Nine Lives (Lily Dale Mystery #1)(82)

“Neither. She isn’t heavyset—but I wouldn’t say athletic, either.”

Eyeing his muscular body, she considers his perspective. A man as fit as he is might not describe very many people as athletic—not even a fifty-something woman who jogs most mornings.

With a stab of sorrow, she says, “I think I know who it is.”

Eleanor.

He writes down the woman’s name.

“When was the last time you saw her?”

She thinks back. “Last night, around dinner time, when she and her husband left for the message service.”

“So she’s here with her husband? What’s his name?”

He writes it down and then asks Bella when she last saw Steve.

“This morning.” She hesitates, not sure whether to mention what had happened to him while he was out running.

Before she can decide, the officer asks again about Eleanor—about where she might have been this morning and whether Steve had mentioned her.

“He said she was still sleeping.”

But Eleanor, too, runs in the mornings. What if she wasn’t there when Steve went upstairs after Luther left?

If she were missing, though, wouldn’t Steve have come looking for her?

He would . . . unless he hadn’t told the truth about having left her in bed this morning.

He hadn’t wanted to call the police.

Bella presses a hand to her forehead, wishing it could steady her whirling thoughts.

“Where is Mr. Pierson right now?” Lieutenant Grange asks.

“Last I knew, he was upstairs in his room, but I haven’t seen him in a few hours.”

“Mind if we go take a look?”

She shakes her head and forces herself to her feet. Max and Jiffy are so absorbed in their program again that they don’t even look up as Bella and Lieutenant Grange pass by on the way upstairs.

In her haste to answer the officer’s knock, Bella left the door to the Rose Room ajar. Beyond the threshold, she knows, Chance is tending to seven of her kittens, as the eighth goes hungry.

She’s counting on me.

Yes, just like Bella’s own mother had long ago asked Aunt Sophie to step in for her. It’s just what moms do—take care of other moms’ children when they can’t do it themselves.

Can’t—or just don’t, she thinks as she passes Grant’s closed door, thinking of him—and of Jiffy, too. And of Leona and Odelia and Odelia’s medium friend Ramona, all of whom have tended to the orphaned, abandoned, or wayward offspring of other women.

I guess it really does take a village.

Even Lily Dale, which is perhaps the oddest village in the world, is just like any other caring community when you look beyond its mystical fa?ade.

Bella leads the police officer down the hall to the Apple Room and steels herself as she knocks on the door. Hearing no movement on the other side, she turns to the officer. He holds up the key ring with a questioning look, and she nods.

Just as he’s about to insert it into the lock, the door opens.

Eleanor Pierson looks back at them with red-rimmed eyes that widen when she sees the police officer.

Hearing a gasp, Bella is uncertain whether it came from Eleanor or herself. Perhaps both.

She’s startled—albeit relieved—to see Eleanor.

Eleanor appears equally startled—and anything but relieved—to see a uniformed officer. She braces herself against the doorframe. “Did something happen to Steve?”

“No,” Bella says, laying a hand on the woman’s arm to steady her.

Nothing happened to Eleanor, either. So who is the woman barely clinging to life down by the lake?

“Are you Eleanor Pierson?” Lieutenant Grange asks.

“Yes. Is it Steve?” Did something happen to him?”

The police officer assures her that’s not why he’s here and asks where her husband is.

“He went to fill up the car with gas and get a few things from the store.”

Bella notices an open suitcase and a pile of clothing behind her on the bed. “Are you leaving?”

Eleanor’s gaze flicks to the police officer and then back to Bella.

She nods. “Our daughter called. She’s in labor. We have to get back to Boston.”

Bella would be certain she’s lying if she didn’t sound so earnest—and if she hadn’t mentioned just yesterday that their daughter is expecting their first grandchild. Besides, how could a fine, upstanding woman like Eleanor Pierson lie to a police officer?

But she does look upset, Bella realizes, as if she’s been crying.

Is it just because Steve told her what happened to him this morning, or has there since been another threat?

Should Bella bring up any of that here and now, in front of a police officer trying to identify a nearly drowned woman?

Can the victim be Helen Adabner after all? She, too, has short, dark hair. Maybe Lieutenant Grange interpreted heavyset to mean something more drastic. Helen Adabner isn’t morbidly obese; she’s just . . . pleasingly plump.

Or maybe the woman at the lake isn’t someone who’s even currently staying here.

“We’ll leave you to your packing, ma’am,” Lieutenant Grange tells Eleanor Pierson. “Have a safe trip.”

“Thank you.” She closes the door.

As Bella and the police officer step away, she hears, after a moment, the distinct click of the lock being turned.