Nine Lives (Lily Dale Mystery #1)(62)

Supposedly? So you don’t believe him?

She isn’t sure that she doesn’t . . .

She just wishes she were sure that she does.

Her thoughts are muddled, and he seems lost in his own. He hasn’t spoken much, other than to ask Max how the kitten is holding up.

Each time, the answer is the same: “He’s sick. He’s crying. Can you go faster?”

Of course he can. Bella has a feeling Grant would drive too fast even without an endangered newborn kitten on board.

Suddenly, though, he slows the car and makes a sharp left turn off the highway.

Startled by the abrupt move, she looks down at the map on her phone. They’ve just veered off course.

“What are you doing?” she asks, and her voice sounds too high-pitched. There goes that jackhammer in her chest again.

“I’m driving the car. What are you doing? Besides holding on for dear life and pressing your imaginary brake, I mean.”

Under drastically different circumstances, that might have struck her as amusing. Right now, she’s in no mood for banter.

“You were supposed to stay on the highway.”

“I’m taking a shortcut. It’ll shave off a few minutes. Trust me.”

She doesn’t.

I don’t like this. Not at all.

The winding road, bordered closely by dense woods, is paved, but so pothole ridden that Grant has to weave into the other lane to miss one, and then another.

There’s no oncoming traffic, yet she finds herself white knuckled. It isn’t just the harrowing car ride, it’s . . .

It’s him.

What if . . .

Come on. How can you think such a thing?

Is it just because he’s wearing a dark hoodie?

No. But that doesn’t help matters.

Lots of people wear them, though. She herself had one on the other night. Sam’s hoodie.

The weight that’s constricted her chest for months has transformed into a crushing boulder, making it all but impossible for her to breathe.

How long can you hold your breath? Jiffy Arden had asked Max just the other day, outside in the sunshine. How long?

What she wouldn’t give right now to be able to breathe again, safely back home in Bedford again with Sam and Max.

Sam is gone. Home is gone. Safe is gone.

And I am slowly suffocating.

And the answer to Jiffy’s question is forever.

This is how it will always be: holding her breath, careening through the night, feeling helpless and afraid.

Right now, it’s as if she’s being tailgated by death itself, a stranger at the wheel and her frightened son in the backseat with a new mama cat and fragile babies, one of them barely clinging to life.

But what if . . .

Again Grant swerves, avoiding another gaping pothole, and her brain does the same to evade the awful thought. But it looms like glaring headlights on a blind curve, slamming her like an eighteen-wheeler.

What if he isn’t who he claims to be?

There it is: the possibility that, when it first fluttered into her consciousness, had seemed as outrageous as . . . as believing in ghosts, fairies, or murderous pirates, for that matter.

Leona is dead.

What if he’s just some . . . some strange man, posing as her next of kin?

As far as she knows, he’s had no contact with anyone in the Dale other than her until the moment he emerged from his room tonight. Helen—who’s been here many times before—didn’t recognize him.

Why would she, though? She’s never met him before.

Thank goodness her inner voice of reason is persistent. Almost as persistent as the absurdly paranoid part of her that conjured this idea in the first place.

Odelia herself mentioned that Grant comes and goes infrequently. It’s possible that he’s never crossed paths before with the Adabners or some of the other guests, but most likely, some of them have met Leona’s “nephew” Grant. And certainly, Odelia would immediately know he’s an imposter.

But she hasn’t seen him yet. No one has.

Was he really sleeping behind closed doors? Or was he . . . hiding?

Bella fights back the urge to protest as he transports them deeper and deeper into the woods.

What if she’s right about him?

Then it’s better not to let on that she’s suspicious, isn’t it? Better to go along with this shortcut charade and wait for an opportunity to make an escape.

Right. Just bolt on the spur of the moment—with a kid, a cat, and eight kittens in tow.

That’s not going to happen. Bella has to focus on the matter at hand: getting help for poor little Spider. She has to believe, for now, anyway, that Grant really is Grant. And that he’s a good Samaritan rushing to save an innocent little life.

He brakes again and makes a right onto a road she didn’t even notice was looming off to the side. So how did he?

He makes a left, and then another right, and they’re driving deeper and deeper into dense woods, and then . . .

“There it is!” Max shouts, pointing to a sign. “That’s it! Look, Mom!”

Lakeview Animal Hospital and Rescue



It’s on the opposite side of the road this time; they came from a different direction. It was, indeed, faster. Much faster. The drive that had taken Bella nearly half an hour on that first night took about fifteen minutes, tops.