Nine Lives (Lily Dale Mystery #1)(71)



She’s not sure whether she was afraid he’d say that or afraid that he wouldn’t.

She doesn’t have the energy for this right now. But she sits at the table with them and watches Luther take out a notebook and pen, in detective mode again.

“Okay. Tell me exactly what happened.”

“I’m not sure, exactly.” Steve hesitates, both hands cupped around his coffee as if to warm or steady them. “It doesn’t make any sense at all. I keep going over it in my mind, and now . . . I don’t know what to think.”

“Okay. Just give me the details. Don’t worry about why it might have happened or question whether it did happen. Just tell me what you remember.”

Steve explains that he was out running along the shoulder of Bachellor Hill Road, on his way back from circling Bear Lake, which lies a few miles west of here. He describes how a car came up behind him, much too close to him, and he managed to jump out of the way just before he was sideswiped.

“Maybe the driver didn’t see you?”

“That’s what I figured. The sun hadn’t been up for long, and it was in my eyes, so it must have been in his, too.”

“So it was a man driving?”

“I couldn’t tell.”

Luther makes a note. “Did you get a description of the car? Make, model, color, plate?”

“No.”

“But it was a car? Not an SUV or a truck, something like that?”

“No.” Pause. “I’m not sure. It happened so fast.”

“And you couldn’t see the driver at all?”

“Not at all. Like I said, the sun was glaring.”

“And what time was this?”

Steve guesses it must have been around six thirty. He’d left the house, he says, just after five.

Bella remembers the footsteps she’d heard in the hall before she stubbed her toe . . . or was it after?

Everything is muddled in her sleep-deprived brain.

But there were footsteps, definitely. She’d thought she’d heard a cry, too, and then a thud.

What time would that have occurred?

Her night had been neatly segmented into time slots for Spidey’s feedings, but it’s all fuzzy now.

Was it at two?

No.

Four, probably. After the four o’clock feeding. She remembers thinking the footsteps belonged to one of the guests and not caring that she wasn’t downstairs to put on the coffee at that hour.

“What time did you get up?” she asks Steve Pierson.

“About a quarter to five. Maybe closer to ten of.”

She’d put the kitten back and returned to bed long before that. She’d heard the footsteps earlier. And the cry, the thud . . .

If she’d heard those things at all. Maybe she’d been dreaming. Her dreams here have been so vivid. Leona in the mirror, the wind chimes . . .

Her eyes are burning. She closes them and rubs them.

Is it all in my head? Is this place getting to me? Is the exhaustion getting to me?

“After the car drove away, I started running again,” Steve tells Luther. “But the next thing I knew . . . it was back. It was coming straight at me from the opposite direction. And then it swerved. It crossed over the line.”

Just as Grant did last night when he was driving Bella and Max to the vet with the cat and kittens. Grant swerved around the potholes. He crossed over the line.

“So the car swerved to miss you? Is that what you mean?”

“No,” Steve says flatly. “It swerved to hit me. I dove off the road into the bushes. I guess that’s how I got scratched up.”

“Let me get this straight.” Luther puts down the pen and rests his chin on his fist. “A car passed you from behind, missed you, turned around immediately, came back, and aimed right at you?”

“Yes.”

Luther’s eyes briefly connect with Bella’s. Clearly, he doesn’t like this.

Yeah, well . . . join the club.

“Is there anyone you can think of who might have reason to harm you?” he asks Steve.

“You mean besides the president of the teacher’s union back home?” Steve’s staccato laugh is met by Luther’s questioning brow.

“Look, Detective, I’m a school superintendent. There’s a lot of strife between the union, the administration, and the board. I’ve made a few enemies, I’m sure.”

“Has anyone ever threatened you?”

“Plenty of people have threatened to have me fired.”

“How recently?”

“Recently. In fact, just last week.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m not bowing to pressure from people who don’t believe in diverting funding from other areas of the budget for our drama program. I’ve been involved in plenty of theatrical productions over the years, so yes, I’m a strong advocate for arts education. Stronger than most, maybe. But trust me—no one has ever tried to run me over because of that, and even if they wanted to, I can’t imagine how they’d find me here.”

“In Lily Dale?”

Steve nods.

Luther picks up his pen again. “So you didn’t mention to anyone back home where you were headed on vacation?”

“Are you kidding?” He shakes his head. “No way. I told them I was going to Niagara Falls—which we did do, on the way here.”

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