by Winnie Reed
Until a trio came to a stop next to me. “Is there anyone sitting here?” The woman who asked had a wide smile, but her voice held hesitation.
“Yes—you three.” Trixie grinned. “Help yourselves.”
“Thanks!” They settled in, chatting, while my aunties went back to their chopsticks versus forks debate. I might as well have been on my own.
“Are you here for the conference?” the girl seated next to me asked as she picked up a piece of fried chicken.
“Mm-hmm. And you girls are, too?”
They nodded. “I’m Kara,” the girl next to me said. “This is Olivia, and Gwen.” I nodded to each of them in turn.
“We were just talking about the guy who died,” Olivia announced. “None of us are the killer, by the way.”
“Good to know,” I murmured. This again? With so many hundreds of people around, there had to be another topic of conversation somewhere. Didn’t there?
“I already outlined my new project last night. The entire thing, based on what happened last night,” Gwen gushed. “I couldn’t help it. I feel so inspired after this.”
Inspired. That was one positive thing to take out of this mess.
“I have the feeling there’ll be a lot of murder mysteries set at conferences and casinos coming out in the next year or so.” I chuckled.
They didn’t.
“You think so?” Gwen asked, eyes wide. “Jeez. I don’t wanna look like I’m copying everybody else.”
“You’ll have to start the project soon, then,” Kara reasoned.
“Yeah, but I have a deadline to meet on the current draft. My editor’s gonna kill me.” She flushed. “Bad choice of words?”
“Unless you think your editor’s really gonna kill you.” I shrugged, popping what was left of a corn muffin in my mouth. Dry, not as sweet as I liked. I heard Joe in my head, teasing me about sweets.
Even in my head, he was a jerk.
“Are you ladies talking about the dead man?” Trixie asked, practically leaning across the table.
Oh, no. I knew where this was headed. “I’m sure they don’t want to—”
“Because she found the body.” Trixie nodded to me, looking and sounding like I’d discovered a cure for cancer instead of a stranger’s body. She even looked triumphant.
I lost my appetite.
“No way! You did?” Kara barely stopped short of jumping into my lap. Gwen and Olivia leaned in, eyes wide. “What did it look like?”
“Was there a lot of blood?”
“Did the cops question you?”
Their questions flew fast and furious, enough to make my head spin. “Uh, it looked like a person who used to be alive. He was floating in the pool. Yes, there was blood—I guess. I had an obstructed view, the gate was in the way. But if he was in the water and he was wounded, there would’ve been blood. Right?”
“Yeah, that’s why they drained the pool,” Kara pointed out.
“And yes.” I looked to Gwen, who’d asked the last question. “The police questioned me, just because I was the person who stumbled across the scene. That’s all.”
“But she already knows the detective on the case.” Nell shrugged when I shot her a dirty look. “What did I say?”
“You know a detective? A real detective? Could you ask him questions for me?” I could actually see Gwen holding her breath as she waited for me to answer.
While the thought of Joe being raked over the coals by a few enthusiastic authors gave me more joy than it had any right to, even I couldn’t put him through that. It would be like kicking a puppy.
An extremely annoying, condescending puppy, but a puppy, nonetheless. A puppy with nice arms and nicer eyes.
“To be honest, I don’t know if he’d wanna talk about it,” I explained with a sympathetic grimace. “Sorry. He’s super swamped with all this work.”
“And I guess there aren’t any leads, either,” Olivia mused, toying with what was left of her burrito. They left no stone unturned at this buffet.
She was fishing. I knew it. How did I know? Because I would’ve done the same thing in her position. I could only shrug and tell a lie. “I’m not sure. We’re not that close.”
“She helped him solve two cases so far,” Trixie bragged.
“Did not,” I was quick to reply.
“Did so!”
“He wasn’t even working the second case, so I couldn’t have helped him solve anything.”
“Wow!” Kara sighed. “It’s like something out of a book! You’re like a crime-solving team.”
Nell laughed. “If any of you ladies wants to write the story, be sure to describe the detective accurately. He’s a drop-dead hunk.”
“Oh! The one with the dark hair and pretty eyes?” Gwen gasped, hands crossed over her chest. “He’s gorgeous!”
“He could be a cover model,” Olivia gushed. “And you know him? I hate you.”
“It’s more than them knowing each other.” Trixie’s wink was just a little too much.
“Nope, nope, nope,” I waved my hands, shaking my head. “It’s not like that. Don’t even go there.”
“I seriously hate you,” Olivia insisted, pouting.
“It’s not like that,” I insisted, as if it mattered. Nobody believed me. And if I didn’t know Joe and had only seen him around, and I thought one of these ladies might have something special going on with him, I’d probably hate them a little.
Or at least be jealous of them.
But I knew Joe, and there was certainly nothing to be jealous of. He was more than a handful. And something told me he’d be even less patient with these eager authors than he was with me. Which was saying a lot.
Though I’d pay good money to see him squirm over their questions.
“Ooh! Is that Deidre over there?” Nell stood, craning her neck to look across the room.
