Page 11 of Broken Bird (The Last Picks #4)

The best part about Sheriff Acosta was that she didn’t yell. At least, not usually. It was also the scariest part. Because when she asked questions like “What exactly did you think you were doing?”, they were a lot more terrifying because they were delivered with a quiet, matter-of-fact rage.

“I know it got, uh, a little out of control with Pippi and—well, Ophelia running off,” I said. “But wait until you hear what we talked about.”

I ran through my conversation with Ophelia, and when I’d finished, the sheriff said, “We’re still waiting on tests from the lab, but there was a bottle of scotch in Marshall’s room, and it had some sort of residue at the bottom. Our working theory is that this was how he was poisoned.”

Which lined up with Ophelia’s statement that Marshall had started drinking at the end of their argument, and which also fit the timeline for Marshall’s death at the library. “What about fingerprints?”

“I don’t think so.”

“What? Come on, that means you have something, and you think it might mean something.”

“It means I’m not releasing sensitive information about an ongoing investigation.”

“But there was something significant about the prints. There’s something you can use.”

The sheriff touched the baby hairs gelled at her forehead, checking them without seeming to realize it, and finally she shook her head. “All I’ll say is that the bottle itself has not currently provided a valuable lead.”

Which meant—what? There were prints, but they all had some sort of other possible explanation. For example, Hayes’s prints were certainly on there, but that made sense since he’d bought the scotch and given it to Marshall. And Elodie, as Marshall’s personal assistant, might have carried the bottle for him—I remembered what she said about how he hated to carry things. And Ophelia had been in the room with him that night. She might have picked up the bottle to look at it. All sorts of casual explanations.

“What about the divorce papers?” I asked.

“There weren’t any,” the sheriff said. “Not that we’ve found, anyway.”

That felt like confirmation that Ophelia had lied to me—who else would have had a reason to get rid of those papers?

After being debriefed by the sheriff—which, to the untrained eye, might have looked a little like a dressing-down—I was free to go. The logical course of action would have been to continue the conversation by talking to Hayes. I had all sorts of great questions to ask him like: did you poison that bottle of scotch you gave Marshall? And, are you and Ophelia in cahoots, because she’s surprisingly difficult to read? But I didn’t know where Hayes was staying, and the sheriff didn’t know where Hayes was staying. Which meant that instead of going to find Hayes, I went home and ate linner, which is definitely a meal everyone should have on their schedule.

(M I was starting to feel like I might be committed to that genre, if only because the two stories I’d gotten published had been in that vein. In this one, Will had haunted eyes, and when he wasn’t drinking highballs in a dark saloon, he was wandering the dark streets of The City, a broken white knight in a city of broken dreams. (Okay, that was good—I wrote that down.) He was investigating a sweatshop, but of course, it wasn’t really about a sweatshop, it was really about a—

And this was where I got stuck.

A gong farmer?

No, definitely not.

The usual options were blackmail, a smuggling ring, dirty politics, or (if you came from the honorable tradition of noir misogyny) a crazy but sexy broad. That last one had a certain amount of allure. A crazy but sexy, uh, fella. A hunk of heartbreak. Although I didn’t love the word crazy. Maybe he could have PTSD, only I couldn’t call it PTSD because they didn’t call it that back then. Maybe he could be shellshocked.

I was surprised, when I looked outside, that darkness was already settling down; true, night came early in the winter, and when you didn’t start your day until noon, you lost the light quickly. Still, it did seem kind of inconsiderate. But, since it was dark now, I decided I should probably make sure every single strand of lights was plugged in and functioning perfectly. And if it wasn’t , well, I’d have to check every single bulb. I could turn on the TV while I checked them. Just to have some background noise—

I caught myself at the door. No, I told myself. Absolutely not.

The danger of being a writer—particularly one like me, if you were a perfectionist, and you were indecisive, and you loved to procrastinate, and you had an unrivaled knack for weaseling out of the actual writing—was that when you were at home, and you were supposed to be writing, there were a million other things you could do that all seemed more urgent. Like checking every single bulb of every single strand of Christmas lights. Right. Now.

Back to my seat. I stared at the notes I’d pulled up for my Will Gower story. The problem, I decided, was that it all felt wrong. It was too dark. Too gloomy. And a year ago—heck, even six months ago—I would have thought dark and gloomy was the way to go. But now I was starting to wonder if it was too dark and gloomy.

