Nine Lives (Lily Dale Mystery #1)(41)

He might be, but you’re not, she reminded herself firmly.

Pushing Troy—and Millicent, too—from her mind, she went back to refilling coffee cups, replenishing pastries, cutting up more fruit, and chatting with her guests.

She’s pleasantly surprised to find that she actually enjoys her hostess duties. She certainly knows her way around a household, though she’s never shared one with more than one other adult. Her greatest concern had been the social aspect, but somehow, it isn’t difficult to find common ground even with this diverse bunch.

Jim and Kelly Tookler are about her age and live in the New York City suburbs not far from Bedford. Bonnie Barrington may be as straitlaced as they come, but like Bella, she grew up in the city itself. And Fritz Dunkle is another fellow teacher, a college English professor from Pennsylvania.

As she gets to know more about them, Bella finds herself wondering why they’re here, the ones who seem so . . .

Normal is the word that keeps coming to mind, but conventional might be a better one.

Most of the guests are—on the surface, anyway—people you’d expect to find anywhere else.

There are exceptions, of course.

Certainly the St. Clair sisters—who with little coaxing perform an off-key but well-choreographed espadrille soft-shoe rendition of “Tea for Two”—are as dotty as their sweaters. And the Adabners, who are on their way to an early morning ectoplasm workshop, are more than a little wacky.

But the rest come across as utterly grounded and logical, which Bella finds simultaneously reassuring and disquieting.

She didn’t have to wonder for very long how they all found their way to this strange little town.

Their paths stem from grief to new age curiosity to literary aspirations—Fritz is working on a book about Lily Dale. The others’ stories have a common thread, though. They’re searching. Searching for a connection, for healing, for answers . . .

Not unlike Bella herself.

Except I didn’t realize that I was searching, and I didn’t mean to find this place. It found me.

But Lily Dale, with its wide-eyed “the dead aren’t really dead” philosophy, is no more likely to lift her burden of sorrow than the glass of ice water she’s clasping will erase the angry red burn from her fingers. This serene little town and its residents are nothing more than a soothing, temporary balm—to her loneliness, not her grief.

“It’s strange to be sitting here without Leona,” Kelly Tookler muses, lingering with several others over yet another cup of coffee. She’s tall, pudgy, and blonde; her husband is the exact opposite. Bella has noticed that she frequently punctuates her comments—as she does now—with, “Right, Jim?”

“Right.” Jim barely glances up from his newspaper. He’s a man of few words, right being one of his favorites.

“Well, Bella is doing a fantastic job picking up where Leona left off,” Steve Pierson says pointedly, with a smile at Bella.

She smiles back. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

Steve is a nice man. As soon as he found out she’s an unemployed teacher, he asked if she’d consider moving to Boston—she said yes, because why not?—and he offered to look into openings in his district back home.

“Oh, I didn’t mean it that way,” Kelly says quickly. “I’m sorry, Bella. You’ve been great. It’s just that I miss Leona.”

“So do I,” Bonnie says. “She always guides me in the right direction and makes me see things I’ve managed to miss even when they’re right in front of me.”

“We all do that,” Eleanor says. “Sometimes I wonder if people like us are so focused on what we can’t see that we forget to see what we can see.”

There’s a pause as her words sink in.

Then Steve puts his arm around his wife and gives her shoulder a squeeze. “I see. I think.”

“You know what I mean,” she says with a laugh.

“We all know what you mean,” Bonnie tells her. “And Isabella, you’re doing such a great job with the guesthouse—who knows? Maybe you can pick up where Leona left off with everything else, too.”

“Wait, do you mean . . . ?” Bella falters. “I’m not . . . I’m just . . .”

“She’s not a medium. She’s just like the rest of us. Well, like us, anyway,” Eleanor modifies, indicating her husband and herself. “I know that most of you are involved in mediumship training classes.”

“I certainly am. And you are, too, aren’t you . . . ?” Bonnie asks, looking at whichever of the elderly St. Clair sisters hasn’t nodded off over her tea.

“Yes, we are,” she says, nudging her sister. “Aren’t we, Opal?”

She wakes with a start. “Aren’t we what?”

“Learning to become mediums?”

“Oh, yes. We intend to speak with Mother directly. There are certain things we need to ask her that are rather . . .”

“Delicate,” Ruby says. “And private.”

After waiting a moment or two to let that provocative tidbit settle, Kelly announces, “We’re taking a class too. Right, Jim?”

Nope—not this time. He says, “I haven’t decided yet.”

Until now, Fritz has been sitting at a corner table quietly listening. Stout and swarthy, with a receding hairline and a quiet voice, he’s not the kind of man who commands much attention in a crowd.