Silenced by the Yams - By Karen Cantwell Page 0,30

snatched up my cell phone. Callie appeared at the top of the stairs.

“Mom, what’s going on?”

Putting my finger to my lips, I let her know to keep it quiet, then whispered. “Not sure. Someone’s trying to get in.”

She whispered back. “Is it Dad?”

The door knob jiggled again and I gulped. It was certainly possible that Howard had finally come home, but he would use his key. Colt said he’d text when he was done with Frankie, so I knew it wasn’t him. That left . . . who? A misguided locksmith? A really hungry raccoon? The Rustic Woods Strangler? Newspaper headlines flashed through my mind: “Rustic Woods Mother of Three Found Murdered in Her Home. Mother-in-law Mortified Not By Death, But By Mess Left Behind.”

My palms dripped nervous sweat as I wondered who might be attempting to gain entry to my house. “Callie, go to your room. I’ve got this handled.”

“Are you sure?”

I plucked an umbrella from the stand to my right, feeling lucky that one was actually available. Usually, in the Marr house, umbrellas were only ever found in the umbrella stand on sunny days. “I’m sure,” I said, pointing the umbrella at her. “Now, git.”

“Git?”

I waggled the umbrella at her to shoo her off, then crept to the living room window while plugging 911 into the cell phone. I’d hit the talk button and connect to rescue if a visual proved my visitor dangerous.

The distinct summer hum of horny cicadas reverberated through the window as I strained to see who stood at my door. Suddenly, a round of ear-piercing screams drowned the insects’ call and at the same time, I got a glimpse of the doorknob-jigglers.

That’s right—there were two of them, and I didn’t need to call 911.

Chapter Twelve

I threw open the door to see Peggy dancing around and brushing frantically at her legs. “What are you two doing? You scared the devil out of me!”

Roz pounded on Peggy’s shoulder. “I told you we should’ve just knocked!”

“Ow, that’s my bad arm!” Peggy shouted, still dancing and still brushing. “Do you see it? Where did it go?”

I shot Roz a questioning look.

She shrugged. “She claims a spider dropped on her.”

Callie had flown down the stairs in a panic. When she saw it was just her mother’s silly friends, she rolled her eyes and huffed back up.

“Callie,” I whispered, “check on Mama and make sure we didn’t wake her, okay?”

Her only answer was another eye roll.

I turned my attention back to the late night interlopers. Peggy had settled down, but looked around warily. “You should have seen it. He was huge. I think it was a black widow.”

Peggy was famous for her fear of spiders. In her mind they were all the size of small rodents and they were all black widows or brown recluses.

“If it was a black widow,” I said, “it would have been a ‘she’ not a ‘he’. And again, what are you two doing?”

“We were trying to hang this on your doorknob.” Peggy held up a mint green envelope. “It’s an invitation to the farewell party.”

“I didn’t need an invitation.”

Peggy slid a guilty look toward Roz, who shuffled uncomfortably in her tan loafers. Roz had been my best friend since I moved into our house nearly six years earlier. She was small in stature but big in action. She had three kids under the age of seven, was den mother in the local cub scout pack, volunteered in the senior center and had just finished a stint as PTA president at our kids’ elementary school. She stood before me now in her typical attire—a floral print rayon dress and loafers. I was pretty sure she owned at least a dozen loafers in different colors to match the fifty-plus floral print dresses she owned. What was really disgusting was that even at ten thirty at night, every hair in her blond Dorothy Hamil bob lay in perfect formation. A cherry picker could come by, grab her up and shake her around like a martini mixer and when it put her back down, those hairs would all fall back into line like the Rockettes in Radio City Music Hall. My hair, on the other hand, given the same scenario, would freak out and when the dust settled, I’d wind up looking like Edward Scissorhands on a particularly bad hair day.

Despite her perfections, I just couldn’t be jealous of Roz—she was my friend, and I felt another twinge of sadness that she was moving so far away.

But right now,