Free Corpses & Conmen (Rosewood Place Mysteries Book 2) by Ruby Blaylock Page A

and the empty cup bumped against her foot as she moved her chair. “Darned cat,” Annie mumbled aloud, looking for any other evidence that TigerLily had been using her office as a playground.
    She didn’t see anything else out of place, so after sorting and straightening the papers and pens she pulled her clipboard out of her desk. It may have been an archaic way of keeping track of her guests, but Annie preferred keeping a printout of the business’s guest list as well as any pertinent information about the guests that she wanted to remember. She didn’t keep any financial information on the clipboard--that was all on her laptop--but she could tell at a glance when her guests would arrive and leave, whether they had any special dietary needs, and whether they’d be traveling alone.
    Lou Ross’s name jumped out at her. She’d had the page with his information on it at the top of the clipboard, anxiously awaiting her final guest’s arrival. Now that she knew he wouldn’t be staying with her, she was tempted to simply shred the document, though she knew she couldn’t put the man out of her mind.
    She moved his sheet to the back of the pile and reviewed her other guests’ information. Kizzy was planning to stay until the end of the week, Rob had planned on leaving after only one night. She wondered why he’d changed his mind, but realized that he probably hoped that there’d be an opportunity for him to get a scoop on what happened to Mr. Ross.
    Frank and Doris Martin were leaving a day after Kizzy. Annie thought that they had to be the best guests she could hope to ask for since they hadn’t complained a single time and even seemed intent on helping out at the house. Her fingers slid across Alexander George’s page, noting the numerous requests he’d made. Non-smoking room (they all were, luckily for him), hypoallergenic sheets, if possible, though he noted that he’d bring his own hypo-allergenic pillow, and he noted a preference for a room with few windows. Annie had thought this an odd request at the time, but since meeting the man, she realized that he was quite an odd fellow in general.
    Marie Robichaud had simply inquired about WiFi connections and requested a room with a view. Ah, Marie, doesn’t every room have a view when you can see into the spirit world? Annie chuckled aloud at the thought, then put the clipboard back in her desk drawer and retrieved a stack of bills from the same drawer, pulling the most current ones from the list and doing a quick mental calculation.
    After a few minutes, Annie opened her laptop and began her least favorite task of the week. Paying bills had been bad enough when she ran a household of three, but now that her household was large enough to accommodate so many guests, the job was definitely more painful. She worked her way through the stack of paper bills, paying the ones that were absolutely due right that minute, then put the rest back into the drawer. She glanced at the clock on the computer screen and frowned. Time seemed to be in short supply these days, and Annie had just wasted forty minutes on paperwork and paying bills.
    Annie swore to herself that she’d set up automatic payments on most of her bills once the business produced a steady income, but for now, the time-suck was a necessity, and so was keeping her guests happy, and alive. She rose from her chair and started to leave her office when she noticed a crumpled piece of paper lying just behind the door. Darned cat must have been in the trash, too , she thought.
    Something bothered Annie as she reached for the paper. She almost always kept the office locked, and since the guests had arrived, she’d made extra sure that she did, for their safety as well as her privacy. After all, it wouldn’t do to have guests nosing around in her paperwork, looking at information about other guests and possibly stumbling across financial information. Privacy laws were strict, even in a family-run inn, and Annie took