Nine Lives: A Lily Dale Mystery (17 page)

She turns toward the closet. Her suitcase sits within its shadows atop the tapestry straps of a folding wooden rack. Unwilling to wake Max by turning on the overhead light, she fumbles inside, feeling around for sneakers and a pair of socks.

She finds one sneaker, finds the socks, drops one as she looks for the other sneaker, and manages to drop the other as she crawls on the floor to feel around for the first one. As she blindly manages to retrieve both socks and shoves them into the back pocket of her shorts, she decides that unlike Grant, she doesn’t enjoy living out of a suitcase.

Yet the thought of unpacking doesn’t sit well, either. Is it because she doesn’t want to bother, since she’s only going to be here for a few days? Or because she wants to be able to make a quick getaway when it’s time? Or because she’s afraid she might be tempted to stay?

Where the heck is her other sneaker?

As frustrated with the search as with the flurry of questions in her mind, she gives up and puts on the sandals again—this time, the right ones. She’ll have to suffer with the sore toe for now.

Just as she did yesterday morning, she leaves the key in the inside lock for Max, using the one on her key ring to lock the outside. The hallway is deserted, every door still closed.

Morning sunlight falls through the stairway’s circular stained-glass windowpane, casting a fluid prism across the hardwood landing. The kitchen, too, is flooded with light, with a view of the sparkling, brilliant blue lake.

Yes, everything seems brighter today. Somehow, it’s all going to be okay.

She hears the front door open and then close. Footsteps head into the breakfast room.

“Coffee’s coming,” she calls to whoever it is as she hastily scoops coffee grounds into a paper filter.

“It’s okay.” Grant appears in the doorway, fully dressed in jeans and a polo shirt, holding a newspaper and a paper hot cup. “Already got my caffeine fix, though this is gas station coffee, so I’ll swap it for yours if it’s on the way.”

“It is. Sorry you had to go out for it.”

“I was going out for the paper anyway. Do you know how far you have to drive around here to get a copy of the
Wall Street Journal?
”

“Can’t you just access it online?”

“I like paper,” he says with a shrug as she presses the button to start the brew cycle. “I’m an old-fashioned guy. And Internet access isn’t always reliable around here. I learned that the hard way the first time I visited Leona here, when I couldn’t check in for my flight and lost my seat. I was stuck here an extra day.”

“Stuck, and out of luck, huh?”

“I thought so at the time. Now I’m grateful for every day I got to spend with Leona.”

Seeing the genuine sorrow in his eyes, she wonders how she could have thought he was an imposter. Thank goodness she hadn’t confronted him last night—or worse yet, tried to escape his clutches on the way to the animal hospital. Imagine if she had grabbed Max and the box of kitties and jumped out of the car at high speed?

Come on, you wouldn’t have actually done it. You just wished you could, in a moment of panic.

What a difference a day—or rather, just daylight—makes.

She turns on the flame beneath the teakettle and wonders how to segue into asking him to take over with the kittens.

“So,” she says casually, pouring half-and-half into a pitcher, “how long are you planning to stay here?”

“Only through the weekend. I have an important meeting next week in New York.”

“Is that where you live?”

“I keep an apartment there.”

Last night, he’d also mentioned a flat in London and a beach house in Southern California. Which of the three, she wonders, does he call home? Or are there other places as well?

“I thought you were here to settle Leona’s affairs,” she tells him, wanting to point out that those affairs now include a houseful of people—and felines.

“It’s going to be a long, drawn-out process. I can’t even meet with an attorney this trip because of the holiday weekend. I’ll have to do a lot of back and forth. But that’s fine with me, because I’m used to living out of a suitcase.”

She nods, rummaging through the cupboard for a platter so that she won’t have to make eye contact as she tells him, “I’m leaving on Monday, too.”

“What? Monday? Why?”

“I think I mentioned that I’m just helping out for a few days because Odelia asked me to. I was never planning to stay.”
Or even be here in the first place.

She finds a platter, sets it on the counter, and reaches for yesterday’s leftover pastries.

“Where are you going?” he asks as she starts setting muffins on the plate.

“Chicago.”

“And you’ll be back . . . ?”

She knows he’s asking for a day or date.

But her answer is simply, “No.”

She won’t be back. Ever.

The guesthouse isn’t her responsibility. It’s his.

Still, the prospect of turning her back on this place is almost as hard to swallow as the thought of sticking around.

“That’s too bad,” Grant tells her, tucking the folded newspaper under his arm and depositing the paper cup into the garbage.
Clearly, he changed his mind about waiting around for more coffee, telling her he’ll be back down later.

Left alone in the kitchen, she assembles the tray of day-old pastries. They’re still perfectly edible, but she’ll have to get to the store again later—courtesy of Odelia’s car and not Grant’s, she promises herself.

Startled by a loud knocking at the back door, she turns to see Steve Pierson gesturing for her to open it.

She hurries toward him. He’s holding his key in his hand, but it’s trembling violently.

“I’m sorry,” he says, panting, as she lets him in. He’s wearing running clothes and sneakers, his face flushed and damp with sweat. “When I saw you, I had to—I just . . .”

“Are you okay?”

He shakes his head no, pressing a fist against his chest. Is he having a heart attack?

“Here, sit down.” She hurriedly pulls out a chair at the table.

“Thanks,” he manages to say, his breath still coming too fast and hard.

Noting the terrified look in his eyes, she grasps that something is terribly wrong. Something far more serious than overexertion. “Can you speak? Is it your heart?”

Again, he shakes his head.

She fills a glass with water and hands it to him. He sips and then wipes his damp forehead on one shoulder and then the other. Seeing a faint streak of pink on his red T-shirt, she realizes his face is bleeding.

“You have a couple of scratches on your forehead,” she tells him, looking closer. “And on your chin, too. What happened? Did you fall?”

“No. Well . . . no.”

What on earth is going on? Her mind flies through the possibilities.

“Where’s Eleanor?” she asks, wondering if the couple might have gotten into some kind of . . . scuffle?

“She’s . . . still sleeping, I think. I left her in bed.”

“I’ll go get her.”

“Wait!”

She turns back.

“I don’t want to . . . she’ll get upset if she sees me like this.” He takes a deep breath, exhales shakily. “Let me calm down first. I need a few minutes.”

“But what happened?”

“I think . . .” He shakes his head. “I think someone just tried to kill me.”

* * *

In the half hour it takes for Luther Ragland to reach the guesthouse after Bella’s phone call, Steve Pierson has finally managed to regain his composure.

Bella, however, is just barely hanging onto hers.

Gone is her perception that everything is going to be all right. That newfound optimism vanished the moment Steve Pierson staggered into the kitchen, bleeding.

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.”

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?”