Owl Melt With You by Leanne Leeds

Author:Leanne Leeds [Leeds, Leanne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Cozy, General
ISBN: 9781950505616
Google: 8TPszgEACAAJ
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services LLC - KDP Print US
Published: 2022-02-03T06:09:14.011352+00:00

I pulled up in front of the house and put the car in park.

It was a modest two-story house in a neighborhood of modest two-story houses—in other words, it didn’t scream “I have rich parents.” As I shut off the engine, I could hear the hum of the freeway in the distance, but here it was quiet. “Now, let’s go and see what we can find out about Liberty Priestpoint. Remember, Ayla,” I told her quietly, “this woman just lost her mother this morning. You have to give grieving people a pretty wide birth to be addled.”

She nodded. “What do you want Aunt Gertie to do?”

“Just look around inside the house. Since she can move without being seen, she can go through the bedrooms and see if anything jumps out. Papers. A gun laying out. A suitcase indicating she’s about to leave town. Anything that seems wrong.”

Ayla looked to the side, her eyes focused on something I couldn’t see. “Aunt Gertie said she understands.”

I nodded and looked up at the house, mentally steeling myself.

To be frank, dealing with hyper-emotional people wasn’t exactly in my wheelhouse. I was kind of like lava, sort of—hard, distant, and steady most of the time. So solid you could climb on it and be reasonably confident it would support you.

But rarely, I could become a glowing and flowing seething river of molten fury. When that happens? Get the hell out of my way, or I will run you over.

But lava, in all of its forms, was far from soothing.

As soon as I extended a leg toward the house, the front door opened.

I could see Liberty Priestpoint through the screen, and the resemblance between her and her mother was unmistakable. Her silvery-brown hair was highlighted by her black dress, which she wore on a slender frame. The woman’s pale, slightly lined complexion was splotchy, and the smudges under her eyes were large black circles, indicating that she had been crying.

Despite the tragedy surrounding her, she’d done her hair. It was short and spiky and curved nicely around her face. She looked good for her age, the strands of gray hair giving Liberty gravitas as opposed to highlighting her nearly fifty years.

“Hello, Ms. Priestpoint,” I said, stopping at the bottom of the steps. “May we come in?” I didn’t introduce myself or explain why we were there.

She looked at us through the screen door with suspicion at first, but after a moment, opened it slightly. Within seconds, a younger man appeared next to her out of nowhere and pulled the screen door closed with a bang.

His dark brown hair was a bit long, his brown eyes a little sunken, but he held himself with a kind of arrogant grace. I wondered if it was her husband or brother.

If husband, go her—the guy couldn’t have been a day over thirty-five.

“My name is Gaston Priestpoint,” the man said. “I’m Liberty’s brother. Who are you, and what do you want on today of all days?”

I would have guessed he was in his mid-thirties, though I knew from his file he was only twenty-nine.

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