You don’t get a good night’s sleep after glimpsing your dead husband, no matter how tired you are or how many glasses of wine you have before bed.
Bella had had two, as she and Drew lingered over lasagna, catching up on everything they’d missed in each other’s lives over the last two days. Everything but her Sam sighting, anyway.
She’d found herself yawning deeply as they climbed the stairs to her door. He’d kissed her goodnight – a sweet, gentle kiss, not a passionate heart-thumper. Yet she’d found it impossible to calm her racing pulse, or her thoughts after he’d continued up to the third-floor Jungle Room.
Tucked beneath the covers with Chance curled up at her side, Bella relived the airport experience over and over, while awake, and again when she finally fell into a fitful sleep. Sam was there, as well – not in her dreams, but in a nightmare that involved him, and howling coyotes, and low-flying planes in flames, searing her skin.
At six, the alarm’s piercing bleat jerks her back to reality. Sam, the coyotes, and the burning planes are gone, but she’s soaked in sweat.
Last night’s nippy breeze has given way to humid heat even at this hour. There’s no air conditioning here at Valley View, and even if it were a luxury within the renovation budget, there’s seldom any need for it.
Bella gets up, goes to the bay windows that overlook the front of the house, and opens the shades. Tree-dappled early morning light floods the room. Beyond the screens, the Dale is hushed, the air heavy with the kind of heat she’d left behind in Chicago.
She quickly makes the bed, noting that Chance is nowhere to be seen. The door to the hallway remains closed but the closet door is ajar. The cat often nudges it open with a paw, and she knows how to release the mechanism low on the back wall, behind the clothes-draped hangers.
Valley View is filled with concealed passageways and hidden rooms and compartments, reportedly once used by bootleggers.
The false wall in Bella’s closet leads to a rickety wooden ladder that descends to the basement two floors below. From there, according to local legend, one can access a clandestine network of tunnels built by abolitionists during the Underground Railroad era.
Chance tends to be far less interested in escaping Valley View than she is in mealtime, and has most likely found her way out of the basement to the kitchen.
Sure enough, Bella finds her there along with Spidey. He’d slept in Max’s room, where there’s apparently a secret exit as well. She’s never managed to pinpoint its location and suspects – hopes – that it’s just large enough for a small cat, but not a boy.
‘Sorry I overslept today,’ she tells the cats, who are parked beside the pantry cabinet where their food is kept, waiting for their breakfast.
Ordinarily, she’s awake before the alarm goes off. Today, she’d not only slept later than usual, but she’d taken a bit longer with her morning routine, telling herself that it’s nice to be presentable for guests when you have a full house.
But who was she kidding? Drew Bailey is under her roof this morning, and, well …
There are no coincidences in Lily Dale.
So, after her shower, she’d blown dry her long brown hair and put on a cute blue summer dress instead of her usual shorts and T-shirt. She’d applied lip gloss and mascara, stopping just short of perfume. She’d rummaged in her jewelry box for small hoop earrings and a silver bracelet and had tried several necklaces. The tourmaline was the best match, but it felt wrong, given the circumstances. She’d taken it off at the last minute and put it back in the box, alongside the wedding and engagement rings she no longer wears.
She finds their new bowls, a gift from Drew. They’re inscribed with the cats’ names – Chance in pink lettering, and Spidey in Red.
Bella fills them with food and Chance and Spidey dive in, occasionally glancing toward the mudroom, where the puppies are making a squealy, yappy commotion. Drew had mentioned that he’d be checking on them several times overnight. No wonder he’s not up yet.
Though the continental breakfast is available starting at seven, her guests usually don’t appear until at least eight, and Max sleeps later than that on summer mornings, allowing her to enjoy a peaceful cup of coffee as she makes her daily To-Do list.
After setting the pot to brew, she glances around for her notepad and spots it propped against the toaster. The top page is scrawled in Drew’s handwriting: Call me as soon as you see this.
That’s unusual, given that he’s right upstairs. He probably got so little sleep while tending to the puppies that he just wants her to wake him.
But when he answers, he tells her he’s been at the animal hospital since he received an emergency call at five thirty a.m.
‘Oh, no. What’s going on?’ she asks, hoping it has nothing to do with coyotes this time.
‘Lethargic hamster. The pet owner is seven, and she’s here with her mom and grandma.’
‘Aww. Is everything going to be OK?’
‘I hope so. Bella, I hate to ask, but … I need a huge favor.’
‘You want me to take care of the dogs?’
‘Would you?’
‘Of course. You ran this place for me all weekend. Just tell me what I need to do.’
A few minutes later, she’s clutching a steaming mug of coffee in one hand and opening the mudroom’s exterior door with the other. She pauses to grab some treats from the container on the shelf, per Drew’s instructions.
The little brown puppy is the first to scamper out into a small, fully fenced patch of yard. ‘His name will be Dash, because he’s always dashing toward the door,’ Max had decided.