For example, I thought—and I felt a little thrill at the escape hatch I’d given myself—what if Will Gower wasn’t a dour private investigator wandering the cat-black streets of The City? (Okay, I actually loved that too—so I wrote it down.) What if Will Gower was…a former big-city journalist who now ran a charming little bookstore called Chapter Millie’s was a dusty rose color), and he had on a pea coat over a hideous sweater that appeared to feature Santa dancing at a discotheque. He was wearing jeans. He was wearing real shoes—leather boots that looked like they’d keep his feet warm for once.

And I knew where those boots had come from, because I’d seen them before. In fact, as soon as I recognized the boots, I knew where it had all come from.

It only took me another second to understand the other thing I’d missed: they looked like they were on a date.

They weren’t, of course. Some gentle nosing around the issue, over the last few months, had clued me in to the fact that Millie thought of Keme as a younger brother—which, to be fair, he was a few years younger, and still technically a minor. None of that, apparently, had any stopping power with Keme, however. I could see it now in the way he looked at her. Maybe he sensed me watching him, because his eyes cut to me, and his expression shifted to a guarded embarrassment.

“You look on fleek,” I told him.

Embarrassment changed into a scowl.

“What?” I asked. “That’s what the kids say.”

“No,” Millie told me, “they don’t. Come on, we’re going to be late.”

“Late for what?”

“For the lights, silly. Come ON!”

I’m still not sure if I moved of my own volition or if the sound waves rocked me off the old chesterfield.

Since I wasn’t trying to impress a girl—or a boy, or anyone, or anything, apparently ever for the rest of my natural life, kind of like one of those monks who walled themselves up in a single room—I didn’t change. My hoodie showed two reindeer competing at Pong, and my jeans were clean, and my Mexico 66s were dry. Since Ophelia still had my jacket, I grabbed a bomber from the closet.

By the time I returned to the hall, though, my better judgment had asserted itself. It was a Saturday night. It was the weekend before Christmas. The town was going to be swarming with people. The thought of all those bodies pressed together, the jostling for space, the constant noise—I could feel myself about to start sweating.

“You know what?” I said. “I think I might stay home.”

Keme gave me a look of staggering disgust.

“No, no, no,” Millie said, clapping her hands and jumping for emphasis. “You can’t! Dash, it’s so pretty. It’s magical and beautiful and wonderful, and it’s CHRISTMAS! And it’s your first Christmas here, and this can be a tradition, and we HAVE to go. There’s caroling and there’s the tree and there are s’mores.” But maybe she saw something on my face, or maybe my distress was palpable, because her smile faded. In a softer voice, she said, “That’s okay. We don’t have to go. You know what we can do? We can make s’mores here! Keme makes the best ones because he knows how to do the marshmallows the best. And we can watch a MOVIE! We can watch a really old one like Elf !”

That…hurt, I’ll admit it. But what hurt even more was the disappointment they were both trying to hide.

“No,” I said, “you’re right. We should go.” I even managed a smile. “Like you said, this can be a tradition.”

Although Bobby—and the rest of the Last Picks—had strong opinions about my driving in general and, more specifically, about my parking (if you don’t want me to park there, you need to make it clear; don’t just paint the curb red or put up a sign or have the words NO PARKING—I’m not a mind reader), we agreed to ride in the Jeep, since the alternative was being crammed into Millie’s Mazda3. The drive into town was like the drive any other night: following the winding road through the forest of spruce and fir and pine, the hint of their fragrance filtering into the Jeep, the gauzy stretches of mist that thickened as we passed through the fog belt.

But when we left the forest and Hastings Rock came into view, I saw that the town had been transformed. I’d been to Hastings Rock at night before, of course. I’d been there a few times that week—going to the Otter Slide, or running late errands. But the town that curled around the bay looked completely different now, magicked into a winter wonderland. Holiday lights outlined the steep roofs of the old Victorian houses. More lights splashed against the walls of modernist homes. Beach cottages and bungalows were trimmed with glowing icicles. And there were enough glowing lawn ornaments to light an impromptu runway for Santa’s sleigh.

My prediction had been right: the entire town was overrun with people celebrating the season. We ended up having to park in one of the visitor (aka tourist) lots on the outskirts—and that was after Keme made me move the Jeep twice for totally bogus reasons like “That’s a fire hydrant” and “That spot is only for an ambulance.” Then we walked to Main Street and followed it toward the waterfront.

