Nine Lives: A Lily Dale Mystery by Wendy Corsi Staub

tonight,” Bella reminds her.
    “Those kittens will be born any moment, and someone will need to keep an eye on them, too. This really is just perfect.” Odelia has a way of responding to things that makes you wonder whether she even heard you in the first place.
    For now, Bella decides to let it go. A hot meal and a warm, dry bed for Max—and not having to drive out into the storm or say good-bye to Chance the Cat just yet—are more than enough incentive to stay put.
    Just for tonight . . .

Chapter Four
    Stepping over the threshold of Valley View Manor, Bella flips the light switch beside the door and inhales a scent as familiar as the mock orange still wafting in the air outside.
    Home.
    The place smells of old wood and lavender and that imperceptible something that always enveloped her like a warm hug whenever she walked into the apartment.
    Until Sam was gone.
    The homey smell went with him, though she didn’t realize it until this moment. Now here it is, wafting in her nostrils, filling her with nostalgia, making her feel as though . . .
    No. This isn’t home.
    This is a guesthouse that belongs to a total stranger in a peculiar little town in the middle of nowhere. A dead stranger, at that.
    Well beyond Max’s earshot, Odelia told Bella that Leona Gatto, a fellow medium, had drowned in the lake.
    “She’s always been leery of the water. She said it’s because Wyoming—that’s where she’s from—is landlocked. Now I know the real reason.”
    “What is it?” Conversation with Odelia, Bella noted over their surprisingly delicious dinner, seems to have plenty of gaps that can be quite challenging to bridge.
    “You know—because of what was going to happen to her.”
    “You mean she had a . . . premonition?” Bella asked needlessly.
    “You could say that.”
    “How did it happen, exactly? Was she swimming?”
    “Leona can’t swim. She keeps a couple of kayaks and an old rowboat on that rickety pier behind the guesthouse for guests who like to fish. The rowboat wound up drifting out into the lake a couple of times last spring, and she wasn’t sure whether kids were playing around with it or it came loose. Anyway, it was windy that night, so she must have gone out to make sure the boat was tied up tightly. It looks like she bumped her head on a piling, and she fell into the water. The next morning, the boat was found floating again—but this time, so was Leona.”
    Bella shuddered, as disturbed by the image as by the woman’s matter-of-fact delivery. But as Odelia talked on, she noted the affectionate tone and the way she referred to Leona in the present tense.
    Clearly, Odelia views premature death more as transition than tragedy.
    I wish I could see it that way, Bella thinks as wipes her wet sneakers on the mat and reaches back to close the front door. The wind grabs it, slamming it behind her and Max.
    “Mommy?” He reaches nervously for her.
    “It’s okay, Max.” She pockets the big key ring Odelia gave her. In addition to the modern metal key that opens both the front and back deadbolts, it also holds a set of numbered, old-fashioned skeleton-style keys to unlock each of the guestrooms.
    “Mommy?” Max says again, and everything about him, including his voice, seems smaller as he shrinks against her side. “I don’t want to stay here anymore.”
    She grasps his hand. “Sure you do. We’re warm and dry here. Let’s check out this place and decide where we’re going to sleep, okay?”
    “I wish you’d let Odelia come with us.”
    The woman had offered to get them settled, but Bella could tell her leg was hurting and assured her they’d be just fine on their own.
    Of course they will. They’ll get a good night’s sleep, and in the morning, she’ll ask Odelia where she can get her car checked, and then they’ll be on their way.
    Listening to the rain on the roof, inhaling the familiar old house scent, she feels oddly calm.
    Calm and exhausted. Weariness began to leach