Means. For Lord’s sake, I was carrying the means. The means had been scattered here, there, and everywhere the entire weekend. Hundreds of people had admired the means—at every meal, every seminar. Heck, I even had a vase full of the means in Suite 422. Which meant I really didn’t need to be hauling that vase around. But better safe than sorry. Let the crime lab in Atlanta get plenty of toxic tea for analysis.
I made the final left turn down the hallway to my room.
Opportunity was also crystal clear. The Glee Club, as Patsy had reminded me, was the first to arrive and the last to leave the Happily Ever After conference, and every single event during the conference.
Hatsy must have been the first to arrive at the preinduction ceremony on Saturday, giving her ample opportunity to pour the toxic tea from her flower display into my water glass. And she knew which glass, of course. Everything was supposed to be alphabetical by author’s last name. Everything was supposed to be just so.
Just so, until Penelope played musical chairs. And I took the five spot.
***
I stopped and stared at the 422 on my door. Okay, so what about motive?
Hatsy Glee wanted me dead.
Hatsy Glee wanted me dead?
I shook my head and fumbled to find my key card, and with a lot of muttering and mumbling, finally got all my junk inside. I dropped my purse, set the flowers on the coffee table, and positioned the poster on the easy chair.
The poster. I plopped myself onto the couch and studied it. I’d dismissed it as irrelevant all weekend, but it had bothered Roberto Santiago. Even more telling, it bothered my mother, the queen of intuition. Mother had fretted over that poster even while the dead body of Penelope Shay was still on stage.
I frowned at the images of Sarina Bliss and Trey Barineau rolling in the hay, or rather lolling in a lavender field somewhere in the English countryside. Dare I say, the image for An Everlasting Encounter truly was eye-catching?
But pretty or not, it was the wrong poster. Adelé Nightingale had written two books since then. Hatsy blamed the 3P marketing department for sending the wrong material. But Roberto had checked—Hatsy specifically requested the outdated poster. Hatsy Glee. The woman who always wanted everything “just so.”
Did Hatsy love Adelé Nightingale’s European settings so much she’d kill me over it? Was she that upset by my recent stories and more exotic locales?
“Is she that batsy?” I asked Mr. Cupid.
I shifted my focus to the flowers and jumped ten feet in the air.
“Shit!”
I looked frantically around the room.
Where were my flowers? The ones Hatsy had put in my room? Days ago?
“Shit!” I said again just as Hatsy Glee emerged from the bathroom.
Chapter 42
Bad news, and more bad news.
First of all, Hatsy held in one hand a very empty, very dry flower vase. And in the other she held a pair of scissors. Florist sheers to be specific. I use a pair in my rooftop garden, and trust me, they’re sharp.
“Hatsy!” I pasted a big huge smile on my face. “How nice to see you!”
I thought of escaping, but she thought faster. She set the vase on a nightstand and deftly blocked me from the door. Like I said—bad news.
“Who’s batsy?” she demanded. “What were you cursing about?”
“Oh that!” I waved a hand and laughed—ha ha! “I’m thinking about Shimmering Silk. Slipper Vervette is a bit scatter-brained. Batsy, as it were!” I laughed again. “I was just talking to Patsy about it. You know me and plot plight! I’m working out the details on the bad—” my face dropped “—guy.”
Hatsy kept staring.
“Barney Splawn,” I soldiered on. “For some reason, he and his father—that would be Barfey—have it in for the Vervette family. It’s silly, really.”
“It’s ridiculous,” Hatsy said. “Why are all these people in the Sahara?”
“Well, Barfey’s dead actual—”
“Answer my question!” She stomped her foot. “Why aren’t they in Europe? Talk about out of place!”
I cleared my throat. “Speaking of which. What are you doing here?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” She pointed her scissors at the empty flower vase, and I glanced over.
“You have a key to my room?” I squeaked.
“Of course. The Glee Club always gets a passkey.”
I blinked twice. Did Jo Keegan know this? Because Wilson certainly didn’t. And I certainly didn’t.
Hatsy scolded me for being so surprised. “How else did your flowers get in here? How else did the candy get here? Or the champagne? Think, Adelé.”
