Lily Sprayberry Realtor Box Set

by Carolyn Ridder Aspenson

  Bo ate his food in seconds flat. I sat in awe, praying he wouldn’t choke as he inhaled the mini bits of kibble. I’d heard of puppies choking on their food, and though it wasn’t common, I still had him eating out of the special puppy bowl designed to slow down dogs eating. I kept it for that reason, but also because while he ate, he spun in tight little circles around it and it was fun to watch.

  I let him outside to do his business after he ate and then put him in his crate. He rarely spent time in there, but he didn’t mind when he did. He snuggled up on top of his blankets and one of my old UGA sweatshirts—yes, a red one—with his little blue elephant under his front paws, the only toy he hadn’t chewed to bits, and snoozed. I switched on the radio for company.

  Since Heather still lived with her parents, I fully expected someone to be home. I rang the doorbell but didn’t hear it chime, so I knocked. No one answered. Her car sat in the turnaround in the driveway, so I sent her a text.

  Five minutes later she still hadn’t responded. She’s just mad at me, I thought. There’s nothing wrong, I told myself. Just in case, I peeked in the front window. The kitchen light was on, but nothing else from what I could see. I tried her cell one more time, but it went straight to voicemail.

  I pulled on the front door’s handle, but it was locked. I considered walking around to the back of the house and checking the door there, but my gut told me something wasn’t right. I trusted my gut, so I waited another few minutes, and when I still hadn’t heard from Heather, I hopped back into my car, drove down the street, parked and called Dylan. “Can you come and do one of those wellness checks at Heather’s house?”

  “A wellness check?”

  “Yes, you know, where you go inside and make sure everything’s okay.”

  “I know what a wellness check is, Lily. Why do you think I need to do one at Heather’s?”

  “I texted her a while ago, and I haven’t heard back. I’m at her house now, and her car’s here, but she’s not answering the door. I even texted her again, and I called her, but my call went straight to voicemail.”

  “Have you considered that maybe she doesn’t want to talk to you? Didn’t she tell you to stay out of her business anyway?”

  “Yes, but—” I groaned. “You don’t understand. We were good friends before. I can’t just stop caring about her. Even if I do think she could be a killer.” I realized how ridiculous that sounded after I said it. “Would you please just come here?”

  “I’m already on my way. I’ll be there in two minutes. You’re not at the house, still are you?”

  “No. I know you would have told me to leave the property, so I did.”

  “That’s my girl. Stay in your car. I see it already.”

  I glanced in my rearview mirror and saw his vehicle pulling up to the stop sign a block behind me. I stepped out of my car and waited.

  “Stay here. I’ll text you in a minute,” he said as he drove up and then pulled away.

  My mouth dropped open. “Oh, heck no,” I yelled. I jumped in my car, started it and rode his tail the three driveways to the Barrington’s house.

  “Why didn’t you wait like I told you to?”

  “Really?”

  He shook his head. “Just stay behind me, okay?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He shook his head again, but I caught that little twitch on the side of his mouth, and I couldn’t help but smile. He saw that I saw and said, “Stop it.”

  “Stop what?”

  “You know what.”

  I raised my eyebrows and pressed my lips together. Goodness, he was lovely.

  He pressed the doorbell.

  “Nobody’s home. I already tried that.”

  He widened his stance and ignored me. When no one answered, he knocked on the door.

  “Tried that already, too.”

  He clasped his hands behind his back and waited.

  I coughed.

  He tipped his head forward and groaned.

  “If you look in the window, you’ll see the kitchen light is on, but that’s about it. Can’t you just break down the door or something?”

  “I’m not going to break down the door, Lily.”

  “But it’s an emergency. That’s why I called you here.”

  “You called me here for a wellness check.”

  “Yes, because someone’s wellness is an urgent matter.”

  He wrenched off his hat and grabbed my hand. “Come on,” he said, dragging me to the side of the one story house. “Where’s Heather’s room?”

