A Justified Murder (Medlar Mystery 2)

“Considering tonight, I think he was hiding,” Jack said.

“I thought so too but he said he’d seen the house online and liked it and that he just happened to arrive when I was leaving. He said he’d really like to see the inside.”

“So you went inside a vacant house with a complete stranger?” Jack’s temper was rising.

“It’s her job,” Sara snapped. “What happened?”

“He didn’t really look at the house. He mostly told me about Sedona, Arizona, and how utterly beautiful it is and how he’d lived there for years and how the climate is so different from Florida’s.”

“What was his name?” Sara asked.

“He said it was Grant.”

“First or last name?”

“No idea. The whole thing took just minutes. We only made it to the kitchen, then he said he had to go. I wouldn’t have remembered any of it except for that.” She pointed at the TV. “He’s very thin, isn’t he?”

“Very. What else?” Sara asked.

“That’s all of it,” Jack said. “I think you should include the spy in your report to Flynn. I have a feeling that he’s connected to the murder.”

Kate looked at her aunt. “There was one other itty bitty thing. We overheard Tayla on the phone with Gil.”

Sara grimaced. “That couldn’t have been much. Maybe she wants to add on to that giant house of hers.”

“People in glass houses...” Jack mumbled, but stopped at Kate’s look.

“Did you know that Sylvia Alden wrote novels?”

Sara’s eyes widened, then her face lit up. “That’s it! She wasn’t a recluse. She’s far from being agoraphobic. There’s nothing wrong with her but that she’s a writer. Her head is full of stories.” Sara stood up and looked down at the two of them. “This explains so much. She didn’t go to church with her husband because she wanted the peace of a quiet house so she could write. She stayed home because she was working. Her friends were the neighbors because they were there. She sewed costumes for the kids because a sewing machine is good for giving you time to think.” She picked up her cell phone and tapped in Sylvia’s name, then read. “There’s nothing in here about her books. She must have a pen name.”

“I wonder if Sheriff Flynn knows she was a writer?” Kate asked. “I haven’t heard it mentioned by anyone.”

Jack, who had known Sara far longer than Kate had, said, “She may not have wanted people to know she wrote.”

“Not tell people you’re a writer?” Kate said in disbelief. “I’d think she’d shout it from the rooftops. Do you know how many people try to get published but never do?”

Sara didn’t seem to want to answer that question. Instead, she said she’d use her contacts to find out who published Sylvia and under what name. “If it’s out there, I’ll find her.”

Sara wanted to hear everything again to make sure they hadn’t left anything out.

When she began to yawn, she told them good-night and went to her bedroom.

Kate also said good-night and went to her suite, closing the door behind her. The rooms had become a sanctuary for her. At one end was a living room with a big bowed window. A hallway went past two walk-in closets, a beautiful bath, then into the bedroom. Double doors led out to a pretty courtyard with a fountain of a girl dancing in the rain. Jack’s bedroom was at that end of the house and he was often in the courtyard.

As she dressed for bed, Kate thought of all that was going on. Yes, tonight had been scary. Some man spying on them, Jack falling and hitting his head had been bad. But the truth was that every day she became happier with her life. Gradually, she was coming to see how lacking her childhood had been.

When Kate was only four years old, her mother had been widowed. She’d had to support herself and her young daughter on an insurance policy that made them have to skimp for all of Kate’s life. Whenever her mother got a job, her debilitating depression made her lose it.

And then there were her three uncles, older than her mother, living with their families on twenty acres of land. They constantly made decrees of how everyone in the world should dress, behave and think. They expected Kate and her mother to faithfully obey their made-up rules.

Kate had managed to stay away from them—most of the time anyway. But they still had an effect on her and her mother.

How different her life now was! Aunt Sara and Jack were so easy to live with and they accepted Kate the way she was.

She had just found these lovely people and she couldn’t bear the thought of changing it in any way. Jack’s being hurt tonight had scared her deeply.

When she climbed into her bed with its cool, crisp sheets, she thought how good it was to feel that she belonged, that she was part of something.