Resort to Murder by Carolyn Hart

Author:Carolyn Hart [Hart, Carolyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Contemporary Women, Mystery & Detective, General
ISBN: 9780061861024
Google: 3bY7DDppJOcC
Amazon: B000PDZG56
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-10-13T04:00:00+00:00

A string quartet played Cole Porter tunes. I studied Jasmine’s bent head. The peppermint-striped ribbon in her blond curls matched her striped blouse. I was puzzled. Instead of her usual bouncy eagerness, she was subdued. She’d scarcely eaten a bite. Perhaps she didn’t care for lamb. But the whipped sweet potatoes surely held child appeal.

Our little table was an island of silence in the dining room. None of the guests were boisterous, but there was a current of cheeriness: the clink of silverware, the lilt of the music, low-voiced conversations. Jasmine and I were the only members of our group dining in the hotel. I was glad we’d been placed at a smaller table. I supposed that Steve Jennings had joined either Connor and Lloyd or the youngsters. I’d been prepared to meet and deflect a barrage of questions from Jasmine, expecting that she would give free rein to her curiosity. Instead, when the waiter—Frederick—removed our dinner plates, Jasmine had scarcely said a word and her answers to my questions had been monosyllabic.

I don’t particularly pride myself as having great rapport with children, but I can usually get almost anyone to talk.

Frederick brought our desserts, Key lime pie for me and vanilla ice cream drizzled with a mixture of chocolate and raspberry sauces for Jasmine.

She stared at her plate, made no move to pick up her spoon.

I put down my fork. “Jasmine, don’t you feel well?”

Slowly she lifted her eyes. Her lips trembled. “I didn’t mean for George to die.”

I found it hard to breathe.

Her round face was young and unblemished, the skin smooth and pink, but the blue eyes that stared at me were dark and deep with pain.

“Of course you didn’t, Jasmine. I know that.” But children kill. Even a child could rush up behind a man and push. Oh, dear Lord, why?

“I was so mad at him.” She picked up the spoon, pressed it against the tablecloth. “He shouldn’t have talked about my mom that way. He—”

“George talked to you about your mother?” I was startled. Yes, George had spread rumors about Connor to Diana and apparently to others on the staff and among the guests. But I was shocked to think he would discuss Connor’s behavior with her ten-year-old child.

“Not me. Somebody else. I never saw who he was talking to. I was in the magnolia tree this morning—”

“The one by the cliff?” The tree was at the far edge of the hotel property. Limbs of the huge tree spread over the water on one side. The tree also poked over a wall marking the drop to a road that curled into a parking area for the hotel staff. I’d looked there when scouting out the terrain in search of an explanation for the ghost. There was a thirty-foot drop from the tree to the rocks on one side and the road on the other.

“Yes. I like to climb in the tree. It’s a secret place. I go back every year.” She turned the spoon over and over in her hands.

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