The thing about Hastings Rock is that it’s beautiful any time of year. The motley architecture—everything from Cape Cods to, for example, Hemlock House—and the quaint shops and the natural beauty of the Sitka spruce forests and the sea cliffs and the blue-gray expanse of the Pacific. But tonight, it was…special. The town really had been transformed; that was the only word I could come up with. Lights were strung everywhere, of course. Red ribbons too. Mistletoe hung from the old-fashioned streetlights. The shops and studios that lined Main Street (and which were one of the big draws for the tourists) had gotten into the spirit as well. Window wonderlands celebrated not only Christmas but Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and even Yule. And then I saw the snow.

It’s not that snow was impossible on the coast—Millie had once told me every memory she had of snow. (To answer your question, I was trapped and couldn’t escape.) It wasn’t common, though, mostly because it rarely got cold enough for the snow to stick. But as we moved toward the heart of Hastings Rock, I started to see it everywhere: dusting the tops of the streetlights, sprinkled on the roofs of shops and studios, even blown into neat little piles in the corners of doorways and windows. It reminded me, in the best possible way, of Christmas in Providence, and I’d never expected that.

“It’s fake,” Millie said, and she laughed at the expression on my face. “And it’s totally safe. It’s not plastic or anything! They make it from potatoes. The next time it rains, it’ll all dissolve.”

There were probably a few steps, I imagined, from potato to snowflake, but I honestly didn’t care. It wasn’t plastic. It wasn’t toxic. It was…magical.

Everything was magical, in fact. A group of carolers stood at the next intersection, dressed in (mostly) Victorian costumes. Bliss Wilson, going against the Dickensian current—and, for that matter, the weather—had chosen a steampunk-style corset, and she was belting out a solo of “Good King Wenceslas” that defied description. Althea Wilson, with her white hair down to her back, gave me an impish wink. Across from the carolers, Chipper (by day, Hasting Rocks’ only coffee shop, and also, no coincidence, where Millie worked) had fire pits and chairs on the sidewalk, and families were gathered around them: warming their hands, toasting s’mores (Keme could have taught some of the young’uns a thing or two), and drinking cider, hot chocolate, and in some cases, adult beverages. At the next cross street, families were lined up outside the library to see Santa, and I had a moment of goggling disbelief when I realized Mrs. Shufflebottom was playing the part of Mrs. Claus. As I watched, she bent down to whisper in the ear of a little girl who was visibly nervous. A smile burst out on the girl’s face, and a moment later, she let Mrs. Shufflebottom help her up onto Santa’s lap. For one magical night, it seemed, even librarians couldn’t be evil.

The real masterpiece, though, was the town square, where an enormous tree rose against the backdrop of city hall. The Fraser fir was strung with everything from strands of popcorn to ribbon to ornaments that I dearly hoped were shatterproof. More of the fake snow had been used liberally here. On one side of the square, Seely had apparently left the Otter Slide in other hands to tend a pop-up bar, where the drink of choice seemed to be either a mulled whiskey sour or something called pumpkin-pie-in-the-sky, which honestly sounded so good that I think I would have floated over there and gotten one except Millie chose that moment to proclaim: “HORSES!”

(The horses, by the way, did not seem to appreciate it; there was lots of whickering.)

Sure enough, lined up on the other side of the square were several horse-drawn carriages. The passengers appeared to be primarily couples, of course. It seemed like a couple thing to do.

Maybe that was why it was so disorienting when I turned and saw Bobby.

He was on the far side of the square, and he was in uniform, down on one knee as he helped a little boy—who had clearly been crying—put on a mitten. His dark hair was in its perfect part, and whatever product he’d used gave it a little shine under the streetlights. His face was fixed in its familiar earnestness. For Bobby, helping a child on with a mitten would get all of his attention and focus, in the same way that saving the neck of a snooping mystery writer would, or anything else he turned his mind to. Even—and the thought made me smile—writing a parking ticket. As I watched, Bobby said something to the boy, who beamed at him, his earlier tears now forgotten. The boy rushed to catch up with a woman who was waiting and turned to offer Bobby a wave. Bobby waved back. (As if there were any doubt.)

Maybe I should go say hi, I thought. Or maybe that was a stupid idea. Maybe Bobby was enjoying his night, without having me underfoot all the time. Maybe that’s why he spent so much time out of the house these days. Maybe he was just waiting for a chance to get his own place, to have some time and space away from me. Maybe he’d realized—as a fair number of people had—how frustrating it could be to live with someone as quirky as I was (to put it politely).