“I doubt it. She wouldn’t eat at the buffet.” Trixie giggled. “She’s too highbrow for this. No offense,” she added, looking around the table.
“I can’t wait for her keynote speech,” Kara sighed. “She’s such an inspiration. Everything she went through to get where she is.”
That gave me pause. “I have to admit, I don’t know much about her personal life.”
You’d have thought I suggested we hold a book burning out by the out-of-commission pool.
“Sorry,” I whispered, shrinking in my chair.
“You don’t know her story? Do you live under a rock?” Gwen didn’t even bother to couch that in a no offense. “She was on her own, her husband left her.”
“She had to go on assistance to support her twin toddlers,” Kara added. “Daycare was too expensive, and she didn’t have any friends or family nearby.”
“She wrote during their naps and after their bedtime,” Olivia explained. “It took a year for her to finish the first book. It took twenty-three queries to find an agent, and another year to sell the book. By then she’d written two more.”
“And the rest is history,” I concluded. “I admire her. I really do. I can barely handle my dog. It takes a lot of determination to manage something like that.” No wonder she looked like she was on top of the world in that banner image. No wonder she was so upset at the conference going off the rails.
This was a huge event, and she was the main attraction. It was part of her story, the narrative of her dramatic rise through the echelons of publishing.
And some jerk had to go and get himself killed. I found myself annoyed on her behalf, and I could understand a little better why she’d flown off the handle with me in the bathroom.
Even if I still didn’t understand why she thought I had anything to do with the guy.
“I wonder what it’s like,” I mused, stirring what was left of my mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce until it was a hot pink sludge.
“What what’s like?” Nell asked.
“Having so many fans. Not being able to walk around a conference like this without being spotted. I wonder if it goe
s both ways. Fans—and haters, for lack of a better word.”
“I can’t imagine anybody hating her,” Nell scoffed.
“Everything has its opposite,” I argued. “Rabid fans. Rabid haters. Some people have a problem with everything. There’s an author right here at the conference who told me about a guy finding her online, searching for her phone number, and harassing her nonstop.”
“Oh, sure,” Gwen nodded. “I know authors who have stalkers. It’s like a sign of having made it. You’re finally popular enough that people love to hate you.”
“Jeez.” I let out a nervous laugh. “I’ve never been so glad to not be anybody important.”
Trixie picked her phone up from the table, frowning as she scrolled—until her eyes lit up. She’d read something she liked, something that interested her.
And when she looked up at me, I could tell it had to do with the murder. I could only hope she had the presence of mind to keep whatever it was to herself until we were away from these strangers. Not to mention everybody else at the endless buffet.
“I could use dessert,” I announced, giving her a meaningful look on standing.
“So could I,” she agreed.
“You haven’t finished your—” Nell began, but Trixie’s glare stopped her in mid-sentence. After so many years of friendship, they had the same sort of shorthand Raina and I did. One look and there was no need for questions.
We took our time winding our way among the tables, snaking across the crowded dining room. The way Trixie sauntered, nobody would ever know there was something she wanted to tell me. She was right when she said she knew how to do her job without giving herself away.
We reached the dessert bar and I couldn’t help but eye up the various choices. Some of them actually looked edible—otherwise, Joe wasn’t far off the mark when he joked about the quality.
Not that I cared very much. I took a plate and scooped some bread pudding that looked and smelled promising. “So? What’s up?”
“There’s an article in the Paradise City online paper,” she murmured, taking a brownie at random. I considered it, but they looked dry.
“And?”
“And, they found out who that man was and announced it to the press. His wallet was in the glovebox of his car. His name was Lawrence Miller, he was thirty-seven and lived in Indiana.”
“He drove all the way from Indiana?”
“It would appear that way. I imagine now that his name has been discovered, there’ll be a lot of cross-referencing. Was he a guest in the hotel? Was he a conference attendee? All of it.”
All of it.
I wanted to know, too. Who was Lawrence Miller?
Chapter Fourteen
“You’re not going to the mixer?” Trixie asked as we waited for the elevator to arrive.
Just like that morning, I mourned the fact that the elevator cars moved so slowly. The two of them looked absolutely appalled, aghast at the notion of my not socializing. And I had nothing to do but stand and wait and be criticized.
“You’re too young to sit alone in your room, with all these people around,” Nell scolded.
“Please, don’t get angry with me.” I sighed. Even my bones ached. Being around so many people had drained me, big time. “I just want to rest. I’m so tired.”
“You’re too young to be tired,” Trixie sniffed.
“I must be a lot older than you think I am, then,” I snapped.
Her face fell. My heart softened. “I’m sorry,” I murmured, stroking her leopard print sleeve. The woman knew how to attract attention, for sure, but she never went overboard. The jacket was the flashiest thing she wore, along with black capris and a fitted white button-down.
“We’re pushing too hard,” Nell allowed. “You do whatever you want. If you need to rest, you should rest.”
“We only want you to have a nice time,” Trixie explained. “We want you to have fun.”
“I know you do. I appreciate that, too.”
“You’re thinking too much about the you-know-what that happened last night,” Nell mused, shaking her head. “You’re letting it get you down.”
