Lisa R. Howeler's Blog, page 58

Saturday Afternoon Chat: A week of heartache in the world but trying to hold on to some happiness.

This week has been a heavy week and while I have so much I want to say today on the terrorism that struck Israel a week ago today, I also like to keep my blog as a safe place where people can escape for a bit. So today I will do my best not to bring the mood down, so to speak. I have expressed my concerns and my anger and my heartbreak on my social media sites (Instagram and Facebook) so you can read there if you would like to know my feelings.

For now, though, I’m going to ask what tea or coffee you are drinking this week. Or if it isn’t coffee or tea, what’s the warm or cold drink you’re reaching for as you read, write, or just hang out with others?

Earlier in the week I was drinking my old reliable of peppermint tea but today I am sipping hot cocoa with cocoa powder in lactose-free milk and maple syrup as the sweetener.

The warmth of my drink is needed right now as our temperatures have dropped significantly in the last week. Not winter temperatures just yet, but we are getting there.

A blogger friend commented on one of my posts that they are looking forward to my fall photos this year. I winced a bit when I read that because I have not taken many fall photos this year and our leaves are almost gone. I’m going to try to make up for not taking many and get some close-ups of the leaves we will have on the trees this week.

For now, I have a few of the leaves Little Miss and I have been picking up as we walk to our car or around the house. I’ve also added in a photo of the bacon pancakes I tried to make for the kids, as well as a view from my parents and the tree in our backyard.

This past week was somewhat routine. I was glued to the news and crying a lot but we also made time for homeschooling (though not all I wanted to do) and visiting with a former pastor and his wife who visited my parents yesterday.

My parents had offered this pastor, his wife, and their three daughters a place to stay more than 20 years ago when the pastor was sort of pushed out of the church that we were attending. It was an awkward time and sometimes I am surprised that I continued to go to that church for many years after that mess.

He was criticized for not bringing in enough new members/money and stepped down. Unsure of their next steps he and his wife were offered to stay in the house I grew up in by my parents. They spent three years there and yesterday they were able to thank my parents for the shelter they gave them from the storm.

They were also able to update them on their lives and the lives of their daughters and now grandchildren. They live three hours away and the woman had a hip replacement this summer so it was extremely nice of them to make the trip all the way up to see my parents.

This is the second former pastor of the church to make a special effort to see my parents in a month. No one from the current church family has contacted them to check on them or to see why they stopped attending the church and that’s been very disappointing, but sadly predictable in this day and age.

I didn’t mean the above statement to be as negative as it sounded – it’s just the way it is right now and it’s sad, but visiting with those former pastors and their wives really uplifted my parents’ spirits and I am grateful to them for making my parents feel special.

This weekend we are taking it easy other than attending a fundraising event for a local charity organization. That will be later this evening and the introvert in me is screaming at me to stay home, but the wife in me says I should actually attend an event with my husband for once since he has to go to so many for work and I rarely join him. I’m not a social person,, but he’s also working at these events so I don’t like to distract him. Tonight should be fun but after that, I am hiding away for the rest of the weekend and into next week.

I do have one homeschool event to possibly attend Monday but the next week is fairly clear for any major events, thankfully. I am really looking forward to being home and taking our time for schoolwork and making soup and whatever else we can do when it is too cold or snowy to go anywhere. Hopefully, I will also take some time to capture some photos before all the leaves fall off the trees.

How was your week last week and what are you looking forward to next week? Let me know in the comments.

Also, don’t forget to share one of your favorite blog posts from the week on the Weekend Traffic Jam blog link which you can find here:

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot! Add your links!

It is my second week co-hosting the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with Marsha in the Middle and Melynda from Scratch Made Food For Hungry People.

I hope all my blogger friends will add your link to a favorite post from your blog this past week or even from previous weeks (there’s really no time limit). It helps to share your work more and connect with more bloggers, which is why I enjoy it.

I felt a bit numb this week from the news in the world so it was a nice break to wander from blog to blog and read about fashion and tours of photogenic villages and food and anything else not related to heartbreaking topics.

Here are my favorite posts from the week:

My Slices of Life: Our Trip to the Zoo

The Copper Table: Pumpkin Scones With Maple Thyme Butter

Shelbee on the Edge: What In The World Is This Wonderfully Weird Weather?

And the post with the most clicks last week was:

Thrifting Wonderland:  A Little Art Deco In Your Fall

If you have a post you would like to share, do so at the link below:

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Comfy, Cozy Cinema: The Lady Vanishes

For the rest of October and all of November, Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I will be watching cozy or comfy movies and some of them will have a little mystery or adventure added in.

This week we watched the 1938 Alfred Hitchcock Film The Lady Vanishes. This was my second time watching it but I honestly had forgotten half of it so I was glad Erin suggested it.

I needed the distraction watching it provided this week. I know. I say this every time I write about the movie we are watching, but I need a lot of distractions these days and this week especially.

The movie begins in the fictional country of Bandrika where Iris Henderson (Margaret Lockwood) is vacationing with friends before she goes home to the United States to get married.

She is staying at a hotel with her friends and others, most of whom got stranded when an avalanche wiped out the train tracks. She interacts with the musician — Gilbert Redman (Michael Redgrave) — after he wakes her up with his loud music when she’s trying to get enough sleep for her trip the next day. Because she complains, the manager of the hotel kicks Gilbert out of his room. He makes a very nervy move and walks into her room uninvited and tells her he is going to stay and tell everyone she invited him in unless she calls the manager and tells him to put him back in his room.

There are so very funny quips in this movie and one of them is after Iris calls the manager back to get Gilbert out of her room.

“For the record, I think you are the most contemptible man I have ever met!” she yells at the door as he leaves.

He looks around the door and says in a soft voice. “Confidentially, I think you’re a bit of a stinker too.”

Earlier in the movie the manager tells two British men who are trying to return to Britain for a test match of Cricket in Manchester that he doesn’t have a room for them but they can stay in the maid’s room. There are a couple of funny scenes with the maid trying to change in front of them and them trying to tell her she can’t but her not understanding because her English isn’t very good.

There is actually a lot of humor in this movie, which isn’t always the case in an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

The two British men need some food so they head to the dining room, but are told by the waiter that there is no more food because there have been so many unexpected people staying there due to the avalanche. They can’t understand him because he doesn’t speak English so a woman named Miss Froy translates for them.

They chat with her for a while and she tells them how much she loves looking at the mountains in this country and how she’s been a nanny there for six years and is going home to England the next day.

Miss Froy also speaks to Iris when they both try to figure out where the music is coming from. That’s right before Iris has Gilbert removed from his room.

The movie seems to be all fun and games until someone strangles the musician Miss Froy enjoys listening to. She doesn’t know the man has been murdered, of course. She just thinks the music has stopped.

She also seems clueless the next day at the train station when someone tries to kill her by pushing a large concrete flower box out of the window. Instead of hitting her, though, it hits Iris in the head, which leaves Iris dazed – a perfect setup for a train ride that gets really weird when Miss Froy eventually disappears.  

Iris clearly has a concussion but Miss Froy seems to think putting perfume on a hankie and handing it to Iris to put on her head will help. Was that ever a thing for head injuries? I have no idea but it seemed weird. Anyhow, Iris falls asleep and when she wakes up Miss Froy is there and they walk to the dining car and have tea.

After they have tea, Miss Froy tells Iris to rest again. She does and when she wakes up Miss Froy is gone and when she asks the other couple in the car where she went, they tell her they never saw an older British woman and imply Iris is insane.

Implying Iris is insane is the plot for the next 20 minutes of the movie as everyone begins to say they never saw Miss Froy. We learn everyone has a various reason for saying they never saw the woman.

The British Cricket enthusiasts don’t want to be delayed any longer. They have a cricket match to get to. Another couple doesn’t want any attention brought to them because they are cheating on their spouses.

This movie is a master class in gaslighting.

