Free Hide and Snoop (The Odelia Grey Mysteries) by Sue Ann Jaffarian Page A

I could live with it. But Erica is going out of her way to make sure I fail.” I paused to think it over. Suing an employer had a lot of risks. “But if I found out Erica had special and personal ties to Mark Baker and that was her motive for sandbagging me, then yes, I’d consider legal action.”
    Zee issued a deep sigh and looked into my eyes a long time before looking away. From the den came the sound of a children’s song and giggles from Lily.
    “When you bring Lily over tomorrow morning,” Zee said, “why don’t you plan on her staying the night. That way you and Greg won’t have to worry about how late your dinner runs.”
    “Thank you, Zee.” I breathed a sigh of relief. “We’ll pick her up Saturday morning.”
    She picked up the spoon and shook it at me again. A few drops of broth flew in my direction, landing on the counter with the droplets from earlier. “Just assure me there are no dead bodies involved.”
    With my right index finger I crossed my heart. “There are no dead bodies, Zee. I just have to locate Erica, so Carl can talk to her as soon as possible, and do some snooping into Mark’s connection to her. I’ll probably be able to do both tomorrow from the safety of my desk while chowing down on a tuna sandwich.”
    The spoon pointed at me like a lance. “Just keep it that way, you hear?”
    In the beginning, Lily wasn’t so sure about wanting to be pals with Wainwright, our big, friendly golden retriever. But he won her over, as he does everyone he meets, and soon she was rolling on the floor in a fit of giggles with Wainwright and Muffin, our young gray cat. Our old man cat, Seamus, wasn’t having any of it and had disappeared into our bedroom for a quiet snooze.
    Greg was enchanted with Lily and she with him. If Lily were twenty years older, I’d have been a bit worried about her stealing my hubby’s heart. Greg loved kids and, like his mother, was grieving over the move of his two nephews.
    Kids had been a sticking point when Greg asked me to marry him—not a sticking point to him, but to me. I was in my late forties when we married; Greg was ten years younger. I knew he wanted kids, but for me it wasn’t an option. In the end, he assured me it didn’t matter, that he wanted me no matter what. For a while we considered adopting, but that never materialized. Now, with me in my fifties and Greg in his forties, children weren’t even on our radar, except for the children belonging to friends and family.
    When she first met Greg, Lily was fascinated by his wheelchair. She kept wanting him to get up and let her have a turn. Once she understood the chair acted as his legs, she’d asked for a ride. Greg had hoisted her up on his lap and taken her for a spin around our large, wheelchair-friendly house.
    Now the two of them were in the kitchen. Greg was whipping up grilled cheese sandwiches with Lily’s help and supervision, the planned catfish dinner long forgotten. Lily was kneeling on a chair dragged up close to the counter. Because our counters were built to be accessible to Greg, they were low and perfect for Lily’s use, with a little help. They were also perfect for me since I’m on the short side.
    Lily was in charge of buttering the bread. Wainwright watched with eager and hungry eyes for any fallout. He’d already snagged a piece of bread that had fallen to the floor—butter-side down, of course. I was at one end of the kitchen table with my laptop. Outside, the threat of rain had finally materialized. It started while driving home from Zee’s and had continued, soft and steady, since. Rain, the warm kitchen, and the happy domestic scene were acting as a balm to the day’s events. But watching Greg with Lily brought back the old worry and guilt that I might have robbed my husband of something important. Blinking back the tears threatening my vision, I moved my thoughts back to getting a bead on Erica’s whereabouts.
    Our firm puts out a personnel directory with