Reverend Kapersky, who preached at Church of New Hope, rarely came into the diner to eat anymore. His wife Katherine, the woman killed by Bridgette Jones, had been a terror in the community, but the Rev was a good man. I was glad to see him sitting at the corner booth with Opal and Pearl, two elderly sisters who were practically fixtures in Buzz’s diner. Opal had white hair, the color and texture of cotton, and Pearl, who was the more vain of the two, was always dying her hair a new color. This week it happened to be a pale lavender. I liked it.
I saw Addison Newton with a couple of girls and his delinquent friend, James Hanley. They were laughing and talking obnoxiously loud, and the tables around them were getting visibly annoyed. James reminded me so much of some of the boys my brother had started hanging around with. This was about the same time he started doing drugs and getting into trouble. I wanted to shake Addison and warn him that whatever he thought of himself, people would always think of him as his choices. Hanging out with a jerk like James Hanley was a choice.
Freda, Buzz’s waitress, a tall woman with flaxen hair and a well-shaped body, especially for a human just past middle-age, carefully moved plates of food from a large tray down to a booth table just inside the door. It looked like all four patrons had ordered the diet plate—one large biscuit halved over crispy hash browns, smothered in sausage gravy, topped with thin slices of sharp cheddar cheese, two eggs, two slices of bacon, and two sausage patties.
Freda looked up at me and smiled. “Sit anywhere, hon,” she said. It was her standard greeting when anyone entered the dinner.
I sat at the counter on an open stool and greeted the man sitting next to me on the left. He was drinking coffee and eating a gooey cinnamon roll. My stomach grumbled as I considered having both a diet special and a cinnamon roll for lunch.
Buzz peeked his head out the kitchen window. “Hey, Lily. I’m going to let you be my guinea pig for a special I’m planning next week. You game?”
“Breakfast or dinner food?”
“Breakfast.”
Good. “Sure, as long as bacon is involved. Also, make my plate a double. I’m starved.” I probably should have eaten before work this morning, but Parker’s Naomi bomb had tied my stomach in knots. Shifters didn’t skip meals, for good reason. Our metabolism was five times the rate of a human’s, and we went into starvation mode if we didn’t take in the calories of an Olympic swimmer in training.
“No worries,” he said. He winked. “I think you’re going to really like it.”
Freda tapped the counter in front of me. “What can I get you to drink, sweetie?”
Most of the time I drank coffee, sometimes water, but on other occasions, like now, I wanted something sweet and cold. “I’ll take a cola with a lemon wedge, lots of ice, please.”
“You got it,” she said brightly. She was always polite and friendly at the diner. She had been brought up in an era where customer service mattered. And for Freda, it meant great tips and job security. However, after I’d suspected her daughter Lacy might be a killer last year, she tended to ignore me if I saw her out in public. Maybe she ignored everyone when she was on her own time. I sometimes did when I’d worked as a waitress.
“Thanks, Freda.” I felt a slight tug on my hair, not hard, just enough to get my attention.
“Hey, Lils,” Nadine Booth said. “I thought I’d come have lunch with you.”
Nadine worked at the sheriff’s department, but she’d had Sunday and Wednesday off work this week, so she wore denim jeans and a dark-green sweater, instead of her tan uniform. She was tall, around five-eight, so I had to crane my neck back to meet her gaze.
“Hey,” I said back.
Nadine sat on the stool to the right of me, and I swiveled to face her. “I thought you were getting Buzz’s crap organized today.”
“All his crap fit into a tiny trailer before making its way to my house. It took me all of about five minutes to get it organized.” Her pale-green eyes sparkled with mischief as she said, “How hard is Parker pining, now that he knows your moving on?”
I tensed. “I am not moving on. I’m moving out.”
“I’m just teasing you, babe.” She stared over toward the kitchen window. I looked and saw Buzz humming as he happily cooked for a full house.
“Jeez, you got it bad,” I told her.
She turned her eyes to me. “You’re not lying, sister. That man makes my heart dance a foxtrot. I don’t think I’ll tire of looking at him.” She grinned. “Or touching him. Or making sweet—”
I held up my hand. “I don’t need you to paint me a picture. Just saying.” Besides, I already knew more about my uncle’s love life than any niece ought to.
