Shadows of the Past

by Debra Webb

  Experience USA TODAY bestselling author Debra Webb’s thrilling Shadows of the Past, originally published in 2004 as part of Mysteries of Lost Angel Inn.

  Every twenty years—according to legend—someone will die violently at the Lost Angel Inn. Two decades have passed since the last death, and Olivia Hamilton has come to the inn. Will she be the next victim?

  For Olivia, turning the Victorian mansion on the rugged cliffs of the Maine coast into a B and B is a dream come true—a fresh start well away from the shadows of her past. She never expected to find love again. But will the curse turn her dream into a nightmare?

  SHADOWS OF THE PAST

  Debra Webb

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  MURDER.

  Livvy Hamilton slid down the wall onto the polished hardwood floor.

  This couldn’t be happening.

  A young woman was dead.

  Emotion knotted in her throat, churned in her stomach.

  Poor Beverly.

  Livvy wiped her face with the back of her hand and closed her eyes to block the gruesome images. Why had she sent Beverly to do what she should have done herself? She should have been the one to check that all the doors leading to the courtyard were locked for the night. She always took care of locking up. What had made her change her routine last night?

  A call from the chairman of the Christmas Tree organization had distracted her. An important call. One that could make or break her planned Christmas event. Though it was only September, plans had to be made now to ensure a successful winter season. If she got the support of that organization, her decision to reopen Lost Angel Inn might just pay off. Being added to the annual charity fund raising activities, specifically as one of the stopping places on the widely publicized holiday parade of historical homes, was essential.

  Most of the numerous villages that dotted Maine’s rugged coastline had winter events to entice tourists. Camden and Rockport held a mini-Olympics. Around here it was the Christmas Village. Every shop owner in Cliff’s Cove participated, ultimately turning the small, quaint island town into a sort of winter wonderland, and depended upon that tourist draw almost as much as they did the beachcombers, fishermen and sailors in the summer. A decent showing around Christmas would get Livvy through the year. It wasn’t much to ask.

  She leaned her head back against the wall. How could she think about finances now? Beverly Bellamy was dead.

  This was no publicity stunt to promote business, no illusion to tease guests. It was real.

  Too damn real.

  She refused to believe in ghosts or legends…but she had to admit that this turn of events carried with it a ghastly link with the past.

  Every twenty years someone died, a sacrifice to a centuries-old legend—no, not legend, curse.

  But surely that old curse was over. After all, Nora O’Malley’s name had been cleared.

  So why had this happened? Beverly hadn’t harmed anyone. She’d been kind and hardworking. Of course, Beverly probably hadn’t been the target. She’d simply been doing Livvy’s chores. But who’d want to kill Livvy? Hadn’t she been through enough?

  Her arms went around her bent legs, hugging them to her chest. She grimaced at the ache the move generated. Almost three years and the pain still haunted her. She blinked. Tried to put the past out of her mind, but it wasn’t going anywhere. A whole jumble of new images tumbled into her mind. The man she’d married screaming at her. Pushing her. Then she was falling…falling…until she lay in a battered, crumpled heap at the bottom of the stairs.

  Livvy rubbed at the nagging ache in her thigh. It had taken several surgeries and three long months in rehab for her to mend and to learn to walk once more. Even now she limped, especially when she pushed her physical limitations, as she had done lately in an effort to get everything organized before the cold weather descended.

  He had marked her that way, ensuring that even after his death she would remember him.

  She looked around the lovely entry hall she’d worked so hard to bring back to its original splendor. Her eyes came to rest on the painting she’d rescued from the attic. She’d been so excited when she’d found it. It was original to the house. She’d read about the precious painting in stories written by visitors to the mansion prior to the death of the man who’d built it. The senator had purchased the celestial depiction to hang in this very entry hall…to watch over his bride whenever he had to be away.

  Fat lot of good it had done him or his bride.

  The angels pictured there seemed to mock Livvy now.

  Other angels had become a part of the decor, as well. There was the large bronze statue beneath the portico and the one topping the fountain in the courtyard. But those hadn’t been a part of the house originally. They had come along later in remembrance of a small child who had been searching for her father and presumably drowned in the ocean that battered the cliffs outside. A kind of obsessive homage to the loss.

  Livvy rested her chin on her knees. She could only imagine how devastating it must be to lose a child. She’d always wanted children. But God had certainly done her a favor by not allowing a child to come of the doomed union with her monster of a husband. Bringing a child into that terrifying situation would have been a travesty.

  So here she was. Three years later. Finally free of one evil and now being tormented by another.

  She’d sunk every penny she’d had into this place and its restoration. Failure was not an option. This old house with its numerous painful memories had felt like a fitting place for her to begin her new life. She and the grand old structure could heal their wounds together. Every moment she’d spent restoring the house, she’d felt herself becoming stronger. The labor was a kind of pilgrimage back to wholeness. But strange things had been happening at the inn ever since the opening weekend.

