by Debra Webb
This town was not the kind of place where murders happened.
The secretary’s greeting tugged Livvy’s attention back to the business at hand. She pasted on her best smile for the blue-haired lady who had worked in this office for forty years, through the comings and goings of three chiefs of police. The current one had managed to be re-elected each term for the past twenty odd years. Livvy told herself that fact alone had to mean the man was basically good. The entire town surely couldn’t have been fooled for two decades.
“Good morning, Mrs. Whitman, is the chief in?” Livvy held her breath in an effort to slow her racing heart. Calm, stay calm. She was only here to report what she’d discovered this morning.
* * *
CHASE FRALEY PAUSED in his review of the forensics report on the Bellamy murder. His brow furrowed as he canted his head to listen more intently. Someone had come into reception. He could hear Ms. Shirley speaking in her loud, firm tone. He chuckled. Shirley Whitman could fend off an invasion of the staunchest enemy.
Then the softer, quieter female voice he would recognize anywhere filtered into his office.
Olivia Hamilton.
He was out of his chair and striding toward reception before good sense could slow him down long enough to analyze his intentions. The chief had told him in no uncertain terms to keep his nose out of this case. He wouldn’t like it at all if he knew Chase had taken the preliminary forensics reports from his office. But he needed to know the details. Not just because he liked Olivia Hamilton, but because he had a personal connection to that damn inn. He had a right to look into what had happened in this latest incident.
“Well…I’ll…call the chief later,” Olivia offered, glancing his way and looking nervous. Chase wondered if she’d been nervous when she’d arrived or if his sudden intrusion had rattled her.
“Good morning, Ms. Hamilton,” he interjected before Ms. Shirley could respond to her suggestion. “Is there something I can do for you?” Chase hoped like hell the offer wasn’t as transparent as it felt. He’d been attracted to Olivia Hamilton from the moment he’d first met her the day she’d arrived on the island. But he’d kept his distance, mainly because she hadn’t encouraged him. She seemed to keep everyone at a distance. Even now, her withdrawal on an emotional level was as plain as day.
She moistened her lips, calling his attention to their fullness. He didn’t understand why a woman as attractive as Olivia would avoid any sort of social life. Not that she didn’t have events at the inn, but those were always for guests and she always played the perfect host. But she never got personally involved with anyone or anything—except Lost Angel Inn. As if she’d decided being the mistress of that old place was enough.
Chase doubted it would keep her warm at night.
“Something has happened…” She looked anxiously from Chase to Ms. Shirley and back. “I need to talk to the chief.” Her big brown eyes brimmed with uncertainty.
Chase looked to the secretary. “Ms. Shirley, hold my calls, please.” He gestured to his office. “Come in, Ms. Hamilton, and we’ll talk.”
For a second or two Chase wondered if she would bolt. He couldn’t help noticing she was behaving more skittishly than usual. But she relented and moved in the direction he’d indicated.
He followed her inside and closed the door. “Have a seat.”
She looked around the room before taking one of the two chairs in front of his desk. He wondered again what made her so guarded. What had happened to make her so cautious of people, men in particular? He’d noticed her slight limp. An accident of some sort? Maybe she’d lost someone she’d loved and wasn’t ready to risk that kind of emotional hurt again. Though he’d had several relationships, he hadn’t fallen in love yet. At thirty-three he wondered if maybe it wasn’t going to happen. Yet each time he saw Olivia, he couldn’t help contemplating the possibility.
He settled into his chair. “Why don’t you tell me what happened, Ms. Hamilton? I’ll be happy to help any way I can.”
She pressed her hand to her throat, drawing his eyes there. As always, she was dressed conservatively. The lightweight sweater had a high neckline, not quite a turtleneck, but almost. The long skirt practically reached her ankles. Sturdy shoes covered her feet. Nothing frilly or frou-frou.
“This morning I thought I heard something…” She licked those lush lips again. “In the…room where Beverly was…killed.”
