She shifts so her knees are between his. “I’m sitting here, aren’t I?”
* * *
LATER THAT NIGHT, AFTER THEY’VE TWISTED UPthe sheets, Malcolm slips into the bathroom to freshen up. When he comes back out, tying the hotel robe around his waist, he finds Sienna sitting naked at the desk, lamplight bouncing off her thigh, her cheek, her breast, as she skims the pages of his latest draft. The one he’d been writing when Harry gave him the sack.
It’s not bad, Mal. It’s just not good enough to stand out.
Panic flutters through him, followed quickly by annoyance, and he is about to march across the room and snatch the paper from her hand when she says, “This is really good.”
His anger vanishes in the face of praise. In fact, as he watches Sienna turn the page, admiring, he feels himself starting to get hard again. He strolls toward her, hands in the pockets of his hotel robe.
She chews her thumb—it is a tic, he’ll learn, whenever she’s thinking—and says, “It’s the neighbor, isn’t it? Who killed the girl?”
That knocks the wind out of his sails. He’d been proud of that twist, and she’s pinned it in what, three pages? Four? Bloody hell, maybe he is losing his edge.
“That obvious?” he mutters and Sienna must clock the frustration in his face.
“But you can use that,” she adds brightly. “If I guessed it, the reader will, too. So make it a red herring, and have the killer be the friend instead. Put him right there, on the page, front and center at the hero’s side, and it will be so bold the reader doesn’t guess.”
Malcolm blinks. “That,” he says, “isn’t half bad.”
She breaks into a smile. “You think?”
It’s a good idea.
No, it’s agreatone.
Of course, with enough time and the right amount of focus, he could have thought of it himself. Hewouldhave, probably, but now, he doesn’t need to. Because Sienna has.
“I think,” says Malcolm, wrapping his arms around her naked shoulders, “it’s exactly what the story needs. You’re an angel,” he adds, planting a kiss on the top of her head.
Sienna lets her head fall back against his chest, looking up at him with a mixture of surprise and delight.
“You really think so?” she says as if he’s handed her a prize. And he has, hasn’t he? After all,heis Malcolm Buchanan, published author, public speaker, crime historian, and she is just Sienna. A young woman who doesn’t even have the guts to call herself a writer yet.
“I do,” he says, smiling into her hair. He looks past her at the paper in her hands, and sees what the story is, what itcould be.
With Sienna at his side, he can prove old Harry wrong.
Who knows, maybe one day he’ll be even bigger than Arthur bloody Fletch.
Chapter Three
Now
HE IS DRUNK, AND HE IS DREAMING.
That explains it. Malcolm has always been prone to vivid dreams, especially when he’s overindulged. Once he dreamed that he was on an old-fashioned hunt, foxes and hounds—foxes, fucking foxes—hoofbeats pounding and horns on the air, and when he woke clutching the sheets instead of reins, it took a solid ten minutes for him to be sure he was awake. The dream was still clinging to his senses, and every time he closed his eyes, he could see the fields racing by, hear the barking, smell the damp earth. Some dreams are real enough to touch.
So maybe that’s what this is, and—
“Jesus fucking Christ!” shouts Jaxon.
He looks up in a daze to see Kenzo and Jaxon standing on opposite sides of the staircase, Kenzo fully dressed in his usual black and Jaxon nearly naked, in nothing but a pair of boxers. Judging by the look of horror on Jaxon’s face, Malcolm isn’t dreaming after all.
Millie’s still crying, as if she has more right to grief than he does. Jaxon looks green around the gills. Cate and Priscilla, shocked but steadfast. Kenzo, sad but stoic.
Priscilla says something about going to wake Rufus, down in the cottage, since he must have a phone. But Malcolm isn’t listening, not really. He’s staring at the floor, and thinking about the fact that he’s made it fifty-odd years on this earth, writingcrimeno less, and this is the first time he’s ever seen a dead body.
