You Don't Know Jack (20 page)

Teri glanced at the manila envelope I hugged to my chest. "I take it that's the manuscript."

I nodded. Palms damp, throat dry. All thought of murders and murderers fled. A real live editor was about to read and dissect my story... while I watched. I couldn't be more apprehensive if I were about to participate in my own appendectomy. I lowered the envelope to the table top, telling myself that others had gone before and survived this surgery.

Teri slid a sheet of paper toward me. "These are my fees. I'll let you consider that while I refresh my coffee. May I bring you some?"

"Please." I read the list as I removed my coat and scarf. The fees were reasonable, and I realized in that moment I would have agreed to offer up one of my stiletto-sheathed appendages for this service.

She returned with two steaming mugs flaunting famous NYC locales. I accepted one. "So, should I write you a check or do you only take cash, or what?"

"Before I agree to take you on as a client, I'll need to review your writing." She opened the envelope and pulled out about ten pages. "Why don't you enjoy the view while I read these and then we'll talk."

I couldn't breathe. Whatever mechanism in my brain handled that function failed. I verged on hyperventilating. I wanted this too much. Encouraged by not-awful rejection letters, I had assumed I'd skipped the step where
I
didn't decide if I got to hire someone to edit my work. I was a card carrying idiot.

I shoved out of my chair, the coffee mug the only anchor keeping me from running straight out to the falling-down deck and leaping off. I couldn't bear to watch Teri read my words, afraid she'd look up at me in what-were-you-thinking? horror. Every doubt I'd ever had about actually being able to write assailed me. I forced myself to walk to the bookshelf at her back and pretended to read the titles in her collection, lips locked so I wouldn't blurt out distracting, nonsensical chatter.

I hoped she couldn't hear me sweat.

A paper rustled. Pages being turned. At least she hadn't stopped cold on the opening paragraphs. That was good, right? Unless she had to read on to see just how terrible it was, the way I sometimes can't stop watching
Maury
to learn the results of a paternity test.

I sipped coffee. The hot rich flavor did nothing to ease my nerves.
Think about something else. Anything else.
I started reading book titles. With few exceptions, the books were mostly hardcovers. So, I suppose it was only natural my eyes were drawn to the small pile of paperbacks at the end of a row on the top shelf. The lurid blue cover seemed familiar. I moved in for a closer look, and my already anxious heart clenched.

They all bore the same title:
Lipstick and Larceny
.

They all had the same author: Ruth Lester.

The bad feeling I'd had earlier returned.

Why did Teri Steele have so many copies of Ruth Lester's book?

"Okay," Teri said, causing me to nearly vacate my skin. "You can sit down."

I walked woodenly to the table, my attention immediately back on my own book. I wanted to ask how much it sucked, but I'd been struck dumb.

She looked me in the eye, about to deliver my fate with her honest, blunt assessment. I gripped the arms of the chair. She said, "I don't take on everyone who contacts me."

My stomach dipped. This was it. Everything Lars had ever said to me was true. Talent tells. I would never be a published writer. I wasn't a storyteller. I would end up back in beauty school and doomed to one day take over the
Clip and Flip
. I reached a trembling hand for my pages, intending to stuff the dreck back into the envelope where it belonged.

But she grabbed the envelope from me and did the deed herself. Then she tapped the cost sheet. "What do you want from me? A line edit? An overall assessment? Or both?"

My eyes rounded. My tongue froze. I could barely grasp what I was hearing. She was going to work with me. I wasn't doomed to beauty school.

"You're a decent writer," Teri said. "From what little I've read and I can see the story has potential. I will need to read the whole thing, however, to see if I maintain that opinion. As it is, the opening shows me this is a good story, but not good enough in its present incarnation that I would recommend it to the editors at the publishing house I work with. The goals, motivations, and conflict need more immediacy where the heroine is concerned. Right now, everything unpleasant is happening to the heroine's friend and not to her directly."

OMG. Insight. My story imitated my life. How had that happened?

"This can be fixed," Teri said. "But I will only agree to take you on as a client, if you're willing to do the work."

In other words, don't waste her time.

I assured her that I would do whatever was required. We discussed the difference between a complete line edit and an overview and all points in-between. In the end, we decided I would leave the manuscript for her to read through. She would line edit the first two chapters and then meet with me again to discuss. Then I would edit the next two chapters and we'd meet again for her to check my progress and keep me on track. We would continue this process through to the end of the book.

She didn't offer any guarantee that the end result would sell, but if she thought it was good enough, she'd recommend it.

I'd never felt so close to actually getting published. I wrote her a check, slipped into my jacket and tied my scarf around my neck. My eyes went to Ruth Lester's books. I couldn't walk out without asking about it. I kept my voice light. "I just bought that book yesterday. You have several copies. Do you know her or something?"

Teri stood and gathered our coffee cups. "I helped her edit that book."

"Really. You know her then?"

"Actually, I never met her." Teri started toward the kitchen.

I followed. "I don't understand."

"The publisher I work for put me in touch with her, but all of our dealings were over the internet."

"Then you don't know what became of her?"

"No."

"Then you didn't work with her on her second book?"

Teri set our cups in the sink and frowned at me. "Why are you so curious about her?"

This was one of those times when honesty was the best choice. "I was once married to Lars Larsen."

She nodded. "I see. The lawsuit..."

"Lars and I didn't exactly part on good terms. I don't know that much about what went on with the plagiarism suit, just his side of it. And having been screwed over by that man, well, frankly, I'm not sure I believe him. I wouldn't be surprised if he rip off her second manuscript. You didn't happened to see it did you?"