Chase snapped to full attention. “What did you hear?”
She shifted in her chair, clearly reluctant to continue.
“It’s all right, Ms. Hamilton,” he urged gently, “you can tell me anything.” He hoped she understood that he meant what he said. Chase didn’t quite understand his uncle’s obvious dislike of Olivia. The chief had been unfriendly to her from day one, way before the murder.
But then, giving the man grace, he had a personal tie to that old inn, as well. Chase’s father and the chief’s only brother had died investigating the last murder that had occurred there twenty years ago. The difference between Chase and the chief was that Chase didn’t hold Olivia responsible. The chief apparently considered her decision to renovate and reopen the place an outright attack against him personally…against the whole island.
Livvy shrugged, calling his focus back to her once more. “It sounds foolish I know, but…” Her gaze settled on his. “I swear I heard someone crying. But when I got to the room it was empty.”
Chase nodded. Lots of folks had insisted they had heard the infamous weeping. Personally, he’d chalked it up to vivid imaginations. However, Olivia didn’t strike him as the sort to let hers run away with her.
“The sound woke me up,” she went on, her discomfort visibly growing. “It’s not impossible that I imagined it.” Her gaze found his once more, this time hers flashed determination. “The part that concerns me is that the doors to the courtyard were standing wide open.”
Chase hadn’t seen that one coming. “Open?” he echoed, surprised.
She jerked her head up and down. “The room was empty, but I’m sure someone had been in there.”
“Was anything disturbed?” Chase didn’t like the sound of this. He and the chief had been there yesterday. The doors, interior as well as exterior, had been closed and locked then.
“Not that I could see.”
“Who else has a key?”
She thought about that a moment. “Just me, Ralph and Edna.” She hesitated. “And the chief, of course. I gave him a key so he and the forensics people could come and go as they pleased.”
“You’re sure it wasn’t Ralph or Edna?” Chase had known both for most of his life. No way either of them would carelessly leave a door open, especially under these circumstances.
“The doors were all locked last night. I checked myself after Ralph had gone home. Edna had the day off. I woke up and found them open before dawn.”
She eased forward in her chair, wringing her hands in her lap. “I know how this sounds, Deputy Fraley, but it’s true. Is it possible whoever hurt Beverly came back for something he thought he’d left behind? Some sort of evidence?”
Chase could see by the fear that abruptly widened her eyes that she’d only just thought of that prospect.
“Well, Ms. Hamilton, I can’t say for sure, but it certainly sounds plausible.” No wonder she was nervous. The idea that someone had been in her house last night tied knots in his gut.
She stood. Chase did the same. “I should get going,” she declared. “I just wanted to let somebody know about the doors.”
“Why don’t I walk you back?” As usual, whenever he was around Olivia, the offer was out of his mouth before he’d had time to think about what he was going to say. “I can take a look around. Write up a report.”
She managed a faint smile. “That would be best, I suppose.”
Despite his completely selfish reasons for making the suggestion, it was, in fact, the proper procedure. A report should be made. Whether she’d opened the doors in her sleep
and simply didn’t recall or an intruder had entered for the very purpose she’d suggested, protocol required that he look into it.
In the lobby he said, “Ms. Shirley, I’m going to walk Ms. Hamilton home.”
“I’ll hold down the fort,” Shirley Whitman responded with an inquiring look.
Maybe he should warn Olivia Hamilton that being seen with him, even doing something as innocent as walking home, might put her in the rumor mill. Several townsfolk were apparently laying odds on when Chase would settle down and take a wife. It wasn’t acceptable for the future chief of police to be single despite the fact that the current one was. After the death of his father, his uncle had taken Chase under his wing. Now everyone had decided Chase would be the son and heir the revered Chief Fraley had never had.
He held the door for Olivia and wondered where the hell that line of thinking had come from. This was just a walk.
On the sidewalk, she hesitated and looked up at him. “Thank you.”
