Page 29 of Kill Your Darlings

I felt Finn stare at me.Rudolph seemed amused at my reaction.“I’m retiring at the end of the year.I only promised to stay on that long if I didn’t have to attend any more damned conferences.”

“You’reretiring?”

He chuckled.“Don’t sound so shocked.”

“No.It’s just… It’s like hearing Patience and Fortitude handed in their notice.”

Patience and Fortitude were the famed marble lions who stand guard before the entrance of the New York Public Library.Rudolph laughed heartily.

“I’ll tell you frankly, I’m looking forward to it.I’ll miss the people, of course, but a lot of the people I started with are gone now.”

“I’m so sorry about Anna,” I said sincerely.“I can only imagine what a shock that must have been.”

Anna Hitchcock, theAmerican Agatha Christieper Theodore Mansfield’s marketing department, had died suddenly the previous winter at the annual writing retreat she hosted at her New England estate.She’d not only been TM’s bestselling author, rumor had it she and Rudolph had had a long-standing romantic relationship.If so, they’d been more discreet than me and Finn.

Rudolph said vaguely, “Yes, it’s a very different world without Anna.She was…one of a kind.”

“Yes.”

I’d always wondered at the legendary creative partnership between Anna Hitchcock and Rudolph Dunst.Rudolph was kind and courteous, a throwback to another generation.Anna was extremely talented, very clever, but rather chilly.Even her books…so entertaining, but a little cruel.

The elevator jolted to a stop on the third floor.The doors slid open and revealed a small crowd.Finn nodded politely to the space between Rudolph and me, and stepped off the elevator.The crowd parted for him, the Red Sea making way for Moses.Followed by the usual startled, “Oh, are you goingup?”before the doors slid shut.

“He’s a taciturn fellow, isn’t he?”Rudolph remarked, as we continued our ascent.“But then he writes those bleak police procedurals.All that violence and betrayal and corruption.”He added with a twinkle, “They’re very well edited.I’ll give them that.”

I chuckled.

We talked about nothing in particular until the elevator reached the fifth floor.

“Would you like to stop by for a drink?”Rudolph asked, as we stepped into the hallway.“I always enjoy our chats.”

“I’d love to.I’m taking two authors to lunch.Another time?”

“Absolutely.Tonight’s the W&W banquet?”

“Yes.”

“That should be interesting.Well, enjoy yourself, my boy.No doubt I’ll see you at Saturday night’s grand event.”

“I look forward to it.”

We turned and went our separate ways.

Chapter Eight

“But the good news is, they—we—absolutely want to see what you come up with next,” I said to Connie and Gwen.

I was treating the Dove sisters to lunch at Fandango in Pacific Grove, about a ten-minute drive from the hotel.The Uber had let us out in front of a low, golden-stone building draped in ivy, its windows shaded by striped awnings and baskets of trailing geraniums.Inside, the restaurant smelled faintly of butter and wood smoke—a comforting blend of old money and European charm, which I’d guessed the sisters would appreciate.

Judging by the coos of approval from the ladies as the hostess led us to a table by the fireplace, I’d guessed correctly.

Soft classical music played beneath the genteel chime of crystal and the low murmur of conversation, The room was painted in warm ochres and cream, and linen tablecloths draped over polished wood like pressed napkins over a lap.Like the sisters, it was the kind of place that hadn’t changed its decor in decades.It had no reason to.

Unlike the sisters.

“But we still had so many more adventures in store for Greta,” Connie protested tearfully.

Gwen pleaded, “Things were just heating up with Mike the Magician!”