The Art of Vanishing (A Lila Maclean Academic Mystery Book 2)
Page 22
“Most definitely,” I said, laughing.
“So Damon plagiarized one book, Jasper blackmailed Damon into plagiarizing a second book, and Mina did the rest? Do I have it right?”
“Pretty much, though Jasper also stole the manuscript from the library—well, he paid a student to snag it—at Damon’s request. Damon didn’t want the manuscript traveling around with his name plastered onto the front page. He was ready to be done with the whole thing and knew he was going to confess all along, regardless of what Mina said.”
“But how did you figure it out?”
“I realized not only that Jasper couldn’t have had the statue because I’d seen him walk out the front door seconds beforehand, but also that all of the attacks, or whatever you want to call them, had the same motive: to prevent the truth from being told. Mina needed Damon’s reputation to stay intact in order for her inheritance to be worth something, and once she’d read Jasper’s final chapter—which he didn’t know she’d read—she must have realized what was about to happen. She didn’t want to take a chance on Jasper saying anything at the panel, so she clocked him with the light. She didn’t want Damon to say anything at his reading, so she drugged him, then followed up with the statue on top of it, perhaps in an effort to scare him from reading at all...or to give him a concussion...or to kill him.” I shivered.
“But why did she not do something before the second reading?”
“It appears she has strong convictions in the power of her own persuasion, or at least that’s how my mother described it.”
“Must be nice,” Calista said sarcastically.
“This part is a little blurry.” I’d pieced it together from bits and pieces that Lex had tried not to share with me during my questionfest. “Not sure when exactly Mina told Damon she was aware of his fraud, but she definitely thought she’d talked him out of confessing.”
“Hmm. Do you think Mina really loved Jasper?” Of course my cousin would zone in on the romantic aspect of the situation.
I shrugged.
“Wow. Reminds me of my stories,” she said, her eyes shining. Since high school, she’d been addicted to one of the longer-running soap operas. Though I wasn’t a fan myself, I’d listened to her talking about it enough to understand her point, so I nodded in confirmation. “Mina’s a piece of work, isn’t she?”
“They all are. Oh, and I think she also sent the threatening emails that we all got, telling us to cancel—”
“Or else.” Calista finished the sentence for me in an ominous tone. “Why did we all freak out, anyway? It’s so vague.”
“Maybe it’s the vagueness of the threat that makes it potent in the first place.”
“I suppose. But why do you think Mina sent the emails?”
“It wouldn’t make any sense for Jasper to have done it...he wanted Damon to confess. She’s the only one who had a motive.”
“So awful.” My cousin shook her head. “What a horrible person. It’s kind of shocking...she didn’t seem like a criminal.”
“Well, technically all three of them all are criminals. I have a feeling it’s going to take the courts a long time to sort this out.”
She raised her eyebrows.
At the same moment, I heard the bells on the door jingle, and Calista’s face lit up in response to whatever she saw behind me.
I turned around to see Nate waving.
“Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. I think he and Amanda broke up last night,” Calista said quickly. “We walked past them after the reading, and they were arguing about something right there on the sidewalk. It didn’t sound good.”
I kept smiling, though it felt awkwardly plastered on as I processed what she had said. I didn’t know what the break-up meant, but I was surprised to realize a sort of relief at the news. I waved back at him.
As Nate moved toward us, the bells rang again, and Lex stepped over the threshold. He tipped his head up slightly in greeting, his eyes locked on mine.
This should be interesting.
About the Author
Cynthia Kuhn writes the Lila Maclean Academic Mystery Series. Her work has appeared in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Literary Mama, Copper Nickel, Prick of the Spindle, Mama PhD and other publications. She teaches English at Metropolitan State University of Denver and serves as president of Sisters in Crime-Colorado. For more information, please visit cynthiakuhn.net.
Books in the Lila Maclean Academic Mystery Series
by Cynthia Kuhn
THE SEMESTER OF OUR DISCONTENT (#1)
THE ART OF VANISHING (#2)
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