Page 52 of Cadaver Lab: Mind Over Murder

“The lights always acted up back in my day. Then again, my family was one of the first to have electricity. It was so new, outages were to be expected,” Milly told them.

“The first to have electricity? Did my girl grow up rich?” Gabe joked as he extended a hand to help Millie rise from her seat.

“No.” She blushed.

“My father grew up in Ossining, the infamous home of Sing Sing prison and Old Sparky. Dad would tell us about the lights flickering in the house, but for a very different reason than old wiring.” Harriet let out a snort.

Rick chuckled.

“What reason?” Millie asked innocently.

“I’ll explain it on the way home,” Gabe said, wrapping his arm around Millie as they headed for the front.

“Good night, all,” Natalie called as they all walked through the front window of the meeting room.

She got waves and a few G’nights in return.

Satisfied it had been a good night following a good day, she flipped off the lights in the meeting room and the shop, leaving on only one small lamp behind the counter, and then made her way to her apartment.

Inside was dark, telling her Liam wasn’t there yet.

He probably got invested in his paper and had no clue what time it was.

Reaching for her cell phone, she pulled it out of her pocket… and noticed it was dead.

Dammit. She couldn’t remember if she’d charged it last night. She must have forgotten.

Stomping to the shop, she picked up the land line to call Liam… and realized she didn’t know Liam’s number.

It was saved in her cell phone so she hadn’t memorized it. Heck, she’d never dialed it. She just tapped the connect button below his name. Who remembered phone numbers nowadays?

Annoyed, at herself for not knowing his number, at the cell phone for having a dead battery, and a little bit at Liam for not being here yet, she shoved her fingers beneath the cash register, searching for the page of emergency phone numbers she left there for Jules.

Finally her fingers connected with the paper. She coaxed it out from beneath the big, heavy, vintage cash register she’d thought was a good idea when she bought it, but not without a lot of difficulty and some pain on the part of her fingers that really didn’t fit in the tiny space beneath.

Squinting at the numbers in the dim light, she dialed Liam’s number on the landline. It didn’t even ring, but went straight to voicemail.

Scowling, she disconnected the call. Now she was going to have to walk over there to remind him it was time to come home.

Loving a brainy man was challenging.

She couldn’t really be mad at him though. That brainy man and his idea had single-handedly solved their problems with the brain ghost.

He also routinely forgot to charge his cell phone. But since her cell was also dead she really couldn’t yell at him about that. At least, not today.

Drawing in a breath, she grabbed a light jacket and headed out the back door.

There was a chill in the air which only added to the feeling of fall in upstate New York. Crisp nights. Falling leaves.

The night was clear. No clouds. No moon either. She stared up, taking a moment to appreciate the night sky and all its celestial wonders.

It was the perfect night for stargazing, even if the darkness did make it a challenge to navigate over the tracks between the train depot she’d turned into her shop and Liam’s warehouse turned lab.

Main Street was well lit with streetlights, but she was too far for any of those lights to help her now.

Normally, she’d have used the light on her cell phone to see but… Yeah. Dead battery.

A more organized person would have a flashlight, or three, available for situations like this. Natalie was not that person.