“My guess?” Kenzo leans forward, crossing his arms on the table. “Writer’s block.” He looks around. “Think about it. The pressure on Fletch to deliver the ending to beat all endings? Let’s say he starts writing the book—and gets stuck.”
Jaxon’s nodding now. “The pressure’s too much,” he adds. “He’s starting to panic, and his agent’s breathing down his neck, calling every day to check on his progress. So what does he do? He concocts a plan for someoneelseto come up with an ending—severalsomeones, in fact, so he can choose his favorite. Art is theft, remember?”
“Good writers borrow, great writers steal,” echoes Cate. “Isn’t that how the quote goes?”
“Bollocks,” says Malcolm this time.
“What about the money?” asks Millie. “The book deal?”
“A buy-off,” says Kenzo. “Why else would they make us sign the NDAs?”
Sienna is suddenly very, very glad she didn’t use her real name.
“I’m sure there’s another explanation.” Priscilla raps her nails on the table.
“A ghost?” says Jaxon, wagging his fingers.
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” announces Millie a little too loudly.
“Occam’s razor,” says Malcolm. “The simplest answer is usually right. So Arthur’s either dead, God rest him, or alive, God damn him, but he’s probably not a specter, haunting us.”
“He’s dead,” declares Priscilla.
Six heads turn.
“How do you know?” asks Sienna.
Priscilla sighs, and smooths the napkin in her lap. “I saw it in Eleanor’s face, when she and Rufus were here. You can’t fake that.”
She’s probably right, but there are six other writers at the table, their imaginations shoved into motion and picking up speed, like stones rolling down a hill.
“Even if heisdead,” says Jaxon, “how do we know he drowned? I was out there today. That surf isn’t exactly brutal.”
“The North Sea can be fickle,” counters Malcolm.
Millie shakes her head. “It’s so cold, though. Who in their right mind would go swimming in it?”
“Plenty of people,” says Malcolm. “Wild swimming is a proud British pastime.”
“You hurled three times on the boat,” mutters Sienna.
“I said swimming, not bobbing about like a cork.”
“Maybe he was murdered,” says Jaxon brightly, as if that’s somehow better.
“By who?” yelps Cate, but Kenzo is actually nodding.
“Could have been anyone,” he says. “It’s not a secret that he lives here. Alone. Unprotected.”
Priscilla and Malcolm are both shaking their heads.
“But why?” asks Malcolm. “Why would anyone want to kill Arty?” And maybe it’s the wine, or the way her soon-to-be-ex-husband says the author’s name, as if he knew a damned thing about the late Mr. Fletch, but Sienna finds herself chiming in.
“Why does anyone kill anyone?” she says. “Money. Envy. Revenge.”
Millie turns to Malcolm and Priscilla. “Did he have any enemies?”
“He was famous,” says Kenzo, as if that’s reason enough.