“And you plan to research that man’s name. Don’t pretend you won’t,” Trixie chided, shaking a finger in my face. I wanted to bite it to teach her a lesson.
“For one thing,” I pointed out as we entered an elevator car, “there’s no chance of my thinking about anything else. It’s all anybody wants to talk about. You’ve seen it for yourself.”
“Yes, but they don’t take it as seriously as you do.”
“Because they think it’s fun. It’s a mystery to be solved. They never met the prime suspect. They never met the man himself. It’s not just some hypothetical situation for me. I bet they’d feel the same way about it that I do if they’d ever met that man.”
“I’m sure they would. But you can’t save everyone,” Nell reminded me in a soft voice, sliding an arm around my waist. I leaned against her a little and realized I was so glad they were there.
“I’m not trying to save anybody,” I lied. Even I knew it was a lie.
We stopped at my floor. They must’ve been staying further up in the hotel. “I plan on doing nothing but read for the rest of the night,” I vowed, raising my right hand. “I might order dessert to the room.”
“You already had dessert,” Trixie scolded as the doors slid shut.
“You said you wanted me to have fun!” I called out just before we were separated. I thought I heard Nell laughing.
I was even chuckling to myself as I walked down the hall toward my room. Yes, it was good they were there. I didn’t have to be alone. I could lean against somebody who cared—genuinely cared—if I was okay.
The only thing was, I didn’t know whether or not I was okay. The longer I spent thinking about Georgia and this Lawrence guy, the lower I felt.
Trixie was right when she assumed I’d research Lawrence. I’d go out of my mind if I didn’t know who this man was and why he’d done what he did.
Georgia’s book sat on the nightstand, reminding me of how fantastic it was and how it wanted me to read it. I could practically hear it calling my name, promising an escape from my worries. How would things wrap up? Would the duke ever learn to let go of his tragic disappointment? Would the heroine learn to trust the upper class, even though they’d only ever caused her impoverished family heartache and pain?
Obviously, the answer to these questions was yes. I had no doubt of it. But I wanted to sink back into it, just the same. Maybe I wanted a happy ending. Maybe I needed one.
That would be my treat once I’d finished combing the internet for evidence of Lawrence Miller. BookLover69. I’d have to look for him, too.
In fact, that brought up an idea. His online persona, spread all across multiple websites, multiple forums. Who did I know who might spend time on forums like those?
I called Darcy—and not only to ask if she frequented any of those sites.
“How’s my girl?” I asked when she picked up. My voice magically rose two octaves when I did, too.
“I’m fine, thanks for asking,” Darcy said with a scoffing laugh. “Lola’s just great. An angel. Everybody at the bookstore loves her, but that goes without saying, since most of them already met her at the café.”
“I miss her,” I sighed. “I can’t wait to see her again.”
“You could drive down right now and see her,” my very reasonable, rational sister reminded me—then, “Oh, but you don’t wanna do that. You wanted to spend money on a hotel room a half hour away from home, even though you could easily have driven back and forth.”
“Ew! Besides, I’m not paying for it. Remember? But everybody knows the most important networking and whatnot takes place at night, after the sessions are over.” Raina would be so proud of me.
“So? What are you doing alone? I don’t hear anybody with you. Are you in your room?”
“You know,” I said as I flopped back on the bed. “I can imagine you in my hea
d right now. You’ve closed up the shop by now. You’re at home. Sitting on your couch with that superior little smirk on your pretty face.”
“I’m sitting at the dining room table, smartypants,” she said. “Everything here is cool. What’s going on with you? How’s the conference?”
“Oh, you don’t even wanna know.”
“Oh, now I most certainly do wanna know.”
“Mom didn’t tell you about the body I found?” No way was that true.
“Of course. I figured you’d get to that once you felt like it. You’re probably sick and tired of being grilled about it by now.”
Just when her smug, superior, older sister attitude threatened to break my patience, she went and said something like that. “Wow. You have no idea how refreshing that is.”
“So, you’ve been hearing it all day?”
“Nonstop. As if I’d ever be able to stop thinking about it, even so. But hearing so many rumors…”
“It must be driving you out of your head. Especially since I know you wanna tell everybody how wrong they are.”
“No!”
“Emma.” There she went again, being the older sister.
I growled. “Whatever. I haven’t said anything to correct misconceptions, even though it means practically biting my tongue off sometimes.”
“Because if you told anybody what you know, you’d become the go-to resource.”
“Bingo. You’re pretty smart. Must be from all the reading.”
“Something like that.”
“Which is why I called. Do you ever visit any online forums for writers and fans?”
“Sure. I mean, I’ve spent a lot of time as a single woman. What else am I gonna do with my time?”
“Your life isn’t that lonely,” I reminded her. “And you’re not technically single.”
“We’re not technically dating, either. Anyway, it’s also a good way to keep on top of new authors, whose books are hot right now. I can’t listen solely to the book lists, you know?”
“Sure, sure. How do they work, these forums?”
“Have you ever even been on the internet?”
“Darce.” I sighed.