Free Death Checks Inn (Aspen Valley Inn 1) by Sara Robbins Page A

ended the phone call with a promise to meet for coffee tomorrow morning at the Elkville Café.
    After hanging up she smiled as she realized she had not been this into a man since college. Only this time she w as sure the man was worthy of her love. Yes, Wyatt was very deserving, such a good and honest man. Even his job involved protecting people and making the world a safer place.
    She wondered if he was afraid of being alone with her, she giggled a little and thought he sure would be if he knew how quickly she wanted to skip the dating and move right into the next stage.
    Probably just as well that one of them was being sensible she thought as she went back to working on her computer.
    She was sorting through the downloaded photos deciding which ones went with each guests file and which were general snapshots of the Inn that she could use for advertising.
    She sighed as she noticed a couple of shots taken of Heather on her first night. She and Charlotte had taken quite a few pictures of the grand opening reception. She didn’t remember Heather staying for long but here she was in two of the photos.
    The first one just showed her standing alone in the center of the room as if she didn’t quite know what to do with herself. The other was taken during the tour of the upstairs.  Heather was standing right in front of the mining equipment display and appeared to be seriously studying the contents of that art niche. That niche had contained the murder weapon, the antique railroad spike.
    Lacey enlarged these two photos and looked closer.
    Heather was definitely looking very interested in the spikes on display. Lacey studied the other photo, the angle showed Heather close-up holding her wine glass, but in the background the staircase rising to the second floor was clearly visible.
    Hidden in the shadows at the top of the staircase was John Braverman seeming to stare down with a distorted sneer on his face. His gaze seemed to be directed at Heather Mason.
    The Braverman’s had not joined the celebration that night. Was he irritated at the noise the partygoers were making on what was after all his honeymoon?
    Of course, that was it. It had been a lively group. She minimized those photos and moved on.
    She smiled at one that showed Cody Westerfield looking at Charlotte’s back as she passed through the crowd serving wine. She would save that one for Charlotte and prove to her that that cowboy was definitely interested.
    Her favorite pictures were the ones taken at the barbeque held out in the sanctuary. Everything looked so magical with the fairy lights and cozy nightglow surrounding everyone.
    There was stream rising up from the spa and even the moon was visible in the night sky in a few of them.
    She wanted to save these and use them to entice people to visit the Inn, maybe put these on the website.
    One of the photos had been taken from outside the huge wooden gate. She had wanted to get one from the perspective of looking in at the celebration inside the stucco walled enclosure.
    People were mingling and laughing inside the lighted area inside the gate and yet there was some illumination surrounding the walled area because of the twinkling lights.
    She really liked this one, she thought as she used the magnify function to see how it would look as the screensaver for her webpage. As she looked closer, she saw something at the corner of the shot near the wall but several feet down from the gate.
    There were two people deep in conversation. Even though it was shadowy, she could recognize both.

Chapter 23
     
    In this picture, Tricia Moore was grasping John Braverman’s arm in what looked like a desperate gesture to make him listen to whatever she was saying with her face very close to his. Lacey moved her curser to the corner of the photo and zoomed in. Yes, it was clear that they were having a very serious discussion. How could that be, she wondered, they didn’t know each other. However, this picture showed that they