Fighting the urge to scream, I shoved the letter away.
Sure, Vivienne couldn’t have known she was going to be murdered her first night at the convention.Obviously she had assumed she had enough time to finish the letter before the real threat showed itself.And she had been spectacularly wrong, which at that exact moment was zero consolation.
And the—thegallof that woman.She wanted to warn me against selling out?When Vivienne’s entire life had been a carefully executed climb up the ladder?Everything she’d done—everything, from the beginning of her career when she framed Matrika Nightingale for murder, all the way to the end when she tried to framemefor murder—had been about helping herself, making sure she got everything she wanted.And then to turn around and tell me I needed to follow my heart and let art be my guiding star and all the rest of that hogwash.
Who the heck did she think she was?
After a few more deep breaths, though, the anger faded into a mixture of weariness and bleak amusement.It was definitely my luck that Vivienne had left a letter outlining her master plan to confront a killer—and then failed to fill in anything actually, you know, helpful.I slid the letter back into its folder.I’d call the sheriff tomorrow and let her know that no, the letter didn’t contain a secret code revealing the identity of Vivienne’s killer.Unless, of course, it was somehow supposed to prove thatIwas the killer—like, maybe I’d murdered Vivienne mid-sentence, before she could finish the letter.
(Which honestly sounded like something Agatha Christie would do, and even though I was in a real grump, I loved it.)
I knew I needed to go upstairs and go to bed.I knew I needed to call it a night, get some real sleep—not that awful, drugged hospital sleep from the night before—and start fresh tomorrow.With a huge apology for Bobby as item number one on the list.
But I was so.dang.tired.
It was the kind of tired that turns on all the blacklights in your head, and you start seeing all the stains and spots—all the things you’ve done wrong, all the ways you’ve messed up, all the times you’ve fallen short.
It wasn’t only Bobby.It had been Keme, too, when I’d gotten sidetracked by that stupid phone call instead of going to his competition.And I’d done it with Thatcher and Charlie when Julian had first approached me.
A less exhausted, gentler me might have argued that it was a few moments of bad judgment, and there’d been a lot going on, and blah blah blah.But sitting there, drained and empty and with those blacklights shining in my head, I thought maybe Vivienne was right.
I mean, my God, I was acting like a jackhole to the people I loved because somebody said theymightmake a TV show about me.
The fact that I was starting to agree with Vivienne was a sign that I needed to call it a night.I dragged my keister upstairs and into the bathroom.Toothbrush.Toothpaste.Scrub, scrub, scrub.
Here’s the thing about being an amateur sleuth: it’s not exactly a nine-to-five kind of job.And sometimes, when you think you’ve finally gotten your brain to turn off, a neuron fires, and then it’s all hands on deck again.
Bobbywaspatient.
Bobbywasunderstanding.
Bobby was kind and sweet and gentle.And his reaction tonight—while totally legitimate—that hadn’t been Bobby.
And that was because Bobby didn’t act like Bobby when he was scared.Bobby didn’t act like Bobby when he was out of control.When he was desperate to get a handle on things, frantic not to feel helpless, determined not to be powerless.
Whatever had happened, it hadn’t been about me being late for dinner.And as the snoop at the back of my brain raised his head, I started to suspect it hadn’t even been about Bobby being afraid I’d been hurt—at least, not entirely.
And I remembered, after he’d gone into his room, the sound of a drawer slamming shut.
I spat.I rinsed out my mouth.I looked in the mirror and told myself, No.Absolutely not.I was tempted to wag a disapproving finger.
Five seconds later, I was in Bobby’s bedroom, opening drawers.
Guys—especially guys like Bobby, who are basically straight boys but with better underwear—don’t have a lot of imagination sometimes.
It was in his sock drawer.
And it was a small velvet box.
For a moment, I went back two years.I’d been living in Providence, in the apartment I’d shared with Hugo.I’d been putting away laundry.And I’d found a box like this.
I suddenly felt lightheaded.I wanted to put one hand on the dresser to steady myself, but I needed both of them to open the box.
And inside, a gold ring caught the light like fire.
Chapter 23
The sound of Bobby’s truck jolted me awake, and for a moment, I didn’t know where I was or why my back hurt or how the clock could possibly read three in the morning.And then it all came back to me.I was in the billiard room.In the dark.I fumbled around for my phone.Then I realized I’d lost my glasses, and I had to scrounge them up from the floor.By that point, the whole process had taken entirely too long.I hammered out a text to Bobby that said,I’m sitting in the dark like a creep.Please don’t shoot me.And I hit send as the front door opened.