If you don’t know what gaslighting is, it is saying something that happened isn’t what really happened or that the reason you think it happened isn’t the reason it happened. It’s also when a person tries to distract them from what they are concerned about by saying there is another issue altogether. Like if a woman catches her husband cheating and she confronts him, he might say, “You’re so bitter and mean all of the time. I don’t even know what is wrong with you,” to try to convince the woman she imagined it all and the real issue is that she’s mean and bitter. The goal is to make the person feel like they are crazy for being concerned or accusing someone of something.

When everyone starts lying, Iris is about to lose her mind and the only one who will listen to her is Gilbert – the musician she clashed with at the hotel.

Eventually, after seeing a wrapper for a certain tea (you’ll have to watch the movie to see what this means), Gilbert starts to believe Iris that the woman really was there and they begin to look for her together. They both feel something criminal is going on and eventually, it is implied that this crime is related to spying on another country.

Though the plot and issue is a serious one, there is humor involved. For example, humor is employed often in a fight scene between Gilbert and a man who is determined to take evidence of Miss Froy’s existence away from Gilbert and Iris.  Not only do animals in the freight car of the train watch the fight going on, but the fight also continues into a magic box placed there by the cheating man, who they learn is a musician.

There seemed to be quite a few subtle slams in this movie against the British who just can’t imagine anything bad is happening on the train and gets upset when anything interrupts their tea time, but I think Hitchcock did that a lot.

The movie is based on a book called The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White, but apparently deviated heavily from the plot of the novel. Actually, after reading the plot of the novel, I really want to read it because it sounds very good.

The British cricket enthusiasts were not in the book at all and were added to the movie.

The book was written in 1936 and the movie was released in 1938. The novel and movie’s plot clearly references the events leading up to the start of World War II.

Michael Redgrave was known for his work on the stage and almost didn’t agree to take part in the movie but in the end, his decision to take the park when Hitchcock offered it paid off for him because it made him an international star.

He and Hitchcock never worked together again, however, because Redgrave wanted more rehearsals and Hitchcock wanted more spontaneity.

The movie was a hit in the UK and the U.S. when it was released according to information online.

Geoffrey O’Brien from The Criterion (a movie review site) states: The Lady Vanishes (1938) is the film that best exemplifies Alfred Htchcock’s often-asserted desire to offer audiences not a slice of life but a slice of cake. Even Claude Chabrol and Eric Rohmer, in their pioneering study of Hitchcock, for once abandoned the search for hidden meanings and—though rating it “an excellent English film, an excellent Hitchcock film”—decided it was one that “requires little commentary,” while François Truffaut declared that every time he tried to study the film’s trick shots and camera movements, he became too absorbed in the plot to notice them. Perhaps they were disarmed by pleasure . .”

O’Brien points out that the screenwriters of the film, Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, were the ones who really added the rich wit that made the film a joy rather than an ominous mystery.

This film was filmed in England and at that time they didn’t have a large budget, which is why much of the movie was filmed in only two places – the hotel and a 90-foot-long train car or two. This constraint would have limited most movie makers, but not Hitchcock, who was still able to line up amazing, eye-catching shots, including one that I noticed with the camera focused squarely on two glasses where a drug has been placed all while a tense conversation is going on in the background.

The whole time there is this tension for the viewer, who knows that those glasses have a drug in them and leaves the viewer with a desperate desire to cry out for the characters not to drink the tainted wine.

I really liked what O’Brien said about the performance of Dame May Whitty and agreed: Since in a moment she is going to vanish, Miss Froy must for a moment dominate everything, and Whitty achieves just that, and even more: she makes us feel an affection for Miss Froy deep enough that her disappearance will seem an unspeakable affront, an assault on Englishness itself in its least threatening form.

If you want to read more of O’Brien’s view of the film you can find it HERE.

If you want to catch up with Erin’s thoughts on the movie, click here: https://crackercrumblife.com/2023/10/12/comfy-cozy-cinema-the-lady-vanishes/

If you want to join in on the review yourself feel free to add your link below.

Next week we are watching Strangers on a Train and will write about it on October 19.

After that we are watching:

Rebecca (Oct. 26)

Little Women (November 2)

Tea with The Dames (November 9)

A break for Thanksgiving

And

Sense and Sensibility (November 30th)

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We are all in this thing called life together.

This is a poem by my grandfather.

He wrote poems about everything.

We have stacks and stacks of them in boxes at my parents’ house. My job is to go through them and pick out the best to share.

My dad originally asked me to place them in binders but I think I might actually type them up and make them into a book.

I never met my grandfather. I was only two when he died. Through these poems, though, I am able to learn a lot about him, how his mind worked, and how he looked at the world.

Most of the poems are about places he went or people he met. He wrote poems for waitresses who waited on him and my grandmother or people he met when they traveled. He wrote a poem for Christmas each year, or many years at least, and sometimes he wrote poems for family members.

His poems were simple but sometimes, I don’t know, I feel like there were deeper meanings in them – like in this one above.

“Listen all here’s the deal, you’re a cog in the wheel…”

He was writing about his hospital stay one time, maybe around the same time he was diagnosed with cancer, about the nurses and doctors needed to keep the place running, but there seems to be something deeper in it too: “Don’t know where we’d all be without that wheel, don’t you see?”

Yes, we are all in this thing called life together and Grandpa knew that well.

Sunday Bookends: Reading through my autumn TBR, watching old movies, and a new blog feature to share your posts

Sunday Bookends October 8

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.

This week I’m joining up with  Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer  and Kathyrn at  The Book Date.

What’s Been Occurring

I have to be honest that I’m a little distracted today by what is happening in Israel and I feel like writing a blog post about what I’m reading and doing in my life is pretty unimportant. I’m only continuing because I think we all need distractions right now, no matter how small.

I follow some people who live in Israel and have read some books about the situation in Palestine so hearing the news from the area is extremely upsetting.

I’ll move on for now, though, and relay that I really didn’t do much last week at all but if you want to read about it you can check out my post here.

What I/we’ve been Reading

Last week I finished The Cat Who Blew The Whistle by Lilian Jackson Braun. I enjoyed it for the most part but the ending was strange and a little annoying to me. That happens at times with Braun’s books, but this was at least better than the later ones that were put out and probably not fully written by Braun later in her life.

I am making my way through my autumn reading list slowly, but fairly steadily.

Now I am on to reading Death Bee Comes Her by Nancy Coco and also plan to read a Nancy Drew book for fun (The Hidden Staircase). Death Bee Comes Her was not originally on my list but I picked it up at a used bookstore and it fit well with the theme since it happens in the autumn so I decided to add it in.

The Boy and I are reading Red Badge of Courage still for school.

Little Miss and I are reading Gone Away Lake for school.

 The Husband just started a Dennis Lehane book and I’m not sure if he started another one yet.

What We watched/are Watching

Last week I didn’t watch a lot of movies but I hope to watch a couple this week, including The Lady Vanishes for the Comfy, Cozy Cinema with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs.

If you want to join us you are welcome to and we will have a link up for you to add your post to.

We did watch some Newhart and I watched an episode of Miss Scarlet and The Duke.

This week I really want to focus on escaping in some good movies, some wholesome things as well, including The Chosen and The Dick VanDyke Show – anything to calm myself inside.

What I’m Writing

I am working hard to finish Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage and am almost done. I did push the release date off by a couple of weeks because I was concerned I might not have time to write it, revise it, and send it the editor, and revise it again in time for it to be released on the original date. I wanted to slow myself down a bit.

Once I’m finished with this book, I’ll be continuing to work on Cassie, which is a book that will be released in August of 2024 with the Apron Strings Book Series. It is based in the 1990s so it will be fun to research that decade, which I lived through but have forgotten a lot about. Ha! Not because I was drunk or drugged but because I was lost in my own little world in high school and college.

This week on the blog I shared the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with two other bloggers. This is a chance for bloggers to share favorite posts from their blogs for the week. You can still share your posts now and we will be back again on Thursday at 9:30 p.m. to set up the link for everyone who wants to participate.

