“I need to get back to the house and look at that copy ofDropped Stitches,” I said.
“It’s gone,” Thatcher said.
“It’s—what?”
“It’s gone.I stopped by this morning to ask if I could borrow it—I figured you had a copy—and that old lady who lives there checked and said she couldn’t find it.”
I spared a moment to pray to the patron saint of idiot writers that Indira would never learn how Thatcher had referred to her.
“Did somebody attack you last night?”Charlie asked.“Because Thatcher said someone attacked you, and you’re here in the hospital, but AJ said you might be making it up—”
“Obviously someone attacked him,” AJ said a little too quickly.Her piercings glittered in the morning light as she studied me.“Why else would he look like that?See his hair?”
“Okay, well, in the first place, my hair—” I began.
“What was it like?”Thatcher asked.He leaned forward as he asked the question.“When you thought you were going to die, and you knew, like, this was it, and there was that final moment that you could either give up or keep fighting—”
Thatcher stopped talking so suddenly that it was technically (and audibly) a gulp.
And then Bobby’s expression registered.Thundercloud didn’t come close.Inferno of rage came closer.Quiet, killing fury came closest.
“Out,” Bobby said.
Thatcher power-walked out of the room so quickly that he might have given himself a wedgie.AJ rolled her eyes, but she left too.Charlie buried their nose inDwarven Deceptiona little too intently.
“I’ve got to check in,” Bobby said.“The sheriff is going to need me today.”
It sounded like a statement, but it was a question.
“I’ll be fine,” I said.“I won’t do anything dumb.I’m going to be totally, perfectly, completely smart and safe and careful.”
For some reason, Bobby looked extra tired right then.But he said, “Clothes are in the bag by the bed.Dinner tonight?”
Bobby’s dinner.To celebrate.And have fun.With alotof unreadable energy behind it.“Right,” I said.“Yes.Dinner tonight.”I tried to smile.“To have fun.”
He kissed me and went to call the sheriff.
I took out my phone.As much as it pained me, I agreed with Thatcher: Whitney Smith was still a viable suspect, and currently, she was the one I knew least about.And I had an idea about how I could get her to meet me.I was going to borrow a page out of Julian’s playbook and give her what every writer wanted: an offer.
Chapter 17
Whitney couldn’t meet until late that afternoon.
As a result, I spent alotof time fretting.I worried.I generated some significant dread.I tried doing useful things like resting and researching and even, God help me, writing.But there was alotof staring off into space.
Maybe the only productive thing I managed was to review Phil’s feedback on Julian’s offer.The short version of it was:grab it with both hands.
Eventually, though, I made my way to Testing Grounds.The coffee shop was on the far side of Arcadia’s campus—about as far as you could get from the conference center, as a matter of fact.It had exposed brick walls, sagging leather sofas, and driftwood accents.It smelled like coffee—likegoodcoffee—and the click of balls on the pool table broke up the background jazz.
I got there early, and I was watching the door when Whitney came in.She didn’t look anything like that ultra-filtered author photo.Or, for that matter, much like the younger woman I’d seen in the photo of her and Simona.White, thirtyish, she had her dark hair half up, and her upturned nose made her look younger than she was.She wore a fuzzy sweater and jeans and cute little boots.And I’d seen her before.
It was the same sense I’d had when I’d seen her photo: that I recognized her.But now, seeing her in person, I knew it hadn’t been a passing glance, the coincidence of being at the same conference.This was the same woman who had stopped and stared at me and Vivienne during our brief—and only—conversation.
My stomach started to squirm, but when she glanced my way, I raised a hand.
“Mr.Donaldson?”she asked.A slight vertical line appeared between her eyebrows as her gaze morphed into a stare.
Without meaning to, I raised one hand to cover the bruising on my neck, but I kept my voice even as I said, “Whitney?”When she nodded, I added, “Please, have a seat.”
