Dead Ends (Main Street Mysteries Book 2) by Sandra Balzo

and trying,’ the new grandmother said, pulling a smartphone out of her pocket. ‘This will likely be their one and only but she's a keeper all right.’
    ‘Congratulations,’ AnnaLise said, her mind only partially on the conversation. She was still thinking about the yellow speck Daisy had seen in the rocky wilderness at the base of the mountain. ‘Where are Robbie, Jr and,’ she couldn't remember his wife's name, ‘his family living now?’
    ‘Down to Charlotte.’ Ida Mae rose and gave the phone to her. ‘Isn't she a darling?’
    A bald butter-ball with dimples that didn't stop, the baby was undeniably cute, though the only way you could gauge gender was by the tiny pink bow velcroed to the downy fuzz on the top of her head.
    ‘Adorable,’ AnnaLise said, trying to hand the phone back to the proud grandmother.
    ‘Oh, there are lots more,’ Ida Mae said, returning to her chair. ‘Just use the touch screen.’
    Oh, goody. AnnaLise loved babies, but in her estimation a picture was worth the proverbial thousand words, the emphasis on the singular article ‘a.’
    Still, being left to her own thoughts as she scrolled through wasn't so bad. Thank God, with new technology, people didn't make you peer over their shoulders while they showed you shot after shot in a computer slide show anymore.
    Ida Mae did, though, keep up a running commentary on her new granddaughter, whose name AnnaLise missed and whose current age she couldn't guess from the pictures.
    No matter, the reporter was consumed with other thoughts, the phone in her hand reminding her of her own, on top of her handbag in the other room. Should she try to call Ben? If now, a couple hours after the accident, she remembered that Tanja Rosewood's car was yellow, would it seem so odd that she called to make sure the family was safe?
    The truly odd thing might be that she, AnnaLise Griggs, had Ben Rosewood's personal cell phone number. Especially if their acquaintance was as casual as they'd pretended in front of his wife and daughter.
    Speaking of the family, wasn't the Porsche a two-seater? If so, Ben or Suzanne could have been with Tanja, but not both of them. The same was true, of course, on the drive from Wisconsin. So how had all three gotten here? Perhaps they'd rented a truck or a van – something that Ben would have driven – to transport Suzanne's clothes and things to school. With a one-way rental, Ben could turn-in the truck here and drive back to Wisconsin in the Porsche with –
    ‘Wouldn't it, AnnaLise?’
    Daughter looked at mother. ‘Pardon?’
    ‘Ida Mae offered to drive us home tomorrow morning after breakfast.’ Daisy raised her eyebrows at AnnaLise.
    ‘Oh, I'm sorry. I was just enjoying the photos,’ she said. ‘That's very nice of you – above and beyond the call of duty, really.’
    ‘Nonsense,’ Ida Mae said. ‘We're practically family. Did you know I used to babysit for your mother?’
    ‘No,’ AnnaLise said, looking back and forth between the women. At sixty-five, Ida Mae was fifteen years older than Daisy, so it made sense. ‘I had no idea your family was here that long ago.’
    The oldest of the three women laughed. ‘That long ago – you make it sound like ancient history.’
    ‘Not ancient, certainly,’ AnnaLise said, ‘but has anybody done a history of Sutherton? Or documented who settled here and when?’ She'd had an idea prompted by the memory games the neurologist had suggested for Daisy, and this seemed an opportune time to trot it out.
    ‘Not that I know of,’ Ida Mae said. ‘There was that lady in Foscoe, who wrote up something and sold it at her jam and honey stand on the highway, but I think that was just her own family.’
    Daisy was regarding her daughter. ‘Whatever are you thinking, AnnaLise? That you'd do it?’
    In truth, AnnaLise was trying to think about anything other than the Rosewoods. ‘Heaven's, no. I haven't even started combing through Dickens Hart's journals toward doing his