Chapter Two
By five that afternoon, the lobby at The Spruces,
Moosetookalook’s finest hotel, was swarming with people. In fact,
The Spruces was the town’s only hotel, but it was a spectacular
one. Built more than a century earlier, in the heyday of
destination resorts, it boasted 140 luxurious rooms. The management
offered every amenity. They had to, to make up for the fact that
the hotel was located in the middle of nowhere.
A woman Liss had never seen before
clamped one hand around her forearm and gestured with the other
toward a small group waiting for the elevator. “Isn’t that Dorothy
Cannell? Oh, I love her books! The Thin
Woman is a classic.” Her whisper held barely suppressed
excitement and there was an awestruck expression on her homely
face.
Liss obligingly studied the cluster of
guests. She’d already collected and studied the program book for
the First Annual Maine-ly Cozy Con. From their photos, she
recognized not one but both of the women waiting for transportation
up to their rooms. The one nodding in response to something the man
next to her had just said was Dorothy
Cannell, who lived somewhere on the coast of Maine. The other woman
was Yvonne Quinlan, the conference’s guest of honor. The gentleman
with Dorothy sported a splendid beard. The other man wore a loud
blazer and had scraped his long blond hair back into a stringy
ponytail.
“I think you’re right,” Liss said to
the woman who’d accosted her. The clinging fingers let go so
abruptly that she had to take a quick step back to keep her
balance.
The woman—obviously the more rabid sort
of fan—didn’t notice. With a determined stride, she made a beeline
for the elevator, all the while burrowing with one hand into the
canvas tote bag she carried. The elevator doors closed a fraction
of a second before she reached them. With a little cry of
disappointment, she turned away, shoulders slumping as she stuffed
a hardcover book wrapped in a brightly colored dust jacket back
into her tote.
“What was that all about?” Dan Ruskin
asked, appearing without warning at Liss’s elbow.
Liss gave an involuntary start of
surprise. “Sheesh! Don’t sneak up on me like that.”
“Sorry. Blame the thick, plush carpets
at The Spruces. Guaranteed to muffle sound.” He grinned,
justifiably proud of the job his family had done restoring the
turn-of-the-nineteenth-century hotel. For the most part, Ruskin
Construction built new homes and added garages and the like to
existing structures. The renovation had been a labor of
love.
As Liss’s fiancé slid an affectionate
arm around her waist, she smiled up at him. She never got tired of
looking at him. She wasn’t so shallow as to have chosen her future
husband only for his handsome exterior, but it was certainly a
bonus that the things she loved about him—his sense of humor, his
loyalty to friends and family, even his instinct to protect those
he loved, annoying as that could be on occasion—came wrapped in a
superb package. He was six foot two with sandy brown hair and
molasses-colored eyes and he had the sort of build that came from
years of working in the construction field—muscular without being
bulgy. Like the handcrafted furniture he built in his spare time,
he was darned close to being a work of art.
Liss admitted to herself that she might
be a tad biased. After all, she was in love with the guy. She
turned in his arms, rested her hands on his broad shoulders, and
went up on tiptoes to give him a quick kiss. When she opened her
eyes, her gaze fell on her engagement ring. The stone was an
exquisite tourmaline, her own choice over the more traditional
diamond. She’d coveted this particular ring from the moment she’d
first seen it in a display case in the hotel’s upscale gift
shop.
At times it was difficult for Liss to
believe that they’d been engaged for almost four months. Soon...
very soon . . . they’d be married.
Reluctantly, she stepped out of Dan’s embrace, before she was
tempted to ravish him right there in the hotel lobby! Not for the
first time, she thought wistfully of suggesting they elope, as
their friends Pete and Sherri had on Valentine’s Day.
The date Liss and Dan had chosen for
the wedding was in late July—close enough to cause Liss to panic
every time she thought about how much she still had left to do.
She’d never realized how many details were involved in planning
even a simple wedding. And yet, in other respects, another two and
a half months seemed way too long to wait. She’d wanted Dan to move
in with her, but he’d refused. He was old-fashioned that way. They
continued to live in two separate houses on the town
square.
“Did you ask me a question?” she
murmured, distracted by an enticing, rose-colored vision of what
their married life would be like.
“That woman who missed the elevator,”
Dan prompted her. “She looked as if she just lost her last friend.
Problem?”