He’s closely followed by Krypto and their spotty-coated sibling, whom Max had named Oats, ‘because he reminds me of oatmeal with cream and brown sugar.’
The big foxhound hesitates on the doorstep to look up at Bella.
‘Aw, it’s OK, boy,’ she tells him, patting his head. ‘It’s just a little potty-training break. It’s totally safe, and I’ll be with you.’
Pandora Feeney, who’d lived at Valley View years ago, when it was a private home, had told Bella that this spot had been intended as a vegetable garden patch, fully enclosed with a tall white lattice fence to keep the critters out. Now, it keeps the canines in, twined with green tendrils loaded with blossoms: deep blue morning glories and bright pink sweet peas.
Both vines, according to avid gardener Pandora, are ‘invasive species, Isabella. You really must yank them out. Once they have a foothold, they’ll creep in and, before you know it, they’ll have taken over.’
‘That’s fine with me. I love them. They’re colorful.’
After rewarding the pups for taking care of business, Bella sits on the low step, sipping her coffee as the dogs play in the sunshine.
She’d been envious of Millicent and George, honeymooning this week on a private yacht in the Caribbean. But in this moment, her own backyard is paradise.
The borders are in full bloom now, bursting with daisies, dahlias, coneflowers, and towering yellow sunflowers. Pollinators and a pair of hummingbirds flit and flutter amid the blossoms.
Beyond the comfortably furnished stone patio and firepit, the wide green lawn extends to the tall grasses and reeds along the lake’s pebbly shallows. A pair of red Adirondack chairs face the water, where a lone blue heron perches motionless on the rickety pier. Below, the surface gleams in the bright morning light, reflecting the blue sky and green hills on the opposite shore.
It’s all so peaceful, Bella thinks – perhaps deceptively so.
Last June, Valley View’s owner, Leona Gatto, was presumed to have tumbled off the pier while trying to secure a kayak in a storm when, in truth, she’d been murdered. Before the year was out, a stranger’s corpse had washed up nearby, leading Bella down a treacherous path to catching yet another killer.
Bella’s gaze shifts to the massive gingko tree that marks the spot where a bride had been left for dead on her wedding day. And to the tall flat-topped boulder that had concealed a macabre key to a century-old mystery.
But she prefers not to dwell on the dark side of life in the Dale.
The hound sits up and sniffs the air, as if reminding Bella that he can, as Drew had said, sniff out a bad guy from miles away with that nose.
He’s looking at the lake, and Bella sees that the surface has begun to ripple around the pier. The heron flutters its wings and takes flight, squawking as it soars into the treetops across the lake.
With a splashing commotion, something emerges from the water. A bad guy? A black-tentacled sea creature?
No, a sea creature wouldn’t hoist itself up the wooden ladder. And those aren’t tentacles, they’re gangly arms and legs, encased in some kind of … bathing costume, worn along with a cap, goggles and snorkel.
The dogs are beside themselves, barking so wildly Bella briefly wonders if she’s looking at Nadine, a woman who’d lived at Valley View well into the early 1900s and who – according to Odelia, anyway – haunts the place to this day.
Then the figure steadies itself on the pier, removes the snorkel and goggles, spots Bella, and waves.
‘Isabella! There you are!’ Pandora Feeney calls, as if she’s been searching land and sea for her.
The dogs, clearly discerning that a visit from Nadine would have been far less intrusive, escalate their barking.
Bella sighs, sets aside her coffee, and gets to her feet. So much for serene solitude. ‘Good morning, Pandora. What are you doing?’
‘My goodness, what does it look like I’m doing?’
‘I’m not quite sure,’ Bella returns, as Pandora starts walking, thunk-flop, thunk-flop, in rubber flippers that make her feet seem even more enormous than usual.
‘I’ve just finished my morning swim, of course.’
‘I didn’t know you take a morning swim.’
‘I don’t.’
‘You just said—’
‘I take an afternoon swim, Isabella!’
‘I guess I didn’t know that either.’
‘Yes, yes, but today’s going to be a scorcher. I don’t want to get sunburnt, do I? I’m quite delicate, you know, so I decided to …’ Tripping over her flippers, she nearly topples off the pier. ‘Bloody hell!’
‘Careful there, Pandora. Do you need a hand?’
‘No, no, I’m quite all right. Splendid, really. But do settle the pups!’ she adds above the canine commotion. ‘They’re creating quite the hullaballoo.’
‘I’d say it’s a justifiable hullaballoo,’ Bella informs the dogs, and doles out a few treats to quiet them.
Pandora plunks down in one of the Adirondack chairs to remove the flippers, then swaddles herself in a familiar large blue towel and heads toward Bella.
‘Pandora – is that from Valley View?’
‘The swimsuit? No, it’s from the Victorian Emporium, an online clothing shop. Smashing, isn’t it?’
‘I meant the towel.’
‘The towel?’
‘The towel.’ Bella points at the large white VVM monogram.