Chase settled his hat into place and gave her a smile. It was easy to smile around her. “For doing my job?”
She shook her head. “For making this—” she looked away “—a little less unpleasant.”
He resisted the urge to reach out to her. “This whole thing will go away eventually,” he promised, feeling the need to reassure her. “We’ll find out what really happened and then life can get back to normal.”
She laughed. The sound warmed him. He liked the way she laughed. It reminded him of the tinkling notes of a sweet melody. Easy on the ears.
“Normal would definitely be a change for me,” she murmured, almost to herself.
Chase didn’t question the comment because she caught herself and withdrew in the same breath. But the idea that she’d had that one slip in his presence gave him hope. Just maybe he could discover what made this mysterious woman tick.
As they walked, the breeze lifted her hair, allowing it to fall down around her shoulders in a kind of dance that made him long to touch the silky tresses. She didn’t speak as they strolled toward the inn, so he kept quiet himself. Looking at her was enough. If he was lucky, she wouldn’t catch him staring. He didn’t want to make her uncomfortable again. He liked when she relaxed around him.
The two ominous turrets of the inn caught his eye as they approached the stately old place. He would be the first to admit that the old mansion looked like something from a Hitchcock film. Spooky in a classic way. But he didn’t believe in ghosts or legends. Whoever had taken his father’s life had had something to do with the murder Wayne Fraley had been investigating. Though Dorothy Carlyle had not admitted to killing his father as well as her own sister, the woman might not remember all that she’d done. Clearly she’d gone over some mental edge when she’d murdered her own sister.
Chase might never know exactly what had happened to his father that night, only two weeks after Melissa Carlyle’s murder. But—he surveyed the inn and its gothic landscape—the fact remained that his father had died here…at Lost Angel Inn.
Maybe he was wrong not to believe in the legend. His gaze swung back to the stoic woman at his side. Maybe she should believe it, as well. Call it cop instincts, call it ESP, but Chase had the sudden, overwhelming feeling that her life depended upon how this investigation turned out.
CHAPTER THREE
LIVVY HAD BARELY opened the door when Edna rushed from the kitchen to meet her.
“Thank God! Livvy, I’ve been calling all over town trying to find you!” Her miss-nothing gaze slid from Livvy to Chase and back. “I called the chief. I’m sure glad to see Deputy Fraley found you.”
“No, we—” Livvy started to explain.
“The chief is as mad as an old wet hen!” Edna interrupted, her petite frame literally vibrating with excitement. “I’ve never seen him so worked up.”
“The chief is here?” Chase asked the agitated woman.
Edna rubbed her palms against her apron, nodded, then pointed toward the east wing. “It’s awful…just awful.”
“I didn’t see his car,” Chase went on, ignoring Edna’s tirade.
“He parked around by the carpenter’s cottage,” she hastened to explain, her tone still pressed with urgency. “He called for Mr. Maxwell as well as that stonemason who started the courtyard renovations.” She shook her head, the bun of long gray hair wagging uncharacteristically loose as if it, too, had been affected by the frenzy.
Livvy prayed no one else had gotten hurt. “Where’s Ralph?” she demanded on the heels of that thought. Dear God, let him be safe. She couldn’t bear the idea of anything happening to the kind old man.
Edna glanced in the same direction she’d pointed. “Chief’s questioning him, too.”
Deputy Fraley ushered Livvy in the direction of the crime scene before she could ask anything else. Her heart hammered so hard in her chest, she wondered whether a heart attack was imminent. Wouldn’t that just tickle James? She could see him in hell right now laughing at her. She couldn’t do anything right. She was just as stupid and inept as he’d always told her she was.
Chief Fraley’s booming voice left no question as to his location and frame of mind. But something else nudged Livvy’s senses even before she heard his voice. The smell of fresh paint. Had Ralph started painting in this wing again? Was that why the chief was so upset?
She stumbled when she realized which door was open…would have lost her balance completely if Chase hadn’t caught her.
