“A vampire?” She wiped the last of the tears from her cheeks and rolled her eyes at Opal’s absurd words.
“Yes. Possibly two of them.” Opal leaned toward Sophia and Josie in a conspiring fashion and glanced around. She nodded her head to the cookie-cutter, saltbox-style beach house to the right of Opal’s. Instead of the orange-sherbet paint job, it was whitewashed with dusty-blue shutters. “A moving truck showed up late last night. I saw two men slinking around in the dark, and they kept at it until sunrise. Then all went eerily quiet over there.”
Sophia pulled her sunglasses down the bridge of her nose and looked for any sign of life. A nice set of outdoor furniture had been placed on the back deck and a beach bike was propped against the side of the house, but nothing looked amiss. She slid the shades back into place and was about to look away when the curtain at the kitchen window fluttered, revealing a hint of a shadowed figure. Sitting up taller and angling her head to the side, she whispered, “Someone’s in the kitchen.” She heard Opal gasp and Josie snort.
All three leaned over the railing, like that would actually get them close enough to see more clearly. Sophia knew they looked like a bunch of nosy rubberneckers, but she kept leaning until a loud boom ricocheted from the neighboring house. Three sets of feet cleared the deck as squealing burst from each of the women.
“What was that?” Sophia whisper-yelled, ducking down behind the deck railing and clutching her pounding chest.
“See!” Opal crouched beside her. “I told you something’s not right with him.”
“How do you even know it’s a him?” Sophia narrowed her eyes and glanced over to find Josie settling back into her chair, obviously the only sane one out of the bunch. She stood and followed suit.
“I already told you. It’s two guys and I saw them hauling in things last night. One of which was a long box.” Opal stretched her arms as wide as they would go while her eyes bugged out. “I’m pretty sure it may have been a coffin.”
Josie snorted again. “Get up from there, silly, and knock it off.”
Opal stood and dusted the sand off her brightly colored shorts. “I’m serious. That house has been sitting there vacant since Mrs. Clark vanished last year—” Her eyes rounded again. “Oooh! The neighbor did it!”
“With the candlestick in the dining room!” Josie interjected with a thick coating of sarcasm.
“I have the weirdest friends,” Sophia muttered, propping her cheek on the palm of her hand and slouching against the side of the chair.
Josie disregarded the jab and said to Opal, “You know Mrs. Clark went to live with her sister in Florida.”
“So they say . . .” Opal’s words trailed off as she jabbed a finger toward the house. “She could have been holed up in the basement all this time.”
“Your husband oversaw the renovations to the house just last month. To be sure, Linc would have noticed an old lady tied up somewhere.” Josie rolled her eyes and picked up a cookie from the plate. She gave it a cautious sniff. “You didn’t bake these, did you, Opal?”
“You know Linc doesn’t let me near the oven. Momma made them.” Opal drummed her fingertips against the table while eyeing next door. Suddenly she jolted in such a spastic manner that it caught Sophia’s waning attention. “The curtain moved again!”
Sophia blinked slowly at her friend before moving her sights over to next door. All she could see were shadows moving past the windows. They appeared to be drifting about in no particular direction. Much the same way she was doing as of late.
“I think we need to go over there and check things out.”
“We’re doing no such thing,” Josie ordered while swiping two more cookies and handing one to Sophia. “Seriously, Opal, that’s enough. You keep on and I’m calling Linc to come get ahold of you.”
Sophia sniffed the cookie out of habit since it came from Opal, finding only the delicious aromas of vanilla and chocolate chips. She took a bite and chewed absently, realizing her sluggish attention was missing something. From Opal’s outlandish behavior over the new neighbor and Josie’s snorting responses to it all, clearly she wasn’t catching on to whatever was happening. But she didn’t care enough to try figuring it out.
2
The smell of fresh paint mixed with a lemony scent the cleaning crew had left in their wake had been welcoming the prior evening. But after pulling an all-nighter and sorting through moving boxes until the sun showed up, Weston Sawyer was over it. Squinting his tired eyes at his watch and finding it past noon, the only scent he wanted assailing his senses was coffee. Stat.
“Looks like the neighborhood watch is already on to you,” Seth mumbled as he peered out the kitchen window of Wes’s new home.
Wes rummaged through the third box marked kitchen, hoping to unearth the coffeemaker. If his search came up empty once more, he was heading out the door to find some form of caffeine. “Why’s that?”
“There are three women sitting on the deck next door watching us. Been there for a while now.”
“Aha!” Wes held up the coffeemaker’s carafe as if it were a grand prize. At the moment, it certainly was, to him. He yanked the machine part out next and walked it over to the counter to put it to work. He glanced out the window as he filled the pot with water and spotted his audience. A blonde sat chowing down on cookies while another woman in a giant sun hat looked to be melting into her chair from slumping down so much. He couldn’t help but chuckle at the wild one with her hands flailing around. “The redhead is my new neighbor, Opal Cole. Her husband remodeled the house and the doctor’s office for me.” Wes surveyed the space and was quite impressed with the clean lines of the kitchen. The white marble countertops with subtle veining weren’t like anything he’d ever had in a home. Taking in the espresso wood floors and the crisp gray walls, he concluded nothing was, for that matter. Lincoln Cole nailed it.
“Oh.” Seth kept looking out the window. “She dropped those cookies off earlier, right?”
“Yes. She promised she didn’t bake them. Whatever that means.” Wes scooped the ground coffee into the filter and inhaled deeply of the robust scent. “They’ll go good with some coffee. I hope between the sugar and the caffeine, we can muster enough energy to set up a few rooms before I have to take you to the airport.” He glanced at his brother out of the corner of his eye. It was like looking in the mirror, but his brother’s image reflected an untarnished spirit that Wes’s never would. “Sure wish you could stay longer than just one day.”
Seth turned away from the window and grabbed up another box. “I drove that stinking moving van all the way here and helped you unload it for a better part of the night. I call my brotherly duties done.” Seth’s teasing smirk vanished as he stumbled and dropped the box, sending an explosive clanging ringing out.
“Man, if you messed up my pots . . .” Wes moved over to work the tape off the lid so he could inspect them.
Seth let out an obnoxious snort. “You’re so particular over everything, old man. They’re just pots and pans.”
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to take care of my belongings.” Wes’s words choked off as soon as he realized what he’d said. He’d failed at taking care of what belonged to him when it had mattered the most. Without inspecting the contents of the box, he straightened and walked back to the coffeemaker. His eyes fixed on the ribbon of rich-brown liquid filling the pot as he gripped the back of his neck with both hands.