Also on the blog this week I shared about a movie I watched The Lightkeepers.

What I’m Listening to

I listened to a lot of Brandon Lake this week and other worship music, as well as other Christian artists I hadn’t heard of before in an Apple Music playlist. I needed it.

Now it’s your turn

Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

Saturday Afternoon Chat: A sore tooth, grandma’s birthday, autumn weather is here to stay (maybe), and a chance for bloggers to connect with other bloggers

Autumn weather has arrived and hopefully to stay.

I’ve written this before on this blog so we will see if I have to write it again in another month.

Last week we had temperatures in the high 70s and low 80s. Not exactly the weather I was hoping for to allow me to curl up under a blanket with a good book or to write a blog post.

Today, though, the temperature is in the low 60s and it’s raining.

Perfect weather for cuddling, reading, and writing this blog post.

Oddly, though, I am not drinking warm tea or cocoa today as I write this. I am actually drinking cold orange mango juice that my daughter made for me in a sippy cup with a straw that her grandparents gave her for her birthday. Why did my parents give my daughter a sippy cup for her 9th birthday? Well, because my daughter likes little cups with straws and now she has one. The cups are so cute, my almost 17-year-old son even likes drinking out of them. I have to admit that even I like having that cute little with a lid in case I knock it over, since I am a bit of klutz at times.

This is completely off the subject but as I wrote the date while saving today’s post in my computer (I write my posts in my computer and copy and paste because of WordPress’s poor composing interface), I realized that today is my late grandmother’s birthday.

Facebook reminded me of this as well with a memory post from when my dad shared a post of mine about my grandmother:

I miss my grandmothers terribly. Mom and I were talking about how remembering our loved ones helps to keep them alive and she’s right. I told her saying that has always felt sort of corny to me since I really want that loved one with me, not “alive” in my mind. Yet, I understand the saying and as I’ve gotten older it has made more sense to me, even if I would prefer to physically hug my grandparents instead of just keeping them alive in my memories.

  If you are a longtime follower of my blog you may notice that I mention my grandmothers more than I do my grandfathers. This is because I lost both of my grandfathers when I was very young. My paternal grandfather died when I was 2 and my maternal grandfather died when I was 9 and I only saw him once a year because he lived 600 miles away. I wish I had been able to know both of them better, but I am grateful that the rest of the family has been able to share memories of them with me over the years.

This past week wasn’t a super busy one for us, luckily.

It was mainly homeschooling, reading, working on book two in the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries, and on Friday a trip to get my license photo. License photos are horrible already but I would say this is the worst one I have ever had taken. No, I’m not going to show it. It looks like I smelled something bad but am pretending I didn’t. As someone with glasses, I was told to tip my chin so there wouldn’t be a glare on the glasses. The frustrating thing is that this made my second chin more prominent. Luckily, I have rarely had to show my license to anyone in the last four years so hopefully I won’t have to show this one to anyone either.

We don’t have a lot planned for this upcoming week other than school. The Boy is excited because he doesn’t have school Monday. Well, he doesn’t have it at his trade school at least. I told him I may still give him some assignments for our homeschool lessons, but I really don’t think I’ll be that cruel.

He has been attending a trade school for two and a half hours in the morning and then has assignments from his other subjects in the afternoon. He is learning how to build things such as sheds and corn hole game boards at the trade school and it’s a lot more work than he or I realized, but he seems to enjoy the hands-on work it provides. It is much better than sitting in a classroom and listening to a lecture from a teacher, that’s for sure.

This week he will be going on a field trip to a technical school an hour from us and is currently earning college credits that can be used at this school if he decides to attend it in two years after he graduates.

Switching gears again, the leaves changed so fast here and then fell right off. I barely had time to grab any photos and really had no time this week because I was dealing with a sore tooth that I can hopefully have taken care of in January. Getting into a dentist is hard in our area and then there is the whole thing about needing money to pay for the dentist when you don’t have dental insurance. It’s no fun but I am hopeful I can keep the tooth feeling okay until I can get in.

I did get an antibiotic Thursday from my local doctor because a small bump developed above the broken tooth. While the pain was minimal, I decided I should get an antibiotic to make sure if there is an infection there it doesn’t spread. I am very thankful to God that the pain has not spread and that it doesn’t seem like the infection has either. It’s also amazing I have not had more pain with the shape my teeth are in. Sadly, I’ve always had very bad teeth and some health issues – like hypothyroidism – haven’t helped that issue.

I have been feeling a bit on edge lately with so many personal things going on at once and today I thought I’d be honest that I have not leaned into God the way I should have. I am trying to be better about that but this morning I started to think about how that may be one reason I have not written a Faithfully Thinking post in a while. It is hard to encourage others to trust in God when you know you haven’t been doing a very good job of it yourself.

I haven’t been totally forgetting God, but praying to Him has not been my first reaction for most of the past few weeks. On Sunday the pastor for our online church started to talk about the many needs we all have in our lives and how we need to trust that God is enough. It was hard for me to focus on the sermon because I had just discovered we had a financial shortfall and knew that would mean we would be struggling during the week. This was added to even more financial issues we are having, plus health concerns, health concerns for my parents, work issues for my husband, etc. etc.  I didn’t want to hear another sermon about how God was going to come through when I felt like I’ve been asking him to come through for me and my family for a long time and we are still struggling in many areas.

I almost tuned the pastor at but made myself listen at least to the second half and take some notes.

I am going to listen to it again today because I know I need to be reminded – yet again – that when I feel like I do not have enough of one thing in my life (money, health, time, for example) God is enough and will make sure I have enough. This week He provided for our family in many ways. He made sure the pain in my tooth stayed at bay – reminding me of all the natural ways I can  help mouth sores or teeth issues. He made sure we had enough food and gas to get to where we needed to go.

He gave me time to quiet my brain a little bit with books and shows or movies I enjoy and spending time with my family.

Instead of bringing Him my complaints and worries every day I am going to try to thank Him for what he’s already done.

The pain in my tooth might get worse this week. I don’t know, but I am thankful for the long length of time I have had without tooth pain.

Our finances might tank even more (though I pray they do not), but I know that somehow God will make sure we do not starve.

I am not faithful the way I should be much of the time but even when I have been faithless, he has been faithful.

I am awful at making gratitude lists, but I want to start doing that more. I want to start remembering more about what God has done for me in the moments when I feel like He hasn’t provided enough.

How was your week last week? Is it chilly yet where you are or nice and warm?

I’ll be back tomorrow for my Sunday Bookends post but I also wanted to mention that I am now co-hosting a weekly post called the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot that allows bloggers to share their favorite blog posts from the week from their own blogs.  If you want to participate this week, you can find the post HERE. The post will go live on Thursday evenings around 9:30 p.m. EST. It is a nice opportunity to connect with more bloggers and share your work.

Fiction Friday: Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage Chapters 6 and 7

Welcome to the sixth and seventh chapters of Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage.

As always, this is a work in progress and there could be (will be) typos, plot holes, and other errors but those will be fixed before the book is published a couple of months from now.

If you want to read the first book in the series, you can find it on Amazon HERE.

If you don’t want to read this story in chapters on a blog and would rather read the fully-finished and polished version, you can pre-order it HERE.

If you want to learn more about my other books you can find links to them HERE.

And, new this week, if you want to donate to my blog and pay me a tip for the chapters I share, you can do so here:

One-time donation $2Monthly Subscription $5One time payment $5Annual subscription $35

In the future, I’ll be offering exclusive access to chapters to monthly or annual subscribers only.

Chapter 6

Lucinda was wearing her bright pink workout gear and sipping one of her green smoothies in the kitchen the next morning. Jacob was sitting at the table sipping a cup of coffee. His Labrador Brutus was at his feet, lying down on his side with his eyes closed.

Lucinda looked up from the newspaper. “When are you going to see Eileen today?”

Gladwynn, standing in the doorway, blinked in the morning sunlight and yawned. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. I don’t even know where I am yet.”

