An Isle of Man Ghostly Cozy Collection - ABC

by Diana Xarissa

  “You need a drink,” Shelly suggested.

  “I haven’t had any dinner yet.”

  “We can remedy that,” Peter said from behind Shelly’s back. “Comb your hair or whatever you need to do and let us buy you dinner and as many drinks as you can manage.”

  Fenella smiled at them both. “Give me ten minutes,” she said.

  She shut the door and dashed into the bedroom. “Eek!” she exclaimed when she saw the state of her hair and makeup. She washed her face and quickly reapplied her makeup before brushing what felt like hundreds of tangles out of her hair. She was ready with thirty seconds to spare.

  “Have fun,” Mona told her. “I think you’ll be just fine from here.”

  Fenella opened her mouth to tell her aunt how much she’d miss her, but Shelly knocked before Fenella could speak.

  “I know,” Mona said. “I’ll miss you, too.”

  As a drink was more of a priority than food, the trio stopped for fish and chips at a small shop only a short distance from their building. They ate quickly and then headed for the Tale and Tail. Fenella took a sip of wine and then settled back on the couch in the corner of the upstairs and sighed.

  “I feel better already,” she said.

  “That’s good to hear,” Peter said heartily.

  “I was so worried about you,” Shelly told her. “I can’t imagine how awful everything was.”

  “It’s all over now,” Fenella said, taking a second sip. “And I’m really grateful to you both for bringing me out tonight.”

  “Ah, there you are,” a loud voice boomed across the room.

  Fenella looked up and smiled at Donald. She wasn’t exactly happy to see him, as she had conflicting emotions about him. After the day she’d had, she wasn’t about to try to analyze them right then.

  Instead, she stood up and let him give her a hug.

  “I heard about your ordeal,” he said when he’d released her. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, happy to find that she actually felt like she was telling the truth.

  “I stopped by your flat a little while ago, hoping to see you,” he said. “I wanted to apologize.”

  “For what?”

  “I have to go away for a little while,” he explained. “Something has come up with one of my companies in the US and I have to go and sort it out myself, it seems. I was hoping we could get to know each other better sooner rather than later, but it looks as if later is going to be our only option.”

  Fenella shrugged. “I’m not planning on going anywhere,” she said. “I’ll be here when you get back.”

  “Just don’t go falling for anyone else while I’m away,” he said sternly. “There are a lot of other men around who’d be happy to snap you up.”

  Fenella laughed. “Flattery will get you nowhere,” she teased. “Anyway, I hope your trip is successful.”

  “I’m sure it will be,” he told her. “I’m very good at what I do.”

  Fenella smiled at his self-confidence. It was very nearly arrogance, but he made it seem attractive anyway.

  “And now I must be off,” he added. He nodded to Peter and Shelly and then gave Fenella another hug. “Take good care of yourself while I’m gone,” he whispered in her ear.

  Fenella sat back down and watched him walk away, not certain if she felt more relieved or disappointed that he was going.

  “More wine?” Peter asked.

  “Oh, not yet,” Fenella said, taking another sip of her drink. “But soon.”

  Peter and Shelly both laughed and then the trio began to talk about various topics, all of them avoiding any mention of Alan Collins, Mark Potter and Kara Newstead. It was nearly midnight by the time they made their way back to their building.

  Shelly gave her a big hug and then let herself into her apartment, leaving Fenella in the corridor with Peter. She was struggling to find her keycard and then finding it quite difficult to make the card unlock the door.

  “I think that’s your credit card,” Peter told her gently.

  Fenella squinted at the card in her hand and then sighed. Peter chuckled and took the bag out of her hand. He found the right card and unlocked her door for her.

  “Thank you,” Fenella said, speaking carefully so that she didn’t slur her words.

  “You’re very welcome,” he replied. He gave her a gentle hug and then took a step backwards. “Maybe some day you’d like to have dinner with me again?” he suggested.

  “Sure,” Fenella said. “Just ask.”

  “I’ll do that,” he promised.

  Fenella shut her door behind her and leaned against it. She was only a little bit drunk, and she could already feel a headache coming on. Katie walked out of the bedroom and stared at her.

  “I’m fine,” she said loudly.

  Katie didn’t look as if she believed her owner.

  In the kitchen, Fenella filled up Katie’s water bowl, only spilling a little bit of the water as she did so. When she dropped a few pieces of dry cat food on the floor, Katie was kind enough to eat them so that Fenella didn’t have to pick them up. With that chore done, Fenella headed to bed, taking a few headache tablets before she shut her eyes.

  At first she thought the banging noise that woke her was just in her head. Fenella stretched and then sighed. Someone was at her door. She pulled on her bathrobe and slid her feet into slippers. No doubt, considering how horrible she probably looked, it was going to be Inspector Robinson. Yet again, she was going to kill any chance of the handsome man ever asking her out.

  “Good morning, Inspector,” she said as she pulled the door open.

  “I’m sorry that I woke you,” he told her. “And you really should call me Daniel.”

  “I assumed you were here on official police business,” she replied. “You should probably come in.”