“How’s the new place? Do you think you can make it livable?”
“Eventually.”
Freda put my cola down in front of me on the counter, and she slid a lemon-lime soda over to Nadine.
“Thanks,” we both said.
“Hey, are you going to thing at the high school next weekend?” I asked Nadine. “I saw you were one of the cheerleaders.”
“Only because they needed more girls. I let a friend talk me into joining that year. Still, I might go. I’m trying to trade shifts with Bobby Morris, my Monday for his Saturday, so it all depends on what he says. Why? You want to come?”
“No,” I said a little too quickly. “Parker was talking about it is all.” I shrugged. “He just mentioned a Naomi Wells.”
Nadine’s eyes widened. “Really? That’s fascinating.”
“Why?”
“Naomi was a real man-eater back in high school. She was the co-captain of the cheerleading squad and used to churn through boyfriends like a paddle in cream. She moved away after high school. Parker was talking about her? Do you think he’s interested?”
“Maybe. No. I don’t know. Naomi wants Parker to go to the dinner with her.” I planted an elbow on the counter and my face against my palm. “He asked me if he should go.”
“I hope you told him no, and not only no, but double-triple-no-no-no.”
“I offered to watch the shelter for him.”
Her expression was as disappointed as her tone. “Lils.”
“He’s a free man. He can date whoever he likes.”
“I don’t know why you don’t lock him down, for the love of crackers. I’ve never seen him into anyone the way he moons over you.”
“I can’t.” I took a long, sad, pathetic sip of my cola and belched. “Excuse me.”
A hushed but intense conversation at a nearby table distracted me from my commiseration. I glanced back. Jeff Callahan sat at a table with a man I didn’t know. It was the intensity that drew my interest. Nadine was still talking about Naomi Wells, going through the many, many broken hearts she’d left in her wake over her high school career, and how she’d moved away, yada, yada, but I was blocking her out so I could hear what was happening across the busy dinner.
“You owe me, Gary,” Jeff said. “Who got you out of trouble when the IRS audited you two years ago?”
“Look, Peterson got the bid. I can’t do nothing about that.”
“And I can’t do anything about an anonymous call to the government about some undeclared income.”
“Now, Jeff,” the man said. “I don’t take kindly to blackmail.”
“And I don’t take kindly to liars.”
“I never said I could make sure your auction bid was accepted. Merl’s came in right at the end, and he offered more money. There was no way to not award him the land.”
“Hey, Lily.” Nadine poked my shoulder. “Where’d you go?”
I missed the end of the conversation as I turned my attention back to Nadine. “I’m here.” I smiled at her.
“I thought you were having a seizure there for a minute.”
Freda set a plate down in front of me. I stared down at the steaming special. It looked like a tall stack of blueberry pancakes surrounded by sausage links, with lots of butter and maple syrup over the top. There was a lot of
food, but I was mildly disappointed. Until I cut into the stack and took a bite. My eyes widened, and I looked to the kitchen window to see Buzz grinning at me.
I swallowed the mouthful and cut into the pancakes again. “Bacon,” I said, right before I stuffed my mouth with another large bite of fluffy pancakes with crispy, thick-sliced, Applewood-smoked bacon pieces cooked in. I hummed as I chewed.
“Good, right?” Buzz asked.
“Uh-huh,” I grunted, already getting my fork loaded for the next mouthful.
“I don’t know how you put food away like you do, Lily. You and Buzz have got the appetites of lions and the metabolisms of hummingbirds.”
“Good genes,” I muttered. I practically inhaled my lunch. In a few minutes, I was down to just the sausage links, and they were going fast as well. I really wanted to order a second plate, but Buzz had suggested I pig out at home and not in public, where the nice humans might freak out about me eating my weight in food.
“Oh. Em. Gee,” Nadine said. She gaped in the direction of the entrance.
I looked up from my plate and glanced in that direction. A woman with long, silky golden-brown hair, a rosy flawless complexion, and a long, lean body walked in.