But a part of me kept thinking about how he’d made up a pallet in the hall, and how he’d poured the hot chocolate for me, and how he’d wrapped a blanket around my shoulders, and how his hands had felt around mine. A part of me kept thinking that the air smelled like cinnamon and fir trees and the clean winter sharpness of the ocean, and that Bliss and Althea Wilson and their company of carolers had switched to “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” and it was Christmas, and there was even, somehow, snow. And a part of me that absolutely refused to give up and die kept…hoping.

I found myself taking an automatic step; my body had apparently decided, before my brain could finish waffling, that we were going to talk to Bobby. Before I could take another, Bobby stood, and a man moved out from behind the giant Fraser fir, holding two steaming cups of something, one of which he passed to Bobby. Bobby took the drink—it couldn’t be alcohol, not while he was on duty—and the man touched his arm and said something. Instead of shifting his stance or pulling away or (my favorite option) throwing the steaming-hot beverage in the guy’s face, Bobby laughed, and the man moved in, closing the distance between them until nobody who looked at them could have any doubt what was going on.

“Dash, we brought you—” Millie said. “Oh my God, are they going to KISS?”

Keme made a gagging sound, which, to be fair, was probably at the general idea of anyone over twenty-five kissing anyone ever.

I was barely aware of Keme shoving a paper cup at me. It was warm in my hand and full of something decidedly tasty smelling—one of the mulled whiskey sours, my brain suggested. But all of that happened at a distance. All I could see was how close this guy was standing to Bobby, all up in Bobby’s space, and how Bobby was still smiling.

And then Keme poked me. Right in the tummy, too.

“Ow! What—”

Keme pointed at Bobby.

“Yeah, I know, thanks—” Before I could finish, Keme stabbed his finger at the two men again, and I forgot what I’d been about to say. Because the second man was Hayes. He looked even more handsome tonight, if possible: a gray cardigan, green gingham shirt, red bowtie, dark jeans. He said something to Bobby, leaning in to whisper, and this time Bobby’s expression changed. I recognized the politely fixed features, the public smile, the appropriately firm shake of his head. And I couldn’t help the surge of vicious glee.

Hayes said something else, to which Bobby offered another of those public-use-only smiles. Hayes touched his arm again, his hand lingering this time before finally, with a whispered comment, he turned away. Bobby didn’t watch him go; he moved into the crowd, nodding to Cyd Wofford. The town’s designated Marxist (or at least the most vocal one) had shown up for the festivities wearing a sign on a string around his neck; it said SANTA IS THE OPIATE OF THE MASSES. But he didn’t seem to remember he was wearing it. He was too busy running the toy drive barrel, and he was apparently doing a fantastic job—I saw two of the people he talked to dart into Tidepool Toys (open for business, of course, for last-minute holiday shopping) and return with carefully wrapped presents to place in the donation barrel.

Hayes, unlike Bobby, did look back. Several times. And if you could eat somebody up with your eyes, Bobby would have been missing several large chunks of himself by the time Hayes reached the edge of the square. A thought worked its way to the surface of my mind. Once he was out of sight, I’d have lost him—and I had no idea how to find him again. I needed to go after him. No, I should tell Bobby. Only Bobby already knew—that was the whole problem. I should call the sheriff. No, I should—

That was when my feet lurched into motion again, and I started after Hayes.

“Uh, Dash?” Millie said, trotting to catch up. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing. I don’t know.” That wasn’t super helpful, but my brain was still telling me how stupid I was—and calling me all sorts of names you can’t say at a town Christmas party. “I’m just going to see where he goes.” I jinked around Mr. Del Real (Swift Lift Towing), who patted me on the shoulder and called a “Merry Christmas” after me. “You guys stay here.”

By that point, Keme was loping easily at my side, his face a thundercloud.

“I don’t want to ruin your night,” I said. “Go have fun.”

“Are we TAILING him?” Millie asked. “Like SPIES?”

Not, I thought, unless some ingenious spy had pioneered the megaphone approach to following a suspect.

But the sound of the holiday festivities must have swallowed Millie’s words, because Hayes didn’t glance back. He didn’t seem to have any fear of being followed. Or, I decided, of approaching law enforcement. He had approached Bobby, after all—and that wasn’t the behavior of someone who was trying to stay out of the sheriff’s reach. All of which raised the question: why was Hayes still here? (Aside from his obvious interest in a certain deputy.)

