Miss Lizzy's Legacy by Peggy Moreland

the point. How do you know she’s a reporter?”
    â€œDon’t for a fact, but her back seat is full of cameras.”
    â€œIs that right?” Molly replied, her voice heavy with sarcasm. “And just because she has a few cameras you automatically assume she’s a reporter?”
    â€œThat and the fact that she lied about why she’s in Guthrie.”
    â€œLied! She’s here to trace some of her family. She told me so herself.”
    Judd snorted. “Mom, you know as well as I do that Mary Elizabeth Sawyer only had one child and that child died at birth. Callie Benson made up this cock-and-bull story about tracing some of her family to hang around town long enough to get a story about me. She just chose the wrong family to claim as kin is all.”
    Molly sagged down onto the rocker, knotting her fingers into her skirt’s fabric. She was torn between knocking some sense in her son’s head and gathering him up, big as he was, in her lap for a cuddle. But she knew comfort wasn’t what he needed. He needed a shove, a good, hard shove to get him headed in the right direction. “When are you going to quit looking over your shoulder and live like a normal human being?”
    â€œThere’s nothing wrong with the way I live.”
    â€œNot if you consider spending all your time with a dog normal.”
    â€œBaby would take offense at that.”
    â€œIf Baby could talk, he’d tell you to quit hiding.”
    The conversation was old ground and Judd wasn’t in the mood to travel it again. He rose to his feet, scooped his hat off the floor and shoved it back on his head. “I’m not hiding,” he said tersely. “I came home is all, where I thought I could find a little peace.” He strode to the door. “Thanks to Miss Callie Benson, it doesn’t look like I’ll be getting any of that.”
    He slammed the door behind him hard enough to rattle the pictures on the wall. Molly’s heart twisted as only a mother’s can as she watched him stride down the sidewalk. “Oh, Judd,” she murmured sadly. “When are you going to climb out of that hole you’ve dug for yourself?”
    * * *
    Callie hurried to keep up with Judd’s long stride. “I thought your mother was going to meet me.”
    â€œYeah, well, she called and asked me to, instead. Has a migraine, she said.” He stopped in front of the door Callie had passed the night before on her way to the Blue Bell. The smudge of her handprint where she’d cleared a spot to peek inside still appeared on its glass.
    Judd stabbed the key into the door’s lock and gave it a twist. “But understand—” he tossed over his shoulder “—I’m only doing this as a favor to her. If it were up to me, you wouldn’t get near the place.”
    â€œI certainly didn’t think you would do anything to help me,” Callie replied in an equally snide voice.
    The door opened with a screech of rusty hinges, and curiosity displaced irritation as she peered past Judd into the shadowed opening. No music drifted down to tease her and no shadows danced on the landing above, yet a chill chased down her spine, just as it had the night before when she’d stood before this same door.
    She hugged her purse tightly against her breasts, unable to take that first step inside. “Do you believe in ghosts?” she murmured in a low voice.
    Judd cut her a glance full of impatience. “No. Why?”
    â€œLast night when I walked past here, I thought I heard music and voices coming from up there,” she said with a nod toward the staircase that led to the second floor.
    â€œProbably just the wind.”
    Callie stared up the steep flight of stairs and tried to convince herself he was probably right. Taking a deep, fortifying breath, she eased past him.
    â€œWatch your step,” he called from behind her. “I’ll hit the