Trust me, I was definitely thinking. But unfortunately, so was Hatsy. She had her eyes on the flowers I had put on the coffee table.
“They’re still pretty, aren’t they?” I said. “Patsy told me your idea for dried flowers, and I thought what a lovely idea!” I remembered to smile. “So, umm, I decided to try it myself. I hope you’ll let me keep this bunch. It’s from the pool table.”
“I know where it’s from. I want to know why it’s up here.”
“Mementos!” I kept on smiling. “From my Hall of Fame induction year. I’ll return the vase when I’m through.”
“I need it now.” She took a step forward, and I hopped sideways.
“I’ve never dried flowers before,” I said. “But I’m sure I can find directions on the Internet. Isn’t it amazing what you can find on the Internet? Google is such a lifesaver.”
Why, oh why, did my eyes have to land on Hatsy’s scissors just then?
I started looking for a weapon for myself. Where the hell were Wilson’s golf clubs?
Lord help me, he must have snuck back to the room and retrieved them for his golf game. What kind of paramour takes his date to shoot golf? I mean, play gol—
“He’s not here to protect you this time.”
I worked on sounding oh-so-casual. “Do I need protection?”
“You know,” she said.
Yes. I did.
I took a deep breath. “It was supposed to be me, wasn’t it?” I said. “But I thought you liked me, Hatsy. I thought you love my books.”
“No, I used to love your books.” Her eyes darted to the poster. “Back when you wrote real romances.”
“I still write real romances.” Okay, so arguing probably wasn’t the brightest idea, but how else was I going to stall for time? “Yadda, yadda, yadda,” I continued, ever so slowly as we began a back and forth dance-shuffle on either side of the couch. “Boy meets girl. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Sex, sex, sex.”
I shuffled to my left, Hatsy to her right.
“Where was I?” I said as we sidestepped again. “Umm. Oh, yes—sex. Sex, sex, sex. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Boy gets girl. Yadda, yadda, yadda, sex, sex, sex. Happily ever after. Yadda, yadda, sex, sex. Et cetera, et cetera.” I waved a hand and laughed hysterically, still desperately searching for a weapon. “All of Adelé Nightingale’s books fit the genre standards perfect—”
“Setting!” she screamed, and I jumped. “Do you really consider My South Pacific Paramour a true romance?” She made a few air jabs with her scissors, and I flinched accordingly. “Where are the dukes?” Jab, jab. “The earls, the counts?” Jab. “The castles, the turrets?” Jab, jab. “Where, where?”
I said a silent prayer of thanks when she redirected a few jabs toward An Everlasting Encounter.
“Where are the lavender fields? There are no lavender fields in the Sahara!” She was back to jabbing at me, and I was back to flinching and ducking. “And if the South Pacific wasn’t bad enough, what about Seduction in the Shadows?”
“Yes!” I said and ducked to my right. “Let’s discuss Seduction in the Shadows! You didn’t like the Wild West setting?”
“What do you think!?”
“But what about Kipp Jupiter?” I dodged to my left. “Didn’t you like Kipp, Hatsy?”
“He was a cowboy, for Pete’s sake!”
“Well,” I sang. “More accurately, he was a rancher.”
For one blessed second she dropped both arms. “The point is—he was not a duke! Or even an earl. Nothing! He was nothing!”
“Okay, okay.” I backed off arguing and managed to back up to the other side of the coffee table. This gave Hatsy easy access to the flowers from the pool table. But here’s a fact—saving those flowers had long ceased being my top priority.
I tried to reason with her. “You don’t really want to kill me over Kipp Jupiter, do you? It’s—” I searched for a word. “I’m sorry, but it’s batsy, Hatsy!”
“That is not the point!”
“What is the point?” I asked, my eyes focused on the scissors.
“Your reputation! Your legacy! I had everything planned just so.”
“Your plan?” I asked. “It had something to do with the Hall of Fame, correct?”
“That’s right.” She pointed her damn scissors toward An Everlasting Encounter. “Your fans will have such fond memories of you, Adelé. Memories of you and your true masterpieces.”
