Still Life and Death by Tracy Gardner

Author:Tracy Gardner [Gardner, Tracy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hallmark Publishing
Published: 2021-06-16T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

On Monday afternoon, Savanna waited in the lobby of Priscilla’s Dance Academy until Mollie went into her tap class. Mr. Marcus had already been in the classroom today when they’d arrived at the dance school, and his black eye was completely gone. Seeing Marcus Valentine interact with the kids the few minutes before class began, Savanna had to agree with Mollie’s assessment of him; he was a fun teacher. With just over a week left until the recital, the energy in the studio was palpable, older kids rehearsing wherever they could find a few feet of floor space and younger ones trying to get headpieces and accessories fitted correctly. Today, Savanna had a plan to execute while Mollie was in class. She dropped her knitting into her oversized purse and went out the door to the parking lot.

A concrete walkway spanned the back of the building, with wooden benches and a few potted flowering plants. Savanna took a seat on the bench outside Priscilla’s, opening a book on her lap but ignoring it. Now that Uncle Max had drawn her attention to it, she saw that the marked parking areas for each establishment—Priscilla’s Dance Academy, Libby’s Blooms, and Kate’s Yoga—weren’t divided at all equally. In Priscilla’s section, every single space was full, and two cars were illegally parked on the edge of the lawn. Libby’s designated parking area had exactly three cars in it. All ten spaces in the area for Kate’s yoga studio were full, which was odd, because the classes Savanna had attended there had been pretty small.

A minivan pulled into the lot and crawled up and down the rows on Priscilla’s side, finally pulling into one of Libby’s. A mom Savanna recognized from school unloaded two young kids, and the trio trudged toward her.

The woman narrowed her eyes at the back door to Libby’s, and then spoke to Savanna on the bench. “I swear, if the Blakes don’t do something about their stupid parking problem, we’re not taking dance here next year.”

“No!” The younger girl looked up at her mom.

The woman held the door to the lobby open for them. “I’m not kidding. I’d better not get another parking ticket. Ms. Shepherd, are you going to be out here for a little while? If you see anyone around my car, could you give me a holler?”

“Sure,” Savanna agreed, her eyes wide. The Carson Village police department was really giving out tickets? How would they even know which cars were parked in the right spots and which weren’t?

They couldn’t possibly know. If Miss Priscilla’s customers were parking in forbidden spaces and finding tickets on their cars as a result, it had to be due to someone from Libby’s getting the Carson police to come over here and ticket them. The idea of it was ridiculous.

She checked the time on her phone. Mollie would be out of tap in five minutes, and she’d be looking for Savanna. She stood to head back in just as two teenagers exited from Priscilla’s lobby.

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