Stranger in Paradise
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Amanda Stevens
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Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
“Emily! Did you hear what happened? It’s terrible! Just awful!”
At the sight of her sister-in-law marching up the sidewalk—a stroller preceding her and a four-year-old trailing her—Emily Townsend groaned inwardly. Good grief, she thought. What did I do now?
She’d been sweeping the leaves from her front porch, but now she stopped and leaned the broom against the wall, taking an extra moment to gather her patience. Then, squaring her shoulders, she turned to face Caroline Townsend, who had come to an abrupt halt at the bottom of the porch steps.
“What’s wrong?” Emily asked.
“What’s wrong?” Caroline repeated, adjusting the top of the stroller to shade baby Moira’s face. Sunlight glistened like a halo off Caroline’s long golden hair as she straightened and glared up at Emily. “Then you haven’t heard!”
Emily was almost afraid to ask what Caroline was talking about, certain that her sister-in-law’s dramatics had something to do with either Emily or the house Emily had just bought, or both. Her purchase of the old Talbot place had caused quite a stir in Paradise. She sighed in resignation. “I haven’t heard anything, so just tell me.”
“The sign out on the highway has been vandalized,” Caroline said, obviously still shaken by the news.
Charles, Emily’s nephew, climbed the porch steps and grabbed her hand. “They wrote a bad word,” he said, beaming up at her.
“A bad word?”
“Someone painted over Paradise and wrote H-e-l-l in big red letters,” Caroline explained.
“That spells hell,” Charles offered.
Caroline glared at her son, aghast. “Charles! Where on earth did you ever hear such a word?”
“From Daddy,” the four-year-old told his mother proudly. “I heard him on the telephone.”
Emily grinned, imagining what her staid older brother would think if he could hear his son now. Her grin broadened as she visualized the sign out on the highway proclaiming Welcome to Hell in big red letters. She’d have to make a special trip out there, just to see it. Maybe even take a picture or two.
But she was smart enough not to say as much to her sister-in-law. Caroline and Stuart Townsend were very prominent and very proud citizens of Paradise. They took Stuart’s position on the town council very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that he’d decided to run for the state legislature this year.
As if he weren’t stuffy enough, Emily thought.
She couldn’t resist pointing to the shingle hanging from her porch and asking innocently, “Does this mean I’ll have to change the name of my bed-and-breakfast to the Other Side of Hell Inn?”
Caroline’s mouth thinned into one long line of disapproval. “This is not a laughing matter, Emily Townsend. You know good and well Paradise depends on its tourism. How’s that sign going to look to folks who’re just driving into town? What kind of impression will it make? They’ll think we’re a bunch of hooligans around here.”
At twenty-eight, Caroline was only two years older than Emily, but Emily had always thought her sister-in-law dressed and acted much older. Emily supposed Caroline’s manner and appearance were a result of Stuart’s careful tutoring. He was twelve years older, having married Caroline when she was just out of college, then he’d set about molding her into his idea of the perfect wife.
“I would assume Mayor Henley will have someone out there working on the sign today,” Emily said, although it had taken her nearly two months to get the proper permit from his office to open her bed-and-breakfast. It seemed no one in town approved of her buying the Talbot house.
Caroline was not mollified. “You know why this happened, don’t you? Stuart says it’s because of that article Mike Durbin wrote about this house.” She waved a scornful hand at Emily’s front porch. “Why you insisted on using the last of your trust fund to buy this…this monstrosity, I’ll never know. Your poor parents would turn over in their graves if they knew about this. You’ve made us all a laughingstock, using such an…unfortunate incident in the town’s past to promote a bed-and-breakfast.”
Emily raised an incredulous brow. “Unfortunate incident? It was a murder, Caroline. A murder that has gone unsolved for fifteen years.”
“That’s nonsense. Everyone in town knows that stranger did it. That Wade Somebody-or-Other. He killed that poor girl in cold blood. In your house!”
“He was never found guilty.”
“Because he skipped town before he could be arrested. Just up and disappeared. If that didn’t prove his guilt, I don’t know what would. How you could drag up all that old business now, after all these years—”
Emily folded her arms and rolled her eyes, waiting for Caroline’s tirade to come to a conclusion. Not that Caroline had anything new to offer. Both she and Stuart had made their opinions of Emily’s decision to buy the house perfectly clear from the start.