  Livvy suddenly felt cold…alone. She would not believe in ghosts. Or foolish legends. There had to be an explanation for every incident that had occurred in this house. Somehow she had to find the truth. Not that anything she could do would bring back Beverly. Even if Livvy could prove what had really happened, Beverly’s life was over.

  Every instinct warned Livvy that she’d been the intended target though she had no idea who might want her dead. The idea made no more sense than the maid’s murder.

  With her cruel, obsessive husband dead, Livvy had no enemies. A tiny voice echoed an adamant denial of that statement, sending a shiver through her. Her imagination was running away with her, she concluded, nothing more.

  She scrambled to her feet, never an easy accomplishment from a seated position on the floor. As she straightened her skirt she considered the idea of enemies once more. Could she really say she had none?

  Despite some local opposition to her reopening the inn, most folks around town had welcomed her. For the first time in a very long time she’d had a family…in a way. Her parents had died soon after she’d graduated high school, leaving her with no blood relatives. But she’d had a few close friends from her childhood days in Santa Barbara, so she hadn’t felt alone. However, after she’d married Dr. James Hamilton, the friends had gone away. He’d seen to it.

  At first his sweet, albeit relentless, pursuit of her had been kind of romantic, but she’d soon learned that his desire to have her all to himself went far deeper than the usual newlywed selfishness.

  James had been a sick, devious man whose sole purpose on earth had been to control and to demean those within his dominion. Livvy had learned that though his patient
s and associates had loved and respected him, the people who knew him best feared him. No one more so than his wife.

  “Enough,” she muttered. A walk down memory lane was the last thing she needed at the moment.

  She had to call Beverly’s parents to convey her condolences. The body had been moved to the mainland for an autopsy early this morning, after the forensics technicians had completed their work. Livvy shuddered. The thought of the ruthless procedure made her stomach churn. But she knew they had to be certain…though the letter opener buried to the hilt in Beverly’s back was clearly the cause of death.

  Livvy pushed the memory from her mind. Whoever had done this terrible thing had used the same letter opener the senator’s bride had used on her husband all those years ago. Even more recently, a crazed guest at the inn had tried to use it on her niece.

  This morning the chief of police had explained that someone had stolen it yesterday from the historian in town who’d hoped to start a collection on the inn’s history at his small museum. He’d authenticated the beautiful but deadly blade with its jeweled sheath. Another shiver went through Livvy at the idea of something so beautiful being used to accomplish such an ugly, cruel act.

  Smoothing her hair back from her face, Livvy strode into the kitchen. Coffee would help. She’d given Clara, the cook, a few weeks off to visit her family in Massachusetts. Ralph, the gardener and general handyman, was busy removing the summer’s potted flowers and replacing them with lovely fall chrysanthemums and pansies. The year-round housekeeper, Edna, wouldn’t be back until tomorrow.

  Though it was only September, Livvy could already smell winter in the air. It was coming, Ralph had promised sagely. Last year the first snow had fallen by the beginning of October. A part of her yearned to see that fluttery white stuff now. Maybe it would somehow cover up the evil that had touched her new home…her new life. This time last year one of the villagers had told her that snow was like God’s gift in the winter. Its pure, white beauty brightening the long, gray cold season. But Livvy knew that not even a pure white blanket could mask murder.

  Nothing could make this right. Whether she chose to believe the legend or not, the coincidence of another violent death at the inn twenty years after the last was chilling. Even some of the geriatric locals had murmured that Livvy had tested fate by holding that murder mystery weekend as her grand opening at the beginning of the summer season.

  But she hadn’t believed.

  She’d lived with the devil himself and he had been flesh and blood. There were no such things as ghosts.

  A ghost wouldn’t have to steal a letter opener with which to commit a murder.

  This horrendous act had been committed by a human. One who had invaded her home and killed an innocent young woman as she’d completed a task Livvy herself usually attended to.

  With the instinct she’d honed so sharply after years as James’s abused wife, she sensed that this was not a random killing. She was the one who should be lying in that morgue today.

  But who would want to kill her just because she’d reopened the inn?

  That couldn’t be. The few locals who didn’t like her business venture surely wouldn’t want to see her dead. Of course, the chief had warned her that a number of citizens were quite upset with what she’d done. In fact, she recalled as she dumped coffee grounds into the drip basket then poured water into the coffeemaker, the chief had seemed to take pleasure in informing her about the opposition to her renovations as well as her grand opening. She got the distinct impression that Chief Fraley would like nothing better than to shut her down.

  She crossed her arms over her chest and sighed in disgust. The chief had never liked her. Not that she didn’t understand why he’d put a stop to her exterior renovations until the investigation was concluded, it was more what he didn’t say than what he said. He seemed to enjoy causing her angst.

  But why?

  She’d never been in trouble with the law. She felt certain he’d checked her out thoroughly when she’d first come to town. Her hands moved up and down her arms in a futile attempt to warm her skin against the sudden chill she felt. Her history was clouded by only one thing: the untimely death of her husband.

