Ghostly Dead: A Ghost Cozy Mystery Series (Haunted Everly After Book 7) by ReGina Welling & Erin Lynn

Author:ReGina Welling & Erin Lynn [Welling, ReGina & Lynn, Erin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Willow Hill Books
Published: 2021-10-25T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

ERNIE BALANCED MY mother’s strident tone with his authoritative one.

“You think I killed Davina Benet?” My mother sounded lost.

“Please, just answer the question. Can anyone confirm your whereabouts during the time of the murder?”

“You know me, Ernie. You know I wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

I chose that moment to step inside—not that either of them paid me the slightest bit of attention. One look at my mother’s face took me right back to the night we lost Grammie Dupree.

Always the backbone, Kitty stood firm and faced whatever came her way as if she were the only shield between her family and the big, bad world. But on that night, she’d crumbled. We all did. She was close to crumbling now.

“Kitty,” Ernie softened slightly. “I need you to answer the question.”

Shoulders rounded, she shook her head. I’d never seen my mother look small. I wanted to put my arms around her, tell her it was okay to be scared, but I couldn’t get past the wall I’d put up between us these past few days.

“No,” Kitty nearly whispered. “I don’t have an alibi for the time of the murder. After Martha broke up the protest, I went home to cook dinner.”

“Did anyone see you leave?” Having come to know Ernie Polk rather better than I ever wanted to, I read the hope in his tone that others might miss. He didn’t think my mother had killed Davina. Good thing for him, because if he had, it would have been a war between us. But Ernie was a good man and a good cop with a hard job to do—a job my mother wasn’t making any easier.

Feeling awkward and invisible, I cleared my throat to remind them I was there. Mom’s head whipped around, her immediate frown confirming she hadn’t seen me come in and wasn’t happy I had. As if she couldn’t bear for me to see her in a vulnerable moment, Kitty Dupree rebuilt herself. Her spine stiffened, and her expression went from scared suspect to scary librarian. Her go-to for getting noisy children to be quiet.

I’d seen it all before, and her tactics didn’t work on me. Mostly. It hurt my heart to realize she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, lean on me in her time of need.

Tension charged the air in the tent. “Do I need a lawyer?” While her chin went up in defiance, where Kitty’s hand gripped the back of the chair, her knuckles blazed white.

“Do you?” Ernie glanced at me, but I couldn’t read his thoughts other than that maybe the question threw him off a little.

Mom sighed, “Of course, not. I’m just,” she paused to brush the hair back from her forehead, “a little thrown by all this. I won’t apologize for my feelings toward Davina Benet, but I certainly didn’t dislike her enough to kill her. Let’s sit down, and you can ask me anything you like.”

Nodding, Ernie followed her to a table, pulled a pen and a dog-eared notepad from his pocket. I’d seen him use the electronic version before, but this time he went old-school.

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