We followed Hayes along Main Street. For the first hundred yards, I kept my head down, I scurried from lamppost to lamppost, and I ignored warm holiday wishes from Mr. Li (who had set up a kiosk and was doing caricatures), Dawn Skidmore (who was grimly handing out fun-sized candy canes and making sure no child tried to cheat her by getting two), and Oscar Ratcliff (who must have sensed some grade-A gossip because his nose was practically twitching as he watched us). In other words, I did some first-class skulking.

But after that stretch, I realized Hayes wasn’t looking back, wasn’t checking to see if he was being followed, wasn’t exhibiting any signs of conniving or skullduggery. He also wasn’t stopping to look at anything, and that struck me as strange as well. We passed the farmer’s market, which had been changed into a holiday market, where Indira had a line twenty deep of people waiting to buy her cakes and cookies (the trifles were already sold out). Fox was there too; they were dressed as a steampunk Santa, which apparently required a red top hat, a red tailcoat, and about a million watch chains and gears, plus goggles with Christmas-green lenses. They were doing some sort of candy ornament station, and as we passed the market, I heard them shouting, “Not up your nose, Tristan!” But Hayes moved past all of it, seemingly without any interest, which made me wonder—again—what he was doing, and why he was here.

“Oh my God,” Millie said with a longing look at the holiday market. “We’re missing Fox’s craft!”

My own resolve faltered when I saw the food trucks. Let’s Taco Bout Tacos had a huge sign advertising their Christmas tacos (pear and pomegranate!). Through the truck’s service window, I could see LaLeesha (who had added red and green glitter strands to her hair), and Sergey (who was dressed as the world’s butchest reindeer-slash-short order cook).

I managed to dig up some willpower. No tacos. Tacos were a reward for successful sneakery. As well as for making it to Fridays, or finishing a good writing session, or because it was Tuesday. Or anytime you were sad. Or if you weren’t sad, but a taco just sounded really, really good.

No, I told myself more sternly. Absolutely not.

“Go,” I said to Millie. “I’ll be fine.”

Keme gave me a look that suggested, in true teenage fashion, I was the stupidest person he’d ever met. Millie shook her head sadly and said, “No, we can’t abandon you in the middle of a mission. Besides, what if we have to FIGHT HIM?”

The question was accompanied by a vicious chopping motion (presumably inspired by some martial arts movie Keme had forced her to watch). It caught an inflatable, off-brand Frosty the Snowman right in the carrot nose, and it flipped him, uh, hoop over garters. That might not be a saying, but it was hard to focus. I mean, the tacos were right. there.

(Frosty was fine, by the way. Some of the kids even cheered, and Millie blushed like crazy and looked enormously pleased with herself. I’m pretty sure Keme fell in love all over again.)

I was about to suggest no more chopping, but before I could, Hayes gave a wary glance from side to side—the first sign I’d seen that he might be checking that he wasn’t being observed. As he started to turn back (where he couldn’t fail to see us), I grabbed Keme and Millie and forced them toward a living manger, where Mr. Cheek, owner of Fog Belt Ladies Wear, had cast himself as Baby Jesus. Instead of a manger, they were apparently using a waterbed.

“For my back,” Mr. Cheek was explaining to a woman who clearly wasn’t from Hastings Rock.

I’d never seen Baby Jesus in a bedazzled jumpsuit, but then again, neither had any of the out-of-towners, who were snapping pictures like crazy.

Have I ever told you I love Hastings Rock?

When I risked a look, Hayes was heading into one of the shops. Like many of the buildings on Main Street, it was a board- and-batten building painted dove gray and divided up into individual storefronts. Hayes had gone inside the middle unit, and I let out a groan because I knew that store. I liked that store. And I knew, like everyone else in Hastings Rock, who owned that store.

A Whale of a Tale Books and Curios was Hasting Rock’s only bookstore. The front window showed a display of holiday classics, complete with an adorable Christmas tree that had been made out of books with green covers. Packages wrapped in brown paper and stamped FROM THE NORTH POLE were arranged around the base. Beyond the display, I could see Hayes moving toward the back of the store, where the sales desk was located. And stationed at the sales desk was the owner and manager.

Who happened to be Stephen Parker, Pippi’s husband.

“Stay here,” I whispered to Keme and Millie and slipped inside the shop. (I was so stealthy, I even managed to keep the bell above the door from jingling.)