I squinted. “So killing me now—before I write any more books with exotic settings—would somehow save my reputation?”
“You’re a writer,” she said. “Use your imagination. Adelé Nightingale finally gets married. She finally gets inducted into the Hall of Fame. And what happens when her life is finally coming together? She dies tragically. Death is always romantic.”
“No.” I shook my head vigorously. “Romance novels always end with happily ever after. It’s a genre standard. It’s a rule, Hatsy. You like rule—”
“Think about your sales.”
I stopped mid-dodge. “Huh?”
“You saw Penelope’s table last night. Her books sold like hotcakes. Yours will, too, when you’re dead!” She sprang forward.
And I finally laid my hands on a weapon.
***
Wilson and Annette Trudo walked in about two seconds too late.
“What the hell?” he asked.
I folded my arms and pretended to glare. “I think I could ask you the same question, Dearheart.”
“What?”
Ms. Trudo coughed from behind him, and he caught on. “Oh!” he said. “You mean Annette? This isn’t what it looks like, Jessie.”
“I know.”
Annette stepped forward. “Wilson didn’t invite me up to his room. I mean, he did invite me, but he didn’t invite me-invite me.” She scowled. “You know?”
I did. I reached out and patted her arm. “Our captain recruited you onto the sleuthing team, correct?”
She scowled some more, Wilson mentioned how much he hated that phrase, and the three of us shifted our focus downward.
“This.” I sighed. “Is exactly what it looks like.”
“He’s a sturdy little guy, isn’t he?” Wilson dropped to his knees and checked Hatsy’s breathing and pulse. “She’s sturdy, too.”
He flicked the scissors out of her reach, grabbed my weapon, and stood back up.
“You touched it, Jessie.” He handed it back to me. “I thought you weren’t taking any chances.”
I smiled and cradled Mr. Cupid as if he were a real baby. “Apparently I changed my mind.”
Epilogue
“Everyone and his brother was there, Jessica! Everyone except you and Wilson!”
I begged her not to remind me, but Geez Louise Urko did so anyway.
In fact, she’d been calling me every day for a week to relive the “fantastically outrageous” scene at the airport, wherein she, Tori Fister, their cab driver, Jo Keegan, three state troopers, Adam Sheppard, and a shuttle bus full of pink people had attempted to save my perfectly safe mother from the clutches of the perfectly innocent Batsy Glee.
“This will take a while,” I warned the cats.
I settled myself on the couch next to Bernice and tossed a jingle-bell ball to Snowflake and Wally, while Louise continued on her merry, insane way to describe the insane scene when everyone pulled up to the departures curb.
“What a shindig!” she said. “Especially when airport security and that off-duty TSA official got involved.”
I cringed at the thought of it. “I owe Batsy an apology,” I said for the umpteenth time and vowed to call her once the news about Hatsy wasn’t quite so fresh. “Do you think Batsy will ever forgive me?”
“Of course she will! You know Batsy!”
I noticed Snowflake and Wally staring at me and reached down to rescue their toy from under the couch. “How could I ever imagine she’s a killer?” I asked and gave the ball a good toss. “Even more ridiculous, how could I ever imagine my mother voluntarily climbing into a car with a killer? Mother has stellar intuition.”
“Which came in handy!” Louise said and launched into the second startling piece of news from that fateful afternoon.
Once Wilson had called Jo with the real news, once Batsy had been released from her handcuffs, and once she, Jo Keegan, and Adam Sheppard left in their respective vehicles to get back to the Goodnight Inn, Roaring Tori, Geez Louise, and my mother had commandeered a corner in the airport bar for a brainstorming session.
About what? About Roaring Tori’s career, or more specifically, about her new career. “Her nonroaring career,” Louise said in case I’d forgotten.
To her credit, Tori Fister decided to view the whole ugly incident of her arrest and subsequent jail time as a valuable life lesson. With Louise and my mother’s encouragement, she swore off agenting altogether, and decided to try her hand at writing.
