Nine Lives (Lily Dale Mystery #1)(67)

At least, that’s what he’d claimed. Maybe he was embellishing for Max’s sake, or maybe every word of his story is true. Maybe he really is a venture capitalist with a penchant for adventure and a soft spot for kids, kittens, and his foster mother.

If not, well then at least she’s no longer convinced, or even speculating, that he’s a murderous pirate in a hoodie. She’s too rational—or maybe just too busy, not to mention crippled by mind-numbing fatigue—to entertain outlandish notions.

She settles the sated Spidey back into the crook of his mother’s arm and sets aside the feeding equipment on the dresser beside the stack of papers she’d found scattered on the floor this afternoon—make that yesterday afternoon. She never did have a chance to ask Max about them. Too much has gone on.

I’ll ask him tomorrow—I mean today, she thinks as she climbs back into bed and resets the alarm for six o’clock.

Just as her eyes drift closed, she hears stealthy footsteps moving along the hall and then down the stairs.

One of the guests, no doubt. Maybe Steve Pierson, the early riser. For a moment, she wonders if she should go brew the coffee. Or at least investigate.

But she can’t seem to muster the energy to open her eyes, much less lift her head from the pillow and her body from the bed.

It isn’t long before sleep overtakes her, again bringing the wind chimes’ foreboding knell and Leona’s haunted face staring back at her in the bathroom mirror.

*

Too soon, Bella is once again startled awake. But this time, it isn’t the alarm that jars her from the familiar dream.

It’s a shrill, distant little scream in the night.

She sits up in bed, heart pounding.

Beside her in the dark, Max is snoring softly.

The cry must have come from the box of kittens. She must have slept through Spidey’s next feeding.

No—according to the bedside clock, she’s only been asleep for ten or fifteen minutes.

Straining her ears, she can hear muffled feline mews, but the sound that woke her was different.

She must have been dreaming.

Yes, that’s right. She was. As she settles back against the pillow, it comes back to her—the recurring dream about Leona in the bathroom on the windy night right before she drowned in the lake.

She never gets to that point in the dream. It always cuts off right there in the bathroom, with the eerie wind chimes becoming louder and increasingly discordant. Somehow, she senses what’s coming.

She—as in Leona.

Why does Bella morph into Leona in her dream? Why does she see things through the eyes of a woman she never met and feel whatever Leona was feeling that night?

She was so uneasy. Frightened, even.

Something must have lured her out into the storm to the water—or someone dragged her or carried her. She never would have ventured out on her own.

You don’t know that, though. It was just a dream. You can’t really think—

The thought is curtailed by a dull thud from somewhere below.

This time, it wasn’t a dream.

For a long time, Bella listens for something more.

She hears nothing at all.

Logic tells her that it was just one of the guests moving around downstairs. A deep yawn overtakes her. And then another.

She rolls over, deciding she’d better get some sleep while she still can.

*

Beyond the lace curtains, the sun is coming up at last. Bella can hear birds chirping beyond the screen as she pulls a T-shirt over her head.

After forcing herself out of bed for baby Spidey’s six o’clock feeding, she’d taken a quick, bracingly cold shower in an effort to revive herself and perhaps appear somewhat presentable.

It hasn’t quite done the trick on either count.

Maybe some coffee will help.

Coffee and a hairbrush.

Looking into the bureau mirror, brushing the tangles out of her damp hair, she again remembers her dream.

But just like yesterday, the morning light brings reassurance. It seems silly to have lost even a moment’s sleep fretting about something so insubstantial.

A dream is just a dream. It isn’t evidence of foul play—regardless of what the medium next door might have to say about that.

Not even if the medium next door had precisely the same dream?

Choosing to ignore that, she reminds herself that there’s no legitimate reason to conclude that Leona’s demise was anything more than an accident.

You have more than enough real problems to waste any more time worrying about imaginary ones.

She sets aside the brush and finds the sheaf of papers she’d picked up from the floor. It’s yet another violation of Leona’s privacy, but curiosity gets the best of her. Especially when she comprehends that she’s looking at a real estate contract.

Shuffling the pages into order, she sees that Leona sold a Wyoming dude ranch—also called Valley View Manor—to an upscale hotel chain. The contract is dated several years ago, and it lists an astronomical sum of money.

Which means that if Leona Gatto hung onto that money, she may have been worth far more than either Luther and Odelia seemed to realize—at least, according to yesterday’s conversation. Either Leona chose not to tell them, or they chose not to mention it to each other—or to Bella.

Again, paranoia mingles with suspicion, and her mind flies through the possibilities.