Engaged to Die by Carolyn Hart

Author:Carolyn Hart [Hart, Carolyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Contemporary Women, Mystery & Detective, General
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-10-13T04:00:00+00:00

Seven

ANNIE OPENED THE driver’s door of her Volvo and a note card fluttered to the floor. She retrieved it. As she settled behind the wheel, she studied the card and smiled. Stylized heads of a black Lab, massive faces upturned with a look of adoration, rimmed the border. Ornate lettering announced: “When Fortune’s fickle, the faithful friend is found—Quintus Ennius.”

Annie’s eyes widened. The postscript in Laurel’s everyday handwriting—“Across the centuries, we are touched by immortal truth. Annie, I applaud you!”—scarcely registered. Annie gave an anguished glance at the motif. A Lab. Dogs. Dog…She raced the motor and jolted out of the marina parking lot. Despite the wisps of fog and the sheen of damp on the blacktop, she drove fast on the winding road. She waved at the guard as she left the gated residential area. She pulled into the island’s downtown gas station next to the outdoor phone kiosk. In a moment, she’d flipped to the O s in the tattered phone book. Her finger slid down the names.

“Yes!” she exclaimed. The advantages of island living were many, and chief among them was the likelihood at all times of connecting with a friend. Back in the car, she followed a familiar route, pulling up in only a few minutes at the arbor that marked the entrance to Nightingale Courts. Seven rustic cabins curved in a semicircle with a superb view of the marsh and the sound. Wisps of fog obscured the winter-brown cordgrass, hung in low patches over the gray-green water. Loons bobbed in the swells. She slammed out of the car, and shiny greenish-black grackles lifted skyward, chattering their aggravation. High in the sky, a bald eagle curved in watchful flight, most likely ready to defend its nest and baby chick.

Annie crunched up the oyster-shell path to cabin 1. Yellow curtains patterned with daisies in a deeper hue hung in the front windows. Smoke wreathed the chimney. Holly berries brightened the Christmas wreath on the door. As Annie lifted her hand to knock, the panel swung in.

Duane Webb, stocky in a blue turtleneck and baggy jeans, motioned her inside. A fiercely independent maverick, he’d spent most of his lifetime as a small-town newspaper editor, fetching up on the island in a drunken haze after the deaths of his wife and daughter in a car wreck. He’d been the driver. The drunk driver. Ingrid Jones, who managed Nightingale Courts and also worked as Annie’s most valued and treasured employee, became his friend. When Ingrid disappeared and was suspected of murder, Duane pulled himself together, aware abruptly that Ingrid was not simply a friend. They’d now been married for a number of years. Duane was a committed member of AA. Sometimes he helped out at the bookstore. Mainly he ran Nightingale Courts.

Annie stayed on the doorstep. “Duane, how is Ingrid feeling?” The hip surgery had been on Wednesday. She’d come through it fine, but sometimes the days after an operation were tough.

Duane’s lips curved into a wide smile. “Super. They’re moving her to rehab tomorrow.

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