Page 5

Hartman led the way through the glass doors.

The lobby was much more crowded now, much noisier.

Check-in was a mile long, but everyone was in good spirits as attendees greeted old friends and favorite authors.

The lobby bar was packed, standing room only, which was how it would be for most of the conference.

“Should we try for a table?” Finn asked our group at large.

“Let’s go to the restaurant. Schooners,” Hartman said.

Kyle said to me, “I promised Adam I’d phone.”

I nodded, said to Finn and Hartman, “I’ve got a mountain of work to get through tonight.”

“Aww, gee,” Hartman said.

I met his gaze. Behind the glasses, his eyes were like ice chips.

Definitely not my imagination. He was not a fan.

Finn said to me, “See you tomorrow.”

“I’ll be here all week,” I said as brightly as the piano guy in a cocktail lounge, signing off for the evening.

Kyle and I crowded into the waiting elevator packed to capacity with luggage and conference attendees.

“Thanks for dinner,” he murmured. “I really enjoyed it.”

“You’re very welcome. I enjoyed it, too.”

A young woman with red hair and a T-shirt that read I READ BANNED BOOKS, leaned over, and said, “Are you Kyle Bari?”

Kyle confessed he was the author in question, the young woman proceeded to tell him how much she loved his books, and I was able to relax and tune out.

Kyle and almost everyone else got off on the third floor. The red-haired woman fell silent, staring straight ahead. She stepped out onto the fourth floor with the remaining passengers.

The doors swished closed, I let out a long sigh. A few seconds later the elevator reached the luxuriously hushed fifth floor.

There was no sign of anyone in the foyer. No sign of anyone in the hallway.

I unlocked the door to my suite and stepped inside. I’d left the lights on when I’d gone down to dinner, and it was a little like walking out onto a stage. The wall of dark windows reflected my entrance.

Only someone out on a boat or across the bay with a telescope—or maybe the fish in the sea—would have been able to see me, but I still felt a little like something in an exhibit. Uneasy. Exposed.

Which was funny because I’d never been nervous on my own. When you weren’t alone… That was the time to be on guard. Another lesson from long ago.

I drew the long cream-colored drapes, turned out a few lamps.

It was true about having a mountain of work to get through.

My email was jammed with queries, proposals, and actual submissions—and that was the stuff that had already been vetted by Cherry, my PA.

I had cover designs to approve, marketing copy to approve, PR strategies to approve, oh, and manuscripts to edit.

But tonight was not the time to tackle anything that required me to be objective and open-minded.

I weighed my options: sleeping pills or another drink?

It was just after nine o’clock. Midnight ECT. So maybe another drink and then bed. I was tired; physically and emotionally drained, so another drink ought to do it.

What I did not want to do, could not afford to do, was lie awake all night, thinking.

I wandered into the bedroom, kicked off my shoes and undressed, trading jeans for blue silk pajama bottoms. I hadn’t drawn the bedroom drapes yet, and for a moment I stood motionless, gazing past my reflection into the darkness.

Despite the partying that would be happening four floors down, the suite was silent but for the distant, rhythmic hush of waves rushing against the pilings below.

The lights were low— just a soft glow from a sconce by the balcony door and the faint blue haze of the city drifting in from across the bay.

I opened the glass door to the balcony, and the crash of the waves was magnified; the salt-heavy air whispered against my face. I closed my eyes, breathed in deeply.

I loved the ocean. Missed living by the sea.

Leaving the door open, I padded barefoot across the plush carpet into the living room, crossed to the minibar, the cabinet humming softly beneath the polished wood counter of the long sideboard.

The little brass handle clicked as I opened it, revealing a neat row of tiny glass bottles of Rock and Rye, gleaming under the LED strip light like potions in an alchemist’s shop.

Not that I’d ever been in an alchemist’s shop, outside of a book.

Judging by spec fiction novels, alchemy was a booming part of our economy.

I took out a bottle, dropped a couple of ice cubes from the metal ice bucket into a short tumbler. You had to love turn-down service in a high-end hotel. The ice crackled as I poured my ready-made old fashioned.

I took a long swallow, savored the burn.

It’ll be okay. You’ve survived a lot worse than this.

You should be glad it ended when it did. Before you let yourself get anymore invested in a fantasy.

Yep. Very glad about that. Could not have been gladder. In fact, I was the fucking Man from Glad.

I blinked back another burn, this time in the back of my eyes.

My gaze landed on the small table in the alcove, caught the glint of lamplight on plastic.

Lying next to a half empty bottle of sparkling water and an untouched plate of chocolate-covered almonds was the manuscript I’d been handed at the Stranger Than Fiction panel.

I Know What You Did.

I snorted.

Here was the solution to that Finn-sized hole in my evening. I was willing to bet money this would send me speeding off to Dreamland on a bullet train.

I picked up the manuscript, strolled over to the long cream-colored sofa in front of the fireplace, and settled on its comfortable length. I propped a throw cushion behind my head, opened the binder, adjusted my glasses, and began to read.

Chapter One

It was a full moon that night.

Two boys stood over the body.

“What do we do now?” the younger boy asked. He was seventeen. He was tall and skinny with curly black hair and gray eyes in a bony face like a skull.

I raised my brows and took another swallow of my drink. Was this AI? It had an artificial intelligence feel to it. Granted, a lot of first-time human authors had that basic generic writing style.

“I don’t know. Why did you have to kill him?

” The other boy was crying. He was eighteen.

He was blond and muscular and handsome. Not as handsome as the dead boy.

The dead boy looked like a young Greek god had fallen from the sky and died on the rocks.

One of the rocks Keiran had used to bash his head in.