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generic hotel rooms, the cabin was quaint, rustic, but not lacking in modern conveniences, and smelled of spring breezes rather than disinfectant. The small efficiency kitchenette had a fridge, microwave oven, and coffee maker with several coffee and sugar packets beside it. Someone had kindly stocked the fridge with a variety of beverages including a selection of premium beer. She grabbed one, twisted the cap, and took a deep swallow.
    The living room had a desk and chair on a half wall that revealed part of the bedroom, a sofa and recliner facing a forty inch flat screen television, below which was a natural gas fireplace, the only source of heat in the cabin. She raised the thermostat, flipped the switch, turning on the blower, and rubbed her cold hands together.
    On the coffee table, someone had placed a gift basket heaped with fresh fruit. The tag said: “Compliments of the Paradise Motor Inn.” She helped herself to a banana. Bananas and beer — an odd combination, but after the day she’d had, anything worked.
    She took her duffel bag into the bedroom and tossed it onto the queen-size bed. She turned on the table lamp beside it. Close inspection of the window showed that the grillwork could be released from the inside by flipping a latch. She tested it to ensure that it worked and then relocked the window.
    The bathroom contained a Jacuzzi tub as well as a separate shower, and a white cuddly spa robe she would have expected to find in a fancy city hotel. Top quality toiletry samples and a hair dryer sat on the vanity next to the toilet.
    The cabin was decorated in beiges and rusts, muted earth tones that seemed perfectly suited to its log walls and pine floors covered here and there by braided scatter rugs. Pictures on the wall were reproductions of Canadian Shield landscapes by the Group of Seven. All in all, this would be a comfortable, restful place from which to launch her investigation. Her days might be hectic, but her evenings and nights would recharge her, and if she could hook up for coffee with that yummy clerk, that would be a bonus. She thought longingly of the Jacuzzi, but her rumbling stomach had a different agenda.
    Alexis checked the time on the clock beside the bed. The restaurant would stop serving dinner in less than an hour. Since she hadn’t eaten since leaving the airport in Toronto, her grumbling stomach warned her that, despite the banana she had inhaled, it would require more nourishment before morning.
    She fluffed her hair, added mascara to the lashes of her blue-green eyes, and redid her lipstick. She decided against changing her clothes, and grabbed her jacket, an umbrella, and a flashlight from her bag. She left the lights on in the bedroom, and living room, turned off the fan and lowered the thermostat slightly on the fireplace. She left the outside light on, and locked the door behind her.
    The late November evening was cool; no doubt there would be snow sooner rather than later this year. She seemed to remember that there was usually snow by now. She thought back to the winters that she had spent here before her parents had died. The ugliness of those last few years with Uncle Nick had not destroyed the memories of the beauty and majesty of the snow-covered hills and trees.
    By the time she reached the restaurant on the far side of the inn, her ears and fingers were numb. The cabins had been somewhat sheltered by the white pine trees that grew around them, but the parking lot was open to the brisk north wind. She would have to get a hat and some gloves.

Chapter Three
    She pulled open the foyer door and crossed the lobby to the restaurant, disappointed that the hunky clerk was no longer working the desk. On the walk over, she had fantasized about flirting with him, maybe making a date to have coffee together when his shift was over.
    The interior of the restaurant was designed in such a way that its uncovered sliding doors and windows overlooked the wraparound