  He hesitated in the doorway. “I can come back later, if you’d rather,” he said. “As I said, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “I had a few drinks with friends last night,” Fenella explained. “And I don’t usually drink very much. I overslept. What time is it, anyway?”

  “Half ten,” the man told her.

  Fenella blushed. “I haven’t slept that late in years,” she exclaimed. “I’m terribly sorry.”

  “I should have rung first,” the man told her. “But I wanted to give you some good news.”

  “Oh, do come in and don’t pay any attention to how awful I look,” Fenella invited.

  “You look fine,” he told her.

  “So what news?” she asked, knowing she was blushing and trying to ignore it.

  “Kara has confessed to everything,” he replied. “She’s going to need a psychiatric evaluation and she might end up in a mental hospital rather than a prison, but it doesn’t look as if there will ever be a trial, so you don’t have to worry about testifying in any way.”

  “That is good news,” Fenella said. “Thank you for letting me know.”

  He smiled at her and then frowned. “Before I go, I just have to say something,” he told her. “I know this was the first time you’ve ever been caught up in a murder investigation, but you need to be more careful. Meeting a murder suspect on a deserted beach wasn’t a very sensible thing to do.”

  “I thought it would be a nice public place,” Fenella said.

  “If the weather had been better, it might have been,” he said. “As it was, Constable Corlett had to stay back some distance so that Kara didn’t spot him. If he’d been any further away, she might have caught up to you before he reached you.”

  Fenella shuddered. “I’m just glad he was there.”

  “And I’m glad he called for backup when he did,” the man said.

  He got up and walked to the door. “If you’re not doing anything, I’ll be at the Tale and Tail tonight,” he said casually. “I’ll buy you a drink to celebrate the successful conclusion of the two murder investigations.”

  “Surely I should buy you a drink for that?” Fenell
a laughed.

  “We can take turns,” he offered.

  “I don’t think I’ll want more than one,” Fenella said. “I overdid it last night.”

  “Let’s see how it goes,” he suggested. “The first round is on me, anyway.”

  Fenella nodded. “What time?”

  “Seven?” he said. “I have a lot of paperwork to get through today, but I should be done by seven.”

  “I’ll see you then,” Fenella agreed.

  “By the way, Constable Corlett and his wife had a baby boy last night,” he told her. “Both mum and baby are doing well.”

  “How wonderful,” Fenella said.

  She shut the door behind the man and then went and took a shower and got dressed. Katie hadn’t complained about missing breakfast, for which Fenella was grateful. Now she gave the kitten her lunch before she fixed her own. The apartment felt too quiet as she ate. The pile of books on her desk seemed to be growing, so after lunch Fenella curled up with one of them and a notebook, ready to start her research. Half an hour later she was bored and restless.

  A long walk on the promenade cleared her head, even if she did deliberately walk in the opposite direction from where she’d run the previous day. Back at home, she worked her way through more of the book she’d started earlier and then made herself some dinner. Eventually it was time to get ready to go to the pub. She dug around in her wardrobe, looking for something to wear.

  “Jeans and a sweatshirt should do,” she told herself. “It isn’t a date, after all.”

  “But you should dress as if it were,” Mona’s voice came from behind her.

  Fenella spun around and looked at her aunt. “I thought you’d left,” she said, quite happy to see the woman again.

  “I was going to go,” Mona replied. “But then I realized that first I need to straighten out your love life.”

  Acknowledgments

  There are always so many people to thank. My lovely and talented editor, Denise, tops the list.

  Thank you also to my cover artist, Linda, who’s taken my vague ideas and turned them into an amazing cover.

  A special thanks is due to my beta readers who found time to squeeze reading this book into their already busy schedules.

  And as ever, thank you, readers, for being a part of all of this.

  Boats and Bad Guys

  An Isle of Man Ghostly Cozy

  Text Copyright © 2017 Diana Xarissa

  Cover Copyright © 2017 Linda Boulanger – Tell-Tale Book Covers

  All Rights Reserved

  Created with Vellum

  For all of Fenella’s fans.

  Author’s Note

  Welcome to the second book in the Ghostly Cozy Series. I have to say, writing about a ghost is a lot of fun! I hope you are enjoying reading about her. As with all of my series, the books move along in alphabetical order (because I love to read series books, but I’m a bit obsessive about reading them in order). My characters do develop and change as the series progresses, but each story should stand on its own if you would prefer to only read a single title.

  If you’re a fan of Bessie and/or the Markham sisters, this series is a little bit different. As my main character is a transplanted American, the book is primarily written in American English. I hope my readers in the UK and further afield don’t mind.

  Like the Bessie books and my romances, it is set in the Isle of Man. The island is a unique and wonderful place and I urge everyone to visit it, but not all at once!

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Similarly, the restaurants, shops, and other businesses in the story are fictional. I’ve taken considerable liberties with locations within the story, adding shops and restaurants where they are convenient to the story, rather than where any shops actually exist. The historical sites and other landmarks on the island are all real; however, the events that take place within them in this story are fictional.

