Nine Lives (Lily Dale Mystery #1)(86)

But the scooters are right where they left them at the foot of the steps, helmets dangling from the handlebars.

The weather has, indeed, changed. Rain wasn’t in the forecast, but Odelia isn’t the only one around here who pays little attention to meteorologists. When Fritz Dunkle mentioned over breakfast that the newspaper’s weather report was calling for a picture-perfect Fourth of July weekend, several of the regulars shook their heads knowingly.

“The weather around here changes on a dime,” Kelly Tookler said. “There’s really no use trying to predict it.”

At the time, Bella found that ironic, since Kelly had just finished talking about a psychic development seminar she’d attended yesterday.

She darts a worried look up and down the lane, gloomy and deserted beneath the darkening sky.

Down in Friendship Park, the ambulance is gone and so are the paramedics, the bystanders, and the victim. Bonnie.

“Max!” she calls. “Max!”

Silence, and then a smattering of applause from the auditorium where the speaking event is still in progress. Across the way, the parking lot is still jammed with cars. A silver sedan with Massachusetts plates sits parked in front of the house.

She takes it all in, searching, but there’s no sign of Max.

Panic edges in. She turns to Steve.

“How long ago was it?”

How long has it been, she wonders, since she heard the front door open and close? How long was she upstairs poking around in the closet while her son was . . . he was . . .

A sudden gust off the lake stirs the wind chimes that hang from the porch eaves. They sound louder than they should. Discordant.

Like the wind chimes in her dream.

Startled, she looks up at them.

“It may have been five minutes,” Steve is telling her. “Ten, maybe?”

Even one minute is much too long for a boy to be out on his own here, among so many strangers, with the lake . . .

“I wasn’t paying much attention,” Steve says. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize—”

“Max!” Bella starts to run, limping on her sore toe. “Max! M—”

Steve chases after her, jangling car keys. “Wait, Bella, I’m parked right there at the curb. Come on, I’ll drive you over to the playground. I know where it is. I run near there every morning.”

Grateful, she hurries with him to the car. He removes a plastic shopping bag from the front seat and tosses it to the floor. Looking down, she sees that it contains bottled water and snacks, all set for the long drive home.

If sensible Steve and Eleanor Pierson are leaving town, then so should Bella and Max. Yes, as soon as she finds him, she decides, they’re out of here. They’ll take the cat and kittens and . . . and just figure something out.

Like what? Stealing a car? Asking Troy Valeri for a ride to Chicago?

She buckles her seatbelt as Steve climbs behind the wheel and inserts the key into the ignition. Noticing his keychain with its dangling drama masks, she’s reminded of the VVM-engraved keychain, a troubling thought that leads her right back to poor Bonnie Barrington.

How did she wind up in the lake?

Pushing aside thoughts of menacing pirates, Bella keeps an eye on the road as they bump along. Surely they’ll come across Max and Jiffy, or at least people out walking. They can ask if anyone has seen the boys.

But with a big-name draw in the auditorium and a storm brewing, the Dale is a proverbial ghost town. A couple of cats prowl the streets, as always. One—a black one—walks in front of the car as Steve brakes at a corner. She chooses not to interpret that as a sign—not even here.

“We need to stop and ask whoever is working at the gate if the boys have come by,” she tells Steve anxiously, looking down the street toward the little hut beside the entrance.

“I’m sure they wouldn’t leave town. They must know better.”

“Max knows better than to leave the house at all without permission,” she blurts. “But that doesn’t seem to have stopped him!”

“Hang in there, Bella. Let’s just get to the playground. It’s going to be okay. I know they were talking about a treasure. They were caught up in an adventure. That’s how kids are. I’m a dad, remember?”

She says nothing. If the boys aren’t by the playground, she’ll ask Steve to drive back over to the gatehouse. No one can come or go without passing that way.

Not officially, anyway. It’s not as if the town is an impermeable fortress surrounded by high walls and a moat.

A raindrop splats on the windshield as she spots the swing sets at the end of the road, beside the Lyceum—the Spiritualist Sunday school.

Steve accelerates toward the little patch of gravel near the playground.

She scans the wide field, not wanting to even consider the forested acres that wrap around it. Even earlier, in the sunshine, the dense thicket of trees felt ominous. Now it’s downright sinister.

She’s aware that this land backs up to Leolyn Wood, with its mysterious Stump and spirit vortexes. She’d said no earlier when Jiffy asked if they could go there so he could show Max the pet cemetery.

Maybe that’s where they are now. At least there’s no drowning danger there. The lake is back in the other direction, and—

And Jiffy was convinced there might be treasure in the water, she remembers. Sunken, not buried.