Read a Sample Chapter
Mysteries Of Lost Angel Inn
By Evelyn Rogers Kathleen O'Brien Debra Webb Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.
Copyright © 2004 Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.
All right reserved. ISBN: 0-373-83625-2
Chapter One
HIGH ABOVE the circular drive, evening mist swirled between the twin turrets of the Lost Angel Inn. Like an unsettled ghost, Ellie thought with a shiver. Directly below, welded onto the face of the inn, a bronze angel stood guard, as if holding back any evil the ghost might inflict on anyone who dared enter.
A sense of dread held Ellie in place beside her car.
"Not much inspiration for a rekindled romance," she whispered, breaking the momentary spell.
When she was tense, she talked to herself, or to her late mother. She'd been doing a lot of both lately. Right now she was questioning what she was doing at this isolated island inn off the northern shore of Maine. The man who'd invited her was pleasant enough, sophisticated, handsome, but he did not arouse her to anything more than friendship.
"So who does?" she asked, and answered with a lonely, "No one."
Twenty-eight, a successful designer of Web sites, she wasn't sure she was capable of being aroused. On this vacation weekend, she hoped to find out.
"Miz Gresham?"
Ellie shook herself from her maundering and watched as a gray-haired, angular man came down the front steps of the inn. He had a sunken, sullen face, and was dressed in loose jeans and a work shirt beneath a worn tweed coat. He could have been anywhere from fifty to seventy.
"Miz Livvy says I was to help you in," he said in a no-nonsense Maine accent.
Ellie clicked open the trunk of her car, but before she could retrieve her suitcase, the man had it gripped in his bony hand and was headed back the way he had come.
"What about the car?" she asked after him.
"Leave the keys. I'll get it."
Ellie glanced around her, but saw only more mist drifting across the crest of the hill where the inn had been built more than a hundred years before. Once a private home, and later abandoned after an old scandal, it had been converted by its newest owner into a bed-and-breakfast. For this - the opening weekend - guests would be asked to solve a murder mystery.
From somewhere in the distance a foghorn blared mournfully. Ellie's eyes shifted to the dark ivy-covered front of the inn, but she thought of the ghost. The inn was supposedly haunted by the spirit of a nineteenth-century chambermaid who had come to an unfortunate end. Through the years the islanders had reported the sound of weeping coming from the attic that separated the turrets.
Instead of keeping the legend a secret, the new owner had played it up in the publicity announcing the mystery weekend. Truth or fiction? she had asked. Whatever the facts might be, Ellie decided, Lost Angel Inn was a perfect setting for a murder.
She stretched her travel-weary muscles, then hurried up the stairs, holding her jacket close to ward off the damp June chill. A wide covered porch stretched across the front of the inn, but before she could give it more than a glance, the front door opened and a woman stepped out.
"Miss Gresham, I've been waiting for you," the woman said, a smile on her pretty face. "The ferry from the mainland is usually dependable, but in weather like this you never know."
Ellie's artist's eye took in the woman with one quick study: above-average height, slender, long brown hair tucked behind her ears, matching brown eyes reflecting the smile for only an instant before a shadow passed across them, as if smiling was something she did not do very often. She wore a black sweater over an ankle-length paisley skirt and heavy, sensible shoes.
Ellie took the extended hand and felt an immediate warmth, a connection she had experienced with only her closest friends. The feeling was pleasant and decidedly welcome.
"You must be Olivia Hamilton," she said.
"Please call me Livvy. I hope all my guests will be on a first-name basis, but if that makes you uncomfortable ..."
"Not in the least. I'm Ellie."
Livvy stepped aside and gestured for her to enter.
"You're the first to get here, and we're still pulling things together. The inn was closed for so long there's been a lot of work to do -" She broke off.
"Please forgive me. If you let me, I'll launch into a description of all the renovations going on."
"I'd love to hear about them."
"But not now. You must be exhausted after your long drive from Boston."
"It wasn't so bad. I broke the trip into several days."
Livvy backed away and Ellie stepped inside a paneled entryway with a polished wooden floor, hall tree, side table holding a large bouquet of spring flowers, more angels in a painting on the wall and a sparkling chandelier hanging from the high ceiling.
Overall, the effect was warm and welcoming, every-thing warmly greeting though Ellie detected a mustiness beneath the scent of fresh paint. A dining room opened to her left and, to her right, a parlor. But her eye fell to the winding staircase at the back of the entryway. It led upward into darkness.
As if sensing Ellie's unease, Livvy moved with a pronounced limp to the base of the stairs and switched on an upstairs light. "Joseph has taken your bag up to your room."
"I can find the way by myself."
"Don't worry. I manage the stairs just fine. The limp came from an accident of long ago. I hardly notice it now."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Mysteries Of Lost Angel Inn by Evelyn Rogers Kathleen O'Brien Debra Webb Copyright © 2004 by Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
loading...