  I urge everyone to sign up for my newsletter so that you can keep track of release dates. I also run an occasional contest and try to answer some of the questions I get asked the most. You can find a sign-up link on my website; its address is given in the back of the book. I truly love hearing from my readers. Please do get in touch. All of my contact details are also in the back of the book.

  1

  “One more round?” Peter asked as Fenella swallowed her last sip of wine.

  “Oh, go on, then,” Shelly replied. “It’s Friday, and Fenella’s the only one who has to get up tomorrow.”

  Fenella laughed. “I’m glad you’re thinking of me,” she said. “But I will have one more, thank you,” she told Peter. “I don’t expect I’ll be drinking at all when I’m in England. I may as well have fun tonight.”

  “There are pubs in England,” Peter told her a moment later as he delivered the fresh drinks. “Some of them even sell good wine.”

  “As good as this?” Fenella asked, raising her glass.

  Peter frowned. “Maybe not quite as good as that,” he admitted. “But the Tale and Tail is a very special pub.”

  “It is,” Fenella agreed, looking around the huge room. New owners had converted what had once been the private library in the home of a very wealthy family into a pub some years earlier. Shelves and shelves of books still lined the room and Fenella had already given up on ever having the time to read even the titles of all of them.

  She and her friends were settled comfortably on couches around a small table on the upper level of the pub. One of the pub’s handful of official pub cats was stretched out on the couch next to Peter, enjoying having his ears scratched. Fenella settled back in her seat and sighed. Moving to the Isle of Man had been something of a whim, she could admit to herself, but so far it seemed as if it had been an excellent decision.

  “So what are your plans for next week?” Peter asked.

  “I’m being met tomorrow by a researcher that I’ve been corresponding with for the last six months,” Fenella said. “He’s kindly offered to put me up tomorrow night and then drive me down to London on Sunday. I have a busy week full of places I want to see, and then I’m going to take the train back to Liverpool to catch the ferry back.”

  “How much do you know about this researcher?” Shelly asked, frowning.

  “Rather more than I’d like to, actually,” Fenella said with a laugh. “He’s a distant relative of some sort and he and my oldest brother went to school together when they were young. They’ve always kept in touch, at least with birthday cards and the like, and now, in the Internet age, they’re social media friends. Once I moved over here, I added him to my social media account. Since then, I’ve seen way too many pictures of the man’s grandchild, I can tell you that.”

  Shelly laughed. “Okay, so at least you know he’s not some creepy stalker.”

  “You can’t be accused of stalking your own grandchild, can you?” Fenella asked. “I mean, the poor baby has this sort of permanently startled looked on his face, no doubt because there’s always a flash going off in front of him.”

  “First grandchild?” Peter asked.

  “Yes, and I’m sure he’s hoping it isn’t the last,” Fenella replied.

  “You’ve only been here what, six weeks, but it’s going to be strange not having you around,” Shelly said.

  “You’ll have Katie to keep you company,” Fenella reminded her. “You can still have her, right?” She hadn’t planned on adopting a stray kitten, but the kitten had more or less moved in with her without asking. Now that Fenella had her, though, she couldn’t imagine life without the small ball of fur and attitude.

  “Of course I can still have Katie,” Shelly said. “I’m looking forward to it. Maybe she can help me make up my mind about getting a kitten of my own.”

  “You should,” Fenella replied. “Then our kittens could play together while we have coffee.”

  Shelly nodded. “I
’m just a little worried about becoming a sad and lonely widowed woman with too many cats,” she said a little sheepishly.

  “We won’t let that happen,” Peter said firmly. “One cat isn’t a problem, though, if you’d like the company.”

  “I think I might,” Shelly said. “We’ll see how it goes, looking after Katie.”

  That third glass of wine was really one too many for Fenella. She’d never been much of a drinker, and while she’d already developed a habit of going to the Tale and Tail on a regular basis, she rarely had more than a single drink. As she sipped her wine, she began to feel quite sleepy.

  “I think I should head for home,” she told her friends. “As you said, I do have to be up in the morning.”

  The others quickly finished their drinks and then the trio made their way to the elevator at the rear of the building. The winding staircase in the center of the pub was best used only for going up when fully sober.

  The large apartment building where they all lived was only a few doors away. The lobby seemed too brightly lit to Fenella, and she worried that she might have a migraine coming on.

  “Is it just me, or is it brighter in here than normal?” Shelly asked as the group made its way to the elevators.

  “It’s very bright,” Peter said. “The management said something in the last newsletter about installing new lighting, but I didn’t really pay attention.”

  “You read the newsletter?” Shelly asked.

  “There’s a newsletter?” Fenella demanded.

  Peter laughed. “It’s emailed to residents every month. If they don’t have an email address for you, you won’t be getting it,” he told Fenella. “And yes, I read the newsletter, or a least I skim through the newsletter. Sometimes there is some quite good information in there.”

  “Hmmm,” Shelly replied. “I’ll take your word on that.”

  Everyone laughed as the elevator stopped on the top floor. Fenella followed the others into the corridor.