Before She Dies (Alexandria Novels 3)

He kissed her on the lips. “You look surprised.”

“Your grandmother says the oddest things. Not bad things, just odd.”

Laughter danced in his eyes. “She’s been known to do that.”

“I mean she’s kind of eerie about what she knows.”

“How so?”

“Does she sort of know when things are going to happen?”

He shrugged. “If she does, she rarely says.”

She let the questions fade and hooked her arm in his, rose on tiptoes, and kissed him on the lips. He smelled of soap and the faint hint of aftershave. As fearful as she could be of tight spaces, his touch, having him close, had not bothered her once.

Levi’s wife and children had moved out of the home they’d shared when the police had determined that he had, in fact, been plotting to kill his family and blame it on Samantha. Upstairs windows had been nailed shut and incendiary devices had been planted. Most believed he’d planned to return to finalize his trap after he killed Charlotte and Sooner.

Grady, satisfied that Levi was dead, had released his hold on Sooner and Charlotte and had left town with the carnival. There were charges pending against the old man, but it was likely he’d never see trial. He had stage four lung cancer and wasn’t expected to make it to summer.

Even despite his illness, Sooner could not bring herself to talk to him. All these years he’d lied about her mother’s identity and Mariah’s death.

Charlotte, too, resented the old man. If he’d given Sooner up for adoption or if he’d simply told the girl about Charlotte, it all could have been so different. If, if, if.

However, she was careful to keep her thoughts private. Grady was the only family Sooner had known, and if one day she needed to forgive him, Charlotte wanted to keep the door open. After all, Grady had tracked down Levi. If not for him, Daniel never would have found them in time.

And thanks to Grady, the police had ten murders across the country that could now be marked Solved. Levi could be placed in all the cities where the other women were murdered. The DNA that had been collected in Raleigh matched Levi’s.

What Grady had never understood was Levi’s obsession with his carnival. The answer had been painfully simple. Levi’s mother had been one of Grady’s psychics—the one, in fact, still pictured on his brochure. Apparently, Grady and Levi’s mother, Greta, had had an affair years ago. When Greta had realized she was pregnant, she’d left the carnival and married Levi’s father. When the boy’s paternity had been finally discovered, Levi’s father had killed his mother. From then on, the father set out to poison the son that was not of his blood.

Charlotte knew, knew, that Mariah was now at peace. In an odd strange way, the pieces of her life had fallen into place.

“What are you worrying about now?” Daniel traced his finger down the frown line in the center of her forehead.

She looked at him and smiled. “With you, I have no worries.”