Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet - Darynda Jones Page 0,18

rearview. “Don’t even think about going for a joy ride, buddy.”

His blank gaze didn’t flinch. He was fun.

A self-assured man who was dressed much more casually than I’d expected met me at the massive white door. The house looked more East Coast than most houses in New Mexico. Without saying a word, the man led me to what I could only assume was a drawing room, though there were no art supplies anywhere. Since I couldn’t draw, I decided to snoop. Pictures lined the walls and shelves, but there was not a single candid shot among them. Every photograph was a professional portrait, and each one had a color theme. Black. Brown. Navy blue. Four in the family: the parents, one boy, and one girl—Harper. They all had dark hair except the boy, and he didn’t particularly look like the others. I wondered if the rooster had gotten out of the henhouse. A blond rooster. The parade of portraits mapped out the development of the Lowell children, from around four or five until the kids were in their early twenties. Clearly the parents had a firm grip on their children. In one portrait, they got almost crazy and wore white.

These people were scary.

“How may I help you?”

I turned to a woman, the matriarch of this here hoity-toity club, if the pictures were any indication. By the upturn of her nose, she held herself in high regard. Either that, or she found my fascination with her drawing room distasteful.

I didn’t offer my hand. “My name is Charlotte Davidson, Mrs. Lowell. I’m here about Harper.”

“I’ve been told you are a private investigator?”

“Yes. Your daughter hired me. She believes someone is trying to kill her.”

A lengthy exhalation told me she probably didn’t care. “Stepdaughter,” she clarified, and my hackles rose instantly.

I wondered if my stepmother did the same with me. Corrected people when they called me her daughter. Cringed at the usage. The very thought.

“Has Harper mentioned the fact that she’s being stalked?”

“Fact?” she said, her expression full of a peevish kind of doubt. “Yes, Ms. Davidson. We’ve been through this with her ad nauseam. I can’t imagine you could bring anything new to the table.”

The woman’s indifference floored me. It was one thing not to believe Harper, but another altogether to be so blatantly unaffected by her stepdaughter’s distress. Then I got a clue that might shed some light.

“May I ask, is Harper’s brother your stepson as well?”

Pride swelled her chest. “Arthur is mine. I married Harper’s father when Art was seven. Harper was five. She didn’t approve, and these antics of hers began soon after.”

“Antics?” I asked.

“Yes.” She waved a dismissive hand. “The drama. The theatrics. Someone is always after her, trying to scare her or hurt her or kill her. You can imagine how hard it is to take this seriously when it has been happening for over twenty-five years.”

That was interesting. Harper hadn’t mentioned that part. “So this started when she was young?”

“Five.”

“I see.” I took out my notepad and pretended to take notes. Partly to look official, but mostly to give myself a minute to get a well-rounded read off her. From what I could tell, she wasn’t lying. She didn’t believe Harper’s accusations were real. She didn’t believe Harper’s life was in danger.

Then again, my stepmother had never believed a word I’d said growing up either. Mrs. Lowell’s indifference meant nothing in the grand scheme of things besides the fact that she was petty and vain.

“According to her therapists,” she continued, her tone waspish to the extreme, “seven therapists, to be exact—it’s not unusual for a daughter to feel neglected and crave attention when her father remarries. Her biological mother died when she was an infant. Jason was all she had.”

“Is your husband home? May I talk to him?”

She chafed under my forwardness. “No, you may not. Mr. Lowell is very ill. He can hardly entertain Harper’s delusions of doom, much less those of a hired private investigator.”

Mrs. Lowell’s expression would suggest she thought I was nothing more than a charlatan, out to take Harper’s—aka her—money. Since I was quite used to people believing me a charlatan, the snub didn’t irritate. But the slight to Harper did. She clearly harbored no genuine affection for her stepdaughter. She saw her as a nuisance. A burden. Much like my own stepmother thought of me.

“And,” Mrs. Lowell continued, a thought having occurred to her, “she disappeared for three years. Three! Off the face of the Earth, as far as we