Part One
The Players
The Thriller Writers
THE BOAT SKIPS LIKE A STONE ACROSSthe choppy water.
Sienna leans her elbows on the rail, squinting into the distance.
She’s of the mind that no trip shouldeverrequire three forms of transportation, and yet, here they are, on the far side of a red-eye flight (plusa layover), a three-hour drive, and thirty minutes at sea, and thanks to the fog, the end isn’t even in sight.
The boat hits a swell, and somewhere behind her Malcolm groans and heaves his guts over the side. It is a wretched sound, as if with enough force he might successfully turn himself inside out.
Sienna lifts her chin, lets the damp air mist her tired face.
She hasn’t been on a speedboat since Spring Break her junior year. She vividly remembers standing at the bow, her arms aloft, reenacting her favorite part ofTitanicwith her college boyfriend, Brody, which was great until he went and ruined it by sticking his hand down her pants.
No chance of that happening today, thank goodness. Malcolm’s hands are otherwise occupied, clutching the railing as he loses what’s left of his breakfast.
To be fair to Malcolm—not that Sienna has any great desire to be fair to Malcolm right now—the North Sea isa lotrougher than the Gulf of Mexico.
She’s been in Scotland for approximately four hours, and so far her first impressions amount to gray, windy, and the kind of cold that paws at her clothes with about as much tact as Brody, all those years ago.
Malcolm, however, stepped off the plane, breathed in, and proceeded to let out a strange kind of roar, before bounding down the stairs and kissing the asphalt. Just like the pope.
“The boat skips like a stone across the choppy water.”
Sienna repeats the words to herself, pleased with the turn of phrase. Description has always been her forte. That, and plot. And pacing. Which begs the question, of course, of whatMalcolmcontributes. A quippy line of dialogue here and there, perhaps. The occasional twist. But she knows.
Of course she knows.
If she’s the mind behind Penn Stonely, he’s the face.
Not that Sienna has ever been considered unattractive—but Malcolm’s photo was always the one at the back of their books, satisfying the public’s expectation of a crime writer. Equal parts gravitas, mystery, and charm.
He’s always had a power over people—including her. She used to shiver when he so much as looked at her with those dark eyes tucked beneath his brow. His voice, like rucked velvet, accent smooth until it snagged on the corner of a word and the Scottish brogue peeked out. A brogue that had grown thicker over the course of the three-hour car ride north, as Malcolm crooned about being back where his bones belonged. In theold country.
As if he missed it every day.
As if he hadn’t sworn off his entire homeland fifteen years ago, after the Edinburgh Incident.
Ever since they’d met, Sienna had been trying to convince Malcolm to swallow his pride and take her to Scotland, to no avail, and yet a single email from Arthur Fletch, and here they are. The past apparently forgotten at the first sight of heather and gorse, Malcolm waxing poetic over the hills and the glens and every sighting of aHighland coo.
Thecows, with their majestic horns and shaggy reddish-brown fur, were in fact disarmingly cute, but Sienna resisted the urge to snap a photo. He didn’t need any more encouragement.
“Skelbrae, ahead!” the captain barks, his voice at once low and wind-whipped, less a caw than a hiss, like cold water over hot coals.
Another good line.
Sienna tugs out her phone, swipes open the notes app to write it down (her notebook is somewhere in her bag, but that’s fine, she keeps a running file, capturing little snippets, turns of phrase to use in future scenes—though she always lets Malcolm think the lines come off the cuff), just as the weak sun chooses that exact moment to break through the clouds, illuminating the island up ahead.
A jagged chunk of moss-lined rock surging out of the white-capped water. At first glance it looks like a sinking ship, one side jutting up into a cliff, the other sloping down into the sea.
A dark stone house—no,houseisn’t the right word, more a fortress, a manse, a miniaturecastle—perches precariously at the top, so near the cliff’s edge, it looks like a strong wind would topple the whole thing into the churning water.
“Is that not the most beautiful sight you’ve ever seen?”
The stench of vomit wafts toward her with her husband. Sienna grimaces.
