“Sounds like you’d kill him yourself if you had the chance.”
“Only if I couldn’t get caught.” Roz shot him a saucy glance.
He laughed. “That’s probably what his killer thought.”
“Probably,” Roz said. “I’m hung up on what Blake said—about Wayne wanting info for one of the scriptwriters, who was writing about how to sabotage a plane. Maybe one of the writers Mae knows is working on something like that.”
“We can try to find out. But we’re going to have to talk to Enolia again. You know that.”
“I know,” Roz said. “I’m dreading it. She’s kind of forbidding.”
“But she likes publicity. And she doesn’t want to come out looking like a shrew. She’ll talk to us again.” He hoped. “We’ll just have to be delicate.”
“I don’t know if we’re that good.”
“Not that good!” Alden put a hand over his heart. “You wound me to the quick.”
Roz grinned, and he leaned across and kissed her cheek.
A few minutes later, she again parked on Main Street, pulling into one of the diagonal spaces across the street from Big Bang Books.
“Rock star parking,” she said with satisfaction.
“Rock star is right in front,” Alden said, unbuckling his seat belt. “I think this is roadie parking.”
“Close enough. Let’s hope our luck holds when we get inside.”
The bookstore’s Hunger Games door alert whistled as they entered. There were a few browsers, along with the young bookseller wearing eyeglasses with red frames at the front counter. Alden gave her a nod when she looked up, and she quirked her red lips at him and picked up an old-fashioned phone and said a few words. He could guess: Look out. The press is here.
Mae emerged a moment later from the back hallway, wearing jeans and a purple Big Bang Books T-shirt spangled in stars and galaxies that showed off her tattoos. “You’re back,” she said with a smile, but it seemed forced.
“Next time, I swear I’ll just be here to buy books,” Alden said.
Mae turned to Roz. “How’s it going?”
“Fine, fine. You know.”
“You survived a plane crash yesterday.” Mae’s eyes were keen with morbid curiosity. “That has to feel good.”
“The survival part felt good,” Roz said. “Before that, not so much.”
That made Mae chuckle. “Since you’re not here to buy books, I assume you’re here for a story. The question is, which one?”
“Probably all of them,” Alden said.
“Let’s go to the back reading nook.” Mae gestured for them to follow. “I don’t think anyone’s there.”
She led them to a corner of the store where two dark blue love seats sat perpendicular to each other, facing a wide, square, low table with a display of books at its center—mostly Florida mysteries, Alden noted. He might have to buy one of those next time. He and Roz took one love seat, Mae the other.
“You have a book club that meets here, right?” Roz asked her, digging her notebook out of her bag.
“We have a few, actually.” Mae didn’t volunteer more.
“I didn’t realize that.” Roz made a note. “I understand one of them has a subset of writers who get together. Screenwriters?”
“Oh, yeah. They call themselves the Secret Screenwriter Society.”
“And now you’ve outed them. You’re in trouble,” Alden joked, earning a real smile from Mae. “What’s the big secret?”