  “On the other side, at the back of the house.”

  “I’m assuming she has a window?”

  I nodded.

  “Okay, let’s go see if we can see anything in there. Maybe she’s asleep, but I doubt it. She’s probably out with someone that picked her up. People do that sometimes, you know, not take their cars when they go out. Like when they go on dates, with men.”

  “Is that a dig or something? Because if so, now is not the time for that. I have been on dates. I’ve dated. In fact, I went on a date before we—”

  He raised his eyebrow. “I didn’t mean you and another guy, Lily. I meant you and me.”

  I blushed. “Oh.”

  Heather’s bedroom curtains were drawn, and the room was dark, but there was a slight glow from the hallway, and I assumed it came from the kitchen light down the hall. The curtains had just enough of a space between them for us to peek inside. Dylan flashed his flashlight in and looked first.

  He flipped around, pulled his cell phone from his pocket and called the dispatch operator for the county. “I’m going to need an ambulance to the Barrington house on Route 53.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked. I tried to move around him and look between the curtains, but he wouldn’t let me.

  “Come on, let’ go to the front of the house.” He pulled me back toward the driveway.

  “She’s in there, isn’t she? Oh no. What’s going on? Is she dead?”

  He nodded. “I’m so sorry, Little Bean.”

  A loud banging interrupted the moment, and Dylan drew his gun from inside the back of his waist. He pushed me against the house. “Stay here.” He pointed at me. “And I mean it.”

  I nodded, my eyes wide.

  He aimed his gun in front of him and slipped around the corner of the house. I couldn’t hear anything over my pounding heart and short nervous panting, so I crouched down and focused on staying calm. Any attempt at calming myself flew out the window when I heard someone running through the yard next door. I recognized the sounds of shoes crunching down on leaves and sticks breaking under the pressure of pounding feet. I moved toward the edge of the house to try and catch a glimpse of the runner but was afraid to go too far because the original sound had come from that side.

  I froze when the neighbor’s yard lit up like a football field and an old man screamed, “Who’s out there? You’d better get off my property, or I’ll shoot.”

  Dylan responded with his name and title, and the man yelled, “Oh, that’s you, Dylan Roberts? How you doin’, Sheriff? I knew your pa. What’s he been up to these days?”

  I wanted to tell the old man to put a lid on it, but I was flat out too scared to speak. Someone had just murdered another one of my friends, and for all I knew, it could have nothing to do with Savannah and her floozy ways, and Belle or I could be next.

  Chapter 9

  Dylan set up four deputies to block both sides of the street. He thought that would stop the town gawkers from hanging out to watch the newest tragedy to strike in our small community, but I knew better.

  He may have grown up in Bramblett County, but his time in Atlanta flipped the small town switch in his brain to off. The collective of rubberneckers just parked their cars at the road blocks, climbed over them and trekked up to the Barrington’s front lawn on foot.

  He stepped outside and saw the gathering crowd. “What in God’s creation are these people doing?” He placed his hat back on his head, adjuste
d it to fit just right and talked into the mic on his right shoulder. “Rogers, get the yellow tape and drape it across some trees or something. Someone help him. I want these people out of here. Now. Threaten to arrest them if you have to. This ain’t no circus show.”

  Dylan charged toward one of his deputies and flung his hands around in an emotionally charged conversation. I tried to hear what he said, but other than his obvious frustration, I couldn’t figure it out. When he came back to the house, his walk was less determined, almost calm. His brows were furrowed so much the space between them formed two straight lines, and his eyes didn’t show strain, but were soft and compassionate and aimed straight for me.

  He sat next to me on the porch swing. “How you holding up? Do you need an ambulance? I could call Billy Ray for you.”

  Billy Ray was very likely on some back road doing the tongue tango with Bonnie. Just the thought of that made my stomach hurt more than it already did. And regarding how I was holding up, well, not all that great, I thought. Aside from my already puffy eyes from crying about him earlier, and the splotchy skin and the rash developing under my nose from it leaking and my rubbing it, I felt like one of the construction trucks at the Redbecker property had dropped a load of bricks on my chest and left it there. Just breathing took miraculous effort. “I’m okay.”

