Murder Checks Inn (Book 3 in the Lighthouse Inn Mysteries) Read Online Free

the killer?”
    “ Sheriff Armstrong is
working on it.”
    “ That’s hardly reassuring.
He’s not exactly the South’s greatest lawman, is he?”
    Alex said, ‘Tony, he’s a much better sheriff
than you remember. Armstrong can handle this.”
    “ Don’t tell me you’re not
going to snoop around yourself. I know you too well. Get a room
ready for me, Alex, I’m coming back to Elkton Falls.”
    Alex knew his brother would want to come
back home, but it wasn’t something he’d been looking forward
to.
    “ I’ll wait to handle the
arrangements until you get here,” Alex said.
    “ I’m on my way.”
    It would be odd for Alex to see his brother
again, but he knew he’d manage to get through it somehow, for
Jase’s sake if nothing else. His mother and father had never
understood the break between their sons, or the reasons for it.
Instead, they’d remembered the old days through the log of wishful
thinking, believing all had been happy and harmonious in the
Winston household.
    Alex knew better.
    Elise walked up to him at the reservation
desk and said, “Alex, is there anything I can do?”
    “ We’d better get room ten
ready. My brother’s going to stay with us.”
    She said, “It will be good for you to have
your family here.”
    Alex shook his head. “I’m not so sure,
Elise. We talk on the phone once or twice a year, but he hasn’t set
foot on the grounds of Hatteras West in six years.”
    “ What happened between
you?”
    “ Nothing; that’s the whole
point. We’ve always been strangers. Once our folks were gone, there
was no need for us to even pretend to keep in touch. Elise, he may
be my brother biologically, but Mor Pendleton is more of a brother
to me than Tony ever has been.”
    Mor wouldn’t be happy to see Tony back in
Elkton Falls either. The two had been rivals in high school.
    “ I’ll go freshen up the
room,” Elise said.
    Alex wanted to reach out to her, to hold her
in his arms, to share some of his grief with her. But he couldn’t
burden her with his feelings for her, even now. At least not as
long as she was still engaged to Peter Asheford. The man had looks,
money, and Elise’s heart.
    But Alex was jealous only of the last
part.
    There was one place in the world Alex could
go to lift his spirits: the top of the lighthouse. He only hoped no
one was up there now; he needed to be alone.
    As Alex ascended the steps that led to the
top, his hand kept trailing against the cool, whitewashed stone of
the tower. Hatteras West was the one constant in his life, always
there, always watching over him. It was a part of him in more ways
than he could ever express, and it gave him a very real comfort
being within its shelter. Alex had taken his very first breath
inside the lighthouse on a stormy Halloween night thirty-some years
before, and the tower had been linked to him ever since.
    Climbing the 268 steps kept him in shape,
though the older he got, the longer the ascent took him. Alex
didn’t even stop at the windows on his way up this time, needing to
get to the top as quickly as he could.
    It was deserted on the observation deck that
ran all the way around the top. Alex leaned against the rail and
looked down on the nearly completed Main Keeper’s Quarters, with
roof shingles that were still glossy and new, then let his gaze
drift over to nearby Bear Rocks. A lot had happened in his life,
and Alex could tie nearly all of it to this spot in the foothills
of the Blue Ridge Mountains. He could see the rolling ridges in the
distance from his vantage point, smoky with an azure haze. Jase had
loved the lighthouse nearly as much as Alex did, though he hadn’t
climbed it since he’d come back to Elkton Falls. The stairs were
just too much for him.
    But how he had enjoyed sitting on one of the
rockers on the front porch of the Dual Keepers’ Quarters, staring
up at it.
    At least his uncle had had the chance to
come back home before dying.
    Alex heard footsteps behind him, and he
suddenly