“Oh, her.” Liss forced her wandering
thoughts back to the present. “That was just a disappointed fan.
She missed a chance to get an autograph from her favorite author,
but I’m sure she’ll have another opportunity. There are signings
after every panel and a group signing on Sunday.”
“Fan? You mean some kind of
groupie?”
Liss chuckled. “Oh, please! Writers
don’t have groupies. They have readers.”
“But the main attraction at this
conference is someone who’s an actress as well as an author,
right?”
Liss gave him a playful poke in the
arm. “And how do you know that? You hardly ever watch
television.”
“I see the tabloids in the supermarket
checkout line, just like everybody else. Yvonne Quinlan. Star of
Vamped.” Dan made quotation marks in the air
and recited a grocery-store headline: “Why does she only come out
at night? Could she be a real
vampire?”
“Well, I guess that theory’s shot to
hell,” Liss said with a laugh. “She was standing in full sunlight
just now, over by the elevator.”
A party of three middle-aged women
scurried across the lobby, heading for the lounge at the
ground-floor level of the west wing. That they’d already registered
for the Cozy Con was evident from the heavy book bags each of them
carried. The totes contained freebies. Liss had been relieved to
discover that her own goodie bag had not contained any of the books
Angie hoped to sell in the dealers’ room. She knew how easily Angie
could lose money on this deal. If the attendees were more
interested in meeting their favorite authors and going to panels
than in buying the books those authors wrote and having them
signed, Angie would be in trouble. She couldn’t afford to offer the
same discounts online bookstores did. She had to sell her stock at
close to full price.
“Why the deep sigh?” Dan
asked.
Liss felt heat rise into her face. She
hadn’t realized she’d made any sound. She tried to laugh it off.
“I’m a worrywart, that’s all. Hadn’t you noticed?”
“Worried about what?” he
asked.
“Nothing. Everything. Let’s just say
I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this weekend is a financial
success for everyone involved.”
“I have an idea,” Dan said. “How about
you just relax and enjoy the conference? I know you’ve been looking
forward to it.”
“Sounds like a plan,” she
agreed.
“Liss!” someone called. She turned to
find the conference’s organizer, Nola Ventress, bearing down on
them.
An energetic little woman of sixty or
so, Nola had silver-blond hair she wore short and curly, and vivid
green eyes. She was casually dressed in designer jeans and a purple
T-shirt with the conference logo on the front, but she carried a
businesslike clipboard.
Next to Nola, Liss felt overdressed.
After her last pickup at Angie’s and an afternoon spent setting up
in the dealers’ room, she’d made a quick trip home to shower and
change her clothes. The tailored slacks and silk blouse she now
wore were business casual, but she had a hunch that most of the
attendees would opt for a far more casual look. The ones she’d
spotted so far certainly had!
“Have you seen Blair Somerled?” Nola
asked. “His panel time’s been changed and I want to make sure he
knows about it.”
“Sorry, Nola. Perhaps he’s not here
yet.”
Somerled was from Kansas, Liss
recalled. She wasn’t quite sure why he’d decided to attend a small
conference in Maine, but she was looking forward to meeting him.
His books featured an amiable and sometimes absentminded retired
physician, an American G.P. who lived and sleuthed in present-day
Scotland and was attempting, with humorous results, to learn to
play the bagpipe. Liss had particularly enjoyed Homicide with Haggis, but Skulls and
Drones and Eleventh Piper Dying had
been excellent, too.
“Do you know Dan Ruskin?” Liss asked
Nola, since Dan showed no sign of leaving.
Nola looked him up and down. “Joe’s
boy. I can see the resemblance.”
“You know my father?” Joe Ruskin, head
of Ruskin Construction and father to Sam, Dan, and Mary, was also
the driving force behind renovating and reopening The
Spruces.
Nola gave a short bark of laughter. “I
grew up in this godforsaken burg. Didn’t you know? That’s how
Margaret Boyd persuaded me to hold the Cozy Con here. That and the
fact that there’s a certain cachet about holding a conference of
murder mystery fans in a venue where a real murder took
place.”
She was off again before either Liss or
Dan could comment, but they exchanged a rueful look. “That’s not
how we want the hotel to be remembered,” Dan muttered.
“Aunt Margaret knows that, but it’s
better to attract business than to drive it away, right?” Liss
glanced at her watch. “The opening ceremonies are starting soon.
I’ve got to go.”