  The last thing Dylan needed was a train wreck ex-girlfriend losing it on him in the middle of the second murder in less than a week in his county. At that rate, he’d never get officially elected as sheriff.

  And then he’d definitely leave me. Again. I lifted my eyes to his and lost it.

  He pulled me close, thinking my tears fell for my friend, when my selfish heart cried instead for a future that hadn’t even happened. Pull it together Lily, I thought. At least you can still live your life and love a man if you want. Your friend is dead. She’ll never have the things she wanted. “Stop being a selfish little thing.” I heard those last few words in my momma’s voice.

  I sat up and left his comforting embrace. I rubbed my raw nose, wiped my eyes—my mascara long gone hours before, and I didn’t even care—and dug deep into the pit of my soul for what little strength I had left, and lassoed it up where it belonged. “How about you? Are you okay?”

  “Thirty more seconds.” His jaw clenched, and the veins in his neck hardened like cords. “If I’d have had thirty more seconds, I could have caught the runner.”

  I smiled. “So, what’s your pa been up to these days?”

  He snorted. “What kind of ever lovin’ crazy was that? I’m chasin’ a perp, and this guy wants an update on my pa?”

  I busted out laughing, I just couldn’t help myself. In all the days of anxiety, trepidation and death, that was the craziest thing I’d heard, and it hit my funny bone like a baseball player hit a home run, hard and with perfect aim. I couldn’t stop laughing, and Dylan laughed right along with me. It was cathartic.

  I couldn’t tell, and I didn’t care, but I would have bet my life savings the people that saw us either thought we were crazy or rude, and I fully expected a call from my momma about proper manners at a crime scene sometime in the near future.

  After a few minutes, the laughter subsided, and the seriousness of the situation set in. “I need to know what’s going on in there. Please.”

  “I know you do, and I promise, I’m going to tell you.”

  “When?”

  “When I’m finished here.” He placed his hand on my knee. I gazed at it, suddenly appreciating the strength and steadiness it provided. “Go home, Lily. I’m sending a deputy with you.”

  “I thought someone was already keeping an eye on me?”

  “From a distance, yes. But now I’m keeping someone close by. The killer very likely saw you here and may think you got a glimpse of him. We need eyes on you twenty-four-seven.” He squeezed my knee. “And I don’t care what you say, I’m staying on your couch again tonight. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  I didn’t argue.

  * * *

  Bo’s bottom and extra-long tail waggled and shook like he hadn’t seen me in months. Boxers typically had their tails snipped, but I couldn’t do it. He looked mostly like a Boxer, but there was another dog or two in his DNA, and whatever it was, I was confident the tail had been used as a weapon. I’d already lost three glasses and an ugly porcelain knickknack an elderly client gave me because he’d whipped his tail into them and sent them crashing into pieces on the ground.

  Being greeted by a big lug of a puppy with sloppy wet kisses was the best medicine in the world. I unhooked his crate door and sat on the ground, my arms open and ready for his love assault.

  I didn’t mind the kisses except for the under tongue part. When the under part of his tongue slid upwards on the reverse part of the kiss, it bordered on slimy and admittedly, the ick factor tipped the scales, but it wasn’t Bo’s fault. For him, the lick was an expression of love, so I suffered through the under tongue slop and enjoyed the affection. Sometimes it felt like the world’s problems could all be solved if everyone just sat on their kitchen floor and let an oversized puppy shower them with wet kisses.

  After a few minutes and a slimed face, I had an overwhelming urge to purge the effects of the day from my body and from my soul, if at all possible. I attended to Bo’s needs and then ran a bath for myself.