“You’re in our kitchen and you’re going to make yourself a healthier breakfast than you normally do,” Lucinda responded. “Now, what I was thinking was that I would go with you to Willowbrook when you go. Eileen can be a bit prickly and I know how to handle her better.”

Gladwynn paused and dramatically laid her hand on her chest. “Our kitchen?”

Lucinda looked at Gladwynn in confusion. “What?”

“You said our kitchen.”

“Yes, because it is our kitchen. You live here now so the kitchen is yours and my kitchen. Our kitchen.”

“Aw, Grandma. That’s so sweet. I love that you see it as ours now.” She hugged Lucinda on her way to the refrigerator. “But I will always see this house as yours. Morning, Jacob.”

Jacob smiled and nodded. “Morning.”

She knelt down and stroked Brutus’ head. “Also, Grandma, I really don’t think it is a good idea for you to go with me to Willowbrook today. I don’t want you to go into that condo after – you know — after what happened.”

Lucinda took a sip of her green smoothie. “I understand and it won’t be easy but it’s not like her body is still in there.”

Gladwynn opened the refrigerator door.  “No, but still — I think it would feel odd knowing that she died there. I know it feels odd for me and I didn’t even know her.”

Again Gladwynn saw Samantha’s shocked expression in her mind’s eye without wanting to. Gladwynn looked inside the fridge and did her best to focus on choosing what to have for breakfast instead. 

“Then I’ll go for emotional support.” Lucinda finished the green smoothie and set the glass in the dishwasher. “And to be honest I want to get a look at the place, see if there are any clues to what happened.”

Gladwynn shut the refrigerator door and looked at her grandmother with an expression of disbelief. “You can’t be serious.”

Jacob laughed softly as he took a sip of his tea. Gladwynn thought he seemed to be enjoying the show. Brutus was being a very good dog and simply watching as Scout pranced past him with her tail in the air.

Lucinda looked up from the toast she was buttering with a confused expression. “Serious about what?”

“After all those times you told me that I needed to let the police handle the Stabler investigation and now you think I’m going to let you go poking around a crime scene? Yeah, I don’t think so.” Gladwynn pulled the milk out. “Right, Jacob?”

He nodded. “She’s right, Lucinda. I’m sure the police have things under control.”

Gladwynn, who had known Jacob would say she was right, considering he was the town’s retired police chief, added, “Besides, I’m sure the police have already combed that place over and found anything and everything they need to find out if her death was an accident or not.”

Lucinda spoke around a mouthful of toast and shoved Scout off the counter. “I’m sure they have done a thorough job but even the best investigator may miss something when they don’t know the person well.”

“We don’t even know if there was anything suspicious about her death,” Gladwynn said as she mixed chocolate in her milk.

“Which is even more reason that my going with you shouldn’t be an issue.”

Gladwynn groaned softly as she opened the egg carton. She didn’t like the idea of Lucinda going with her, but she also wouldn’t mind a distraction when she went there. Then again, maybe Eileen would go into the apartment for them and neither of them would need to go in.

“Okay, fine. I was planning to stop on my way to work and I have to be at work around noon.”

Lucinda hurried toward the doorway, eating her toast. “Great. I can meet you at 11:15 at Willowbrook.”

Gladwynn sighed and shook her head slowly, standing by the kitchen table. The woman’s energy was astounding and she hoped she had that much when she was her age.

She looked over at Jacob who was laughing and shaking his head. “What are we going to do with her, Jacob?”

“I have no idea, but you two do need to remember that the state police are on this. They’ll find out what happened to Sam.”

Lucinda’s head appeared on one side of the doorway. “Oh, Jacob. I almost forgot you. Do you want a lift home?”

The elderly man grinned. “That’s okay. Brutus and I need the walk. Thank you for the offer, though.”

“Okay. See you tonight for dinner then.” Lucinda disappeared again.

He stood and gave Gladwynn a playful pat on the back. “She’s a firecracker, isn’t she?”

Gladwynn raised an eyebrow, looking at the empty space where Lucinda’s head had appeared and then disappeared. “I’d say she’s a bit of an out-of-control firecracker.”

Jacob and Brutus followed the path Lucinda had taken to the front door and Gladwynn returned to making her breakfast.

She’d told Lucinda they didn’t know if Samantha’s death had been an accident but Gladwynn knew deep down it hadn’t been. It couldn’t have been. Not with the expression she’d worn on her face while lying in a contorted position on the floor.

After breakfast, she took her mug of coffee into her grandfather’s office. She chose a book from one of the tall bookshelves and sat in the large leather chair in the corner of the room next to a floor-to-ceiling window that looked like it had been pulled from the set of a movie based on a Jane Austen book.

She pulled her legs up under her, reached over, and turned on the 1940s-style radio on a small table next to her. She quickly found the local oldies station, which most likely wouldn’t play many of the songs she and her grandfather had listened to when she was growing up, but would still provide songs better than the shallow country songs that filled most of the airways in Marson County.

When a song by The Platters came on, she felt like she’d hit the musical lottery. She hummed along as she flipped the book open to her bookmarked page. She was three chapters into her reading session when her cell phone rang. She shot it a quick glare and decided to ignore it. She needed this quiet time before work today. She had another meeting in Birchwood – a municipality where everyone argued or was upset about something or other.

Her phone rang again five minutes later and she tipped her head back and sighed. She should probably check who was calling in case it was her boss.

Laurel’s name popped up on her lock screen and she quickly answered it.

Laurel disposed of the greeting. “A press release just came in from the state police. Samantha’s death is being investigated as suspicious.”

Gladwynn sat forward in the chair and let out a quick huff of breath. “Oh wow. What does it say?”

“Not much. Other than that they are investigating it as a suspicious death. I have a call into Tanner, but you know how he is. He seems to open up to you, though. Think you can give him a call and see what else you can find out?”

“He’s not going to talk to me. I’m considered a witness.”

Laurel sighed and Gladwynn could picture her pulling one corner of her lower lip into her mouth the way she did when she was thinking. “Right. Okay, well, hopefully he’ll call me back soon. If he calls you for any reason, though, let me know, will you?”

“I will certainly do that but I can’t imagine why he’d call me about this.”

Laurel laughed. “Oh, Grant, you can’t be that naïve. Everyone knows why Trooper Kinney is so willing to give you information.”

Gladwynn raised an eyebrow, setting her book on the small table next to her. “Apparently, I am that naïve. What are you talking about?”

“Remember how I told you that Liam hired you because you are a cute little brunette?”

“Oh, Laurel. That is not why Tanner talks to me.”

“Oh, Gladwynn. It is. Everyone else has to call him Trooper Kinney. Even people like me who have known him and his family most of our lives. You, however, call him Tanner and get away with it.”

Laurel’s ex – or supposed to be ex – was Tanner’s uncle. Gladwynn knew that Laurel was teasing her because she was sure that at family events Laurel hadn’t been required to call Tanner Trooper Kinney. She almost giggled out loud thinking of her asking Tanner to pass the salt at Thanksgiving while addressing him as Trooper Kinney.

“Actually, I have to call him Detective Kinney now. He’s been transferred to homicide.”

“See? I didn’t even know that. How would you know that?”

Gladwynn rolled her eyes. “It’s not because I’m a brunette.” She purposely left out the “cute” and “little” references that Laurel liked to use to describe her. “It’s because I saw him at the crime scene and he told me he was Detective Kinney now.”

“Well, whatever. He still opens up more to you than anyone else so maybe you can get some dirt out of him at some point. For now, I’ll see what I can find out. Maybe he will at least tell me if this was a random murder or not so we don’t start getting phone calls from people asking if they should be worried there is a murderer on the loose.”

Gladwynn hadn’t thought of that. Was there a murderer on the loose? Maybe Samantha’s murder had been random. Like a failed break-in or mistaken identity.