Dan brushed a light kiss across her
forehead. “Have fun. I’ll see you later.”
He started to turn away, but she caught
him by the front of his shirt and tugged. Obligingly, he lowered
his head for one more kiss—a proper one, this time.
Grinning like a fool, Dan watched Liss
sail up the sweeping staircase that led from the lobby to the
mezzanine where the meeting rooms were located. No one would ever
know from the graceful way she walked that she’d had knee surgery
less than two years earlier. He still couldn’t believe his luck.
She’d been gone from Moosetookalook for a decade before a twist of
fate brought her back. Now she was going to stay on permanently ...
with him.
Liss turned at the top of the stairs
and sent a smile his way. The sides of her dark brown hair swung
forward over her ears, just brushing her jawline. There was nothing
spectacularly beautiful about her face, but Dan liked the way
everything went together. And he loved her for her quick, clever
mind and her absolute dedication to the things she cared
about.
Only when Liss disappeared into the
crowd beginning to gather on the mezzanine did Dan realize that he
was being watched. His father smirked at him in a good-natured
fashion from his post behind the check-in desk.
“Pitiful,” Joe Ruskin kidded him when
Dan sauntered over. “Mooning over the girl like a lovesick
calf.”
“If I’m a calf, shouldn’t that be
mooing?”
Joe chuckled. “If that’s the best
comeback you can manage, you’d better stick to working with your
hands. You’re never going to master the art of clever
repartee.”
“Why would I want to?”
“Listen, son,” his father said, leaning
forward with his elbows on the counter, “I’ve got a puzzler for
you. Sherri called a little while ago to ask if we had a J.
Nedlinger registered. We don’t, and I told her so, but then I got
to thinking that the name sounded familiar.”
It meant nothing to Dan, but he heard
the worry in his father’s voice. If Sherri had been asking in her
official capacity as a Moosetookalook police officer, then no good
would come of finding a connection between the hotel and this
Nedlinger person.
“A credit card issued to J. Nedlinger
paid for a room, just not under that name.”
“What name did he use? Smith or Jones?
And how good-looking was the woman with him?”
Joe snorted a laugh. “The name in the
register is Jane Smoot. She checked in yesterday. A big woman,
especially when she’s wearing a jogging suit. I saw her first thing
this morning when she was heading out for a run on the cliff
path.”
“Smoot?”
Joe nodded. “I think maybe she’s using
an alias. I’m wondering if I should call Sherri back and let her
know. We don’t want some criminal type staying here at the
hotel.”
Dan shrugged. “Sure. Call her. It’s
probably nothing. Maybe the Nedlingers have a family emergency and
are trying to get in touch with J.”
“But why use another name? Normal
people don’t do things like that—try to hide who they
are.”
“Maiden name?” Dan suggested. “Or maybe
it’s a pseudonym. This conference has a lot of writers attending,
right? And sometimes they don’t publish under their own
names.”
Joe’s tension evaporated. The
shallowest of the worry lines in his face smoothed out. “Yeah,
that’s probably the explanation. But I think I’ll let Sherri know
anyway, just to be on the safe side.” He reached for the
phone.
“You’d better try her at home, or on
her cell.” Dan picked up a pen and scribbled down both numbers on a
scratch pad on the check-in desk. “This late in the day there’s no
point in calling the P.D. You’ll just end up being forwarded to the
dispatcher at the sheriff’s department.”
Joe hesitated. “I hate to bother her if
she’s off duty. She’s probably right in the middle of cooking
supper for Pete and Adam.”
“Pete’s on the two-to-ten shift, and
Sherri won’t mind an after-hours update.”
Although he’d been on his way down to
the hotel lounge, Dan stuck around while Joe tried Sherri’s
numbers. Dan and Liss had become close friends with Pete and Sherri
since Liss’s return to Moosetookalook. Sherri’s compulsion to tie
up loose ends was almost as strong as Liss’s inability to let any
puzzle go unsolved.
In spite of the fact that Dan had
already worked a full day for Ruskin Construction, adding an office
above the garage to a client’s house, he’d agreed to put in three
more hours tending bar. Everyone in the family—his sister Mary, his
brother Sam, even Sam’s wife, June—pitched in to help their father
as needed. It had long been Joe’s dream to restore The Spruces to
its former status as a grand resort hotel, or at least to a modern
version of those glory days. Although the jury was still out on
whether he’d ultimately succeed, his three kids were determined to
do all they could to support him.
