Midsummer Madness by Barbara Ellen Brink

Author:Barbara Ellen Brink
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Lake Superior mystery series, small town mystery suspense, married private investigators, shakespeare mystery, cozy murder mystery series
Publisher: Lapdog Books
Published: 2017-11-19T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Monday they drove to the house he grew up in. The entire street was rundown and tired looking. Forty-year-old elms and maples towered over sidewalks and sandy yards, shadowing the whole block from the last rays of the sun. Lawns were scraggly and scarce, mostly patches of dirt where children played or old people napped in Adirondack chairs and waited for something to happen.

He waved at a little boy on a tricycle trying to navigate a cracked section of concrete driveway that dipped in the middle like it was ready to break in half. The boy stared back, wide-eyed and dirty-faced.

Shelby leaned slightly forward as they slowed before the dilapidated rambler. A rotting picket fence leaned haphazardly between this house and the neighbor’s. The gate in front was missing. The house boasted a crumbling stone chimney on one end, boarded up windows, and an oak tree with a broken, dangling limb hanging nearly to the ground covering most of the tiny enclosed yard with its dying leaves and branches.

He pulled into the gravel driveway and shut off the engine. With one hand on the door handle and one still gripping the steering wheel, he licked dry lips. “It’s mine, you know. Apparently it was in my mom’s name and she left it to me.”

“What? You never told me that.”

Blake’s childhood had been hard and she knew he still held back parts of it from her, not yet able to voice his anger toward his father or the loss he felt not growing up with a mother, but she knew. When he was ready, he’d tell her.

He wrenched open the truck door and climbed out. “Coming?”

“Sure.”

The front door had recently been painted a glossy black. You could see paintbrush strokes in the finished work. He frowned and jiggled the shiny new doorknob. “That’s strange. Why would someone put a new lock on someone else’s door?”

Shelby moved to the front window and cupped her hands around her eyes to see through a crack in the boards. “There are a couple of chairs and a folding table inside.” She turned and squinted up at him. “Maybe squatters? I’ve heard that homeless people sometimes move into deserted homes.”

“Homeless people aren’t going to buy a lock and install it. This is something else.” He scratched at the beard along his jaw and glanced up and down the street. “Let’s go around back. See if it’s open.”

The back door was also equipped with a newly installed lock. Blake jiggled the knob back and forth, aggravation tightening his mouth into a straight line. He finally stood back, hands on his lean hips and expelled a breath. “What is going on? Clearly someone has taken up residence in my house without permission.”

“Evelyn said Farley was up to something. Ready to find out what?”

“You mean break in?”

“It’s not breaking and entering if it’s your own house.”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.