Are you crazy? Stuart had shouted. You’ll be throwing good money after bad, trying to fix up that old place. Who’d want to stay there anyway?
The Talbot house had been vacant off and on, mostly off, ever since Jenny Wilcox had been murdered in one of the upstairs bedrooms, fifteen years ago, and rumors of a haunting still occasionally surfaced, usually around the anniversary of the murder.
Details of the old tragedy had recently been rehashed in Mike Durbin’s article for the Paradise Herald. The article had been picked up by several other papers, and interest in the Other Side of Paradise Inn had skyrocketed, which, of course, was exactly what Emily had intended. She’d gotten calls from as far away as Nashville, and she wasn’t even officially open for business yet.
And they said she’d never be a businesswoman, she thought with a satisfied smile.
Caroline saw the look on Emily’s face and shook a thin finger at her. “Don’t look so smug,” she said, assuming the tone Stuart always used with his sister. “This whole venture could still blow up in your face, just like everything else—” Caroline stopped short, as if realizing she might have gone too far, even for her.
Neither Stuart nor Caroline ever missed an opportunity to remind Emily of what a failure she’d been at most of the career choices she’d made—and she’d made quite a few over the years, she had to admit—or of the mess she’d made of her life.
After all, it was Stuart who had adamantly opposed Emily’s engagement to Eugene Sprague all those years ago. She’d eloped with Eugene when she was only nineteen years old. Now, seven years and a lot of heartache later, here she was, back in Paradise.
It was so easy to read Caroline’s mind, Emily thought, giving her sister-in-law a surreptitious glance. You should have stayed in Paradise and married Trey when you had the chance, Emily. Then you’d be living in the Huntington mansion, instead of trying to fix up a broken-down old house with a sordid past.
But that was one of the reasons Emily liked the Talbot place so much. She felt a certain kinship with the house. They both seemed unable to live down their reputations.
“Auntie Em?” Charles said, calling her by her nickname.
Emily looked down into her nephew’s sweet little face and felt a rush of affection. “What’s up, Charley Horse?”
“Can I see the bloodstains now? You promised.”
Caroline gasped in outrage. “Charles Townsend, where on earth—”
“Auntie Em said—”
Emily quickly clapped a hand over the child’s mouth and smiled. “Kids say the darnedest things, don’t they?”
“Emily, please don’t be putting ideas into the boy’s head. Children are impressionable enough. It’s certainly a good thing you don’t have little ones of your own,” Caroline said, smoothing a hand down her cotton print skirt. She gazed critically at Emily’s porch, as if seeing the fresh paint job for the first time. “Oh, Emily. Red shutters?”
“I like red,” Emily said, lifting her chin a notch and trying to smother the flash of pain Caroline’s careless comment about children had caused. “I think it gives the house pizzazz.”
“Makes it look like a bordello, if you ask me,” Caroline said, wrinkling her nose. “So when exactly is the grand opening?” She bent to pop a pacifier into Moira’s mouth the moment the baby awakened and whimpered. Emily would have liked to pick up the fretting child, but she knew Caroline wouldn’t approve. She said it spoiled a baby to always pick it up the minute it cried.
Unable to resist, Emily walked down the steps and peered into the stroller. Five-month-old Moira immediately spit out the pacifier and gave her aunt a wide, hopeful grin.
“I’ll officially open for business two weeks from today, on October twenty-third,” Emily said, tickling Moira’s adorable chin. “The fall leaves should be at their peak by then, and, of course, the Fall Folk Festival starts the week after.”
“October twenty-third,” Caroline mused. “Why does that date sound familiar to me?” A light dawned, and Caroline’s light blue eyes widened in horror. “Isn’t that the anniversary of the murder? Why, that’s positively ghoulish, Emily!”
And positively brilliant, Emily thought. With Mike Durbin’s help, the publicity for her opening could be phenomenal.
As soon as Moira realized her aunt wasn’t going to pick her up, she started to howl. Emily glanced expectantly at Caroline, but she was gazing down the street. “What is that infernal noise?”
At first, Emily thought Caroline was referring to Moira’s sobs, but then, over the sound of the baby’s cries, came a low thrum that steadily grew louder.
“I think it’s a motorcycle,” Emily said.