“Funny,” Joe said. “No answer at the
apartment. Not even the machine. Nothing on the cell,
either.”
“Try Pete’s cell,” Dan suggested, and
rattled off the seven digits. He’d always had a good memory for
numbers. That was a definite asset in the building trade, where
accurate measurements were important.
This time Joe got an answer. “Any idea
where Sherri’s got to?” he asked. Then, abruptly, his voice
changed. “Sorry to hear that, Pete. You at the hospital
now?”
“What happened?” Dan demanded, but his
father gestured for him to be patient.
“Hang in there, son,” Joe said after
listening a bit longer. “I’m sure he’ll be fine.” But his brow was
furrowed with concern when he hung up. “It’s Sherri’s son, Adam.
Pete says they think he broke his arm. They’ve taken him down to
Fallstown General for x-rays. He’s probably going to end up in a
cast.”
“Poor kid. He’s only seven years old.
How’d it happen?”
“Typical youngster. He fell out of a
tree.”
Dan winced in sympathy.
“Pete said Sherri just took the boy
into the emergency room. He met them outside and he was parking the
cruiser when I caught him. Another couple of minutes and he’d have
shut off his cell phone. They don’t let you keep them turned on
inside the hospital.”
“They’ll be there a while,” Dan
predicted.
“I didn’t tell Pete why I was looking
for Sherri,” Joe said. “I don’t guess this Nedlinger business is
all that important. Nothing that can’t wait till tomorrow, that’s
for sure.”
“If it was something crucial, I’m sure
Sherri would have said so when she called you
earlier.”
The arrival of a tall, lanky individual
wearing glasses with Coke-bottle lenses and a harried expression on
his face ended the discussion. While his father checked in the
newcomer—under the improbable name of Blair Somerled—Dan continued
on his way to the lounge. He dismissed the minor mystery of J.
Nedlinger from his mind and concentrated on psyching himself up for
his stint as bartender. He didn’t resent the dent working at the
hotel put in his personal time, but he sure would be glad when he
no longer had to pitch in there.
Things would improve once he and Liss
were married, he told himself. They planned to live in her house
and turn his into the business that was his
dream—a showroom for the furniture and other items he crafted from
wood. As always, that thought brightened his day. He was whistling
a cheerful little tune by the time he reached the
lounge.
Liss was also in excellent spirits. The
largest of the meeting rooms was packed, but she spotted a chair in
the middle of a row halfway to the podium. Stepping carefully over
feet and goodie bags, she reached her goal and collapsed onto the
cushioned seat. What a relief it was just to sit!
She’d been on the go, and on her feet,
since early that morning. To carve out the time to attend the First
Annual Maine-ly Cozy Con, she’d had to spend extra hours making
sure that Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium was caught up on mail
and online orders. Setting up the dealers’ room had been
time-consuming, too, but now everything was ready. In addition to
Angie and herself, there was one other vendor. There was also a
display area for the items to be offered in the Friday evening
charity auction and another long table, currently empty, where
attending authors could leave their promotional material. All that
was left to do was unlock the big double doors at nine the next
morning.
A smattering of applause sounded when
Nola Ventress took the stage. She launched into a brief history of
how the First Annual Maine-ly Cozy Con came to be. Since Nola was
not a stirring speaker, Liss’s mind wandered. She enjoyed
people-watching, and this was a fascinating group.
Women vastly outnumbered men in the
audience, but one of the latter caught Liss’s eye.
She recognized him by his checked
blazer and the fact that he wore his long blond hair in a queue.
He’d been one of the two gentlemen standing by the elevator with
Yvonne Quinlan and Dorothy Cannell. Now he had his back propped
against a side wall. His attention was fixed on Yvonne, who
currently shared the stage with Nola and two other women. He
started visibly when an impressively large woman dressed all in
gray sidled up to him. She leaned in close, invading his personal
space. He tried to retreat, but he had nowhere to go. Just to be
sure he didn’t escape, she got a good grip on his lapel, giving
Liss a new appreciation of the term “buttonholed.”
When Nola introduced Yvonne Quinlan,
Liss turned her attention back to the podium. Nola named all seven
titles in Yvonne’s series of mystery novels and quoted a review in
Publishers Weekly that praised the author’s
skill at characterization and her light touch with
humor.