“I’m sure he’ll tell you that much at least. Hey, I’m going to get going and get a shower. I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”

She hung up with Laurel and headed for the stairs, a new sense of foreboding settling in her chest. She’d only seen Samantha briefly once, but her grandmother and her friends had cared for the woman deeply. It would be hard for them to hear that someone had intentionally hurt Samantha and caused her death.

Tanner had no reason to share any details of the case with her, but she hoped he would at least share them with Laurel. She also hoped that he could honestly reassure the residents of Marson County, especially Brookstone, that there wasn’t a murderer on the loose.

She pulled up at the manager’s office of Willowbrook at 11:15, hoping her grandmother wouldn’t be able to meet her so she could delay breaking the news of the police investigating Samantha’s death as a murder. Instead, Lucinda’s dark blue 1987 Lincoln pulled up next to her a mere seconds later and Lucinda waved at her through the passenger side window from her seat on the driver’s side, a broad smile on her face.

The woman swung a hot pink leather purse onto her shoulder as she stepped out of the car. The purse matched a light pink blouse, tan slacks, and pink flats. Gladwynn looked her grandmother up and down and whistled.

“Hello, gorgeous. Nice outfit.”

Lucinda winked and sashayed her plump hips as she walked. “I have to try to keep up with the superb fashions of my granddaughter. She has quite a way of matching clothes together.”

Gladwynn tipped her head briefly. “Does she now? She sounds like a lovely young lady.”

“She totally is,” Lucinda said, looping her arm through Gladywnn’s. “Takes completely after her grandmother.”

The two women walked arm and arm toward the manager’s office, pausing to unhook their arms as Gladwynn opened the door. When she stepped inside, she didn’t see Eileen sitting at the small desk surrounded by a row of filing cabinets, adorned with three spider plants like she expected to. Instead, the only one inside was a petite young woman with blond hair pulled in a tight, high ponytail on top of her head. She was sitting behind a small desk, looking at a cell phone, her feet on the desk.

She chewed loudly on a piece of gum, snapped a bubble, and continued to scroll on her phone for a few more seconds before looking up. At the sight of Lucinda and Gladwynn, she stopped chewing abruptly, dropped her feet off the desk, and sat up straighter. “Hey, Mrs. Grant. Can I help you?”

“Good morning, Bridget,” Lucinda said. “We’re actually looking for Eileen. Is she in the back office?”

Gladwynn gathered by Bridget’s reaction that she’d had Lucinda as a teacher of some sort at some point in her life. Bridget was too young to have been a student of her grandmother’s when her grandmother was a teacher at the middle school, but she might have been in the Sunday School class she had taught up until six years ago.

Bridget’s shoulders fell slightly. “She’s not here. Some ticked-off guy came and she took him to Derek’s condo.” She frowned briefly, then resumed chewing. “It’s so sad two people have died in two weeks and one of them wasn’t even old.”

“It is,” Lucinda agreed. “Listen, Eileen was going to let us in Samantha’s place to find some scripts and notes she had. Maybe she left a key here for us?”

Bridget shuffled through the pile of papers on top of the desk. “Um, yeah, actually, she did say something about a key. I totally forgot.” Several papers fell off the desk onto the floor. Lucinda glanced at Gladwynn and raised her eyebrows.

“Maybe she had it in a drawer?” Lucinda suggested.

Bridget kept pushing through the papers. “No, she dropped them here somewhere.”

Gladwynn stooped to pick up the pieces of paper falling on the floor, gathering them up. Samantha’s name on the top of one of the pages caught her attention as she stood. She stooped to gather a few more papers, quickly moving the paper with Samantha’s name to the top of the pile she was making, reading as she stacked.

There was a name, address, and phone number listed under next of kin. The address was somewhere in Michigan. Gladwynn did her best to memorize the number but knew she wouldn’t be able to since numbers were not her strong point. She did, however, know she would remember the name.  

Mary Kendall.

She wondered if Eileen was pulling the information out for the police. If that was the case then she didn’t need to memorize anything. Tanner either had the information already or would soon.

She couldn’t help wondering who Mary Kendall was to Samantha though. A relative? Her mother? Her stomach tightened at the idea of anyone having to call a member of Samantha’s family and tell them their child or niece was dead and that her death was being investigated as a possible murder.

Curiosity pricked at her, making her want to search through the papers more while Bridget kept shuffling through the rest of the papers, but her conscience whispered at her to put the papers in a neat pile and put them back on the desk. She listened to her conscience and sat the papers down at the same time Bridget lifted the set of keys from under a pile in the right corner of the desk.

“Here it is.” Bridget dangled the key on a golden keychain in front of her.

Gladwynn read Samantha’s condo number on the label hanging from the keychain a second before Bridget thrust them at her.

She looked at the keys and then at her grandmother, who shrugged briefly, then back to the keys. “Shouldn’t you walk us over?”

Bridget shrugged. “I know you guys, or at least Lucinda. You’re good. I’m heading out for some lunch.”

Gladwynn hesitated and then took the key. “Okay then.”

Bridgett stood, slid her purse strap over her shoulder, and picked up her phone, sliding it in the back pocket of her jeans. “Good luck finding the scripts.” She blew a bubble and popped it as she stepped around the desk and walked to the door. “And have a nice day.”

When the door closed Lucinda blew out her breath. “That certainly was an interesting experience.” She looked around her at the chaos on the desk. “This place didn’t used to look so unorganized. Eileen’s either been too stressed or too busy to keep on top of things.”

Gladwynn opened the front door. “I’d have to say stress has a lot to do with it. Losing two residents in two weeks can’t be easy. I’m sure she’ll have things back in shape when life settles down.”

“What was on that paper you were helping to straighten up?” Lucinda asked as they walked across the parking lot toward Samantha’s condo.

Gladwynn glanced over her shoulder. “Noticed that, huh?”

“I noticed you were looking at that private information of Samantha’s a little too long.”

“And apparently you were looking too since you saw it was about Samantha.”

Lucinda sighed. “Don’t try to turn the tables on me, young lady. You’re the one that has a tendency to get too curious.”

Gladwynn unlocked the door and turned the handle, noticing a piece of police tape still stuck to the doorway. She pulled it off as they stepped inside and slid it into her pocket.

Chapter 7

Samantha’s condo looked the same it had when Gladwynn had last been in it, other than the curtains being pulled and a few empty boxes left in the living room. A chill shivered through her as she remembered how she and Doris had found the woman laying upstairs. She offered up a silent prayer that they would find the scripts downstairs and not have to go up in Samantha’s room again.

Lucinda shivered and rubbed her arms. “I didn’t realize how hard this would be. It feels so strange being in here, knowing that –” She drew in a slow breath, closed her eyes briefly, then opened them again. “Well, anyhow, let’s just find the scripts and get out of here as soon as we can. I’ll take the living room and you can take the dining room and kitchen.”

Gladwynn said she agreed and started to turn to explore the rest of the apartment. She caught sight of Marge  walking a small dog down the sidewalk in front of the row of apartment’s across the street.

“Hey, Grandma what’s Marge … ‘s story?” Gladwynn asked as she watched the woman.

“What do you mean?”

Gladwynn shrugged. “I mean, how long has she lived here? Does she have family here? Those kind of things.”

Lucinda looked into the distance as if thinking. “Huh. I’m not sure really. I know she’s lived here off and on for the past 15 years at least. There was about five years she didn’t live here and then she came back. She has a daughter that lives an hour from here. I’ve heard they don’t talk much and I’m guessing by Marge’s demeanor that it might be the daughter’s choice instead of Marge’s. Why do you ask?”

Gladwynn shrugged as she walked toward the dining room. “No real reason. I’ve just seen her around town a couple of times and she looks down or angry or I don’t know.”

“She can be a bit miserable, like I told you, but she’s also been very helpful with the Willowbrook Drama Club and seems to have a good heart. Deep down anyhow.”

Gladwynn glanced at counter tops in the kitchen, but they were spotless, as was the kitchen table. In the dining room the scene was the same and the only drawers were in a China cabinet and she was sure the scripts wouldn’t be there.

She returned to the living room to see how Lucinda was making out.

