If the Shoe Fits: A Mountain Springs Cozy Mystery by Claire Gardner

Author:Claire Gardner [Gardner, Claire]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2024-08-13T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter twelve

The Day

After his little look around the house, Seymour had dared a trip outside, felt the sun on his face, even kicked off his loafers to savor the feeling of cool grass between his bare toes for a moment.

While the inside of the house was almost unnervingly immaculate, the outside, in contrast, had grown wild.

There were the remnants of a garden somewhere in there, that much he could tell by the cracked stones leading out toward an unfamiliar dirt road and the planters near the front. Still, it was obvious nobody had taken care of the place in years. Though the grass nearest the door seemed to have been recently trimmed, once he got more than a few feet from the house it rose to his knees, and he made sure to put his shoes back on as he got closer, wary of snakes. He wondered idly if he even needed to worry about snakes, considering that as far as he knew he was still dead, but still, you never know.

He decided he would follow the road, figuring that even if it didn’t lead him back to civilization, he might at least get a better idea of the surrounding area. He had to tread carefully, as the road, like everything else outside, appeared long overdue for some maintenance, with tall weeds encroaching from either side, threatening to choke off the path entirely.

It was a pleasant stroll, with towering pines on both sides and birds chirping from the canopy above. Still, he couldn’t help the eerie feeling he had as he walked.

He’d been walking for about twenty minutes when suddenly he found he could go no farther. Nothing blocked his path, as far as he could tell, and he could clearly see the road ahead of him, yet as hard as he willed his legs to move, he could make no progress. The entire area around the house seemed to be surrounded by a sort of force field, keeping him close by.

He decided to head back up to the house to examine the situation further, mostly because he wanted something more sensible than loafers if he was going to spend his time hiking through the back country.

He arrived back shortly after and decided to take a glance at the back yard. It had a screened porch with comfortable-looking chairs surrounding a small card table, and he could make out what looked to be a small aluminum shed some distance behind the house, but the undergrowth out back had grown so thick that he was reluctant to try to reach it. Aside from that, all he could see of the surrounding area were endless rows of pine trees.

He went back inside then and helped himself to a leftover cup of coffee from a percolator on the stove. Although it was a bit cold by this point, the bitter flavor served to steel his nerves. As he sipped it, he ran over everything he’d learned so far.

This wasn’t a dream, that much

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