"No." Teri made the kind of face that indicated I'd offered too much information about my personal life. I found the reaction puzzling if she didn't actually know Ruth Lester. Like she was protecting the writer. On the other hand, maybe Teri was just unwilling to talk to anybody about the plagiarism for the sake of her publisher.

Bottom line: I wasn't going to get any more out of her today.

She ushered me through the mudroom and out the door. "I'll phone when I've finished reading the manuscript and am ready to meet with you again."

I thanked her, then trudged to Old Yeller. I had to find Ruth Lester, but so far I hadn't been able to find so much as a photo of her. Or anyone who seemed to actually know her. It was like she could be anyone. It was like she was a ghost.

The bad feeling returned, creeping over me stronger than ever.

My phone rang. I jumped. But it was Apollo.

The second he heard my voice he started talking fast. "Something horrible... Bruce... murdered." Sob. "... his house."

I froze as the bad feeling flushed dread to my toes. "Tell me you haven't left the salon."

"I found..." Sob. "... body."

Brain freeze!

Not the kind where you eat something too cold and the roof of your mouth makes your brain ache. The kind where your prime suspect gets himself murdered and shockwaves short circuit your cerebral cortex. The kind where your BFF does something that could land him back in jail and is so stupid it robs you of speech.

Why had Apollo gone to Bruce's after I specifically told him not to? Why had Bruce been murdered? How was I going to reach Bruce's house before Apollo was re-arrested?

I'd never felt more like murdering someone. I wanted to scream at Apollo until his hair turned blue. But I had yet to get that gun I was considering, and I couldn't speak let alone scream.

Brain freeze!

The kind that has you picturing one thing in your head, but confronted with the actuality, is the total opposite of your imagining.

Nothing was as it should be as I neared the 1950s modern architectural house Lars had shared with Bruce. The cul-de-sac should be blocked by police cars and other response vehicles, but it wasn't. I drove through the high hedges that hid the flat-roofed rambler from the street and pulled up behind Apollo's orange VW, the only other car on the curved apron.

I stepped uneasily from Old Yeller, leery, gaze locked on the front door. Had the officials all come and gone during the two hours it took to get back to the ferry dock on Bainbridge Island, cross Puget Sound and drive through afternoon traffic to Mercer Island? Was Apollo in jail, his car awaiting pickup?

No. No crime scene tape on the door. Maybe I should call Stone. Wait out here until he showed up. I speed dialed his number, got voice mail. Again. Damn. Now what? Frustration and indecision gave my mystery writer's imagination time to conjure a few awful scenarios for why Apollo hadn't called 911. The killer was still inside the house when Apollo called me. I would find Apollo dead beside Bruce.

My stomach turned. I wanted to run. But what if Apollo was inside, alive and wounded, in need of an ambulance?

I approached the front door on wobbly legs, nerves shivering. I raised my hand to knock, then thought better of it and dialed Apollo's cell phone. I listened hard to hear it ringing from inside the house.

Nothing.

"Jack B," he answered.

I grabbed the wall to stay upright. A breath shuddered out. "Where are you?"

"I told you."

I glanced at his VW. "You're still at Bruce's?"

"Yes."

"Why haven't you phoned the cops?" Or left?

Or had he perhaps lost his nerve, figured someone might notice and remember a neon orange bubble leaving the scene of the crime, once the slain body was discovered? TV cop shows were always busting folks for not reporting a murder immediately upon discovery, an offense not only as bad as actually murdering someone, but one that usually proved the scene-leaver was the culprit.

The front door opened. Apollo stood there, too pale, too frazzled, his black spiked hair flat, crisp black shirt rumbled and splotched with something that looked like dried rusty paint spatters.

Spatters?

My heart tensed. Blood spatter? Oh, God, don't let it be that. But it was. I knew it was. I swallowed hard. "W-where is he?"

Then I swallowed hard again just thinking of viewing another murder victim.

"In there."

I balked. "We need to call the police. We need to wait out here until they arrive."

"You don't understand," he dragged me inside.

I resisted, glad I was wearing my driving gloves. I didn't want to compromise the crime scene, but Apollo had already done that. "We'll have to wipe every surface you've touched."

He tugged.

I relented, responding like a robot to a remote control, moving in slow jerky motion. My heart jack hammered. The horror of being in the locked dressing room with Stone and Lars' dead body walked with me, tapping chilly fingers of fear up and down my spine. My knock-off Manolo Blahniks felt like concrete booties with stiletto heels.

I trudged through the slate foyer, stepped down onto the bamboo flooring of the sunken living room, blinded by the unrelenting white of the walls, the furniture, the fireplace. Like stepping into an indoor blizzard. I was barely aware of touches of chrome defining rectangular shapes that might be chairs and sofas, tables and lamps. Even the art was minimalist, monochromatic. Everything as pristine as that damned Stetson of Lars'.

The one break in the relentless snowstorm was Lake Washington framed in picture windows... and nerve-jarring, dark stains on the white throw rugs. More blood spatter. I stopped ten feet from where Bruce lay sprawled on an armless sofa. Dried blood matted his ice blond hair near the temple. More blood smeared his forehead and cheek.

"How was he—?" I choked.

Bruce sat up. "What is she doing here?"

I'm pretty sure I passed out.

Or died — because when I opened my eyes, I swear I was staring at a humongous white sheet about to be dropped over me.

"Jack B," Apollo's face popped between me and the sheet. He lifted me into a sitting position. "Are you all right?"

My focus readjusted. Not a sheet. Just vast white ceiling.

I struggled up, staring at Bruce. He stared back. I didn't trust what my eyes were seeing. "Are you dead?"