Letters from
The Ledford House

Southern mysteries, sent to your mailbox

Stay the night at the inn first. It starts below.

Painterly scene of a white two-story house with a bright blue tin roof and blue shutters on a grassy slope above a wide blue lake, a silver sedan parked at the water's edge near a small sign reading The Landing, a large leafy tree arching over the house, far shore lined with green trees, puffy white clouds above

The Night You Stayed, Chapter Zero of Letters from The Ledford House, a Southern cozy mystery series. Page 1 of 8.

The road ended at the water. It used to go another mile, into the old town of Rosemont. Then they made the lake, and Rosemont went under it. The people who wouldn't leave moved up the bank and called it Rosemont Landing, which is where you are. What's left of the road runs past Lakeview Church to the boat landing and stops. On clear days, the old roadbed shows through the water for a while, then disappears.

You sat at the edge of it with the engine running and checked your phone. The phone said you were there. You turned the car around and headed back up the hill, looking for the entrance you'd missed. Halfway up, you saw a small sign.

A painted board nailed to a post read The Ledford House. Beside it, a dirt road turned between two big oaks. The road ran a hundred yards under the trees. Rail fence on one side, somebody's hydrangeas gone wild on the other.