“Sit anywhere,” Freda told her.
She wore designer jeans, calf-high suede boots, and a midnight-blue cashmere sweater. She was both beautiful and completely put together.
My stomach knotted. Please don’t be…
“Naomi Wells,” Nadine hissed in a whisper.
“Naomi Wells,” I repeated. Had Parker seen her already? If so, I didn’t have to worry about him liking me anymore.
She saw me, and her eyes flashed with something akin to recognition. Then she saw Nadine, and her mouth widened into a friendly smile. She strolled straight for us.
“Nadine,” she said on approach. “It’s so good to see you. You haven’t changed one bit.”
“I used to be twenty pounds heavier and had a face full of acne,” Nadine muttered to me. To Naomi, she said, “Do we know each other?”
“It’s Naomi.” She pointed to her chest. “You remember, from high school.”
“Oh, right,” Nadine said. I could smell the sour lie pouring off her. “Naomi. Did we have gym together? High school is kind of a blur for me.”
Naomi’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. “Our entire class had P.E. together, and you were on the cheer squad briefly, but I can understand why you’d want to block those years out.” She turned her gaze to me. “I don’t believe we’ve met before.”
“Lily,” I told her. “I’m Lily Mason.”
A hint of a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “It’s so nice to meet you, Lily. Are you new to Moonrise?”
She wasn’t lying, exactly, but the conversation felt fabricated. But why? “Yes. I’ve been here less than a year.”
“How are you liking the place?”
“I like it just fine,” I told her.
“That’s lovely. I live in the city now, and I sometimes really miss Moonrise.”
Nadine rolled her eyes. “I bet.”
Naomi flashed Nadine a predatory smile then turned her attention back to me. “Pleasure to meet you, Lily.”
Again, not exactly a lie, but this had been something more than a casual, accidental meeting. “You too,” I said.
“I’ll see you at the coach’s dinner, Nadine,” she said. “I guess I’d better find a place to sit.”
“See you,” Nadine said. When Naomi walked away, Nadine swiveled her stool to me. “You want to get a drink Wednesday night at Dally’s Bar? I could really use a girls’ night. Not too late, of course, but we could celebrate your new place with a couple of cold beers and maybe a shot or two.” Nadine’s eyes kept darting toward Naomi. “I can’t believe I let her make me feel like I was in high school all over again.”
“A girls’ night out sounds great.” I could use the distraction as well. There was something very slick about Naomi Wells, and I’d never trusted slick. “I better get back to work.”
“Hey, if you need some help with your new place, let me know. Taking a hammer to something actually sounds awesome about now. Except Tuesday night. Buzz is taking me to that new Marvel movie, and I really don’t want to miss it.” She patted my arm. “But I would, if you needed me to help you with anything.”
I laughed. “You enjoy your movie. I promise I won’t need you.”
Famous last words.
Chapter 5
Two days had passed since the Naomi Wells bomb had been dropped on me. Other than to tell me he’d agreed to go with her to the event, Parker and I hadn’t spoken much. I hadn’t wanted to tell him that I’d met her, but she’d shown up at the shelter on Monday. She made a big thing about our “chance” meeting at The Cat’s Meow. Parker gave her a tour of the shelter, and she offered to do a piece for the New Dispatch on the place to drum up more support. I disliked Naomi, but if her job could help Parker get more donations for the new shelter he was building outside of town, I’d put on my big girl panties and tolerate the woman.
I’d started on loosening the plaster in my new house. Luckily, the water and electricity had been set up for the trailer, and tonight, I would sleep on the property for the first time. It made me both sad and excited.
Sad, because there was no chance of running into Parker in the mornings before the rest of the crew arrived, and excited, because it was nice to have something that felt like it was all mine.
I swung a flat shovel nearly as tall as me against a wall underneath the staircase to the second floor. Plaster smashed to the floor in chunks. Smooshie skittered across the hardwood hallway and around the corner to the living room. She wanted no part of my foul mood.
