Nine Lives by Staub Wendy Corsi

Author:Staub, Wendy Corsi [Staub, Wendy Corsi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC022000 Fiction / Mystery & Detective / General, Mystery, Adult, Paranormal, Fantasy, Contemporary
ISBN: 9781629536484
Amazon: B013VONO6S
Goodreads: 26192777
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Published: 2015-10-26T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

When Odelia invited Max to come back next door with her to bake her famous zucchini-jalapeño-lime cookies, Bella let him go. He was so worried about the still-missing cat that he needed a distraction.

But what about me?

All afternoon, try as she might to forget it, that muddy footprint has dogged her as effectively as if it had been an actual shoe—pair of shoes—with a relentless predator in them.

No matter how busy she’s been around the house washing towels and making beds, no matter how eager she is to accept Luther’s reassurance that there’s nothing to worry about, she can’t seem to forget that someone might have been eavesdropping at the study door.

Now, as she goes about her domestic duties, putting the guests’ rooms back in order, Bella keeps an eye out for the cat.

There was no sign of her in the Rose Room, where she found that the papers scattered on the floor had apparently fallen from a box Max must have knocked off the closet shelf. How the heck did he reach it? He must have climbed on a chair.

He could have fallen and been seriously hurt.

I’m a lousy mother, she decided as she haphazardly collected the papers on the bureau.

She’s had a couple of hours to reconsider.

Maybe she’s not a lousy mother. Just an overwhelmed one.

Thank goodness for Odelia. Lifting the blinds on the window of the St. Clair sisters’ third-floor, ballerina-themed guest room, Bella can see directly across the rainy yard into the kitchen next door. Her son is contentedly mixing cookie dough and appears to be chattering a mile a minute.

It’s too bad her own mom isn’t around or that Millicent isn’t more like Odelia.

Millicent—Bella really has to call her just as soon as she finishes this last room.

She’s not looking forward to the conversation, but she can’t keep putting it off.

She turns to change the sheets on the queen-sized bed. Lifting one of the plump feather pillows, she finds a racy best-selling romance novel tucked beneath. She wonders which of the elderly spinsters is reading it and whether she intended to keep it hidden even from her sister.

Probably. If her journey through the guestrooms this afternoon has taught her anything, it’s that everyone has secrets. Everyone.

For example, she never would have guessed that Bonnie Barrington’s long blonde hair isn’t her own, but there’s an empty Styrofoam wig form sitting alongside the collection of bone china teacups on the bureau in her room. The staid Piersons seem to have quite the active love life, judging by the kinky black lace lingerie hanging on the back of the bathroom doorknob. And the Tooklers, well, they’re in the opposite situation, judging by the self-help book and medication—prescribed for Jim by a urologist—on the nightstand.

Unaccustomed to glimpsing such intimate details in virtual strangers’ lives, she’s taken it all in with a twinge of voyeuristic guilt. It’s not as if she’s been snooping through drawers, though. She can’t help but notice what’s been left in plain sight.

As she finishes

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.