Nine Lives (Lily Dale Mystery #1)(70)

Only from superficial scratches, but still . . .

Someone tried to kill him.

Someone might have killed Leona.

Someone . . . someone . . .

Who?

Her initial—and dutiful—suggestion was that Steve call the police.

“Not just yet,” he said. “I keep thinking I might have been wrong about what happened . . . but I don’t think so. I just need to pull myself together so that I can think things through.”

She’d persuaded Steve to allow her to summon Luther instead, explaining that he’s a retired detective friend who stops to check on things now that Leona is gone.

It’s a stretch but not an outright lie.

She’d called him from upstairs, having gone up to retrieve his business card. With Steve well out of earshot—and Max still snoring in the bed—she hurriedly explained the situation.

“I’m on my way,” he said immediately.

Waiting for him, Bella paces the kitchen, trying to stay busy. She cuts up fruit and sets out utensils, cups, and plates for breakfast. Then she sets out even more utensils, cups, and plates—tall stacks of plates and too many cups nested in crazily tilting towers. One of them slips out of her hand, still tender from yesterday’s burn, and breaks on the floor.

She finds a broom and dustpan. Sweeping up the shards, she remembers the vase she broke in her kitchen back in Bedford on the last day. The day she found a pregnant mackerel tabby with a red collar just sitting on her back step.

There are no coincidences.

Darn Odelia. Odelia and her . . . her hidden meanings.

There’s a reason for everything.

Bella cuts her finger on a razor sharp triangle of broken pottery. “Ouch.”

“Are you okay?” Still brooding at the table, Steve looks up in concern.

“Yes.”

No.

Now they’re both bleeding.

There are no coincidences.

The wound drips bright-red splotches into the white porcelain sink. She turns on the tap, running water over her finger, watching it dilute the blood. It fleetingly transforms into that brilliant beautiful color she’s always loved, halfway between red and pink, like the wallpaper in the Rose Room, like . . .

Sushi sky.

The blood fades to pink and then translucent, swirled down the drain.

It lasts only a few seconds before it disappears.

Sam’s voice.

Oh, Sam. What am I doing here?

She turns off the water, wraps her finger in a paper towel, and squeezes it tightly.

Everything happens for a reason.

Sam’s voice? Or Odelia’s?

Behind her, Steve is deep in thought, barely sipping the coffee she poured for him.

He said someone tried to kill him.

No coincidences.

There’s a blast of sound, and Bella lets out a little scream as if someone has jumped out at her.

Oh.

The doorbell.

“That’s Luther,” she tells Steve, and hurries to the hall.

There he is, standing on the front porch. Sturdy, grounded, a welcome flash of everything’s going to be okay . . .

Except that maybe it isn’t.

“I had a court reserved for seven thirty.” Luther gestures down at the tennis whites he’s wearing. “You caught me on my way out the door.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. You did the right thing, calling me. Where’s Mister . . . Pierson, is it?”

“Yes. Stephen Pierson. He’s in the kitchen.”

Stepping over the threshold, he asks in a low voice, “You didn’t mention Leona?”

“No.”

“Is anyone else around?”

“Not yet. It’s still pretty early.” She looks toward the stairway. It’s empty, and all is silent above. Pretty soon, though, they’ll be stirring.

She’d asked Steve if he wanted to go wake Eleanor or if he wanted her to do it. He did not.

“She’ll just get nervous,” he said.

Yeah. That happens. Most women get nervous when someone tries to kill their husband.

She leads Luther to the kitchen. Seeing him, Steve looks wobbly as he rises from his chair.

“You don’t have to get up,” Luther says, but Steve obviously isn’t the kind of man who fails to stand and shake hands upon being introduced. Nor, she guesses, is Luther the kind of man who wouldn’t expect him to, no matter what he says.

They’re gentlemen, both of them. But one is in pristine tennis whites and quite used to this kind of thing, while the other is jittery, streaked with blood and sweat, and utterly out of his element.

After shaking Luther’s hand, Steve sinks into the chair again.

Bella refills his cup with coffee, pours one for Luther, and finally refills her own.

“What happened to your hand?” Luther asks Bella, seeing the cone of paper towel, now stained with blood. “And your leg?” he adds, looking down and then up at her face in concern.

“Nothing,” she says, suddenly conscious of the ache in her stubbed pinky toe. “I mean, I’m just . . . accident prone.”

As soon as the words leave her mouth, she regrets the phrasing. Her own accidents really are accidents, thank goodness.

“Should I go into the other room?” she asks Luther.

“No, you should stay.”