Her grandmother was standing next to a desk pushed against the far wall and holding a piece of paper. Her reading glasses were out and her brow was furrowed as she read.

“Find them?”

Lucinda gasped and turned around, laying a hand against her chest. “Oh my. You startled me.”

“What did you do forget I was here?”

“No, I just thought you were busy looking elsewhere.”

“It’s not that big of a place and the counters and tables are clear in there. I don’t think she’d have placed the scripts in with the silverware so I didn’t look in the drawers.” She walked over and stood next to Lucinda, looking at the piece of paper in her hand.

Lucinda quickly folded the paper and placed it back in the long drawer in the desk. “I shouldn’t have been reading that.”

Gladwynn tipped her head and folded her arms over her chest. “Were you snooping in Samantha’s things?”

Lucinda drew her shoulders back and tipped her chin up. “I was merely looking for the scripts and this letter fell out.”

Gladwynn quirked an eyebrow. “And what did the letter say?”

“Nothing that we should be sticking our noses in,” Lucinda said as she stepped past Gladwynn. “Let’s see if the scripts are upstairs.”

“But what if the letter is a clue to did this?” Gladwynn glanced back at the drawer. “I mean, I’m sure the police have seen it. They would have looked through all these drawers, right?”

Lucinda kept walking toward the stairs. “The letter was jammed into the top of the drawer and may have been missed when they pulled it out but –”

“Grandma! Did you dig around in there? We were just supposed to be looking for the scripts.”

Lucinda spun around and placed her hands on her hips. “I did no such thing, young lady. I simply pulled that drawer open and saw the corner of the letter poking out of the top so I shimmied it loose in case it was something of importance.”

“And was it? Of importance?”

Lucinda turned back around and started up the stairs. “I have no idea. It could be, it might not be.”

Gladwynn followed her. “What did it say? Who was it from?”

“We will let the police determine if it is important,” Lucinda said as she reached the top of the stairs.

Gladwynn noticed Samantha’s bedroom door was closed, as was the door to the other rooms on the second floor.

“Which one is her room?” Lucinda asked.

Still standing on the top step, Gladwynn reached over Lucinda’s shoulder and started to point at the right door then dropped her arm. “I’ll tell you if you’ll tell me what the letter said.”

Lucinda snorted a laugh. “I will not be manipulated. I’ll find her room myself.”

She headed for the door in front of her and opened it before Gladwynn could say another word. Gladwynn stepped into the hallway and followed her grandmother. Both women stopped at the door as they looked down at small pins on the carpet which Gladwynn knew marked where Samantha’s body had been.

Lucinda surveyed the room with a critical eye, her hands on her hips. “The police don’t seem to have done a very good job at cleaning this room up.”

Gladwynn agreed. “No, they haven’t. Eileen will have to hire a cleaning company before she finds another tenant.”

Lucinda took a deep breath and headed toward the bedside table, pulling open the drawer. “Eureka!” She held up a stack of scripts. “Here they are!” She looked at them briefly. “It looks like she was already making notes for the actors.”

Turning, she paused for a moment and looked around the room. A melancholy expression crossed her face and her shoulders fell slightly.

“The poor woman. She had so much ahead of her.”

Gladwynn’s throat thickened with emotion as she looked at the white bedspread covered in pictures of red roses, a beautiful painting of what looked like a lakeshore on the other side of the room, and a closet door partway open. It looked like a row of clothes hanging inside the closet. The carpet under Gladwynn’s bright red heels was light blue.

She swallowed hard and looked at the carpet as she tried to hold in emotion, glad they had found the scripts and could leave. Taking a step toward Lucinda, she slid an arm around her grandmother’s shoulder, keeping her eyes down as her grandmother dabbed a tissue to the corner of her eye.

As she moved her gaze across the carpet, remembering the crumpled note she’d seen, the light from the window glinted off something dark, hard, and round deep in the carpet. She stopped and moved the dark blue fabric of the carpet aside with her fingers, looking closer at the item buried there.

Picking it up she stood, holding it in her open palm.

It was a broken button with two holes on one side. The missing piece must have been where the other holes had been. Gladwynn would have been surprised if the police hadn’t found it when they’d searched the room, but in their defense, if they had missed it, it really had been shoved in there. It could have even been pressed down when the police were searching or stuck on one of their shoes and then left. It was an easy clue to miss if it was one. Then again, maybe it wasn’t even a clue. 

Lucinda stepped looked down at her hand. “Where did you find that?”

“In the carpet.”

“Do you think it’s a clue?”

Gladwynn closed her hand around it. “I don’t know. I mean, I don’t think so? I’m sure the police would have found it when they were searching in here. It probably broke off one of their coats or uniforms.”

She slid the button into the pocket of her light blue capris, glad that the pocket that she had previously wanted to be larger was actually small and kept the button safe against her.

“I think we should take the letter home,” she said as she walked through the bedroom doorway, back into the hallway at the top of the stairs.

Lucinda followed her with the scripts in her hands. “We will do no such thing!”

Gladwynn started down the stairs. “Why not? The police didn’t take it with them, so it must not have been important.”

“I told you they probably didn’t see it. It was wedged in there at the top of the drawer.”

“Or they did see it, didn’t think it was important, and left it.”

“How could they think a letter from Samantha’s mother saying she was sorry she’d waited so long to tell her who her father was wasn’t important?”

Gladwynn stepped off the last step and turned to face her grandmother, her hands on her hips. “Now we are definitely taking it.”

Lucinda stepped down and huffed out a breath. “You tricked me into telling you what that letter said.”

Gladwynn shrugged a shoulder, hands still on her hips. “I did nothing of the sort. I simply said maybe the police didn’t think it was important. It isn’t my fault if you felt like sharing why you thought the letter was important.”

She turned and walked toward the desk, Lucinda behind her.

Lucinda’s tone was indignant. “And what do you think you’re going to do with the letter?”

Gladwynn opened the drawer. “Hold on to it so it doesn’t get thrown out when they clean the place out.” She picked up the envelope and looked at the postmark. Michigan. There was no return address. She held it in her hand and waved it in front of Lucinda’s face. “This is in an envelope, Grandma. It wasn’t like the letter just got stuck up in there. You had to take it out of the envelope.”

Red flushed along Lucinda’s plump cheeks. “Are you accusing me of snooping?” Gladwynn could tell she was trying her best to look offended, but an amused smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. She pointed her finger at Gladwynn. “You are accusing me.”

Gladwynn smirked. “I absolutely am accusing you of snooping and it’s a good thing you did.” She held the letter up again. “This very well could lead to whoever killed Samantha.”

Lucinda followed her to the front door. “If we take it then we are going to give it to the police. That’s my final say on it.”

Gladwynn opened the front door. “Fine. I’ll give it to Tanner. Scouts honor.

“Once again, you are invoking the honor of an organization you only attended one meeting of.”

Gladwynn walked through the doorway. “I know. I know. I’m sorry. The green just threw me off back then, but now I like green so –”

Lucinda scoffed. “You hate green clothes to this day. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen you wear green.”

“Okay, fine. I hate green but I still promise to give the letter to Tanner.”

And she would give the letter to Tanner.

Right after she read it.

A man’s angry voice startled Gladwynn as she pulled Samantha’s door closed behind her. She slid the key into the slot to lock it and looked to her left, where she noticed Eileen standing a few feet away, arms hugged around her. A man with dark hair who Gladwynn didn’t think looked much older than her, towered over Eileen, his face flushed red and fists clenched at his sides. He raised a hand, pointed a finger at Eileen’s face and blistered the air with a string of expletives.

Gladwynn opened her bag and dropped the letter inside. She knew she and Lucinda should leave, but Eileen and the man were directly in front of their cars and she couldn’t figure out how to get around them without interrupting.

“No! that is not what I told you to do, Miss Bristol. I told you to leave his things alone and I would handle cleaning out his apartment. You are clearly completely deaf or completely incompetent. What is absolutely pathetic is that none of you even know who you had living here. My father was a very accomplished and very rich man and why he chose to move here and live in this Godforsaken place I will never know.”

