Moving away from the sound of their voices, I crept toward another dark portion of the room and tried again.
“Lucky, if you’ve been watching me, I need you to come out. I have to talk to you. There’s something I could use your help with.”
But still silence greeted me. I was irritated with the whole situation, but getting mad at Lucky for not showing up wouldn’t help anything. Our last argument had been bad, and if he stayed out of sight until the next time my dad showed up, I wouldn’t blame him.
I shook my head. Why did things always get so stupid and complicated? Why couldn’t they be easy? Just for once, when dealing with a spirit, it would have been nice if they’d been able to simply say,Oh, so-and-so killed me. Or it would have been great if Lucky had just told me the truth from the beginning; that way I would have known what I was dealing with when I first saw my father. We could have found a way to hold him then. Really, Lucky should have told me the truth and given me the gift to hold him all at once.
Hindsight, right?
But as it was, I was pretty much stuck in the situation that I was in, creeping around an eerie house on early Christmas Eve morning with Ruth and Alice, whose voices were raised once more.
“Alice, I swear if you throw that thing at me, I will never forgive you.”
An evil grin smeared across Alice’s face. Cupped in her hands lay the biggest fake snowball that I’d ever seen. It was huge—bigger than a softball but smaller than a basketball.
“You said it couldn’t be done,” she said proudly. “I knew that I could pack it. All it needed was some spit.”
Gross.
“You’re not throwing it at me.”
Alice frowned. “Come on, Ruth. It wouldn’t kill you to have a little snowball fight.”
“Yes, it would.” Ruth dropped Alice’s purse onto the floor. “It would kill me, and it’ll kill you, too, because if I get all that fake stuff on my clothes, I’ll be ticked off. Tomorrow isn’t laundry day.”
Alice clocked back her arm. “Well, get ready, because it’s all going to let loose now.”
“Alice,” Ruth warned, but it was too late. The old lady had already hurled the ball into the air.
Now, I didn’t take Alice for being much of a shot, not even at point-blank range. She certainly wasn’t that close, but she wasn’t too far from Ruth, either.
Which meant that the next thing I knew, the snowball and all its fake fluff had smacked Ruth right in the face. Fake fluttery white bits floated to the floor.
Ruth stood shell-shocked while Alice grabbed her stomach, laughter bubbling up in her.
“You should see the look on your face,” Alice said. “Blissful, take a picture.”
“If you do, I will never speak to you again.” Ruth brushed off the pieces. “I promise, Blissful.”
Well, that was enough of a threat for me. “I won’t take one.” The pure astonishment on Ruth’s face made me an inch away from laughing out loud. I lifted my little finger. “Pinky swear.”
Ruth dusted her face and, with Alice’s help, got the last of the flakes from her hair.
I sighed. “Well, it doesn’t look as if Lucky’s going to appear here. Let’s keep moving.”
We tiptoed from the room. Well, I tiptoed. Alice waddled and bumped into the walls while Ruth shot her glaring looks. We were about to turn into a side room when I heard clattering coming from the hall that led to the kitchen.
I placed a finger on my mouth and padded toward the sound. Standing in the hallway, her back turned to us, stood Lemon, going through drawers. I held my breath and prayed the sound of my beating heart didn’t give me away.
I also prayed that Alice wouldn’t choose this moment to sneeze or step on Ruth’s foot—or mine, for that matter.
Lemon pulled a velvet bag from a drawer and proceeded to quietly place silverware inside.
Then it hit me—this wasn’t regular steel ware at all—it was silver, something of value.
Since the house was no longer hers, Lemon planned to take everything worth something out the front door with her.
I motioned for Ruth and Alice to go back the way we had come, back to the room that Christmas had vomited all over.