Even the little surge of electricity his touch caused couldn’t detract from what she knew was coming as they continued down the hall.
Oh, no.
The scene inside the room where Beverly had been murdered forced Livvy to an abrupt halt. Her breath caught in her throat.
The deep cranberry paint she had purchased for one of the guest rooms in this wing had been poured over the chalk outline, mixing with the ugly bloodstain Beverly’s violent death had left behind.
But that wasn’t all. Other splashes of color—the rich forest-green and bold royal-blue—were on the walls…the floor…everywhere. The smell of fresh paint was stifling.
Who would do this?
Livvy heard the heavy exhale of the man beside her. Even better than her, he knew what this meant. The crime scene had been thoroughly contaminated. Any hope of finding additional evidence was likely now lost.
“You!”
Livvy lifted her gaze to the chief’s furious gray one. The heart that had been pounding in her chest suddenly paused awkwardly at the accusation she saw in his eyes.
“I told you to keep this room secure!”
“Hold on now, Chief,” Chase said, stepping slightly in front of her in a protective move. “Ms. Hamilton came to the office to report that she’d found the doors leading to the courtyard open when she got up this morning.”
Livvy appreciated his not mentioning the weeping she’d heard. For the first time since this insanity started, she felt as if someone was on her side.
“What?” The chief pushed his nephew aside. “What the devil do you mean, the doors were open? I ensured that they were locked myself when I was here yesterday.”
Livvy managed a nod. She cleared her throat and summoned a steady voice. “Yes, sir, I know. That’s what startled me so. When I found the doors open, I knew you would want to be informed.” She looked around the room, utterly shaken by the ghastly vandalism. “But it wasn’t like this.” She shook her head in renewed disbelief. “I’ve only been gone for a little while. Ralph and Edna were here when I left. Surely one of them would have heard—”
Before she could finish, the chief swung his analyzing gaze toward Ralph. “Can you explain this, Mr. Cook?”
He spoke to Ralph with the same kind of suspicion in his tone that he’d directed at Livvy. She winced at the sound of it and at the look of confusion on the poor gardener’s face.
“I—I’ve been outside all morning,” Ralph stammered.
“I don’t know what your problem is, Chief,” Christopher Max
well put in, reminding Livvy of his presence, “but throwing around accusations is not going to give us any answers. You’ve known Ralph Cook for years, you know he didn’t do this any more than I did.” He chucked his thumb toward the stonemason. “Or Mr. Dotson here. This entire charade is ridiculous.”
Livvy wanted to pat Christopher on the back and thank him for expressing all that she felt. “Surely you don’t believe one of these men did this?” she repeated Christopher’s sentiment, allowing her disbelief to weigh heavily in her voice. She met the chief’s glare with lead in her own.
Chief Fraley studied each man in turn before shifting his full attention back to Livvy. “Your gardener has paint on his hands,” he said flatly, as if nothing any of them had said had filtered through his skull. “Look for yourself, it’s the same as what’s on the floor.”
Livvy controlled her expression, refusing to glance in Ralph’s direction. She would not give the chief the satisfaction of allowing him to see that for just one second she’d wondered.
“So what?” she snapped. “Ralph has painted many of the rooms in this inn. It’s quite likely that he walks around with paint on his hands most of the time. There’s always something to be patched up.”
“I touched it, ma’am.”
All eyes turned to the tall, thin man who still worked hard despite his age. Before Livvy could ask what he meant, the chief said wearily, “He claims he touched the paint on the floor just to make sure it was paint.” Fraley shook his head and heaved a sigh. “Not a single one of you is making my job easy here.”
Livvy stared at the large, crimson puddle on the floor. It did look like blood, and in spite of the paint cans, she couldn’t say she wouldn’t have done the same thing Ralph had done.
“Whoever did this,” Chase cut in again, “it won’t make any real difference now.”
He had the attention of everyone in the room with that statement.