Battery-operated lights illuminated the hall, living room, kitchen, and downstairs bathroom—not working currently, like everything else in this place—and with my Shifter vision, I could see incredibly well. I tapped the shovel along the wall to loosen the plaster from the laths, which were wooden slats that were attached in rows to the studs. It was the way they put up walls before the invention of drywall. And it was a pain in the butt. Real messy too. I wore a mask I’d gotten at the hardware store and a pair of safety goggles and work gloves. Every chunk of plaster that crashed to the floor filled me with satisfaction, and after the awful couple of days I’d had, I needed a lot of satisfaction.
Smooshie, who’d put several new holes in the yard and the woods the past couple of nights, began to race from the living room to the hallway and back. When a chunk would hit the ground, she’d slide to a halt and run away. It made me smile. Thank heavens for her. She was a real ally for me. No matter what else happened, she would never like Naomi better than me. That was some consolation.
I worked for the better part of two hours, stopping only for water breaks until the wall was nothing but a striped pattern of wooden laths. “I rock!” I shouted to Smooshie.
I heard her growling, not with menace, but more like when I played ball or tug-of-war with her. She was scratching against something as well. I took the mask and glasses off.
“What are you doing?” I asked, when I walked around the corner. She’d dug a section about the size of basketball out of the base of one of the only walls I wasn’t going to have to tear down. The wallpaper and the drywall hadn’t stood a chance. “Oh, Smooshie. Why?”
She had something in her mouth, and since I’d left the front door open to air out the place, she ran outside with her prize. I chased after her into the darkening night. She placed her possession into one of the holes in the yard and starting pulling dirt over it. More curious than worried, I walked to her spot. She plopped down on top of the hole as if to say, move along, nothing to see here.
“What you got there?”
She put her chin down on her feet, her eyes swiveling up to gaze at me.
“Let me see.” I knelt beside her and put my hand under her belly. I felt something almost like papier-mâché once it dries. I gently gripped it and pulled it out from und
er the dog.
I could see pretty well in the dark, but still, I wasn’t sure what the heck I had in my hand. “Come on, Smoosh. Let’s go back to the house.”
Once we were back inside, Smooshie jumped around my legs, hoping to get her hard-won prize back. When I got a good look, I nearly dropped the darn thing—because, holy Goddess in a pink tutu, I was holding a foot. I mean, it was brown and leathery, but I was pretty confident this was a human foot.
I examined it closer. The smell of decay was minimal. It had been dead long enough to lose the scent of rot. Also, it was missing a large toe. I hoped that happened before it was dragged out of the wall. I worried Smooshie had chewed it up like a rawhide toy.
“This can’t be happening.” I’d moved to Moonrise so I could stop being surprised by dead bodies.
Wait. There was no body. Not yet. Maybe this was the only thing. Maybe it hadn’t even come out of the wall.
Smooshie was back at the hole, growling and tugging, and yanking on, dear Goddess, a leg with no foot.
“Smooshie! No!” I reprimanded. I dug the clicker out of my pocket and snapped it several times as I pulled her back. Was there really a body in my wall? The leather calf covered in a brown denim fabric sticking out of my wall pretty much meant yes. Yes, there were human remains in my new house. Ugh.
“You’re destroying evidence, girl. Just sit and stay.” She cocked her head sideways at me, the way she did when I got naked. I sighed. Just because Smooshie had found a body, didn’t mean it had to be murder. Right?
Because people wall themselves up before dying of natural causes all the time, Lily. Don’t be daft. I knew foul play was involved, but the idea of calling the sheriff’s department to report another crime made my teeth ache.
Smooshie surged forward when I straightened. I clicked the trainer again. “Stay,” I told her. Unfortunately, the foot she’d found already felt like a possession to her. Her massive chest vibrated with excitement as I placed the foot on the mantel over the fireplace.
Carefully, I pulled at the sheetrock, creating a big, wide circle of it around the area Smooshie had knocked out in her pursuit of a hidden treasure. The inside was stained brown with blood. I wondered if that’s why wallpaper had been put up instead of paint. Had the blood soaked through the drywall? It took me less than fifteen minutes to expose the entire area, and less than five minutes to confirm that I was not unveiling a suicide.
The Money Pit Page 5