Pandora looks down, as if she’s just noticed it. ‘Oh, yes. Yes, it is. I knew you wouldn’t mind if I borrowed it. I was so out of sorts, changing my swim time and all, that I forgot my own towel at Cotswold Corner, and I didn’t want to trudge all the way back.’
Cotswold Corner is her little pink cottage located just across Melrose Park from Valley View. It’s a thirty-second walk, if that.
This isn’t the first time Pandora’s let herself into the house and helped herself to something without asking. It’s been years since her ex-husband sold Valley View out from under her in a nasty divorce.
She’s never forgiven ‘the wanker’ for leaving her homeless and penniless when he ran off with a Hollywood starlet.
Nor has she entirely given up a proprietary attitude toward her former home and everything in it.
For the most part, Bella understands where Pandora is coming from.
Sam hadn’t chosen to leave her, but she, too, had found herself penniless and homeless. Young and healthy, he’d allowed their life-insurance policy to lapse and downgraded their medical benefits to add extra money to the nest egg they were saving to buy a house – or so he’d told Bella.
She’d been aware they’d taken some hits in investment accounts, but had no idea how much they’d lost, or that their nest egg was gone, and their credit-card debt was soaring. Only after Sam was gone did she grasp their financial bind, exacerbated by medical bills for doctors and treatments that would have been covered under their old health plan, or at least, worth every penny if they’d given Sam a fighting chance.
Widowed and virtually penniless, she thought she’d hit rock bottom. That things couldn’t get any worse.
She was wrong. Within six months of Sam’s death, the final blows came: the landlord sold the building and evicted her, and budget cuts eliminated her teaching job.
So, yes. She can relate to Pandora.
But some days – like today – Bella just can’t muster the empathy, let alone the energy, to tolerate the woman’s lack of boundaries.
Especially now, when Pandora winks as she reaches the fenced yard and says, ‘I’d have awakened you to ask about the towel, but I knew you’d had quite the late night with Drew Bailey.’
‘Pandora—’
‘No worries, Isabella! It will be our little secret.’
‘What will be our little secret?’
‘That I caught Drew sneaking about at half past four.’
‘You caught him sneaking about? That’s not—’
‘Don’t worry, love, he was quite discreet as he crept out of the house and drove away. He didn’t see me, of course.’
‘Where were you? Hiding in the bushes?’
‘Of course not! How undignified! I was at Cotswold Corner, peeking through the blinds.’
‘How dignified.’
‘I heard through the grapevine about a cat burglar at the Slayton manse, and I’ve been keeping watch for the culprit.’
‘I don’t know what happened at the Slayton … uh, manse, but I guarantee you that Drew Bailey wasn’t responsible. Cat rescuer, yes. Cat burglar, no.’
‘Well, of course not! I must say, I’m chuffed that the two of you finally had yourselves a proper shag.’
Bella feels her cheeks grow hot. ‘Pandora! It wasn’t … it’s not … like that. He’s been staying here all weekend.’
‘Yes, yes, while you were on holiday. I’m aware. I came round often to ensure that he was getting on all right. I had rather assumed he’d see fit to vacate the premises upon your return with the lad, but far be it from me to judge, Isabella.’ She reaches for the gate latch, clearly planning to join Bella in the fenced area.
The dogs take note, and Dash dashes over, poised to escape.
‘Wait, don’t open that. The dogs will get out.’
Pandora drops her hand. ‘We can’t have that. I’m afraid one of them has trampled my petunia patch, and another had a poo in the hosta bed.’
‘I don’t see how. Drew said they’ve been sequestered in the mudroom all weekend.’
‘Perhaps it wasn’t these pups, but some frightful mutt has been wreaking havoc about the Dale.’
‘Are you sure it wasn’t a raccoon? Or a deer?’
‘I suppose it might have been. Now then, I’ll just go round to the front door and see you inside.’
‘Wait, Pandora—’
‘I’ll get myself sorted in the loo and put the kettle on so that we can have a nice chin-wag over a cuppa.’
She disappears around the side of the house before Bella can tell her …
Whatever it is that one should say to Pandora Feeney in this situation.
Like – Pandora, you need to go back to Cotswold Corner and mind your own business?
Bella has never been able to come up with anything that wouldn’t hurt her feelings. For all her boundary crossing, Pandora herself is a colorful, lovable invasive species – a friend.
Still, Bella is in no rush for a chin-wag over a cuppa.
She finishes her coffee and is playing stick-toss with the puppies when she hears someone calling her name and looks up to see Odelia heading toward her from next door.
Ordinarily, she’s the sort of person who ambles, but today, there’s an air of urgency about her. She’s barefoot, wearing lime green pajamas that clash with her red-rimmed cat-eyed glasses and mop of orange hair that’s even more tousled than usual, as though she’s just rolled out of bed.
The dogs stop playing and regard her with interest, tails wagging.
‘Good morning, Odelia!’
‘Bella, I’ve been trying to call your cell!’
‘You have?’ Bella pats one pocket, then the other. ‘I must have left it in the house. Is everything all right?’
‘Yes, but … I have a message for you. From Sam.’