Never Thwart a Thespian: Volume 8 (Leigh Koslow Mystery Series) by Edie Claire Page B

information, or vice versa?”
    “Both,” Leigh answered. Assuming that Cara was planning to go inside, Leigh stepped in between her cousin and the door. “Look,” she began, embarrassed by her inexplicable wussiness. “I don’t mean to sound paranoid or anything, but with the Pack working here, I’m just a little… I mean… did you know there was a murder here once?”
    Cara’s attractive blue-green eyes blinked. “You mean that church custodian?”
    Leigh blew out a breath. “Aunt Bess told you, then?”
    Cara’s forehead furrowed. Leigh’s cousin was only two years younger than she was, but unlike Leigh, Cara’s still-gorgeous face only showed wrinkles when she laughed. Or when she was confused. “Aunt Bess didn’t need to tell me. Everyone knows that story.”
    “Well, I didn’t!” Leigh protested. “But I knew something was wrong with the place the moment I walked in, just the same. I could feel it, Cara. I could sense where it happened, even!”
    Cara’s expression grew even more incredulous. “Don’t be ridiculous, Leigh! Of course you knew about the murder. Everyone did. That story fascinated us when we were kids!”
    Now it was Leigh’s turn to blink. “It did?”
    Cara smiled. “Of course. We weren’t supposed to know anything, and we couldn’t say anything in front of our mothers, but it was common knowledge. Classic spooky story material for all the West View kids. Don’t you remember — one time you told a younger neighbor girl about it, in dripping detail, and she got so upset she cried. Her mother walked over and complained to my mother, and then my mother went over and told your mother—”
    Leigh groaned and held up a hand. “Spare me the rest, please.”
    “You remember now?”
    “No,” Leigh replied, “but I’m sure that living through it once was enough.” How could she possibly forget such a thing? She had always prided herself on being able to remember more detail from her childhood than most people could, including Cara. Her memory of the first few sleep-deprived years after the twins were born would always be vague, true. But she had thought her earlier memories were still solid.
    Traitorous gray matter, she thought with chagrin. Being over forty was hell. What other information was getting wiped out of her brain by the minute?
    “That story always did capture your imagination,” Cara continued, rubbing it in. “I’m not surprised you felt a little unsettled walking into the sanctuary.” She smiled, then had the gall to laugh. “Did you really think you were psychic or something?”
    “Of course not,” Leigh lied. She stepped out of her cousin’s way. “What are you doing here, anyway? I thought I was supposed to bring the Pack home.”
    “You are,” Cara answered, stepping not toward the entrance, but on across the front steps. “I’m only here to get a few quick pictures. Aunt Bess wants me to do a sketch of the outside to use on some promotional materials for the Society.” She frowned at the missing crenelations on top of the mouth-like tower. “Hmm. This will take some fudging.”
    Leigh followed as her cousin walked slowly around the front corner and up the parking lot side of the building, snapping pictures as she went. “Honestly,” Cara said, frowning at the aluminum and acrylic housing that stuck out of the building’s side to enclose the monstrous wheelchair ramp, “with all that added on and without the steeple and the stained glass the original church was designed to have, it’ll be tough to make this building look anything less than hideous.”
    “Quite,” Leigh agreed.
    Both women were startled by a sudden movement from above. They looked up to see Ned, the man Leigh had met at the dumpster earlier, standing on the flat roof of the annex and leaning a ladder up against the back wall of the old sanctuary. With a roll of screen wire and a hammer tucked under one arm, he began to ascend the ladder.
    “Oh, be careful!” Cara