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“Makes me want to paint a rainbow on Aunt Elsie’s house.” She cocked her head to one side. “Or a peace and love mural.”
Kat held up a handful of mail. “The monster dog ran off while I was piling up the mail in your aunt’s box. Looks like a lot of bills.”
“Dang.”
They took off in Kat’s car to go shopping and find food. Two hours later Penny collapsed at a table in a café, beaten down by the two hundred dollars that had just disappeared out of her checking account—respirators, gloves, heavy-duty plastic bags, and a handful of other things had added up quickly.Nearly out of money. Already.She also had a new job that she could lose for not being there.
Tapping her fingers on the table, she focused on the pile of mail in front of her. Kat busily sorted it into piles. An unmarked white envelope stood out. A large black X was slashed in thick ink on the front. Penny picked it up.
That X had been dug into the paper by marking it overand over again.It’s just an X drawn with a Sharpie.Still, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up.
“Hey,” Kat said. “Here’s your neighbor’s business card.” She held it up. “Obviously, he’s too hot for you to handle. You should let the big girls take care of this for you.”
“Right, except big girls don’t still fit into clothing designed for a fourteen-year-old. I could squash you like a bug.”
“You’d never catch me. Small but I move fast,” Kat said, holding the card out of reach of Penny’s grabbing hand. “He wrote,Contact me about selling the property.Whoa—he wants to buy it.”
“That’s no surprise. It’s a large lot close to the Puget Sound. Prime real estate for development.” Penny crossed her arms. “I bet he can’t wait to bulldoze the whole thing to the ground.”
Kat stared. “Well, yeah. You know it leans to one side, right? The roof is about to fall off. Not to mention, well, the disgusting interior.”
“It has character.”
Kat sat up straight, her eyebrows practically at her hairline. “You could sell it to him, Pen, have this off your hands fast. You’d get good money. Of course they’re going to knock down the house. You should definitely get a few other offers though—”
“I’m not selling.” Penny slumped. She pushed her hair back, glancing away from Kat’s shocked face. “I mean, I don’t know what I’m going to do long term but I need to deal with my aunt’s stuff. She left me a strange letter—didn’t want the rest of the family to know how she’d lived. Thought someone was after her. Most of all she didn’t want me to sell.”
“What? Someone was after her? It doesn’t make any sense. Did she think you’d live there and have someone after you?”
“I don’t know. She wouldn’t let anyone visit her. I calledher on holidays. Dad used to make me do it when I was a kid. Then I was the only person she’d talk to in the family.” Penny rubbed her arms. “We were close, sort of. I really cared about her.”
“What about your job?” Kat shook her head.
Penny’s stomach clenched. She’d finally gotten a position as a wildlife tech and had barely started. “They gave me a week.” The truth was the office hadn’t been happy about it. It was their busiest time of year and they were already shorthanded.
The food arrived. “Gus is going to be jealous that I ate burgers without him.”
“You know, one of these days eating like a lumberjack is going to catch up to you.” Kat stabbed her fork into a salad. “What’s that weird letter with the X next to your plate?”
Penny flipped it over. “Maybe it’s from that uptight neighbor.” She ripped open the envelope. “He hates the gnomes—did I tell you that?”
“Those ugly cracked and dirty little men everywhere? Wow, what a surprise.”
Densely folded paper dropped out of the envelope and plopped onto the table. “This is the world’s worst origami—see the smears of grime all over it.” Penny unfolded the square, revealing cut-out newspaper letters glued to a page.
“Whoa.” Kat’s fork clattered onto her plate. “Wait a minute. Pen—you should put that down.”
“Too late.” She finished unfolding the page. The montage of letters spelled out a short message. “Wow,” she said, forcing out a laugh, “this is a little artistic. Maybe I’ll frame it for the bathroom.” She was speaking fast but her hands moved slowly, careful not to damage the creased paper.
Kat gripped the edge of the table. “Shouldn’t we call the police?”
Penny bent forward, wishing she had her glasses. “You,”she read, pitching her voice into a low and menacing growl, “are an impostor!” She snorted. “They spelled impostor wrong. Cute.”
Kat’s round eyes blinked at her. “Penny,” was all she could manage.
Penny ignored the creeping unease making her shoulders hunch. She continued in the low voice. “Leave now or be punished.”
She sat back, shaking her head. “Bad origami and worse spelling. I think I like this person.”
A Gnome Inheritance: A Smitten in Seattle Romance