“A motorcycle? In Paradise?”
The words were barely out of Caroline’s mouth when a big black Harley came into view. Both Caroline and Emily stood with open mouths as the powerful machine glided to a stop at the curb, the engine was killed and the rider got off.
And what a rider!
Dressed in jeans, boots and a black leather jacket, the stranger striding up her walkway had longish dark hair, a tall, athletic build, and—when he took off his mirrored sunglasses—eyes that were the most striking shade of light gray Emily had ever looked into.
“Oh, my…” she heard someone whisper. Caroline poked her in the ribs, and Emily realized the words had come from her own mouth.
“I’m looking for a place to stay,” the man said, gazing at her with those beautiful gray eyes. His voice was low and dark, infinitely sexy. Emily felt a delicious shiver along her backbone.
Caroline, who had been silent for at least one full minute—a record for her—said primly, “Emily isn’t open for business yet.”
“Oh, yes, I am,” Emily put in, almost before Caroline had stopped speaking. Emily wasn’t about to lose a potential customer, especially when Cora Mae Hicks, who operated the This Side of Paradise Inn across the street, was probably watching out her window at that very moment, ready to pounce on anyone Emily might turn away.
The bed-and-breakfast business in Paradise was fiercely competitive, and Cora Mae had ruled at the top of the heap for nearly twenty-five years. But Emily planned to change all that.
“Would you like to see the rooms?” she asked eagerly.
“I have some business to attend to first,” the stranger said. “But I’ll be back at six.” He turned to leave.
At the sight of his retreating back, Emily had the almost overpowering urge to somehow make him stay. If he left now, he might never return. She might never see him again, and for some reason she couldn’t have begun to explain, Emily desperately wanted to see this man again.
“Wait!”
He turned.
“What’s your name? I…need it for the register.”
He paused for a split second, and their gazes collided. Emily felt the impact all the way to her toes. “Just call me John,” he said mysteriously, slipping on his mirrored glasses.
“John what?”
“Doe.” Then he mounted his bike, started the engine and roared off.
They watched him in silence until he was out of sight, until only a faint hum could be heard from a distance, then Caroline turned to Emily and exclaimed in disbelief, “Did he just say his name was John Doe? Isn’t that what they call a corpse?”
Emily shivered at Caroline’s words. Still, dead or alive, the stranger who’d just ridden away on his motorcycle was the best-looking man she’d seen in years.
Finally, something interesting had happened in Paradise.
* * *
“TELL ME AGAIN who we’re going to see,” Mike Durbin, a reporter—the only reporter, in fact—for the Paradise Herald, instructed as Emily climbed into his ancient Plymouth. He glanced down at her legs, and Emily blushed, tugging at the hem of her short denim skirt.
“Her name’s Miss Rosabel Talbot. She owned my house at the time of the murder.” Emily settled back against the shabby upholstery and gazed out the side window at the Talbot house. The Townsend house now, she reminded herself.
Oh, it did look good, she thought proudly, gazing at the sparkling white paint, the new latticework and, yes, even the red trim.
Emily loved everything about her new home, including the wide wraparound porch on the first floor and the tree-shaded balcony on the second, the diamond-paned bay window in the dining room and the stained-glass front door, which had cost her a small fortune to have restored. She loved the gardens in back and the maples in front, which were now turning the yard into a cornucopia of fall color.
The house was Emily’s first real home in years. She and Eugene had moved around so much when they were married that no place had ever seemed like home to her. And before that, staying first with her grandmother, then with Stuart after her parents died, Emily had felt more like an unwelcome guest than anything else.
Now, for the first time since she was eleven years old, Emily finally had a place to call her own.
“I hope this isn’t going to be a complete waste of time,” Mike said, drawing her attention reluctantly back to him. “Supposing the old girl doesn’t remember anything about the murder? She’s in a nursing home, isn’t she? Mind’s likely not what it used to be.”
“She sounded sharp enough on the phone when she agreed to see us,” Emily said. “Let’s go. I have to be back by six.”
Mike lifted his eyebrows. “Hot date tonight?”
Emily thought about the stranger, quickly conjuring up an image of his dark hair and light gray eyes. Excitement tingled through her. “Something like that,” she murmured.
“I didn’t know you dated.”
