She doesn’t look strong enough to lift a typewriter, much less murder someone with it—doesn’t even look strong enough to shove a full-grown woman down a flight of stairs—but a keen eye considers all the angles. “Jaxon said you were conducting interviews. About what happened to Sienna. But surely it was just an accident.”
“Ah, but it wasn’t,” he says, reaching behind him. “And I haveproof!”
He means to flash the paper with the killer’s message, only his fingers don’t quite catch it, and he ends up having to look over his shoulder to find it, which admittedly steals a little of the flair. But Cate’s eyes still widen when she sees the page. “A note,” he says. “Found on her body. Just like the one on Millie’s desk.”
“But that was just a prank!”
Poor thing, thinks Malcolm. He forgets how young she is. Young enough that she still sees the best in people, instead of the worst.
“Was it?” he says, arching a brow. “Or was it a warning?”
Cate swallows. “You really think someone would be willing to kill for this?”
Malcolm finds himself recalling what Jaxon said.
“I don’t know, love,” he says. “But people have done more for less.”
Cate shakes her head. “I really hope you’re wrong.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because if you’re right, and someone’s willing to murder for this prize...” Her voice drops to a whisper. “What’s to stop them from doing it again?”
Chapter Eight
MALCOLM TAKES A SWIG FROM A HALF-DRUNKbottle he found, quite handily, inside the desk. Good old Fletch. It’s not the best, but it’s doing the trick. The room has taken on a bit of an aura, and his head is starting to thud in a dull, distant way, a warning that at some point it will get closer, at some point it will catch up. But he can’t rest now. Not with the killer still at large.
“Is it true you found a note like the one in my room?” asks Millicent Mitchell. “Oh my god, that is so creepy. Like, I’m sorry, I did not sign up to be in a horror film.” And yet a moment later she lets out a movie-worthy gasp. “Oh my god, do you think it was because of her idea?”
What idea? thinks Malcolm, struggling to remember.
Last night is a muddle, more broad gestures than clean lines, but it comes back to him now. He’d forgotten, or rather, he hadn’t thought of it, because he’d been so focused on the fight. Thefightwas what started him drinking, after all, but things escalated after the editor gave Sisi the go-ahead to write alone, and she got that light-bulb look in her eyes, the look he had cherished once upon a time, the look that curdled in his gut last night because it was hers and hers alone.
They were no longer a team.
“I mean, that’s motive, right?” says Millie. “I mean, not for me,myending was already done, but for everyone else.” Her eyes flick to the safe in the corner, where the countdown has carried on, the hours slipping from29to28. “She might as well have painted a target on her back. But of course, I’m sure you already thought of that...” Millie chews her lip. “It’s so awful.” Her voice falters. “Every time I think about it, I hear the sound. It was like a sack of books being thrown down the stairs.”
Malcolm doesn’t know how he slept through that sound, but he’s grateful.
“And then I see her lying there, and...” She hiccups and buries her face in her hands, and then Malcolm is somehow kneeling beside the chair, patting her shoulder. He likes to think he’s fairly skilled in the art of managing young women, but he’s never done well with tears.
“Millie, dear—”
“I mean, it wasn’t the first time I’ve seen a dead body. My grandfather had an open casket, but that was different. He had a lot of makeup on, and this thing they do so your eyes stay shut, so he looked peaceful, I guess, but I still sometimes wish they’d just kept the box closed, like they did for my parents...” Malcolm flinches as she trails off. Poor thing, he feels like he should ask, but the look on her face says this, like the coffin, is a trunk best left closed. Before she can start crying again, Malcolm rounds the chair and gets down to brass tacks.
“Millie,” he says, trying to muster a fatherly air—though not too fatherly, given what he’s just heard—“you were the first one on the scene, is that correct?”
A shadow crosses Millie’s face, and for the briefest instant it’s perfectly blank. Then, just as quickly, it contorts with feeling. “I mean, yeah. But I obviously didn’t do it! I was already downstairs.”
“All right,” he says, “can you tell me what you were doing?”
The girl sniffles. “Okay, yeah.”
She takes a deep breath, as if about to blow out candles. And then begins.
“So what happened was, I turned in my pages, right? Like everyone knows. And I was feeling pretty good, and in fact, last night I was havingthebest sleep of my life, like the bed in my room isn’t even that comfy, but my body didn’t care, I was drifting off to sleep, and then all of a sudden I sat bolt upright in bed because I realized—I’d written it all in first person. Which, duh, Mills, is so dumb, but it’s just a habit at this point, I did it without thinking. But then I was like, oh my god, what if I lose because they think I can’t follow directions—even though, I mean, no one really gave us directions, but you know what I mean? And I thought about going down to the cottage to tell the editor, but that’s against the rules, and I’m lying there like, crap, what do I do? But I have, like, a scary good memory for anything I’ve ever written, so I decide I can just rewrite the ending in third, so it fits the rest of the book, and put it through the slot with a little note saying, ‘My bad, please disregard,’ or whatever, so I get up, and start typing, and the desk in my room is right in front of the window, which I love, but I’m a couple pages in when I see something move outside. And I nearly jump out of my skin because it’s the middle of the night, and I’m like, why is anyone outside?”
Malcolm tenses. “Wait, you saw someone?”
