Free Die Job by Lila Dare

don’t you?”
    “Probably.” I plopped the banana skin in the trash can. Tearing some tape off the roll, I handed it to Mom. The tape didn’t keep the windows from breaking if a tree limb or flying lawn chair hit them, but it helped keep the glass from scattering all over the room.
    She stuck it on the highest window and tried to smooth out a wrinkle as I told her about my conversation with Rachel.
    “That poor boy,” she said when I finished. “And his poor parents. I’m so blessed that neither you nor Alice Rose ever had any problems like that, although I did wonder if Alice Rose might not have been a teensy bit depressed after Owen was born.”
    “Really?” I hadn’t noticed anything different about my younger sister after she had Owen.
    Mom nodded. “Don’t you remember how weepy she was,and how she kept worrying that the house was going to burn down or that Wade would get in a wreck on the way home from work?”
    I remembered; I’d put it down to her usual drama-queen tendencies. Alice Rose was an awfulizer: if one of my nephews had a rash, she was convinced it was smallpox; if her CPA business had a slow week, she knew they would lose their home.
    “Anyway,” Mom said, folding up the stepladder, “I think you should look into it, Grace.”
    “What? You do? Look into Braden’s accident?”
    She nodded. “Yes. If nothing else, it might help Rachel feel better about the incident, poor thing. Or, maybe you’ll find out that someone
was
on the landing and did see what happened. Knowing for sure that it wasn’t a suicide attempt would probably give the McCullerses real peace of mind. You could call John and see if the police know anything else.” She sent a sly smile my way.
    John Dillon was the special agent in charge of Region Fourteen of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, headquartered in Kingsland. Mom had a soft spot for him since he’d helped rescue me from a murderous Realtor in August. I fought to control the betraying heat that rose to my cheeks.
    “The GBI isn’t involved with this case, Mom,” I said. “It’s strictly a local police thing.” Before she could say anything else, I added, “I suppose I could go back to Rothmere and look around. And maybe talk to Glen Spaatz and a couple of the kids who were there. I’ll be out at the school this week, anyway, shaving heads for the school fund-raiser. What could that hurt?”

    IT WAS FOUR O’CLOCK WHEN I PULLED UP IN FRONT OF ROTHMERE.
    A handful of cars sat in the small lot near the carriage house museum and I figured some off-season tourists were visiting the mansion. Crossing the oyster shell driveway, I pushed open one of the heavy oak doors and stepped into the hallway. Voices came from somewhere to my right, maybe the ballroom. The cadence sounded like a docent lecturing about the house. I stood for a moment, taking in the feel of the place. What must it have been like to own all this, to stride across acres and acres planted with tobacco and sugar? To entertain a hundred friends and neighbors in the ballroom? I could almost hear the notes of a Virginia reel if I strained my ears. To sit down to a family dinner in the glow of candlelight, waited on and pampered by servants? I made myself consider the less romantic aspects of plantation life: visiting the outhouse in all weather, dying in childbirth, women having no more rights than a dairy cow, the horrors of slavery. All in all, I’d take working for a living in the twenty-first century over the life of a nineteenth-century plantation owner.
    Shaking off my fanciful mood, I strolled around the hall, not sure what I was looking for. I guess I was hoping that a moment of intuition would tell me why Braden climbed the stairs to the landing. I studied the oil paintings, as Braden might have, and tilted my head back to enjoy the sparkle of sunlight on the chandelier’s crystals. I avoided looking at the floor until I neared the staircase; then, I didn’t see any sign of the