Murder At the Miramar (ebook)

Argumento de Murder At the Miramar (ebook)

With the dreaded Family Reunion looming over her head ? and a broken heart to boot ? Augusta Josephine Burnette takes matters in hand and leaves her hometown for a job in a seaside resort. The setting is elegance incarnate, but the atmosphere says something else entirely. With her innate sense of adventure (and just plain nosiness), AJ sets out to unravel exactly what ? and who -the Mirmar Resort is hiding. AJ begins to think that time spent with her crazy family might not be as lethal as the time spent at the Miramar, and she makes an effort to leave. Thankfully, her cousin Ellie, a self-described psychic, has come along for the ride, and between the two of them, a very underhand plan is brought to light ? and a murderer is nabbed.

The Prologue, or a Brief Explanation of How I Ended Up Where I Did

If youve ever wanted to get out of an awkward circumstance but had no idea how to go about it without incurring an emotional wound or two, welcome to my world. I happen to know how complex it can be, having had not only the bad luck (read poor choice) to be involved with a commitment-phobic man but also the threat of a full-blown Burnette Family Reunion hanging over my head like a pall. Being the modern young gal that I am, I opted for a commonsense approach: I turned tail and ran.

Im getting a bit ahead of the story, though, so lets get the pleasantries out of the way. My name is Augusta Jerusha Burnette. I know, I know: its a terribly old-fashioned handle for a woman of my age Ill be twenty-five on my next birthday, for the inquisitive minds out there and Ive always been a bit peeved at my parents for opting to use my christening as a peace offering to my mothers Great-Aunt Augusta Saddler and my fathers eldest sister Jerusha. As you might imagine, it really settled nothing because the order of the names became a new source of conflict.

Families. Cant live with em, and cant well, I think Ill leave it at that.

I am from a minuscule town in the northern part of my state (which shall remain anonymous, to protect the innocent and wicked alike) and, aside from the odd family feud or two, have never had too much in the way of turmoil in my life.

Until David Grant waltzed in, that is, casually snapping up my heart and turning my ingrained moral code on its head. In spite of all the admonitions concerning the wicked wiles of men, I still fell head over heels for a man who not only took my affections but also absconded with my trust: the cad was married, or as he so succinctly put it, in a relational flux. Be that as it may, I still harbored a pathetic bit of hope that he would make his flux permanent in my favor and we would settle down, raise beautiful children, and live happily ever after.

As my best friend, and cousin, Ellie Saddler might say, Double ha.

In due course, it was Davids continuous spineless attitude toward commitment that sent me packing. The man rented a nice condo and had planted the idea that I might, indeed, be asked to share it. Someday, he had added somewhat vaguely. And then he proceeded to let me know, in a not-so-subtle manner, that someday actually meant never and that, while hed love to remain friends (cue the nausea), hed decided that he needed to find himself.

This continuing David-shaped instability, and the upcoming Burnette Family Fiasco, as I tend to think of our reunions, added together to inch me ever closer to the edge of self-imposed madness. So when I came across a classified ad for an Assistant to the concierge at a beach-side resort clear at the other end of the state, I applied post-hasteand, before I knew it, was wending my way to a summer without commitment-phobic men or family squabbles.

Par for the course, though, I managed to make the proverbial leap from the frying pan and straight into an inferno: the Miramar Resort was keeping a lot of dirty little secrets.0