Cadaver at the Con

by Winnie Reed

  At least, I hoped we did. This second drink might have to be the last. We wouldn’t want our tongues loosening too much. Or our sense of volume.

  “Okay. Let me get this straight.” I swiveled her way, my elbow on the bar, cheek on my palm. The white wine had loosened me up nicely, though I wouldn’t have called myself buzzed. That was what the second glass was for.

  I deserved it after all this nonsense. It was either have a little wine or dive into a pan of brownies from the buffet.

  “You started out as a ghostwriter,” I murmured.

  “Right. I got laid off from my full-time job and needed a way to make ends meet until I could find something else. Writing was something I’d always done on the side. I had a handful of manuscripts taking up space on my hard drive. You know the drill. Always for someday, right? But someday never came. Still, I figured it was as good a thing to do as any. There were plenty of worse ways to make a living.”

  “Sure, sure.” I accepted my fresh wine, and gladly.

  “I went online and picked up a few jobs. It was a real education.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She snickered. “I got completely taken advantage of at first. I worked like a dog for next to no money; I was just starting off, you know? I had to get some work under my belt, so I accepted peanuts for work that took me fourteen hours a day to write. But it taught me a lot. I learned how to write quickly so I could turn projects around and get paid. Some of my clients offered feedback that was actually helpful, and I used it to hone my work. I came a long way in just a year or so.”

  I nodded, but really, I was getting quite an education.

  She picked up her wine, swirling it in the glass. “Then, somebody approached me. I didn’t know who she was at first, honestly. She wanted books in the style of… you-know-who.” Her eyes shifted back and forth. We weren’t alone, after all. “I didn’t know at the time who I was talking to, that it wasn’t somebody wanting to model their career after hers.”

  “It was actually her. She couldn’t tell you who she was until she had you locked in.”

  “You got it.”

  “And you accepted the work? That’s a pretty tall order, filling the shoes of somebody so popular.”

  “Here’s the thing, though. Our styles were already sort of similar. I figured that made me perfect. I read all of her books, I mean I studied them morning, noon and night. All to make myself as much like her as she was.”

  “I don’t understand, though. Why would she need you when she’d already written so much on her own? Unless… oh, jeez, did she write any of it?”

  “Oh, yeah. Her first, like, five or six books are hers. But she told me Brian was on her case about writing faster. He wanted to negotiate a new contract with the publisher. It called for faster output. Much faster. She couldn’t do it on her own. So, I wrote it and she did what needed to be done to change anything that needed changing. Anything that needed to sound more like her.”

  She sat back in her stool, sighing. “I can’t believe how good it feels to get this off my chest. Seriously, it’s weighed on me for so long. I’ve been alone, you know?”

  “Oh, gee. I hadn’t thought about that.” Then again, I hadn’t had time to think about much of anything. This whole twist hit me like a ton of bricks.

  “That’s where the NDA came in, clearly. I couldn’t breathe a word to anybody, and I couldn’t make claims on the rights or royalties. Once I got paid, that was it. And she paid me well, don’t get me wrong. I was making more than I ever had working in an office, I’ll tell you that. And I got to do it wherever, whenever.”

  “You just couldn’t accept any praise for the work you’d done,” I murmured with a sigh. “That couldn’t have been easy.”

  “No. It wasn’t. At first, I followed along with the reviews—both from readers and magazines, newspapers. I devoured them. They were talking about me! My sparkling prose, my relatable characters, my ability to draw the reader into the story. It was me. I was proud.”

  “I bet you were.”

  “But it wasn’t me they were praising. It was her. That was really… sobering.” She chuckled while raising the glass to her lips. “Interesting choice of words at the moment, I guess.”

  “I hope you stopped reading the reviews.”

  “Oh, I had to. They were eating away at me. But!” She held up a finger. “They taught me I couldn’t always be satisfied writing for somebody else, under their name. I clearly had what it took to make a name for myself. So, I started drafting. It took time, since I was still writing the other books, but I made it work.”

  A lightbulb went off in my head. So that was why Darcy thought the quality had gone down. Georgia was working on her stuff at the same time. And while she might not have even noticed, the Deidre books suffered a little.

  Obviously not enough to tank her book sales, but enough that a skilled reader would notice.

  “And that was what Lawrence picked up on,” I surmised.

  “Exactly. Who would ever have pegged him as a fan of hers? But he was. I think that might’ve been the genre he wanted to write in, though I can’t imagine why.”

  “No wonder he was so frustrated. He probably didn’t do a great job at it, being the sort of person he was.”

  “He considered me a hack. He read an advanced reader copy of my book in exchange for a fair review. Right away, he called me a plagiarist. He cited every single similarity he could find. Every single one. He threatened to take it to her, too.”

  “That’s what he was saying in line, when I overheard you.”

  She nodded. “He wanted to go to her. To tell her I was stealing. Obviously, I couldn’t tell him the truth. I didn’t know what to do.”

  “Here’s a question.” I leaned in, whispering. “Did Brian know? Your agent?”

  A shrug. “I know, you might not believe that. I never talked with her about the business side of things. She introduced me to him, though. I’ll always have her to thank for that.”

