Read Online Dark Paradise by Tami Hoag - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Tami Hoag
Tags: Suspense, Romance, Contemporary, Women Sleuths, Crime, Mystery, Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, Crime Fiction, Thrillers & Suspense
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train. The twenty-foot
giltframed mirror behind the bar had reportedly come from a castle in
Europe, courtesy of an adoring duke. Montana had never seen anything
more extravagant than Madam Belle's Board and Brothel, as it had been
called by some.
Sadly, Madam Belle's Popularity faded with her beauty, and her fortune
trickled away into bad investments and worse lovers. As spectacular as
the Golden Eagle was, New Eden was too far off the beaten path for any
but the most curious to visit. The hotel fell into disrepair. Madam
Belle fell to her death from the second floor balcony, a victim of dry
rot in the balustrade. And so ended the flight of the Golden Eagle.
Marilee stood on the veranda of the renovated hotel, reading the story
that was beautifully hand-lettered on yellowed parchment and displayed
tastefully in a glass case on the wall beside the carved front doors.
The details didn't even make a dent on her brain. She wasn't even sure
how she had come to be standing at the doors to the Mystic Moose.
After leaving the sheriff's office, she had just started walking,
needing to clear those awful scenes from her memory - Lucy's body from a
distance, Lucy's body up close, entry wound, exit wound. Her head
pounded from the effort to eradicate those horrific images of blood,
death, decay. She had walked the west side of Main Street clear out to
the Paradise Motel, then crossed and walked back down the east side,
oblivious of the sights and sounds and people around her.
The contradictions of the town penetrated in only the most abstract of
ways - the pickups that looked as though they had been gone after with
tire irons and the luxury cars that cost more than most people's houses;
the boarded-up, bankrupt stores and the windows displaying extravagant
silver jewelry and custom-made sharkskin cowboy boots; the ruddy-faced
cowboys and ranchers in town on errands and the faces of people who had
graced the covers of People magazine. All of it seemed more dreamlike
than real. In keeping with the theme of the day.
She walked for hours, heedless of her surroundings, unaware of the
curious and pensive looks she got from the locals; preoccupied by
thoughts of death, fate, justice, injustice, coincidence, Raffertys.
Fragments of thought hurtled through her mind like shrapnel, sharp-edged
and painful. There were too many bits and pieces. She couldn't seem to
grasp any one of them long enough to make sense of it. Caffeine and
grief and exhaustion pulled at her sanity and shook her nerves like so
many ragged threads, until she wanted to grab her hair with both hands
and just hang on, screaming.
She needed to sit down somewhere quiet and dark, have a drink to dull
hypersensitive senses, smoke a cigarette to give herself something
ordinary to focus on.
The double doors of the Moose swung open, and a tall, handsome woman in
a long denim jumper and expensive-looking suede boots strode out, her
jaw set at a challenging angle, her eyes homing in on Marilee from
behind a pair of large glasses with blue and violet frames.
Her face was a long oval with strong features and a slim, unpainted
mouth. A dense, wild mane of red-gold hair bounced around her shoulders.
Marilee started to step out of her way, murmuring an apology, but the
woman took hold of her shoulders with both beringed hands and looked her
square in the face.
"Dear girl," she said dramatically, her expression dead serious. "You
have a very fractured aura."
Marilee's jaw fell open, but no words came out. A jumble of quartz
crystals on sterling chains hung around the woman's neck. Opals the size
and shape of sparrow eggs dangled from her elegant earlobes. "I - I'm
sorry . . . I guess," she mumbled, feeling more and more like Alice on
the other side of the looking-glass.
The woman stepped back, tipped her head, and laid a long hand against
her forehead. " 'Weep not for me, nor all the
giltframed mirror behind the bar had reportedly come from a castle in
Europe, courtesy of an adoring duke. Montana had never seen anything
more extravagant than Madam Belle's Board and Brothel, as it had been
called by some.
Sadly, Madam Belle's Popularity faded with her beauty, and her fortune
trickled away into bad investments and worse lovers. As spectacular as
the Golden Eagle was, New Eden was too far off the beaten path for any
but the most curious to visit. The hotel fell into disrepair. Madam
Belle fell to her death from the second floor balcony, a victim of dry
rot in the balustrade. And so ended the flight of the Golden Eagle.
Marilee stood on the veranda of the renovated hotel, reading the story
that was beautifully hand-lettered on yellowed parchment and displayed
tastefully in a glass case on the wall beside the carved front doors.
The details didn't even make a dent on her brain. She wasn't even sure
how she had come to be standing at the doors to the Mystic Moose.
After leaving the sheriff's office, she had just started walking,
needing to clear those awful scenes from her memory - Lucy's body from a
distance, Lucy's body up close, entry wound, exit wound. Her head
pounded from the effort to eradicate those horrific images of blood,
death, decay. She had walked the west side of Main Street clear out to
the Paradise Motel, then crossed and walked back down the east side,
oblivious of the sights and sounds and people around her.
The contradictions of the town penetrated in only the most abstract of
ways - the pickups that looked as though they had been gone after with
tire irons and the luxury cars that cost more than most people's houses;
the boarded-up, bankrupt stores and the windows displaying extravagant
silver jewelry and custom-made sharkskin cowboy boots; the ruddy-faced
cowboys and ranchers in town on errands and the faces of people who had
graced the covers of People magazine. All of it seemed more dreamlike
than real. In keeping with the theme of the day.
She walked for hours, heedless of her surroundings, unaware of the
curious and pensive looks she got from the locals; preoccupied by
thoughts of death, fate, justice, injustice, coincidence, Raffertys.
Fragments of thought hurtled through her mind like shrapnel, sharp-edged
and painful. There were too many bits and pieces. She couldn't seem to
grasp any one of them long enough to make sense of it. Caffeine and
grief and exhaustion pulled at her sanity and shook her nerves like so
many ragged threads, until she wanted to grab her hair with both hands
and just hang on, screaming.
She needed to sit down somewhere quiet and dark, have a drink to dull
hypersensitive senses, smoke a cigarette to give herself something
ordinary to focus on.
The double doors of the Moose swung open, and a tall, handsome woman in
a long denim jumper and expensive-looking suede boots strode out, her
jaw set at a challenging angle, her eyes homing in on Marilee from
behind a pair of large glasses with blue and violet frames.
Her face was a long oval with strong features and a slim, unpainted
mouth. A dense, wild mane of red-gold hair bounced around her shoulders.
Marilee started to step out of her way, murmuring an apology, but the
woman took hold of her shoulders with both beringed hands and looked her
square in the face.
"Dear girl," she said dramatically, her expression dead serious. "You
have a very fractured aura."
Marilee's jaw fell open, but no words came out. A jumble of quartz
crystals on sterling chains hung around the woman's neck. Opals the size
and shape of sparrow eggs dangled from her elegant earlobes. "I - I'm
sorry . . . I guess," she mumbled, feeling more and more like Alice on
the other side of the looking-glass.
The woman stepped back, tipped her head, and laid a long hand against
her forehead. " 'Weep not for me, nor all the
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