Chapter Two
B
y 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 womanâobviously the more rabid sort of fanâdidn'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 himâhis sense of humor, his loyalty to friends and family, even his instinct to protect those he loved, annoying as that could be on occasionâcame 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 fieldâmuscular 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 Julyâclose 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 kissâa proper one, this time.
Â
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 thatâtry 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.