Inside, A Whale of a Tale Books and Curios was what every booklover wanted from a bookstore. It was a maze of bookcases, with every shelf filled to capacity. More books were stacked on the floor. There were books stacked on top of the bookcases. There were books stacked between bookcases. There were even books stacked on the stairs that led up to the loft. (Yes, there were more books up there—plus some amazingly comfy chairs where you could sit and read and look out at the town.) In the best possible way, the shop smelled like paper and leather and coffee, and although there were undoubtedly a few people who found the narrow, crowded space claustrophobic, it reminded me of happy hours in library stacks, with walls of words literally on every side.

I used some of those walls to my advantage now as I crept in the direction I’d seen Hayes go. I stayed low as I moved through the classics section, grateful for the formidable-looking Norton annotated editions and the big, foiled hardcovers that, I was fairly sure, kept this area free from casual browsers. As I moved closer to the back, I picked up the sound of voices. I inched closer, crouching lower (eye to eye with Trollope, as a matter of fact), and then I barely swallowed a scream as someone grabbed me.

It was Millie, and her face was alight with excitement. Keme crouched next to her, his jaw set as he stared at me, like he was ready to fight.

“What are we doing?” Millie whispered.

It was, for once, a fairly credible whisper.

And then, before I could answer, “THIS IS SO EXCITING!”

Not quite so credible.

Fortunately, neither Hayes nor Stephen seemed to have heard, and by that point, I no longer felt like I’d been scared out of my skin.

In a furious whisper, I asked, “What are you doing? I told you to wait outside.”

“I thought you were talking to Keme. And then when I wanted to come inside, Keme wanted to come too because he HATES being left out, plus he wanted to pet Katniss, but I told him you’d said to stay outside, and he said, ‘Fudge that,’ only he didn’t say fudge , he said—”

“Yes, all right, fine. Now please, please, please—” I drew in a deep breath and managed to even out my whisper. “—we have to be quiet.”

Although, I have to admit that the chagrin on Keme’s face when Millie had revealed that he wanted to pet Katniss almost made it all worth it. (Two points about that: first, Katniss is the bookstore cat, and all bookstores should have cats; and second, no, I was not consulted about the name.)

Somehow, miraculously, nobody seemed to have noticed the insanity that I’d tracked into the bookstore. I was fairly sure such would not have been the case if Mrs. Shufflebottom had been present. Although she probably would have given Millie a cookie.

I pushed that thought aside and strained to hear the conversation.

“—outrageous.” The voice had to belong to Hayes. “You’re making a huge mistake.”

“I think you should leave.” That was Stephen, and although his voice was firm, I thought I detected a faint quaver. “I don’t like bullies in my store.”

“I’m not going to ask again,” Hayes said. “I’ve played nice until now. Do you want me to stop playing nice?”

“I told you to leave,” Stephen said. “Don’t make me call the police.”

Hayes burst out laughing. It was a pleasant sound at odds with the nastiness behind it. “Be my guest,” he said. “In fact, maybe I should call them myself and tell them what I saw at the reading. I think they’ll be fascinated to hear how you and your wife—”

And then several things seemed to happen at once.

The door at the front of the shop crashed open.

The bell jangled.

Pippi charged inside, with the full Pippi Parker Productions team hot on her heels. Dylan was still directing, and Christian still had the camera. Little Carter, who looked like he’d been a biter when he’d been a child, had apparently been put in charge of the boom mic. Attention to detail didn’t seem like Carter’s strong point; as he chased after his mom, the boom mic swung wildly, knocking books everywhere.

And then Katniss jumped on Keme’s head.

Let me tell you: that boy can scream.

I honestly think, in hindsight, that the poor Siamese was probably scared out of her mind and just trying to reach a person she trusted. The actual execution, though, left a lot to be desired.

I reached for the cat, but Millie was faster. She yanked Katniss off Keme, and the cat wriggled free and sprinted into the maze of bookcases. Keme’s eyes were huge, but as far as I could tell, the worst that had happened was a little scratch near his hairline. Millie cried out, “YOU POOR BABY!” and she immediately started fussing over Keme. To judge by the look on Keme’s face, the boy was either in heaven or, more likely, concussed.

“What are you doing here?”

It took me a moment to realize the question was directed at me. Hayes was staring at me. As was Stephen. Apparently, popping up from behind a wall of film tie-in copies of Pride and Prejudice (the Keira Knightley one, a bit dated now) was not something either man had been prepared for. Hayes, in particular, looked unsettled.

