a bit of a jalopy, but at least it’ll get you where you need to go.”

She’s making it sound as though this is long term. Bella wants to tell her they don’t need to bother with stick shift driving lessons, but she can’t figure out how to say it in a polite way.

“What if Grant hasn’t shown up before I have to leave?” she asks instead, watching a monarch butterfly hovering above a petunia bed that could stand to be weeded.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

“Where does he live?”

“Where doesn’t he live?” As always, Odelia’s tone takes on an undercurrent of disapproval when discussing Grant Everard. “He’s a bit of a vagabond.”

Yeah, well, so are we right now, Bella thinks. The difference is that Grant has a job—he’s a venture capitalist, according to Odelia. He was away at a prestigious college when Leona first moved here fifteen years ago and hasn’t visited much since.

She’s in the midst of telling Bella that it took her a couple of days to track down Grant to let him know about Leona’s passing when Bella notices that Max and Jiffy are on the move. They’re heading from the tree toward the water’s edge—and the small wooden pier where Leona had her tragic accident. The cat has roused herself and is trailing along after them.

Bella sets aside her glass and plate, interrupting Odelia to call, “Guys! No! That’s not a safe place to be!”

“We won’t step in the goose poop. I just wanted to show Max something,” Jiffy returns cheerfully.

Hardly worried about goose poop, Bella hurries toward them, weaving around the obstacle course on the grass.

The yard, like many around here, is heavily ornamented. There’s plenty of outdoor furniture, along with a sundial, a couple of birdbaths, a birdhouse on a pole, and vine-covered trellises and arbors. Glass sun catchers and wind chimes dangle from tree branches and pinwheels randomly dot the grass—all motionless on this still afternoon.

Reaching the boys, Bella puts a hand on each of their shoulders before they can set foot on the pier.

In bright sunshine, there’s nothing ominous about the timeworn wood structure jutting into calm, sparkly water. A small rowboat is tied to one of the two pilings that rise above the plank walkway.

That’s where Leona hit her head.

An icy chill sweeps over Bella as she pictures the elderly woman out here alone in the dead of a stormy night.

“It was right there,” Jiffy tells Max, pointing. “That’s where he threw it.”

“How can we get it?”

“Can you swim?”

“No!” Bella says sharply.

“I can swim, Mommy,” protests Max, who learned to semi-dog-paddle courtesy of lessons last summer at day camp. He squirms out from beneath her grasp, as does Jiffy, who shields his eyes with his hand, gazing out at the water.

“How long can you hold your breath?” he asks her son. “Because, by the way, we have to dig under the water.”

“I’m not sure. A long time.”

“Like five minutes?”

“Probably.”

“What are you two talking about, exactly?” Bella asks Jiffy as the cat sniffs the grass at the edge of the pier. It is, indeed, dotted with droppings courtesy of a small flock of geese floating on the water.

“Treasure,” Jiffy says, as if that explains everything.

“Where? In the lake?”

He nods vigorously. “It’s the sunken kind. And you have to hold your breath for, like, ten minutes to get it. I can do that, by the way. But I don’t know about Max.”

“I can! I can hold it even longer, by the way,” he adds, inserting Jiffy’s favorite catchphrase.

“Nobody can do that.”

Bella, who—by the way—feels as though she’s been holding her own breath for months, watches her son inhale deeply. Eyes closed, cheeks puffed out, he begins silently counting on his fingers.

“What’s going on?” Odelia has limped over, huffing a little.

“The other night, in the middle of the night, I saw a pirate drop a big heavy treasure chest into the lake. Me and Max want to get it.”

Determined to nip that plan in the bud, Bella says, “It was probably just a dream. Max has exciting dreams like that sometimes, right, Max?”