Emily didn’t like the speculative gleam in his eyes. Mike Durbin was not at all the kind of man she wanted to get mixed up with. For one thing, he had a kind of lean and hungry look about him that Emily didn’t trust. For another, he reminded her too much of her ex-husband, and God knew that was reason enough to stay away from him.
“I don’t date,” she said impatiently. “My appointment this evening is strictly business. Now, shall we go?”
“You’re the boss,” Mike said, shifting the car into drive. The Plymouth hesitated, shimmied for a moment, then took off in a cloud of exhaust down the street. Emily would have offered to take her car, but her old VW didn’t run much better, and besides, the heater was on the blink again, and after a sunny morning, the day had suddenly turned cold and drizzly.
Emily thought about the stranger on his motorcycle. Did he get cold, racing along the streets? Or did he feel exhilarated, with the wind blowing through his hair and the feel of the powerful bike between his thighs? Emily felt a little surge of adrenaline, just thinking about it. She’d never in her life ridden on a motorcycle, but she’d always wanted to. Especially now.
“I have to get back early myself,” Mike was saying as he maneuvered the car through Paradise’s narrow streets. “Gotta make a run out to the highway, check out that defaced sign. No doubt that’ll be our lead story tomorrow,” he said with open contempt.
In the short time Emily had known Mike, he’d never bothered to disguise his disdain for the small town in which he found himself living, or for the small-town paper for which he found himself working.
He’d once been an award-winning investigative reporter for the Arkansas Democrat, having lived in both Little Rock and Washington, D.C. But after his fall from grace seven years ago, no one in the print media would touch him. The only job he’d been able to get was working for his uncle at the Herald.
Emily supposed the ensuing years of struggle and frustration explained the flashes of desperation she occasionally glimpsed in Mike’s eyes.
She said now, “I really appreciate the time you’re spending on this story.”
He shrugged. “I have to admit, I wasn’t too keen on the idea when you first brought it up, but I’m starting to think you may be on to something. We’ve already had quite a few complaints at the paper about that article. Even a couple of anonymous threats.”
“What kind of threats?” Emily asked in alarm.
“The usual crackpot stuff. People letting off steam. But it does appear that some folks in Paradise get mighty touchy at the very mention of the Wilcox murder.”
“I hope your uncle hasn’t changed his mind about the series,” Emily worried. She knew how important advertisers were to a newspaper. If too many people complained, Roy Travers, the owner of the Herald, might want to kill the rest of the articles she and Mike had planned.
“You let me worry about Uncle Roy. I know how to handle him. Besides, do you know how long it’s been since I’ve written about anything other than who bought what at the latest craft show, or which house received first place for the best yard display at Christmas?” He glanced at her, giving her an enigmatic wink. “I should be thanking you for putting me on the right track, Emily. A good murder is exactly what I need right now.”
His tone was light, but something in his eyes—that look of hunger, that flash of desperation—made Emily uneasy, and she couldn’t help remembering why Mike had been fired from the Democrat seven years ago. According to town gossip, he’d fabricated a story that won him all kinds of industry accolades and awards. When the truth eventually came out, his career had been in ruins.
Emily stared at Mike’s profile, wondering what a man like him might be willing to do to recapture all that he’d lost.
The thought left Emily unsettled, and both she and Mike fell silent. Neither of them spoke again until they pulled into the parking lot at the Shady Oaks Nursing Home in Batesville, over an hour later.
“Let me do the talking,” Emily said as they walked through the front door. “I’ve known Miss Rosabel for years, but she might be a little nervous around you.”
Mike looked around, wary. “Fine by me,” he said, fiddling with the collar of his shirt.
Funny how some people got nervous around old people, Emily thought. She’d once worked in a nursing home while she was still married to Eugene. She’d gotten along fine with the residents. It had been the management and their medieval policies she couldn’t handle.
At least Shady Oaks had a nice homey quality to it, Emily noticed with relief, taking in the beautiful needlepoint wall hangings and lush potted plants decorating the lobby.
Miss Rosabel was sitting in a rocking chair by the window when they walked into her room. She wore an intricately crocheted shawl of sky blue that highlighted her gray hair and her brilliant blue eyes. She had once been Emily’s piano teacher, and even though Emily hadn’t seen her in years, she would have recognized Miss Rosabel anywhere.