But before I could (or had to) answer, Pippi charged into the fray. “Mr. Hayes, what do you have to say to our listeners—Pippi’s Pen Pals, patronage tiers beginning at only five dollars a month, join now at the Perils, Postcards, and Predicaments level for a bonus predicament box—”

“What the fudge?” Hayes said.

(You know what he said.)

“What do you have to say to our listeners, who have heard convincing evidence that you conspired with Ophelia Crowe to murder her husband, author Marshall Crowe?”

“I’d say that’s slander,” Hayes said, his handsome features settling into cold reserve. “And I’ll sue anyone who says it.”

Pippi seemed to lose some steam, but her gaze moved to Stephen and then back to Hayes. “What do you have to say about charges that you have tried to destroy the surviving copies of Marshall Crowe’s latest manuscript because it contains details of a plot to murder him?”

For a moment, I couldn’t make sense of the expression on Hayes’s face. And then he burst out laughing. “Are you out of your mind?”

Color rushed into Pippi’s face. Dylan glared at Hayes. Christian scowled. Carter nearly took off his head with the boom mic. And Stephen sucked his teeth behind the register.

“No,” Pippi said. “I’m not out of my mind. In fact, I know for a fact that you needed to get rid of Marshall, and you needed to get rid of him fast.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Over his shoulder, to Stephen, he said, “I’ll give you some time to think it over, but I expect a more reasonable answer from you before I leave town.”

As Hayes took a step toward the door, though, Pippi planted herself in his path and shouted, “Halt!”

(It’s one of those things, like pointing a finger and proclaiming J’accuse! , that’s absolutely amazing when it happens in real life.)

Hayes halted. Maybe it was the conviction behind Pippi’s command. Maybe it was just that the boom mic almost clipped him again.

“I know what you’ve been doing,” Pippi said. “And I know why you killed Marshall.”

“Do you know, I thought Marshall was being cruel when he picked on you? But now this little performance makes me think he wasn’t wrong. Do you really have your characters still record everything on a VCR?”

Pippi set her boxer’s jaw, and I had an instant where I wondered if she was going to bite off Hayes’s head. Possibly literally. But instead, she said, “You were stealing from Marshall. You’ve been stealing from all your writers, but Marshall is the most successful one, and you’ve been skimming from the royalties.”

Hayes’s jaw slackened. He stared at Pippi, speechless. And then, with what must have taken an effort of will, he managed to say, “That’s ridiculous—”

“It’s not ridiculous. Everyone knows. Your writers have been dropping you. Marshall dropped you. There are pending lawsuits.” Pippi smiled venomously at him. “All I had to do was call my agent, and she was more than happy to tell me all about it. You poisoned him, and then, at the beginning of the reading, you slipped out to destroy the evidence. You managed to get back to the reading before Marshall collapsed, but I noticed. I notice everything!”

“HE DID IT!” Millie popped up over the Dickens shelf and shook a fist at Hayes. (Another thing, like shouting, Halt , that you have to see to believe.) “YOU KILLED MARSHALL.”

After an understandably stunned look at Millie, Hayes appeared to pull himself back together. “This is ridiculous. I went outside to vape, and—and I don’t have to stand here and listen to this.”

He pushed past Pippi and her gaggle of a film crew.

“Mom!” Dylan was breathless with excitement. I hadn’t noticed until now that he carried a clapperboard (for post-production editing, a service of Pippi Parker Productions); it drooped in his hand now, forgotten, as he eyed Hayes. “Should I wrestle him?”

Before Pippi could answer, though, Hayes spun back at the door. For some reason, he stared at me. “You want to know who killed Marshall so badly?”

The moment opened into a question, and I managed to say, “Yes.”

“I can tell you right now: it was Elodie. And it wasn’t some convoluted…BS out of a pulpy mystery novel. It’s the same old story: famous writer meets girl; famous writer gives girl a job; famous writer sleeps with girl; famous writer gets bored. When he got tired of telling her he’d leave Ophelia for her, when he got tired of all her demands, he told her it was over. No job. No ring. And let me tell you, Elodie didn’t like that at all.”

“Say that last part again,” Dylan prompted. “But maybe more like ‘Elodie didn’t like that at all.’”

Hayes gave him a bewildered look, shoved open the door, and left, the bell jangling in his wake.