As she goes through the book, Sienna shifts the pages from one stack to the other, the first shrinking as the second grows, the room silent except for the whisper of paper and the steady sound of Malcolm’s breathing.
Until the pages run out.
One moment Julia Petrarch is in the tunnel, closing in on the killer she’s been hunting the last four books, surging toward the long-awaited confrontation, when—
It. Just. Stops.
Sienna knew it was coming, but the sudden jarring halt still takes her by surprise.
She rereads the last line, which isn’t the end of a chapter, or even a scene, but a sentence.
As her eyes adjusted to the dark, the thought that rang through Petrarch’s head was this: I should have known.
The line sits halfway down the page, the space below it rendered maddeningly—and permanently—blank.
Sienna runs her fingertip along the phrase.
I should have known.
And then she looks up, startled by how dark the room has gotten.
She has to hand it to Arthur Fletch. He knows how to spin a gripping tale. But, staring at the stack of paper now, she wonders if he really knew how to end it. There are no clues, or rather, there are too many, a dozen possible red herrings glinting in the narrative net.
Sienna stands, stiff from so long hunched over the manuscript.
Theories swirl in her head, but there’s no way to guess which would have paid off, because she was reading it as, well, a reader. And Fletch was notorious for keeping readers guessing.
She’ll have to crack it from the other side.
Sienna chews her thumb as she thinks.
It’s a daunting task, sure, but for the first time in years, she feels that familiar flutter in her chest, the excitement that comes not from reading a really good book, butwritingone. The fear, and the promise, the what-if, what-if, what-if.
And Sienna knows, sheknowsthat she can do this.
Even without Malcolm’s help.
Even if he gets half the credit.
Even if that means binding herself to him for another three books (but she’s not going to think about that right now).
First, she needs to crack this book.
Well, actually,first—
She needs a drink.
* * *
APPARENTLY, SHE’S NOT THE ONLY ONE.
As she heads down the hall past Jaxon’s and Millie’s rooms, she hears voices drifting up the stairs, the heavy wooden swing of other doors, the sound of footsteps in the corridors below. Jaxon’s door is closed, but Millie’s is ajar, the room beyond awash in shades of blue, matching paper fed into the typewriter on the old-fashioned desk.
An open notebook sits on the chair, pages filled with looping script that she can tell, even from the door, is perfectly legible. It would be easy to slip inside and take a peek. Just to see what bright, bubbly Millie has in store for Julia Petrarch, what she would make of that climactic scene.
Sienna’s foot is halfway through the door when she catches herself.
For all she knows, it’s a diary, or a snippet of dialogue, undoubtedly overwrought, full of breaths people didn’t know they were holding. And even if it isn’t, even if every page is somehow full of detailed thoughts on Petrarch’s finale, she doubtsMillieMitchellhas an idea worth stealing.