The actress-turned-author smiled
graciously, acknowledging the enthusiastic applause from the crowd.
“Thank you all for such a warm welcome,” she said in a pleasant,
slightly throaty voice. “I’m looking forward to the
weekend.”
Liss expected Yvonne to hog the
spotlight, but instead of acting like a prima donna, she promptly
returned the microphone to Nola so that Nola could introduce the
Fan Guest of Honor, Betty Jean Neal.
“You all know Betty Jean,” Nola said,
“and if you don’t, you should. This woman owns more mystery novels
than most libraries.”
Betty Jean, beaming, bounced up to the
microphone. Like the trapped man in the checked blazer, she had
blond locks pulled back into a ponytail, but her hair was thick to
the point of being bushy. A few strands had escaped to frame a
rosy-cheeked face.
“That’s right, Nola,” she said, and
giggled when the microphone squealed. She held it a little farther
from her face to elaborate on the number of books she had
collected. “Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in just about every room,”
she boasted.
“Tell them about the bathroom,” someone
in the audience yelled, obviously a friend.
“Oh. Well. You don’t really want to
hear this, do you?” Betty Jean asked the crowd.
Reassured that they did, she launched
into a description of her recently remodeled guest bath. The floor
was black and the walls white, except for a suggestive spatter of
red paint on one wall. The white bath rugs had red footprints on
them. The black towels were decorated with the outline of a body.
And the toilet paper had been printed to look like crime-scene
tape.
“Of course, no one is allowed to use
that roll,” Betty Jean added, chuckling along with the laughing
crowd.
“And she lives
in a decommissioned lighthouse,” said a woman sitting directly in
back of Liss.
“No kidding?” A second female voice
sounded skeptical.
“Oh, yeah. Betty Jean’s the principal
of the local elementary school, and the living quarters, which
belong to the town, go with the job.”
“I never heard of such a
thing.”
“It’s a throwback, that’s for sure. And
Betty Jean knows it. She’s had that job for thirty years and she’s
not letting it go anytime soon. Well, would you?”
Liss didn’t hear what the second woman
replied. Betty Jean had stepped aside and Nola was now introducing
the conference toastmaster, a mystery writer named Sandy Lynn
Sechrest. A tall, slender woman in her thirties, she spoke in a
soft Southern accent Liss found charming.
“I’ve been thinking about the title of
toastmaster,” she drawled, “and it just doesn’t fit. And I don’t
want to be anybody’s toastmistress, either. So I’ve decided to call
myself the Cozy Con’s Toast Chick. You know—like the Dixie Chicks?
What do y’all think?”
Boisterous applause and more laughter
assured her that the crowd approved. As Sandy Lynn went on to make
a few announcements about schedule changes, Liss made a mental note
to pick up a copy of her latest mystery, The Cat
Herder Murder. Apparently Ms. Sechrest’s detective was a
woman who wrote pet-care guides. Liss liked the premise and thought
she might just garner some helpful hints about dealing with
stubborn felines while she was trying to solve a fictional
crime.
Two cats shared Liss’s house in the
village. They were not going to be happy with her this weekend.
Lumpkin and Glenora wanted regular meals. Since the Emporium was
right next door to the house, Liss usually darted back and forth,
putting down fresh food and water and doling out attention on a
schedule that suited all three of them. For the duration of the
conference, however, the cats were going to have to make do with
seeing her only in the early morning and late at night, after the
First Annual Maine-ly Cozy Con activities were over with for the
day. She planned to attend the classic movie festival after that
evening’s reception, the charity auction on Friday evening, and the
banquet on Saturday night.
Enthusiastic applause, the loudest yet,
greeted Nola Ventress’s announcement that refreshments awaited them
in the adjoining room. All around Liss, people surged to their feet
and started to move in that direction. She didn’t hesitate to join
them. The hotel always put on a good spread. The head chef,
Angeline Cloutier, produced splendid buffets. Angeline had already
agreed to cater Liss and Dan’s wedding.
The woman Liss had last seen accosting
the man in the checked blazer intercepted her before she could join
either of the long lines snaking around two buffet tables loaded
with food. “Excuse me,” she asked, “but aren’t you Amaryllis
MacCrimmon?”
Liss frowned. “I prefer Liss.” And she
was wearing a conference name tag that said so.
“Of course you do. I wonder if I could
speak with you for a few minutes.”
