Free A Candidate For Murder (Old Maids of Mercer Island Mysteries Book 2) by LYNN BOHART Page A

began to appear in the steam, tracing what looked like a picture. Once Elizabeth was done, I stared at the drawing with my brow furrowed. It appeared to be the picture of a bird.
    And then she was gone. The fragrance. The steam on the mirror. The cold air. All gone, and I was alone again in my bathroom.
    I got into my pajamas and climbed into bed a few minutes later, puzzled. What was Elizabeth trying to tell me? It could have been a game. But usually, she was trying to give me a message. I just had no idea what it was.
    I had trouble falling asleep, partly because I was keyed up, and partly because I kept picturing poor Trudy Bascom being bludgeoned to death. No one deserved to die like that, not even Dana. But what kept Trudy’s image scrolling through my head was the fact that someone hated Dana enough to want to inflict that kind of harm on her.
    It was well after 1:30 by the time I finally fell into a troubled sleep. I was awakened a short time later by my phone. I reached out and grabbed my cell phone off the bedside table and mumbled a garbled hello.
    “Julia! Are you okay?” April asked.
    I sat up, dislodging Mickey, who liked to tuck himself under one arm. “Yes, I’m fine. What’s wrong?”
    “I don’t know,” she said with a deep sigh. “Something woke me up. I…had a dream…or something. I thought you were in trouble.”
    April lived in our guest house, but I hadn’t told her about our sojourn to steal Dana’s trash. I knew she wouldn’t approve. I also didn’t want her to talk me out of it. So I wondered if she was just receiving a belated sighting of the Keystone Cops routine.
    “What exactly did you see?” I asked, sitting up against the headboard and rubbing my eyes back to life.
    She took a deep breath. “You…and the dogs, barking. I don’t know what it meant.”
    “Was I in danger?”
    “I’m not sure,” she sighed. “But I thought you were in trouble of some kind.”
    “Hmmm,” I murmured.
    “What?” April asked.
    “I had a visit from Elizabeth tonight after my shower. She drew the picture of a bird on the bathroom mirror.”
    “Nothing else?”
    “No.” I replied. “And the only bird we have is Ahab. Was Ahab in your dream?”
    “No,” she said. “Just the dogs.”
    “Well, I’m fine. You go back to sleep,” I told her. “And I’ll call you if I even hear an owl outside my window.”
    “ Speaking of birds,” she said with a chuckle. “Okay, but be careful and call me if you need me.”
    “Will do.”
    I hung up and tried to relax back into the bed, feeling uncomfortable at April’s phone call. The fact that she had had a vision right after someone had been brutally murdered on the island wasn’t good news.
    As Mickey pushed his way back under my elbow, I stroked his head and contemplated April. We’d been friends since college. When Graham announced he wanted a divorce shortly after finishing renovations on the Inn, I’d asked April to join me in the business. Word of her baking skills quickly brought in customers, making her orange scones legendary. She was living in Bellevue with her husband at the time. He was retired from the surgery department at the University of Washington Medical Center. Shortly after, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. April had cared for him as long as she could, but eventually had to put him into an expensive care facility. He died just before Christmas, and it was then that I’d learned that he’d also left April deeply in debt.
    Fortunately, right around the same time Jose´ decided to move out of our guest house and in with his boyfriend. This gave April a chance to move in and save some money. But something changed after her husband died. She was quieter and more solitary. She and her husband had been together since high school. And although he’d been a very successful surgeon, the disease had impaired his judgment before he’d been diagnosed, forcing him to make a myriad of bad decisions. I suspected she was