The Bookstore at Holiday Bay: Once Upon a Haunting by Kathi Daley

Author:Kathi Daley [Daley, Kathi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kathi Daley Books
Published: 2023-10-09T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

What I hadn’t suspected when our group decided to dig into this complicated and intriguing cold case was that by researching this murder mystery that occurred more than forty-five years ago, we’d stumble over evidence and create a modern-day problem for someone near and dear to us.

The day started off simply enough. Joel and George had decided to head out to the house Lonnie was renovating for another look at the items the crew he’d hired had boxed up and stacked in the hallway in preparation for the movers to haul away. Today was Monday, and the bookstore was closed. Velma had gone somewhere with Royce, and Eden had plans with Nikki, so I decided to tag along with the men and get another look for myself. When we arrived at the mansion, Joel and George went to work on the boxes that had already been stacked in the hallway while I decided to head upstairs for a second look at the suites that hadn’t been cleared out yet. The crew Lonnie had hired to clear out the suites had just finished packing up the suite with the clothing we suspected had belonged to Samuel and Claudia’s parents and were starting in the suite we believed may have been used by a female employee, perhaps a nanny or a tutor. While I felt like all the suites could hold potential secrets, I felt most drawn to the suite we believed had most likely been occupied by a teenager and was happy to see that the packers hadn’t made it that far down the hallway.

The suite wasn’t unpleasant, although it seemed a bit bland to have been occupied by a teenage girl. There were clothes in the closet of varying styles and a tall chest of drawers still stocked with undergarments and personal items. This suite was located at the back of the house and contained a canopied bed and a pretty little dressing table with a framed mirror and matching stool. All in all, the suite seemed to be functional yet impersonal. I did find a stash of makeup hidden under a pile of socks, which I suspected the person who’d been in charge of the girl who had occupied the suite knew nothing about.

I sat on a corner of the dusty bed and closed my eyes, trying to imagine the girl who’d once spent time in the suite. Had she been an outgoing child, or had she preferred to stay home, whiling away her hours within these walls? I supposed that if the girl who’d lived in this suite had gone to the local school, it might be possible to track her down via old yearbooks or school records. If she’d been a teenager when Samuel and Claudia had lived here, she’d likely be in her sixties or possibly early seventies by now.

As I sat on the bed with my eyes closed, I considered the suite as a whole and wondered about the lack of anything that would have helped to identify the suite’s occupant.

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