Nine Lives (Lily Dale Mystery #1)(54)

“Absolutely not. Odelia’s been right about this kind of thing before. But she’s also been wrong.” He chuckles a little bit, shaking his head. “Way wrong.”

“Do you think she’s wrong this time?”

“I hope so. All we have to go on is what she says might have happened—what she feels might have happened—and what a little boy thought he saw in the middle of the night.”

“A pirate. I get it. I’m a mom.” She nods her head toward all that’s visible now of Max beneath the console: the rubber soles of his sneakers.

That, of course, brings her back to thinking about the muddy footprint and the creaking floorboard.

There are logical—and yes, illogical—explanations. It’s all about how you connect the dots. She went from point A—seeing someone in the house last night—to point Z—that it might have been Leona’s murderer.

“Here . . .” Luther takes a business card out of his wallet and hands it to her. Luther Ragland, Private Investigator.

“I’m going to look into a few things as soon as I have time,” he says, “but in the meantime, holler if you need me.”

“Thank you.”

“Just please don’t mention any of this to anyone.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t.”

She unlocks the door for him, and he steps outside. Beyond the porch, the patchy lawn is pocked with marshy puddles, and the furrows worn along the road have become rushing streams that feed pothole ponds. A steady downpour falls from a contagiously monochromatic sky, washing away pretty pastels of the cottages, their vibrant garden blooms and verdant foliage.

“It’s still raining!” she exclaims.

Luther turns to shoot her an amused glance. “Better get used to it.”

“Oh, I’m used to rain. I just meant—it hasn’t really let up at all since I got out of bed. Usually, it comes and goes.”

“Not here.”

“You mean it rains like this a lot, then? Like . . . all day?”

He nods. “But most of the year, it just snows all day. All night.”

“Most of the year?”

“All right, half the year—but that’s no exaggeration. This is blizzard country, Bella. We’re buried in lake-effect snow from October ’til April. Sometimes, it starts in September and lasts into May.”

It snows back home in Bedford—though not as much as here, by any means. But Chicago is blizzard country, too. Sam told her about the legendary Great Lakes storms. She always thought it sounded like fun, being snowbound for days on end.

But with Sam.

Not with Millicent.

“I like rain,” she says with a shrug, thinking that the drab weather suits her mood. “Not that it matters, since I’m only here a few more days.”

“So you mentioned. A few times. Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”

“You forgot your umbrella by the back door. I’ll go grab it for you.”

“It’s okay. Leave it for Odelia. I’m parked right over there.” Pulling a key fob from his pocket, he aims it toward the parking lot across the street. A blue Jeep beeps and flashes its brake lights as he unlocks the doors remotely. “Oh, and Bella? Not an acceptable answer to my question, but I’ll take it. For now.”





Chapter Twelve


When Odelia invited Max to come back next door with her to bake her famous zucchini-jalape?o-lime cookies, Bella let him go. He was so worried about the still-missing cat that he needed a distraction.

But what about me?

All afternoon, try as she might to forget it, that muddy footprint has dogged her as effectively as if it had been an actual shoe—pair of shoes—with a relentless predator in them.

No matter how busy she’s been around the house washing towels and making beds, no matter how eager she is to accept Luther’s reassurance that there’s nothing to worry about, she can’t seem to forget that someone might have been eavesdropping at the study door.

Now, as she goes about her domestic duties, putting the guests’ rooms back in order, Bella keeps an eye out for the cat.

There was no sign of her in the Rose Room, where she found that the papers scattered on the floor had apparently fallen from a box Max must have knocked off the closet shelf. How the heck did he reach it? He must have climbed on a chair.

He could have fallen and been seriously hurt.

I’m a lousy mother, she decided as she haphazardly collected the papers on the bureau.

She’s had a couple of hours to reconsider.

Maybe she’s not a lousy mother. Just an overwhelmed one.

Thank goodness for Odelia. Lifting the blinds on the window of the St. Clair sisters’ third-floor, ballerina-themed guest room, Bella can see directly across the rainy yard into the kitchen next door. Her son is contentedly mixing cookie dough and appears to be chattering a mile a minute.

It’s too bad her own mom isn’t around or that Millicent isn’t more like Odelia.

Millicent—Bella really has to call her just as soon as she finishes this last room.

She’s not looking forward to the conversation, but she can’t keep putting it off.

She turns to change the sheets on the queen-sized bed. Lifting one of the plump feather pillows, she finds a racy best-selling romance novel tucked beneath. She wonders which of the elderly spinsters is reading it and whether she intended to keep it hidden even from her sister.