Read A Mother's Day Murder (Mt. Abrams Mysteries Book 1) for Free Online Page B

are you hoping to find?” I called softly.
    She turned and grinned. “Who knows? But don’t you really want to see what the inside looks like?”
    Maggie bounded up the back steps. “Right with you.”
    Carol cleared her throat. “I refuse to participate in breaking and entering.”
    “That’s fine. Then hold the dogs and yell if somebody comes.” I handed her Boot’s and Buster’s leashes.
    She glared at me. “This is actually illegal,” she warned.
    I climbed the steps behind Maggie and went into the Mitchell house.

    “ I t’s very clean .” Maggie whispered.
    “Why are you whispering?” Shelly asked. “No one is here, remember?”
    “What if Lacey is tied up in the attic?” Maggie said, voice still hushed.
    “Then she’d probably want to hear another voice so she can stomp on the floor and get rescued,” I said. “Do you hear her pounding on the attic floor with her tied-up feet?” We all stopped and stared up at the ceiling. Nothing.
    “Okay, then,” Maggie said in her normal voice. “It’s really clean.”
    It was. The kitchen had been redone in that pseudo-country style, with whitewashed cabinets, a farmer’s sink, and butcher block on the large island. We walked slowly through the kitchen into the dining room, then into the living room, turned left through the hall to a small office, then back into the hall to the stairs.
    “And it’s pretty,” Shelly said.
    She was right. The rooms were beautifully decorated, but showed no personality at all. There were no framed photos, no kid art on the side of the refrigerator. The pillows had obviously never been used to smack a younger brother, and nobody had dared to kick at the rungs of the dining room chairs.
    It was very quiet. I could hear a clock ticking somewhere, but that was all. All the windows were shut, and the air had a faint potpourri scent. “It’s really quiet,” I said. My house was always talking to me—a creak of the floorboards, the wind through an off-center window frame, the rustling of leaves against the side of the house.
    “With two boys, how is this so clean?” Maggie asked. “Where are all the toys?”
    “They must have a maid,” Shelly said.
    “Maybe they’re waiting for Country Living magazine to come by for a photo shoot,” I said. I put my hand on the stairway banister and looked up the stairway. “What do you think?”
    “Well, in for a penny, in for a pound,” Maggie said, pushing me up the stairs.
    The landing was big enough to function as the family room, and it looked like people lived there. The remote control was on the floor, and video games were crammed into a very large, and I knew, expensive Longaberger basket.
    “I’ll take the master,” Shelly called. “You guys take the boys’ rooms.”
    I stared after her. “Since when did we become Charlie’s Angels?” I muttered. Maggie giggled and slipped into a bedroom.
    I walked into Jordan’s room. I’d like to say I used a clever detecting technique to figure out whose room it was, but since his name was spelled out on the wall in large wooden letters, I couldn’t boast too much. His bed was made. All his Legos were in bins, his completed sets on a shelf. There were lots of age-appropriate books on his nightstand and a very scruffy stuffed panda on the bed.
    “Guys, come here,” Shelly called.
    I went back out and followed Maggie into the master bedroom.
    Shelly stood in front of the walk-in closet. A walk-in? In Mt. Abrams? Most of the old Victorians had a single closet for the whole family. A walk-in was unheard of.
    “Wow,” Maggie said reverently. “Look at all that space.”
    I looked. She was right. There was a lot of room in the closet, because it was half empty. Only men’s clothes hung there.
    “Her clothes are all gone,” Maggie said.
    I turned and looked around. There was nothing on the vanity, no perfume bottles, not even a comb. I crossed the room to start opening dresser drawers. They were all empty until I came to