Nine Lives (Lily Dale Mystery #1)(57)

She waits until he’s back downstairs to exhale.

*

There’s no fiery orange sunset to light the sky tonight. The rain hasn’t let up all day, shrouding the lake in dense, gray mist.

For dinner, Bella and Max sit down to macaroni and cheese from a box, a far cry from the healthy, delicious dinners she used to cook for three in the cozy kitchen back in Bedford. Max picks at the gummy, orange pasta with his fork and leaves most of it untouched, still worried about Chance. There’s been no sign of her all day.

Earlier, when Bella went next door to collect Max from Odelia, she speculated that the cat is probably still holed up somewhere staying out of the rain.

“I’m sure she’ll be back when the sun comes out,” Odelia assured Max as she packed several dozen surprisingly delicious cookies into a tin to take back next door.

“But she’s going to have her babies today.”

“Is she? That’s nice.” Odelia seemed preoccupied, probably because Bella had just filled her in about Grant’s arrival.

She wanted to see him, but Bella told her he’d gone straight to bed.

“Well, tell him to come see me when he wakes up. I’m going to the message service, but I’ll be home after that.”

“He said he might sleep straight through until tomorrow.”

“Oh, really? Well, good for him.”

Now, other than Grant, still behind closed doors in the Train Room, the guests are all out at the evening message service. With Max fed—more or less—bathed, and moping in front of the parlor TV, Bella sits at the kitchen table and dials her mother-in-law’s number again.

Millicent answers on the third ring. One more, Bella knows, and it would have gone to voice mail. She also knows her mother-in-law always has the phone close at hand, always checks caller ID, and always answers on the first ring.

This time, she waited to pick up on purpose.

She’s making me sweat. Terrific.

“Jordan residence, Millicent speaking.”

“Hello, M—” She breaks off. If she calls her Millicent, she’ll be reprimanded. If she calls her Mother, she might gag. She settles on nothing, as usual. “It’s Isabella. How are you?”

There’s a pause. “Quite well. And you?”

“Quite well,” Bella replies, though it isn’t something she’d typically say, and it isn’t the truth.

“And Max?”

“He’s great.” Another lie, followed by another. “Listen, I’m sorry about what happened last night.”

There’s a long pause on the other end of the line.

Then Millicent sighs deeply. “Lashing out at me that way—I just don’t know what got into you, Isabella.”

I do, she thinks, biting her lip. Common sense.

Millicent made her feel completely reckless and incompetent, as if it was her own fault the car broke down.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Bella knows that if she’d had the car serviced, that might not have happened. She couldn’t have it serviced, though, because she could barely afford gasoline, and the only reason she was driving halfway across the country in it was because she had nowhere else to go . . .

But now you do.

The thought flits into her head, and she pushes it right back out again.

No, she doesn’t. She has Millicent and Chicago. That’s all.

“I don’t know what got into me either. I guess I was just frazzled and a little overwhelmed.”

“All I was trying to explain to you is that a little foresight can go a long way.”

Bella grits her teeth, staring at the gloomy dusk beyond the rain-spattered window.

“People who learn to take care of themselves can take care of others.”

Did Millicent really just say that?

“I do take care of myself,” she says tightly. “And my son.”

“Well of course you’re making an effort, and it isn’t that I mind helping, but I just want you to be aware that if you had just—”

“Mom!” Max shouts from the parlor.

“I have to go!” she blurts into the phone, hanging up and tossing it aside.

“Max?” she calls, hurrying toward the front of the house. “Are you okay?”

“I am, but . . . look.”

Reaching the parlor, she sees him pointing at the open bay windows above the cushioned bench.

Beyond the screen, flooded in porch light, Chance the Cat is looking in, a wee newborn kitten dangling from her mouth.





Chapter Thirteen


Max hurries to open the door as Bella grabs a couple of towels from the laundry room. Spying a small wooden crate that holds a stack of tied newspapers waiting to be recycled, she hastily tosses the papers aside. Returning to the front hall, she sets the towel-lined crate on the floor just in time for Chance to drop in the kitten.

It’s a fragile creature, no larger than Max’s hand. It has straggly gray-and-black-ticked fur like its mother, a stub of a tail, and a rosy nose and paw pads. Its eyes are sealed tightly, ears closed and flattened to its head, and still-useless limbs splayed. It shimmies awkwardly on its belly, emitting a faint, high-pitched mew.

“What’s wrong with it?” Max asks.

Bella has to swallow a hot surge of emotion before she can find her voice. “Nothing. Nothing at all. It’s just a new baby. It can’t see or hear or walk yet. It can’t do anything without its mommy.”