  I wouldn’t call myself a germaphobe, but I did take issue with just stepping into a bath tub full of water after spending the day living. Wasn’t that basically bathing in your own dirt? I didn’t bathe to clean myself. I bathed for an emotional cleansing, but to clean the inside, I first needed to clean the outside. So, while the tub filled, I took a shower. Thankfully, it wasn’t something I did often, and I could still afford to pay my water bill.

  It was already late, and I didn’t want Dylan to come over while I bathed, so I kept my phone nearby. Plus, I’d turned off all the lights and lit a few vanilla scented candles to help me relax. I imagined my dark house, me not answering my phone or texts and then him thinking the deputy outside doing nothing with my house in such a state. Dylan would probably freak out, break my door down and find me naked as the day is long in my bath tub.

  I blushed just thinking about it.

  The warm, bubbly water and the vanilla scented candles calmed my nerves but not my brain. I couldn’t get Heather’s death off my mind. Dylan promised to tell me what happened, which in and of itself was unusual, so I knew that meant something. And he set up another deputy to watch over me, and he insisted on staying at my house again, so whatever happened to Heather must have had something to do with Savannah’s death.

  Which meant he’d arrested the wrong person.

  Austin couldn’t have killed Heather, not from the county jail. And if he didn’t kill her, but the two murders were somehow connected, then that meant he didn’t kill his wife, either.

  If Austin wasn’t the killer, who was? What connected Savannah and Heather and maybe even Austin together that could justify two murders?

  My mind circled back to both William and Caroline.

  A loud pounding on my bathroom door sent me flying five feet into the air. I scrambled out of the tub, grabbed my towel and wrapped it around my parts no one needed to see.

  Before I could ask who it was, the pounding started again, and Belle screamed, “Lily, are you in there? You better be okay, or I’m going to bust this door down.” Something smacked the door and she groaned. “Or at least I’m going to try.” Something crashed into the door again. I had a feeling it was her body.

  I secured the towel under my right arm and unlocked my bathroom door, just as Belle charged toward it. She sailed past me and came to a sliding halt right before making contact with the side of my bathtub. I flipped on the overhead light. “What in heaven’s sake are you doing?”

  She threw herself at me and pulled me into a bear hug, then immediately disengaged and blanched. “Oh, ick. You’re all wet.”

  “Of course, I’m all wet. I was taking a bath.”


  She dropped the lid on my toilet and took a seat. “Don’t ever do that to me again, you hear me?”

  “Clean my body? Uh, okay, but you’re not going to like that in the office.”

  She smiled. “Matthew told me about Heather, and I’ve been texting and calling you the whole way back from Atlanta. Why haven’t you answered your phone?”

  I grabbed my phone off the side of the tub and checked it. “Oh.” I wiggled it at her. “I guess it died. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  Her eyes bulged. “You didn’t know? Miss, I Double Check Everything Before I Leave the House, let her cell phone die and had no idea? After two of our friends have been murdered in less than a week?” She leaned back onto the toilet tank and then quickly straightened, turned around and looked at it.

  I rolled my eyes. “Yes, it’s clean.” Belle had bigger germaphobe issues than me every day of the week.

  Her face reddened. “Just checking.” She leaned back on it again. “Anyway, you scared the daylights out of me. Don’t do that.”

  “May I see your phone please? I need to text Dylan in case he’s tried contacting me.”

  She handed me her cell, and I let him know I had to charge my phone.

  Bo came in and licked my leg.

  “How about you take Bo into the kitchen and give him a t-r-e-a-t so I can get dressed?”

  “Fine. But hurry. I want to hear what happened.”

  “Oh, I have a lot to tell you.”

  * * *

  Belle slumped into the back of my couch. “I can’t believe it. Caroline.”

  “I know.”

  “Or William.”

  “Take your pick.” I patted Bo’s head, but my eyes were stuck in stare mode. “I don’t know which one, but either makes sense.”

  She sat forward. “But we don’t know if Caroline knows about William and Savannah, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And anything between William and Heather is—or was—just speculation on our part.”