Read Online Murder in the Mist by Loretta C. Rogers - Free Book Online Page A

against her knees. Before long, her eyes growing heavy with sleep, she yawned and almost—almost—overlooked the article about a young nurse who had gone missing from Cole Harbor.
    After reading it, and with a moment’s hesitation, she opened her door and peered across the living room. A light shone from beneath her aunt’s bedroom door. She padded across the area and lightly rapped. “Aunt Philly?”
    “Come in.” Phyllis looked up from the mystery novel she was reading for the next Friday Sisters Book Club discussion. “You found something interesting?”
    Laura sat on the edge of the bed. She opened the morgue book. “This is dated ten years ago. It says Lynnette Braswell disappeared. No evidence of foul play suspected in her disappearance. Do you remember when this happened?”
    Phyllis rubbed her forehead. “Let me see. Lynnette came into the library a few times to do research during her nursing courses. Pretty little thing. Quiet. In fact, no one actually missed her until a friend, who lived in Bangor, called the hospital to see if Lynnette had left yet. She was supposed to spend her days off with the friend, but she never showed up. Someone from the hospital went to her apartment. Her car was gone. Sheriff Amos Gilman was called. He got the landlord to open Lynnette’s apartment. Neat as a pin. No signs of a struggle or a robbery. Nothing seemed amiss. That was about the time Sheriff Gilman took ill. I guess he didn’t have the physical or mental wherewithal to give the case the attention it deserved. He hired his daughter as a deputy, but she was fresh out of the academy, trying to learn the ropes and cover for her dad at the same time. Apparently, he didn’t want anyone to know how sick he was. A couple of months after Lynnette’s disappearance, her car was found by some hikers, at the bottom of the stone cliffs out by Frenchman’s Bay. A body was never found. When Amos died, I guess the case slipped through the cracks. Like the article states, it was assumed the girl had accidently lost control of her car. It went over the cliffs. What happened to her body remains a mystery.”
    Laura placed a fingernail under the first two letters of the young woman’s name. “ Ly , Aunt Philly. I’ll bet you a Nobel prize in journalism that our spirit is Lynnette, and her death was no accident.”
    “Hmmm. What do you suggest we do? Tell Mitch, see if he’s interested in digging into a cold case?”
    “And have him laugh us under the table? No way. If we have to hold another séance to contact Lynnette, we will. My guess is she’ll contact us first.”
    Laura reached down to rub her aching leg. “Is it too late for a cup of your special amaretto hot chocolate? I’m so wired, I need something to help me relax.”
    Phyllis swung her legs over the side of the bed. “You don’t have to ask twice.”
    ****
    The following morning, dressed in a pair of white slacks and an emerald green silk blouse, Laura dropped her keys as she bent to unlock the door to the newspaper. It was when she stooped to pick them up that she spotted the white rose lying on top of a piece of paper. She lifted the rose to her nose and inhaled the sweet aroma. It didn’t miss her attention that the stem had no thorns. She opened the note. The words, written in an almost illegible scrawl, caused her to gasp.
    “You gotta let it go, you know.”
    She frowned as she looked into Mitch’s smiling face. “Let what go?”
    “Whatever’s putting lines on that pretty face.”
    Laura inhaled. She exhaled. “Funny the things that can rock your world.” She glanced up and down the sidewalk and across the town square. Except for a few tourists walking into local eateries, and Benjamin sitting in his usual place inside the gazebo, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
    Merry blue eyes immediately turned dark. Mitch’s expression went from teasing to all business. “You’re trembling. Let’s go inside so you can tell me what’s upset