Sinful Alibi by Shari Hearn

Author:Shari Hearn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: humorous cozy, humorous mystery, humorous dark comedy, American humorous fiction, amateur sleuth
Publisher: J&R Fan Fiction
Published: 2019-10-19T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

IDA BELLE SLOWED HER pace as she walked down Boyette Street and spotted that familiar gray shotgun house sitting four lots in. Surprised to see what looked like a 1968 Chevy truck sitting in the driveway. She thought her father would never get rid of his old, beat-up ‘51 truck.

Several patches of green grass looked like islands in a sea of light-brown dirt. They never could entice the grass to cover the entire yard. It had always seemed the grass was taunting her, growing beautifully in some areas and dismally in others.

She stopped at the end of the walkway to the front door. A faded hose lay in a tangled mess several feet away from the faucet. She would bet that hose hadn’t felt water travel through it for quite some time.

Gazing at the living-room window, Ida Belle remembered the time she and her mother had decorated it for Christmas. It was a year before her mother had died and the two had labored all weekend putting up paper Santas and fake frost on the windowpanes. Her mother had begged her father to put up a string of Christmas lights. He put it off until it was too late, and Christmas had come and gone. He promised he’d put them up the next year. But by the following July her mother was gone. The lights stayed in the attic as would the paper Santas, garlands and cans of spray flocking. That front window never had another bit of joy applied to it.

But today was a new day, Ida Belle thought to herself, and her life was now hers to make brighter. She had had an important job in the Army. She was valued. And she had friends who were more her family than her blood relations. Someday she’d have her own window and would take out those old decorations and have the most festive living-room window on the block.

She took a breath and placed her foot on the first step of the walkway toward the door. Thirteen steps. Somehow that seemed fitting. It felt weird to knock on the door of the house she grew up in, but to just open the door and walk inside also felt strange. Besides, her father was a good shot, and he didn’t take kindly to strangers just walking in his house. And right now? Ida Belle felt very much like a stranger.

She heard movement inside and felt an urge to turn and run away. But she stayed planted on that spot as the door opened and her father appeared before her.

She was taken aback at how his eyes looked like hers. She always felt she’d taken after her mother. But there was no mistaking those steely blue eyes that softened when he realized it was his daughter at the door.

He pulled in a breath. “Ida Belle,” he said with a slight nod of his head. “I was wondering when you’d be by.”

He’d said, “When you’d be by,” but they both knew it was really, “If you’d be by.

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