Gladwynn thought she saw Eileen’s resolve wither slightly for a brief moment before she raised her chin, her jaw tightening. “I’m sorry, Mr. Thornton. I can assure you that I had no idea. Derek never spoke of his past. He kept to himself for the most part but helped us out here immensely and –“

“I don’t care what he did here. He shouldn’t have even been here. He was an old fool and he’s made life very difficult for his family in these last two years. Now that you’ve put part of his belongings in storage you’ve made things even more difficult for us.” He clenched his hands into fists in front of him. “Now I not only have to arrange his funeral in this cruddy little town, but I have to figure out how to get all his belongings out of storage so they can be returned to us.”

Eileen cleared her throat and hooked her fingers together, her arms hanging loosely in front of her. “I am very sorry, Mr. Thornton but you said you would be here within a week after your father died and we needed to clear out his things to make room for another tenant. We have a very large wait list for the condos here. It has now been two and a half weeks.”

The man tipped his head back and practically growled.  “Absolutely ridiculous! Where is this storage facility?”

“It’s about a half a mile outside of town. If you come to my office I’ll —”

The man looked at his phone. “Just tell me where it is. I’ll find it.”

“But I can write –”

“Just tell me!”

Eileen’s face turned an odd shade of purple, but she quickly rattled off the directions. The man spun on his heel and headed for his car, slamming the door behind him after he slid behind the steering wheel. His tires squealed as he ripped out of the parking space.

Gladwynn and Lucinda stood frozen in place for several seconds before Lucinda moved forward and walked quickly down the sidewalk toward Eileen.

“Eileen,  hon’, are you okay?”

Eileen pulled her gaze from the retreating car and looked up, startled. Her complexion had begun to return to a more normal shade. “Oh. Lucinda. Hello. Yes. I’m fine.” She touched a trembling hand to the base of her throat, then dropped it to her side. “You can’t be the manager of a retirement community and have thin skin. I’ve certainly dealt with similar situations before.” She smoothed the frizzed strands of hair along her temple down. “Did you find those scripts you needed?”

“Yes,” Lucinda said. “We did.” She handed Eileen the keys. “Thank you for letting us do that.”

“Are you going to need to clean out Samantha’s condo soon as well?” Gladwynn asked.

The question flew out of her mouth before she even thought about how the answer was none of her business.

Eileen drew herself up, pulling her shoulders back and tipping her chin up slightly. “That is something I can’t discuss at this time. I’m in the process of trying to reach Samantha’s next of kin and it would highly inappropriate for me to discuss that with a stranger before I’ve spoken to her family. Have a nice day.”

She turned quickly and walked briskly across the parking lot toward the manager’s office.

Lucinda made eye contact with Gladwynn, her eyebrows raising. “Oh boy. She’s definitely under a lot of stress.”

Gladwynn tapped the button in her pocket. She was glad they hadn’t told Eileen about finding the button or the letter. It might have caused even more stress for her. She might need the address on the outside of the letter, though. Gladwynn wasn’t sure. She’d seen Samantha’s employee paperwork briefly, but not long enough to see if the address for Mary matched the address on the outside of the envelope.

“Who is this Mr. Thornton?” she asked Lucinda as they walked toward their cars. “That isn’t what you said Derek’s last name was, did you?”

Lucinda’s brow lowered in thought as she reached her car and unlocked it with the button on the key fob. “No. His last name was Murphy. Or at least I thought it was. It sounds like maybe Derek had some secrets.”

Gladwynn said “good-bye” to Lucinda and waited to open the letter while parked in the newspaper parking lot.

It was written on a piece of off-white blank paper in smooth black ink.

Samantha:

I know you don’t understand why it took me so long to tell you who your father was, and I hope this letter will explain that more. I wanted to tell you for years but I was afraid what the fallout would be. No one knows the truth of who your father is, not even your grandparents. In fact, not even your real father knows. I never told him I was pregnant. It would have ruined his life and his chance at success.

Your father is a very smart, very wealthy man.

He looked me up a year ago and wanted to know the truth about why I left the area. It wasn’t the first time he’d tracked me down and begged me to tell him.

He was the one who figured out you were his and he wants to meet you. He’s living in a small town in Pennsylvania now. He’s run away from his family and responsibilities I guess you could say. If it wasn’t for my illness maybe he and I could finally have some happiness together.

I’ve enclosed his letter to you with his address. He asked to meet you six months ago but I waited. I shouldn’t have. I had no idea my health would fail so fast.

I love you. Please, Samantha, forgive me.

Love,

Mom

Gladwynn opened the envelope to see if there was anything else inside. Something that would tell who Samantha’s father had been and if that was why she’d come to Brookstone. She turned the letter over.

Nothing.

Really, though, Gladwynn didn’t need the address or the name.

She already knew.

Why else would Samantha have spent so much time with Derek after taking the job at Willowbrook? The question was, though, why had Derek moved to the area and from where? And why would a wealthy man lie about who he was?

Had Derek’s death been suspicious as well? She hadn’t heard that it had been but maybe the police didn’t think it had been since he had been 85 at the time of his death.

Inside, at her computer, she searched the internet for Derek’s obit, changing the last name from Murphy to Thornton.

There wasn’t an obituary but there were several pages of articles featuring both Derek’s first and last name. Most of the articles were about the Thornton Hotel chain, which Derek’s father had apparently been the founder of. Derek had been the CEO of the chain until about two years ago when he’d resigned and handed over operations to his oldest son, Michael Thornton. A quick search showed that Michael was the man who had been yelling at Eileen earlier.

Gladwynn had never met Derek but a quick consultation with Laurel by showing her Derek Thornton’s photo, confirmed that Derek Murphy and Derek Thornton were the same man.

Laurel shook her head slowly, looking over Gladwynn’s shoulder. “Wow. That’s crazy. I wonder why he lied about who he was.”

Gladwynn wondered too. Was it because he’d found out about Samantha around that time and thought walking away from his business would give him more time to spend with her?

Now that she was sure of the connection between the two, Derek’s death seemed really suspicious to Gladwynn. Maybe not how he had died, since she didn’t know how he’d died, but the fact he and Samantha had died a week apart from each other. Had the same person who killed Samantha also killed Derek?

She let out a breath. Her imagination was running away from her. She needed to take a break from thinking about it all. It wasn’t her job to figure out what had happened. She wasn’t a detective and she wasn’t even writing the story about it.

She closed the browser and shook her head. “I don’t know why he lied, but I can’t sit here and try to figure it out.” She glanced at the gold watch with red roses Lucinda had given her for her birthday. “I have an interview with the Brookstone Town Council about a donation they just received for the riverside park.”

“Borough.”

“What?”

“It’s the Brookstone Borough Council.” She put an emphasis on the word borough. “Remember, New York girl, in Pennsylvania towns under a certain population level are called boroughs. Over a certain population level they are called cities.”

Gladwynn sighed. She still hadn’t gotten used to the definitions for municipalities in the state of Pennsylvania after living her entire life in New York state up until nine months ago. Both Liam and the copy editor, Mindy, had had to correct her several times, either in person or with large red marks on her stories.

“Borough. Right. I’ll get it.” She scooped up her keys and the letter, dropping them in her bag. “Eventually.”

On the way to her car she thought about her theory of Samantha being Derek’s daughter. It was probably true, but she didn’t want to say anything to anyone. Not yet anyhow. What if she was wrong? She could hurt a lot of people by letting it slip to someone.

Did Michael Thornton know that Samantha was his half-sister? If she even was?

More importantly, did Tanner have any clue about the possible connection between the two?

Most likely he did. He was a sharp investigator. Still, he didn’t have the letter and she did.

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot

I’m excited to be joining Marsha at Marsha in the Middle and Melynda at Scratch Made Food for Hungry People for this weeks Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot post. The Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot is a chance for bloggers to link to their favorite posts from the week. Those posts can focus on food, travel, reading, crafts, or whatever was your favorite blog post of the week from your blog.

