Page 27 of Script Swap (The Last Picks #11)

It didn’t happen quite as quickly as that.

The sheriff separated Nora and Betty. Then she radioed for Salk and waited for him to show up to secure the theater.

Pippi, meanwhile, was trying to get into the dressing room—probably to take a few photos for Pippi’s Pen Pals—and wouldn’t leave until the sheriff threatened to arrest her.

Fox excused themselves; they had to deal with the fact that there wouldn’t be any performances tonight.

And Bobby had already left to take Jonni to the station.

Which left me alone on stage.

Nora had done it. Nora had killed Kyson. Nora had attacked Terrence.

And somehow, I’d missed it. I hadn’t seen anything that pointed her way, not until the end. Not until it was too late. And now it was too late, because I didn’t have any evidence. All I had was the gut-level certainty, as I’d watched Nora explain, that Jonni was right: Nora had done all of this.

And there wasn’t any way to prove it.

The world’s greatest detective, ladies and gentlemen.

Somehow, I ended up lying on the stage, eyes closed against the brightness of the work lights, which left red circles against the backs of my eyelids.

The floor smelled dusty. And I smelled like flop sweat.

When I shifted, the sound echoed hollowly up into the high ceiling of the house.

It made me think of Milton skulking up there, and of the wrench that had come plummeting down and almost killed me.

Part of Nora’s plot?

I had no idea.

I went home.

Thinking about how badly I’d botched the investigation was too much for me right then, so my plan was to revise.

I was going to finish that story. Tidy up the last bits, and either send it off again or trunk it so that I could start something new.

That had always been one of my strengths as a writer: I was full of shiny new ideas begging to be written.

(As a matter of fact, that had always been a weakness, too—I got so excited about my new ideas that I acted like one of those kittens chasing pieces of popcorn.)

So, I got myself settled in the den. Favorite blanket, check. Favorite mug of coffee, check. Favorite hassock, check. Laptop, check. Lamp, check.

Check, check, check.

And then I stared at the screen. The list of edits that still needed to be made swam in my eyes. Will Gower was cold. Will Gower was unlikable. The story didn’t have any heart. Why can’t he be like—fill in the blank. My chest tightened. It got harder and harder to take a full breath.

Something wild, something close to panic, started digging in its claws.

Fine. Forget revisions. I’d write something new. I’d write that idea I had earlier. About—about—

What had it been about?

It didn’t matter. I had a million ideas. I could write something completely fresh and new. I didn’t even need an idea. I’d start with a title, and I’d build the story out from there, following my natural instinct for storytelling.

I needed a title.

A minute turned into two.

Two turned into five.

This was stupid. This was so stupid. I was tired, and I was emotionally drained, and I—

And I wasn’t a good writer.

It came at me like a Mack truck out of the dark, headlights blazing, and it slammed into me.

That was the bottom line. I wasn’t a good writer. I wasn’t any good at writing. I’d tried hard. I’d done my best. And my best was a handful of mediocre short stories, a single pathetic attempt at a novel, and a lot of rejections.

I wasn’t a good writer.

No, scratch that.

I was a bad writer.

And I wasn’t going to get any better.

I put my laptop aside. I stretched out in the chair. It hurt to breathe, but it wasn’t a sharp pain. It was more like raw skin. Like I’d been scoured, inside and out, every nerve left aching. But my chest wasn’t tight anymore, and for the first time in a long, long time, I felt…relaxed.

I was a bad writer. I could be bad.

I must have fallen asleep because the sound of the door opening made me jolt upright.

The room was dark now, and for a moment, I didn’t remember where I was, or why every inch of me felt stretched out, ill-used, distressed—a general, dispersed soreness, the way I remembered feeling when I’d been a child, the few times I’d cried myself to sleep.

Light unfolded across the old rug, and a silhouette darkened the doorway.

“You were asleep,” Bobby said.

“No. I mean, yeah, but I’m awake.” And then clarity worked its way through me. “Hey, you’re here. Is everything okay?”

Bobby slipped into the room. He moved easily through the darkness, barely more than a shape until he perched on the hassock.

My legs were still stretched out, and now his hand found my foot and squeezed gently.

“I was going to ask you that.” He waited, and when I didn’t say anything, he added, “That was a lot today. At the theater.”

“It was a debacle,” I said. “I think that’s the technical term.”

Bobby rubbed my foot. When he spoke again, his voice was cautious. “They searched the crawlspace above the dressing room.”