“Sure,” Liss agreed, but she kept
walking. She was close enough now to smell delicious aromas, and
she could see that one of the buffet selections was a macaroni and
cheese bar.
The woman kept pace. She was as tall as
Liss and easily twice her weight, but she was solid rather than
flabby. Formidable, Liss decided. And there was something predatory
about her smile.
“Why don’t we get in line?” Liss
suggested. “We can talk and collect supper at the same time.” Since
she’d managed only a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a glass
of milk for lunch, she expected her stomach would start to growl at
any moment.
“Are you sure you want our conversation
to be overheard?”
Liss hesitated, taken aback by the
question. Her gaze wandered to the other woman’s shelflike bosom,
to the spot where a name badge should have been pinned to the dove
gray fabric and was not. “And you are?”
“Jane Nedlinger.” The woman’s light
blue eyes gleamed, but not with good humor.
There were three lines to choose from,
two for food and one at the cash bar. For a moment, Liss was
tempted to join the latter. If Jane Nedlinger was this intense in
her dealings with everyone, it was no wonder that the man in the
checked blazer had looked so desperate to escape her
clutches.
“I don’t believe I’m hiding any deep,
dark secrets.” Liss managed a flippant tone of voice and selected
the food line that looked marginally shorter.
The two women in front of them were
engaged in a lively discussion that momentarily caught Liss’s
attention. She recognized one of them as the conference
toastmaster, Sandy Lynn Sechrest. The other had just proudly
announced that she’d had her first mystery published in March. Then
she proceeded to rattle off the names of every location where she’d
done a book signing. They ranged from the Barnes & Noble in
Augusta, Maine’s state capital, to the sidewalk in front of a local
Rite Aid pharmacy managed by her sister-in-law.
“I’m doing that one again during the
Apple-Pumpkin Festival this fall,” she added. “Signings are
absolutely essential, don’t you think? I make a point of talking to
the manager of every bookstore I come across. Can you believe it?
Some of them are reluctant to schedule an event.”
“Perhaps they don’t think they’ll make
enough profit,” Sandy Lynn suggested in a mild voice.
“Nonsense. Author signings are good for
everyone. And essential,” she repeated. “Just like bookmarks. And
an online presence. I spent my entire advance on
publicity.”
“I do hope it will pay off for you,”
Sandy Lynn drawled. “I’ve given up on bookstore signings myself.
They just aren’t cost-effective for me, living in a remote, rural
area as I do.”
The less experienced author looked
profoundly shocked. “But you must do them,”
she insisted. “They’re essential. How else
can you hope to boost book sales?”
“I’ve always found it helps to write a
good book,” Sandy Lynn said, and turned her attention to scooping
salad onto her plate.
The line picked up speed. Liss
collected utensils and glanced back at Jane Nedlinger. Like Liss,
she had been shamelessly eavesdropping on the veteran author and
the newbie.
“So, what can I do for you, Ms.
Nedlinger?” Liss asked.
“I write a daily blog in which I
discuss real murder cases. I also review mystery
novels.”
They moved a few steps forward, closer
to the spot where Angeline Cloutier, resplendent in a high white
chef’s cap and a pristine white apron, was slicing roast beef.
Covered metal trays displayed a variety of tempting choices—all the
makings of a satisfying supper.
Jane loaded her plate, taking some of
everything. Liss made more careful selections. She passed on the
scalloped potatoes but couldn’t resist the macaroni and cheese bar.
Small soup bowls had been set out so that people could line them
with goodies from an assortment of toppings. Or would that be
bottomings? Liss chose the finely cubed ham and held up her bowl so
that one of the waitstaff could ladle a steaming portion of
homemade macaroni and cheese into it.
“I have questions,” Jane continued as
she plucked two rolls out of a basket, “about all about the murders
you’ve been involved in during the last two years.”
Her words were rife with innuendo.
Caught off guard by the unspoken accusation, Liss automatically
went on the defensive. “I’ve hardly been involved—”
“Haven’t you?” Jane Nedlinger didn’t
bother to hide her sneer. “I’ve read all the newspaper articles.
I’ve even seen the police reports. You, Amaryllis Rosalie
MacCrimmon, are a lightning rod for sudden violent death.” Her eyes
glinted with unconcealed malice. “Do you like that turn of phrase?
I’m considering using it as the headline for my blog.”