Add a link to your blog post below and then, please, visit and comment on some of the other blogger’s posts. Look for the link up to go live Thursdays at 9:30pm EDT.

What I’ve Been Up To This Week:

I’m new to this feature so I thought I’d introduce myself. I am not a fashion blogger like many of you and, in fact, know nothing about fashion other than I like to look at it, but I love visiting the fashion blogs.

I am a independent author, homeschooling mom, and a blogger who writes about faith, photography, writing, art, books, and old movies.

I’m currently writing a cozy mystery series but have also written a series of Christian fiction books. All of my books are available in ebook and paperback form and currently on Amazon. I only mention this because trying to figure out where and how to sell my books is a constant stress for me, but one I want to let go of and get back to my motto of just having fun.

I didn’t do a lot this week as I am dealing with a tooth issue, which isn’t painful but will need to be addressed sooner rather than later. I had to go to my regular doctor today to get an antibiotic because the dentist I want to go to can’t get me in until January and the other dentists in the area will not work with me with my budget issues and lack of insurance.

I’m grateful that I am at least not in pain. (Thank you, Jesus! Literally)

Catching up on last week’s favorite links:

Last week the post with the most clicks was:

Adding Fall to the Den by Thrifting Wonderland

There were so many great posts last week but here are three of my favorites:

Fall Color in Iron County Wisconsin and Upper Michigan by Amy’s Creative Pursuits

A Lovely Holiday and A Big Thank You by Frugal Fashions

Am I Important by A New Lens

If you want to take part in the Weekend Traffic Jam you can link up below….

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enterhttps://fresh.inlinkz.com/js/widget/load.js?id=c0efdbe6b4add43dd7ef

Comfy, Cozy Cinema: Wildcard movie. The Lightkeepers

Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are taking a break from our joint Comfy, Cozy Cinema this week, instead both choosing our own movies to watch and write about. We will be back next week with …. Which I hope you will all join us in watching and blogging about. We will have a way for you to link up if you are joining in.

This week I decided to write about a cute movie I started a few weeks ago and forgot to finish – The Lightkeepers.

This was a film that was released in 2009 and starred Richard Dreyfus, Blythe Danner, Bruce Dern, Tom Wisdom, Mamie Gummer, and Julie Harris.

The film is set in Cape Cod, 1912 and tells the story of a lightkeeper and a young man who washes ashore and becomes the lightkeeper’s assistant.

Seth Atkins, the lightkeeper, is a very abrasive and cantankerous character and while I kept expecting him to soften up during the movie he really didn’t for most of it. That irked me a bit only because I wanted to slap him more than once for his behavior. At the same time I liked that he stayed the same and didn’t change simply to make the movie more comfortable to watch. Seth’s character did make me uncomfortable because of his bluntness, but that’s what made him – well, him.

The story was fairly simple with a fairly weak plotline, but it was still sweet. I fell in love with the subdued nature of Tom Wisdom who played Mr. Brown/Russell Brooks and couldn’t help but root for him to find some happiness.

I needed Seth to find some happiness as well since he seemed like such a grump. I knew that deep down he really wasn’t though.

Both Mr. Brown and Mr. Atkins are self-proclaimed women-haters and the movie starts out with Mr. Atkins telling his former assistant how much he hates women. In fact, he tells anyone who will listen that he hates women.

This becomes an issue when two women come from Boston to stay at the cottage down the hill from the lighthouse. He wants nothing to do with them and warns Mr. Brown away from them as well.

Staying away isn’t easy when they call for help on their first day there because there are bees inside the cottage. It also isn’t easy when the young woman, Ruth, decides to go swimming and invites a brooding Mr. Brown to go in with her. He reluctantly does and a friendship develops. It’s a friendship he does his best to keep a secret from Mr. Atkins since he agreed to stay away from women while working for him.

Incidentally, Mr. Brown arrived at the lighthouse when Mr. Atkins found him washed up on shore. Mr. Brown/Russell has a very distinct and proper British accent and it’s clear right away he doesn’t have a clue how to work with his hands or really work at all. He does his best, however, to become a real workman and as the movie progresses, we find out why he was in the ocean, why he wants to work hard, and why he “hates” women.

This was a very light watch and a nice escape for a couple of hours. I rented it through Amazon but I am sure it is available other places as well – maybe even your local library.

Have you ever seen The Lightkeepers?

Next week Erin and I will return with The Lady Vanishes.

If you want to watch it as well and then blog your impressions, please do.

Here is the rest of our schedule for October and November:

Strangers on a Train (Oct. 19)

Rebecca (Oct. 26)

Little Women (November 2)

Tea with The Dames (November 9)

A break for Thanksgiving

And

Sense and Sensibility (November 30th)

Sunday Bookends: Little Miss’s Birthday, fall foliage, book sales, and cozy mysteries

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.

This week I’m joining up with  Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer  and Kathyrn at  The Book Date.

What’s Been Occurring

Can you believe it is October 1?! I can’t! September just flew by!

Tomorrow is Little Miss’s 9th birthday so October always kicks off fun for us.

I shared a bit about this yesterday, but on Friday we took her out for dinner to a restaurant. Before that we visited a large library book sale and then met her friends to play at a playground near the restaurant, which was about 45 minutes from our house.

I wish I had spent a little more time at the book sale, but we had a budget for all four of us, so I didn’t want to go too crazy. I didn’t actually choose many books from the sale itself. Instead, I found six cozy mysteries in the library’s permanent used bookstore in the back of the library.

I found ten or more books from the Annie’s Mystery books – all hardcover with built-in ribbon bookmarks, but only grabbed two so The Husband could also get some books.

We got bit up pretty bad from mosquitoes near the creek at the park and I think it’s so weird that the itching didn’t kick in until last night. It was like they all activated at the same time.

The leaves are changing fast around us for autumn and there are some gorgeous reds. Some of the leaves are drying up and falling off before they can change, which is sad, but the ones that are lasting are beautiful and even more should change this upcoming week into next week.

I’m not sure what is on tap for this upcoming week other than Little Miss’s birthday and running some errands.

What I/we’ve been Reading

I’ll be finishing up A New Leash on Life by Kathleen Y’Barbo today. I’ve really been enjoying it. It is a light mystery and releases – oh, today actually! I’ve been reading it as part of a blog tour for it. This is the second book I’ve read from the series and so far I like this one better.

I’m also still reading The Cat Who Blew The Whistle by Lilian Jackson Braun. It’s such a comfort read for me.

I’ve put Anne of Ingleside to the side for now because I picked up a cozy mystery from a library book sale Friday that I read the first chapter of and am now hooked on. It’s called Death Bee Comes Her by Nancy Coco.

It will be a perfect autumn read since it takes place in October.

I think I’ll probably pick Anne back up later in October and finish it as quick as I can because I want to clear my classic book slate for Little Women in November.’

What We watched/are Watching

Last week Erin and I watched Arsenic and Old Lace for our Comfy, Cozy Cinema and then posted about it on our blogs. This week we are taking a break from our feature and having a wild card week.

Next week we are going to watch The Lady Vanishes and blog about that.

Other than those movies, I didn’t actually watch a ton last week. I did watch some Newhart and a couple episodes of Just A Few Acres Farm on YouTube.

This morning we watched our sermon from Elevation Church and then an episode of The Chosen on Amazon.

What I’m Writing

I plan to finish Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage this week and will then go through it again before sending it to my husband to edit.

On the blog this week I shared:

Saturday Afternoon Chat: Changing leaves, birthday celebrations, and library salesComfy Cozy Cinema: Arsenic and Old LaceSeptember Newsletter: Cooler weather, writing book two of the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries, and a giveaway!Celebrating 60 years

What I’m Listening To

I’ve been enjoying Brooke Ligertwood, Matthew West, and Brandon Lake again this week.

Photos From This Week

Now it’s your turn

Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.