Which could be juicy. But Priscilla doesn’t strike her as the type to kiss and tell. Rufus turns through each page to make sure they’re all there, and signed.
Cate shifts nervously and whispers, to no one in particular, “Where’s Fletch?”
Which is a good point. Millie should have been thinking the same thing. His editor and agent are here, so where’s the man himself? Rufus returns to Eleanor’s side and nods. She takes a deep breath, sighs, and says, “I’m afraid I’m the bearer of terribly unfortunate news.”
“Terribly unfortunate,” echoes Rufus.
Back in the drawing room, the grandfather clock finally strikes half past twelve, the sound little more than a whispering chime... but it gives Millie a bad feeling. Her therapist says she has a habit of catastrophizing, but the thing is, sometimes she’s right.
Like the day the cops came to the door.
She knew, between the moment they knocked and the moment she answered, that her world was about to slide off its axis. She has the same bad feeling now, the second stretching long before Eleanor says the words, and it snaps.
“Arthur Fletch is dead.”
The words land as heavy as the mallet on the gong, rolling over all of them, leaving a stunned silence in their wake. Malcolm squeezes Sienna’s shoulder, his face a rictus of shock.
Cate’s hands go to her mouth
Millie sucks in a breath.
And Jaxonlaughs.
The group turns on him, horrified.
“No, I get it,” he says. “This is one of those murder mystery deals.”
A strangled chuckle escapes Millie’s throat, a wheeze of relief. Of course, that’s what this is. Some kind of game, a bonding activity, where they’ll get clues, and work together to find the killer. Maybe it’s her. Or maybe she’ll be the one to solve the crime, and—
And this is the part where she notices no one else is laughing.
Sienna and Malcolm both look stricken.
Cate looks like she wants to crawl inside her emerald cardigan and disappear.
Kenzo’s frowning thoughtfully.
Priscilla has her arms folded and her head bowed.
And when Millie looks back up at Eleanor, her mouth is set, her expression severe.
“I’m afraid,” she says, “this isnot‘one of those murder mystery deals,’ Mr. Knight. Arthur Fletchis, in fact, dead. He drowned a month ago, taking his daily swim in the East Bay.”
Jaxon’s face falls, replaced by a grimace exactly like the emoji that Millie’s mother used to think meantNice teeth!
Which would be funny, any other time, but now Millie feels her eyes brim with tears. She doesn’t want to cry—she neverwantsto cry—but tell that to her body. Her emotions have always been big, and loud, and overwhelming. One of her boyfriends literally broke up with her because he said shefelttoo much. “You’re like a ten,” he’d told her, which she’d taken for a compliment until he explained that he wasn’t talking about hotness.
Sienna reaches out and gives Millie’s back a tentative rub as her husband says, “I have a question.” Eleanor gestures for him to go ahead. “You say Fletch died a month ago, but we received our invitation three weeks ago.” Malcolm looks around at the others for confirmation. “That’s when you all got the email too, I take it?” Nods all around.
“Yeah,” Jaxon chimes in. “Besides, Arthur Fletch is a freaking legend. If he were really dead, the press would be all over the story by now.”
Eleanor nods, clearly expecting the question. “An unfortunate but necessary subterfuge, I’m afraid. Arthur’s passing will of course be announced to the press in due course. But before it comes to light, well, there are some... loose ends that must be tied up first.” She hesitates for a moment before gesturing to Rufus. “Mr. Beaumont, would you... ?”
“Ah, yes. Thank you, Eleanor.”
Rufus steps forward, steadies himself, and then begins.
“Even though I only became his editor a few months ago, I’ve been following Arthur Fletch’s career for more than a decade. He was a titan. For the last thirty years, his name has been synonymous with the best the genre has to offer, and the Petrarch series represents a culmination of his efforts and, if you believe Arthur’s own statements, his last work of fiction.”
