Free Ring for Murder (Lighthouse Inn Finale) by Tim Myers

his brother. She let go of his
hand and took a step back from him.
    “I’m Monique Combs,” she said simply.
    “It’s nice to meet you,” Alex said. “What
brings you to our inn?”
    Monique clearly didn’t care to answer that.
“Nothing more than a whim,” she said. “If it’s all the same to you,
I thought I’d take a stroll around the grounds.”
    She tried to brush past them, but Alex took
a step and placed himself between her and the door. “How well did
you know my brother?”
    “Your brother?”
    Alex wasn’t buying the innocent routine.
Normally he was quite careful with his guests, but this woman
wasn’t here to take in the ambiance of the lighthouse or the inn.
“Tony Winston. He’s the man you slapped at my rehearsal dinner two
nights ago. Funny, but I didn’t remember inviting you to the
event.”
    “That’s because you didn’t,” Monique said a
little petulantly. “Tony did.”
    Whether that was true or not, there was
really no way of proving it, since Alex couldn’t exactly ask his
brother to confirm it.
    Elise said, “You had an odd way of thanking
him for the invitation. Everyone at our party saw you slap
him.”
    Alex added, “You looked mad enough to kill
him.”
    She laughed off the accusation. “Okay, if
you want to talk about it, we’ll talk about it. Tony and I had a
great many highs and lows in our relationship. It was nothing for
us to argue one minute and fall into bed together the next.”
    “You don’t seem all that torn up by his
murder,” Alex said, a touch of anger leaking through into his
voice.
    “We all mourn in different ways, don’t we?
Tony told me often about this place, growing up here with you. I
won’t be in Elkton Falls ever again, so I wanted to experience a
little of what he told me about firsthand.”
    Alex didn’t believe her, and everything she
said from that point on would be carefully tested and weighed. Tony
had hated the lighthouse and the inn growing up. He hadn’t been
able to wait to get away, and there was no way Alex would ever
believe his brother would look back on his childhood with anything
even approaching nostalgia.
    “How did you two meet?” Elise asked.
    “It’s really not something I care to
discuss,” she said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I really do need some
air.”
    Monique swept out of there, and Elise looked
at Alex. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to drive her off.”
    “Don’t blame yourself. She couldn’t wait to
get out of here,” Alex said. “I wouldn’t believe the lighthouse was
outside our door if she told me. I’d have to go out and check it
myself.”
    “What do you think she’s lying about, Tony,
their relationship, or what?”
    “Everything,” Alex said. “My brother hated
it here. There’s no way he’d ever speak fondly of it. Of that I’m
certain.”
    “Could he have changed in the years since he
was away from it?” Elise asked.
    Alex loved her for the thought, and that she
was always looking for the silver lining to any cloud. “No. It took
everything I could do to get him here for our wedding, and if he
hadn’t thought of scamming me out of money, I doubt he would have
come back even for that.”
    Elise took his words on faith. “Then we need
to uncover her real story.”
    Alex nodded. “There’s only one way to do
that. It’s time to violate her privacy. You don’t have to come with
me, if you’re not comfortable with that.”
    “She lied to us. As far as I’m concerned,
she forfeited any rights she had. Besides,” she added with a smile,
“we’re innkeepers. It’s our duty to make sure our guests are well
taken care of. I believe Monique needs more towels than I put in
her room earlier.”
    “Then we really should remedy that,” Alex
said, matching her smile.
    They started for her room upstairs, and
Elise paused at the linen closet. As she grabbed more towels, she
said, “Just in case she comes back.”
    “I believe we’ll have a harder time
explaining why it