“And they found a body.”

He traced a nod in the gloom. “Male. ID is still pending.” The break in his words was small but noticeable. “He was up there a long time.”

“God.”

“What about Milton?”

“Charges dropped. He’s back home, as far as I know.”

The wind was low tonight, its pitch rising and falling and relentless.

“There are a lot of problems with Nora’s claims,” Bobby said tentatively.

“That’s putting it mildly. You know Nora did it, right?”

“Her knowledge does seem incriminating.”

“But let me guess: the sheriff can’t do anything. No, Bobby, that’s not an accusation. I don’t blame the sheriff. I mean, forty years? How are they going to prove anything? Let me guess: they’re looking for prints, but they haven’t found anything usable yet.”

Bobby’s silence was its own answer.

“They’re not going to find anything,” I said. “She would have been careful. I mean, she got away with it. And now she’s going to get away with it again. With killing Kyson, too. With almost killing Terrence.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure. Kyson’s trophy was hidden with the body—you were right about the murder weapon.”

“It’s about the only thing I got right.”

Bobby hesitated, then said, “The trophy’s glass, and if anything took a print, it’ll be that.”

“But they haven’t found a print, have they? Not on the trophy. Not on anything.”

“The state lab has more resources.”

I blew out a breath. “They won’t find anything. She’s going to get away with it.”

Bobby’s hand stopped rubbing my foot. And then he got hold of my big toe and gave it a shake.

In spite of myself, I laughed.

“Don’t give up,” Bobby said with that quiet calm.

“I’m not giving up,” I said. “I’m—I’m giving in .”

Bobby’s silence was, to say the least, resounding.

“That’s a writerly distinction. It’s elegant. And meaningful.”

“What does it mean?”

“Well, I don’t know. See, that’s the other thing I learned tonight: I’m a bad writer.”

“Dash.”

“No, it’s okay. It’s taken me a long time to accept that. But I am , and it’s better to face it now than keep pretending.”

The wind’s crooning wrapped itself around the old house.

“Dash, you’re a wonderful writer.”

“Thanks, but I’m not.”

“You’re so talented. And you care so much about it. I know it’s frustrating, having setbacks like this. But it doesn’t mean you’re not good at what you do. You have to keep trying.”

“Yeah, well, I think I’ve done enough trying.

Look, it’s fine. There are lots of people who aren’t good at what they love.

If everybody got to live out their dreams, the world would be full of basketball players and influencers and professional cake tasters.

I’ll always love books, but now I can, you know, grow up.

Be a responsible, functioning adult. We can plan a future. ”

In the dark, that next wordless stretch felt long. Bobby sounded confused—almost hurt—when he said, “We already have a future.”

“I know.”

He didn’t say anything.

“That’s not what I meant,” I said.

When Bobby spoke again, his tone was so encouraging that I wanted to crawl under my blanket. It was the forced enthusiasm of someone who didn’t quite know what he was talking about, but who wanted to be excited about it for your sake. “You know, I did some research.”

“Yeah?”

“Publishing has changed a lot. Especially in the last few years. It’s different from how it was when your parents were getting started, I mean.”

After careful consideration of my options, I finally said, “How so?”

“Well, there are fewer publishers. And not as many people read books now. There aren’t as many bookstores.”

“Bobby, I appreciate the effort, but it doesn’t matter. The fact is that new authors get published all the time; I’m not one of them.”

“Right, but that’s what I was going to say. Did you know that there are a lot of books—and I mean a lot —that are successful. They sell hundreds of thousands of copies, and the authors make millions, but you’d never see their books in a bookstore, and you’d never read a book review about them.”

A hole opened up inside me, and my stomach plummeted through it.

“You can do it all yourself,” Bobby said, and he smiled as he rubbed my foot again.

“You don’t have to submit it to a publisher.

You don’t have to find an agent. You hire an editor, or if that’s too expensive, you can do what’s called crowdsourcing.

And I’m pretty good at finding typos, and Indira is good.

And you can get someone to make a cover for you—I know Fox might not be your first choice, but I bet they’d like the opportunity to try, and they could always recommend a graphic designer they know. Or we can ask Jess’s grandma.”

Jess was Jess Dahlberg—as in, Deputy Dahlberg. But that wasn’t the problem. I don’t know who was talking because it wasn’t me, but it sounded like my voice when someone said, “Jess’s grandma?”

“She writes tons of books. Jess told me she has almost a hundred.”

“A hundred books.”