  Livvy went still inside. Surely the chief wouldn’t attempt to blame this murder on her by trying to connect her past to the present. Not possible. She hadn’t even been there when her husband had died. The detective who’d witnessed his death had been Livvy’s friend, that much was true, but he hadn’t caused her husband to take that ironic tumble to his death. Ironic in that he’d died in the same way that he’d very nearly killed her.

  She brought her palms down on the counter with a loud thwack. No more. She couldn’t keep turning this over and over in her head. There was no way to make sense of this awful tragedy. No way to connect any part of it to her or to the inn…not yet anyway. She refused to believe any of the townsfolk capable of murder. These were good, caring people. It had to have been someone from the mainland.

  Maybe someone had been looking to rob the inn or maybe someone had held a grudge against Beverly’s family. The chief claimed he was looking into both possibilities, but Livvy had her doubts.

  She shook off that line of thinking. The chief had no reason to harm her. He didn’t appear to like her but that was his prerogative. Her misgivings about him had no real basis at this point. Maybe she was feeling a little sorry for herself.

  After pouring a fresh cup of coffee, she forced herself to drink slowly, cooling the steamy brew with her breath.

  She thought of the happiness she’d felt since coming here. She loved the island. Loved the inn. Loved every single piece of period furniture she and Christopher Maxwell had found. She relaxed a bit as the coffee did its work, chasing away the cold, soothing her frayed nerves. The beautiful pieces they’d discovered that were original to the first owners of the house were true treasures. No amount of thanks would ever be enough for Christopher.

  Livvy smiled. She was so happy that Christopher and Emily had found each other and were planning their wedding day here at the inn. She was also relieved that the mystery shrouding the death of Emily’s mother had been cleared up, effectively exonerating Christopher’s father of any involvement once and for all. In addition it had proved that the last tragedy connected to this inn had had nothing to do with that damn legend.

  Christopher’s happy ending hadn’t been the only one of the summer season. There was Jeff Cunningham, aka the mystery writer Denton Drake, and Ellie Gresham. Those two were perfect for each other, as well.

  Livvy’s smile faded. There would be no happy ending for her in the romance department. She’d learned that lesson the hard way. Men were off-limits. At least for a while longer, maybe forever. Three years hadn’t been nearly long enough to recover from the emotional injuries, not to mention the permanent limp, she’d had to learn to live with.

  An explosion of quick, firm knocks thundered down the entry hall. Livvy jumped, almost dropping her cup.

  Taking in a steadying breath, she set her coffee aside and headed toward the unexpected cacophony. She had to pull herself together. There was so much to do. She had that call to make, had to see to Beverly’s things. Another task she dreaded.

  Livvy hesitated, bracing herself for another wave of grief. The whole incident felt so impossible. Murder…right here in her own home.

  The door shook with a second onslaught of banging. She frowned. What the—?

  She’d scarcely pulled the door open when Chief Fraley railed at her, “I don’t like to be kept waiting, Ms. Hamilton.”

  Just when she’d thought the day couldn’t get any worse. He’d been here until dawn as it was. What else did he want from her? She didn’t need any more of his accusations. Every muscle stiffened with anticipation of more of his improbable scenarios regarding what had happened last night. Don’t let him get to you, she ordered. He’s upset, too. No one wanted to believe this could happen in their town. Livvy summoned her calmest tone, “Sorry, Chief,
I was in the kitchen.”

  “It’s all right, ma’am,” Deputy Chief Chase Fraley, the only other man on the island who represented law enforcement, offered kindly.

  Livvy relaxed marginally. Chase was the exact opposite of his rude, overbearing uncle. He was polite and kind. And quite good-looking. Sandy-blond hair, like the beaches in California. And eyes every bit as blue as the ocean pounding the rocks of the cliffs outside. A sincerely nice man.

  Something deep inside her closed down. Every time she ran into Chase, her reaction was the same. She’d feel the beginnings of an attraction…a little sizzle. But then a warning voice deep inside would remind her of old hurts, and the sizzle would disappear. She understood the response for what it was. A self-defense mechanism. A caution not to trust a man on that level again. No matter how kind or how handsome.

  Like walking, trusting was something she would need to relearn. But unlike walking, it wouldn’t be a simple matter of mind over body…of grit and determination. The truth was, she really had no idea how to let herself trust again…wasn’t even sure if she wanted to.

  “I need to take another look around the crime scene,” Chief Fraley snapped. “I don’t need your permission but since this is your private residence as well as a place of business, I’m giving you notice as a common courtesy.”

  How thoughtful, she mused, but she forced herself to be polite. “Of course, Chief, come in.” She pulled the door open wider and stepped back. She had nothing to hide and she had no intention of getting in the way of his investigation.

  “Chase, you keep Ms. Hamilton company,” Fraley barked as he strode past. He didn’t look back or even slow down until he’d reached the double doors that led out into the sun-washed courtyard.

  Livvy sighed. What had she done to get on that man’s bad side?

  “Don’t mind the chief, ma’am,” Chase said quietly. “He’s a tad unsettled by this…case.”

  This murder.

  He didn’t have to say the word. The whole island would be disconcerted by this horrible tragedy. Many would hold Livvy responsible.