“Miss Rosabel,” she said, hurrying across the room to kneel beside the old lady’s chair. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
“You have,” Miss Rosabel said bluntly. “What have you done to your hair?”
Emily fingered the short curls at her nape. “I got it cut a few months ago. I figured it was time for a change,” she said, offering an explanation where none was needed. Stuart had almost had apoplexy when he first saw her.
A woman’s crowning glory is her hair, he’d said disdainfully. And you’ve just cut all yours off.
“You had the most beautiful long hair when you were a little girl. Dark and glossy as a raven’s wing,” Miss Rosabel reminisced. She ran a critical eye over Emily, until Emily began to fidget, just as she had years ago. Finally, Miss Rosabel nodded and said, “This style suits you, though. You always were an original. And I imagine all that long hair was a tangled mess in the mornings.”
“It was,” Emily agreed, surprised by the old woman’s perceptiveness. “But I wish you’d explain that to Stuart.”
“And how is your dear brother?” Miss Rosabel asked the question mildly, but her voice was tinged with sarcasm. Emily remembered that while she was staying with Stuart, he and Miss Rosabel had had one or two run-ins over Emily’s lack of discipline in her music. Emily had wanted to play her own compositions, with Miss Rosabel’s enthusiastic approval, while Stuart had wanted her to learn the classics. She’d never become an accomplished pianist by pecking out that racket, he’d said.
Emily smiled a little at the memory now, even though Stuart’s words had hurt at the time. “He’s running for the state legislature this year,” she told Miss Rosabel.
“I suppose he and Trey Huntington are still thick as thieves.” Miss Rosabel’s gaze sharpened on Emily, making her wonder uneasily just how much the old woman remembered about Emily’s relationship with the illustrious Trey Huntington. She wondered if Miss Rosabel held the same opinion everyone else in town seemed to have—that Emily had been out of her mind to turn down a man like Trey.
“They’re still friends,” Emily said carefully. “In fact, Trey’s handling Stuart’s political campaign.”
Miss Rosabel raised her eyebrows at that, but said nothing. Emily kept quiet, too, letting the brief silence make the transition from idle chitchat to business matters. Then she said, “Look, Miss Rosabel, the reason we’re here—”
“You want to know about the murder.” The blue eyes moved from Emily to Mike, who had been standing surprisingly patient through their small talk. “You must be that reporter fellow Emily told me about. The one who faked a story and got himself fired off the Gazette a few years ago.”
Two bright spots of color ignited Mike’s cheeks. “It was the Democrat,” he said, stepping forward.
“Well, they’re one and the same nowadays,” Miss Rosabel pointed out.
“So they are. I hope you won’t hold my past transgressions against me,” Mike said with false levity. “I’ve learned from my mistakes.”
“Have you?” Miss Rosabel made it seem doubtful as she gave him a thorough once-over, then returned her gaze to Emily. “What is it you want to know about that poor girl’s death?”
“Everything,” Emily said. “Mike wants to do a series of articles about the house to coincide with the anniversary of the murder. It’ll be terrific publicity for the grand opening of my bed-and-breakfast. You know how people love a mystery.”
“Except for the good citizens of Paradise,” Miss Rosabel said dryly. “They won’t like having their dirty laundry aired in public, and they won’t be happy about me talking to you two.”
“Why not?” Emily asked, even though, judging by Caroline and Stuart’s reaction to Mike’s first article and by what Mike had said about the complaints and threats the paper had received, she knew that what Miss Rosabel said was true.
“I imagine they have their reasons,” Miss Rosabel evaded. She gazed out the window for a moment, as if gathering her thoughts, then said, “It happened such a long time ago. I don’t know if I can remember everything.”
“Tell us what you do remember,” Emily offered encouragingly, settling herself on the throw rug at Miss Rosabel’s feet.
Mike sat on a footstool and brought out his recorder.
“What’s that thing?” Miss Rosabel asked suspiciously.
“A tape recorder, to make sure I quote you accurately.”
“I’ve never seen one that small,” Miss Rosabel said, her disdain obvious in her tone. Then her sharp eyes lifted to Mike’s. “Are you sure it works?”
“Oh, it works, all right. Trust me,” Mike said, with an odd little smile that sent a sudden, unexplainable chill down Emily’s spine.