No, really. It was Mother’s idea. So of course it was a brilliant idea, and of course Louise and Tori had been most enthusiastic. They even got Tori’s pen name ironed out before catching their flights. Roaring Tori Fister, literary agent, is now Tori Lyon, romance novelist.
And as the week progressed, this idea of career change caught on. Mia Madison had also proven herself fairly brilliant by suggesting that Charm and Tori simply switch their roles at Daydream Desires. Tori Fister, aka Tori Lyon, is now the author, and Charm Willowby, aka Norma Womac, is now the literary agent.
“But that’s not all!” Louise claimed she had some new news. “Tori’s thought of the premise for her first book! You’ll never guess!”
I had a pretty good idea. But before we could explore the depths of Tori’s first plot, Wilson interrupted.
He walked into the condo lugging a bunch of groceries, and Bernice roused herself from her slumbers to see if he was harboring cat food in any of those bags.
“Help!” he pleaded as he tripped over this or that cat on his way to the kitchen.
“Gotta go,” I told Louise. “Wilson and I are hosting a dinner party tonight.”
“Oh no, Jessica! I hope you’re not cooking!”
***
Don’t worry. Wilson cooked. He made his world-famous lasagna.
I was, however, allowed to assemble the garden salad. And believe it or not, it turned out just fine. Karen baked a chocolate cake, Pierpont Rigby brought several bottles of wine from his wine cellar, and Candy brought her curiosity.
I must admit I, too, was a bit curious. Once we were all seated and dinner was underway, I mentioned how our little gathering must seem rather humble to Mr. Rigby. But Piers—he insisted we call him Piers—assured me he was enjoying himself.
“I’ve never tasted lasagna this good,” he told Wilson. “Even in Tuscany.”
“Tuscany, Italy?” Candy asked. “Gosh, I bet you’ve been to some really fancy parties in Europe.” She nodded enthusiastically, and Piers indulged us with a few details about a few “occasions” he’d had the good fortune to attend.
“Which was the most extravagant and elaborate?” I heard myself asking, and learned that Pierpont—I mean, Piers—attended Will and Kate’s wedding.
“Will and Kate’s wedding!” everyone, including Wilson, squealed.
“It was quite the shindig.”
“No kidding!” we squealed again, and bl
ess his heart, Piers elaborated.
But once we were satisfied on the royalty front, he wanted to hear about our own lives. “From what Karen tells me, life in this building is far from ho-hum.”
“Never a dull moment,” Wilson agreed.
Karen nudged Piers. “Ask them about last weekend.”
Piers did so. And while he topped off our wine glasses with some spectacular red, the four of us took turns explaining the details of the Happily Ever After.
Piers gasped in all the right places, but as I got up to clear the dinner plates, he admitted he was still confused. “The paramour thingy with the more than hotter than hot Annette Trudo was your idea?” he asked me.
“It was Geez Louise’s idea,” I said. “But of course it was Wilson’s idea to recruit Annette to the sleuthing team.”
Piers redirected his scowl.
Wilson shrugged. “I’m team captain,” he said. “I get to choose.”
“Okay.” Piers looked up and handed me his plate. “But no one was around when the batsy Hatsy woman attacked you?”
“Correct,” I said, and with encouragement from Candy and the millionaire, I sat down and repeated the highlights of the skirmish while Karen hopped up to serve dessert.
“Jessie broke the Cupid curse once and for all,” Candy said, and everyone’s gaze automatically fell on our coffee table.
Don’t worry. Wilson and I don’t intend to display him so prominently for all eternity, but on that particular evening, Mr. Cupid was smack in the middle of our living room. The three cats had become rather attached to the little guy. Snowflake was curled up around him, and Bernice and Wally were close by, awaiting their turns.
Piers again glanced at Wilson.
“Never a dull moment,” he said and got up to help Karen.
***
Candy admired the huge chunk of chocolate cake Karen placed in front of her and proposed a toast. “All’s well that ends well,” she said, and we raised our glasses—champagne that time—courtesy of you-know-who.
Piers put down his glass and again apologized for his confusion. “It couldn’t have ended well for Chief Keegan,” he said. “Did she get fired?”
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