Red Rum: A Rosie Casket Mystery by R.M. Wild (top 100 novels of all time .TXT) 📕

my eyes I saw flashes of fire—and every time I opened them again, that darn beam from the lighthouse swept past my porthole window and projected a gawking circle with the world’s worst case of pink eye.

Tonight, the light seemed brighter than ever; either the lighthouse commission had replaced the bulb with twice the wattage, or Phyllis’s flashy death had made me overly sensitive.

Even though I was deeply tired, I was actually relieved to get up and get moving. I crept out my door and down to the bathroom. From the guest room in which Bella Donley had once slept (depending on a potential guest’s amount of makeup, I sometimes used her name as a selling point), there were snores as loud as a pig getting its hooves tickled.

I didn’t want to assume it was Bob—as an innkeeper, I quickly learned that some of my female guests snored the worst of all (Phyllis being the all-time winner)—and I did my bathroom business as quickly and quietly as possible.

The other major downside to being an innkeeper is the utter lack of privacy. There’s nothing quite as humbling as sharing your bathroom with new strangers every single night—and no fan loud enough to mask the bathroom sounds when you never know who might be listening.

With the plan of returning in time to make breakfast before they woke up, I got in the Honda and drove downtown. The morning was clear, the moon still out, a bright yellow horseshoe dangling from the cupola of the Lighthouse Chapel.

While all the other businesses on Main Street were closed, I knew that both my foster father and his founding partner William Bearing would be at the office trying to get a jump start on the day’s billings. Given that Robert Slate’s specialty was real estate, I knew that he’d immediately refer my questions about defamation to either Bearing or one of the other partners, so I didn’t even bother to call ahead for an appointment.

I parked along the curb and hustled up to the front door. As expected, it was locked (a new policy after the kidnappings), but a window in the back was casting a yellow square onto the neighboring fence, suggesting that Robert had already arrived.

I used the spare key he had lent me to let myself in. Down the narrow hallway, past each of the six closed doors representing the partners’ offices, I knocked on the wall next to the shiny plaque that read Robert Slate, Esq.

Robert looked up from his desk. Sometimes I wondered if he had calcified into a permanent fixture in that executive chair.

I stepped into the office, very conscious of the hard square in my pocket, one swipe and quick click away from reliving Phyllis’s death.

“Hey Dad, you got a quick minute?”

“What on earth are you doing up so early, Rosie? Don’t you have guests?”

Dawn was breaking behind the fence outside his window. “These days, this is late for me.”

“I heard what happened to Phyllis. Are you okay?”

After my near-drowning, my foster father had sworn off social media, but even he, luddite extraordinaire, had heard about Phyllis Martin’s instant conflagration.

Should I lie and be strong?

“No, I’m not okay. My business has taken a grave hit. My Facebook page has been swamped with trolls. I was wondering if you had any legal advice about how I might handle these jerks. They’re killing me.”

Robert chewed the tip of his pen.

“Dad, that’s the wrong end. You’re going to get ink all over your mouth.”

He looked at the pen for a moment, and then turned it around and checked his shirt for spilled ink.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m just tired,” he said. “We’ve had loads of new cases.”

“Must be nice.”

“It depends,” he said. “The toilet clogs a lot more often.”

“I know the feeling.”

“Concerning defamation, William would probably give better counsel than I would. I’d hate to steer you in the wrong direction. You want my honest advice?”

“Yes. Please.”

“Get rid of Facebook.”

“I can’t. I might as well swear off the grocery store. My demographic is all over Facebook. They spend half their waking hours sharing pictures of the fall foliage.”

“I know, I know. The company needs a big stick, right in the trust-hole.”

“When does Mr. Bearing arrive?”

Robert checked his watch. “He should be here any minute.”

I nodded. I cleared my throat. I twiddled my thumbs. I tugged on the hem of my shirt.

“Is there something else?”

I cleared my throat again. Three times. “Did you know that Peter—”

A knock on the doorframe startled my bladder and I almost wet myself. I whipped around so fast, I grabbed my pocket to keep my phone from flying at the wall.

“I thought I heard your voice,” a man said. He was dressed in a tailored three-piece suit, one far more expensive than my foster father’s, one that fit his swimmer’s body—an inverted triangle—quite perfectly. His hair was styled in a casual quiff and he was as smooth-shaven as if he still hadn’t reached puberty. After all that time on the swim team, I imagined his face wasn’t the only thing he shaved. But that wasn’t to say that he looked young—he just looked airbrushed, like the cover of GQ magazine had come alive.

“Rosie, this is Kyle Kendall, one of our new partners,” Robert said. “He’s our criminal guy. We brought him in after Thomas’s death. If I’m not mistaken, you two went to high school together.”

“You’re not mistaken,” Kendall said. “We actually met again a few months ago.”

“I remember,” I said. “It was when I came in to ask about Peter Hardgrave’s—” I paused on the name, “—real estate difficulties.”

“That’s right,” Kendall said. “Forgive me for intruding on your conversation. I was just brushing my teeth in the bathroom and couldn’t help but overhear your troubles.”

Robert gave me a strange smile. “Kyle is often here before I am. He really knows his stuff. He graduated from Yale, top of his class.”

I couldn’t tell if my foster father was trying to brag about his newest acquisition, or if he was dropping