Read Nine Lives: A Lily Dale Mystery for Free Online Page A

her, Max, while I go see if anyone’s there. It seems a little deserted.”
    A gust of wet wind rustles leaves in the towering canopy of branches and stirs wind chimes that hang here, there, everywhere.
    Wind chimes.
    Home.
    Sam . . .
    Bella shivers, grateful for his warm sweatshirt and wishing she’d worn jeans instead of shorts. They haven’t even crossed a state line and it’s as though they’ve traveled to another climate.
    A sign beside the car warns her that this is a no parking zone, for loading and unloading only. That’s fine. That’s all she’s doing, unloading a feline foundling, and then she’ll be on her way.
    Thunder, closer this time, rolls off the lake as she hurries up the creaky steps onto the shadowy porch.
    Along with a cushioned glider and a couple of chairs, she spots a well-used scratching post and a pair of empty feeding bowls. Okay, so this is must be the place.
    She presses the old-fashioned bell and hears it reverberate inside. Then there’s no sound but the rain falling beyond the porch. The damp air is heavy with a strikingly familiar floral scent. It takes her a moment to pinpoint the source: just beneath the side railing lies a mock orange shrub in full bloom.
    Just like at home.
    Maybe it’s a sign.
    Oh, come on . . . a sign of what?
    It’s not like you could run down to the garden center a hundred years ago to buy exotic plant specimens. Lots of houses from that era have identical landscaping: lilacs, peonies, hydrangea, mock orange . . .
    So really, this isn’t much of a coincidence.
    And neither is the cat, she reminds herself as she rings the bell again and then knocks on the door. No answer. The house has a deserted air about it.
    “Can I help you with something?”
    The voice is so close Bella jumps. Turning, she sees a female figure standing behind a leafy trellis on the porch next door. She presses a hand against her galloping heart, spooked even though the woman sounds perfectly pleasant.
    “Yes, I’m looking for the people who live here,” she calls. “I found their cat, and—”
    “You found Chance the Cat?”
    Chance the Cat. How funny that she phrased it that way. That’s exactly what Max has been calling her. On the drive over, when Bella asked why, he said, “Because it’s her name.”
    “I know Chance is her name, but why do you add on ‘the Cat’?”
    “Because she’s a cat,” he said reasonably.
    “I’m so relieved!” the neighbor tells Bella. “We’ve all been beside ourselves worrying about her.”
    Wondering who “we’ve all” entails, she asks her when the owners will return and is met by a long pause.
    Then the woman says, “I’m afraid Leona isn’t coming back.”
    That explains at least part of the situation. Chance’s owner must have just taken off and abandoned her pet.
    A loud clap of thunder explodes so nearby that Bella gasps.
    Max opens the car door. “Mommy!”
    “It’s okay, sweetie, I’m right here.”
    As she hurries down the steps toward the car, Max cries out, “No! Chance the Cat, no!”
    The cat has leapt through the open door. Moving with astonishing speed for an expectant mama, she zips past Bella and disappears into a clump of bushes.
    “Oh, dear.” The plump, older woman next door emerges from the shadows, standing on the top step of her own porch. Her right foot is in a walking cast.
    Max, too, is out of the car, hurrying after the cat. Bella stops him, seeing a flash of lightning in the sky.
    “Come on over here,” the woman calls from next door.
    “But what about Chance the Cat?”
    “Oh, she’s under the porch,” the woman tells him. “She likes it back there. Don’t worry.”
    “She’ll be okay,” Bella assures Max and pulls him along as the rain turns to a downpour.
    “Hurry—this is going to be a doozy of a storm.” The neighbor waves them up the steps, holding the door open for them.
    “What’s a doozy, Mommy?”
    Bella opens her mouth to answer her son, but the woman beats