In her bedroom before school, Leila checks herself in the mirror. She knows she’s not striking like Bessie and her mother, and she’s fine with that. She takes after her father’s side of the family with her thin brown hair, glasses she’s worn since she was five, and longish nose. She smooths the cranberry sweater she’s teamed with baggy brown corduroys. She doesn’t dress like the other girls in her school, and she doesn’t care about that either.
Leila has always gone in her own direction. Her neat and organized bedroom is filled with bookshelves, mostly murder mysteries arranged meticulously in alphabetical order. Her largest collection is by her favorite author, Arabelle Smythe, featuring bookstore owner/sleuth Pippa Backstreet. A framed photograph hangs on her wall of a lone yacht on a d