  “That’s really sweet of her to do,” I observed. Maybe she wasn’t half bad.

  “Yeah, I gave her my manuscript first, for her opinion. She praised it up and down and the next thing I knew, she was introducing me to her agent. The rest is history, as they say. Although I have to tell you, I got the feeling she was nervous. That I wouldn’t be able to write for her at the same time. And I think she might be right.”

  “You’re entitled. You don’t have a contract with her, do you? Just non-disclosure.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So? It’s not working for you anymore. Brian told me your deal was really good. You don’t need to write for somebody else anymore. You’ve made it. As for her, she’ll either have to find somebody else or go back to working on her own. I’m sure there are plenty of ghosts who’d kill for the chance—”

  My mouth snapped shut. What a terrible choice of words.

  She didn’t seem to notice. Maybe that second glass of wine left her less able to pick up on things. Maybe she was too deep in thought.

  “I don’t wanna be a jerk, though,” she confessed. “Deidre gave me my break. I mean, look at it this way, she paid me for five years to learn how to write better. You know? And she introduced me to the agent who got me that really good deal. He’s all-in, totally invested in building up my career the way he helped build hers.”

  Yes, but only because it benefitted him in the end. I didn’t have the same high opinion of Brian Murphy that she did. He wasn’t a bad guy, per se, but he wasn’t in this out of the goodness of his heart.

  I kept that to myself in favor of putting a hand on her arm. “You’ve gotta do what’s best for you, whatever that is. If you can’t handle writing both at the same time, it’s your career you have to consider. Your name’s on your work now. This is your reputation at stake.”

  She nodded before swallowing the rest of her wine. “You’re right. I know you are. I just have to get up the courage.”

  “Can I ask you, then… Wh
at about Lawrence? What happened with him? Did you ever see him again after that check-in fiasco?”

  She shook her head hard. “No. Never again. I went up to my room, got unpacked, had a panic attack.”

  “Oh, no. Really?”

  She nodded just as hard. “Yup. Full-blown. I couldn’t breathe. I had to lie down. And then I called Deidre.”

  “To tell her about him?”

  “Yeah. I thought she should know he threatened to go to her. So she’d expect him and not get flustered or say the wrong thing. She told me not to worry about it, that nobody would listen to him. He was clearly unhinged, all that stuff. And if he really stirred trouble, I should call the police. She said it was okay for me to do that. If there was something on record, something I could use to prove he had a thing against me, it would look better. Like he was making up stories because he hated me.”

  “That makes sense.” But it didn’t, somehow. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. The darned wine wasn’t helping—sure, it soothed my nerves, but now there was no thinking clearly.

  Georgia was a ghostwriter with an NDA.

  Deidre was the author she wrote for.

  Brian was their agent.

  Did Brian know about Georgia’s arrangement with Deidre? I still couldn’t understand how he wouldn’t pick up on the similarities in their writing. Maybe he’d brought it to Deidre’s attention. She’d introduced him to Georgia, right? If I were him, I’d go to her first. Hey, your friend’s stealing from you. Something like that.

  What sort of excuse could she make for that?

  Unaware of my train of thought, Georgia turned to me and took my hands. She was already a little glassy-eyed. Drinking didn’t come naturally to her, it seemed. “I didn’t kill him. I swear. I never saw him again after the check-in line. But I spent the rest of the night looking for him. I expected to see him around every corner, at the back of every room I was in. Staring at me. Threatening to go to Deidre. Granted, I knew there wasn’t anything he could do to me, not really. She would never press charges.”

  Just like that, it made perfect sense. “You had no reason to kill him unless you were defending yourself,” I whispered, staring at her.

  “Right. And like I said, I never saw him again. When I found out he was dead, I was so happy.” Tears filled her eyes. “I’m sorry. I know it’s wrong. But this huge, heavy weight lifted off my shoulders. I was free. You see, there was no way of knowing what he’d do next. All those phone calls, all those threats to ruin my life. What if he went off the deep end and tried to hurt me? But he never would. I didn’t have to wake up in the middle of the night, sure he’d broken into my house.”

  “Oh, sweetie.” I pulled my hands away in favor of giving her a hug. “Nobody could blame you for being glad it was over. That doesn’t make you a bad person at all. I’m only sorry he upset you so much.”

  “And I wanted to tell you and the detective, I really did.” She pulled away, sniffling, and I gave her a moment to wipe her eyes and blow her nose on a drink napkin. “Like I said, I felt so alone. I couldn’t tell anybody anything. I shouldn’t have told you any of this.”

  “I’m glad you did. I’m glad you got it off your chest.” And now that I’d crossed her off my suspect list for good, I could breathe easier, too.

  That was when I noticed the clock on the wall, and the fact that Nell would be on my case if I didn’t show up for dinner. “Hey, do you wanna have dinner with me? I’m meeting old friends at the buffet. If I don’t show my face, they’ll think I got kidnapped.”

  “Ouch. Overprotective much?”

  “They’re my aunties,” I explained. “My mom’s best friends. Like second mothers.”

  “Ah, that makes more sense.” She slid off the stool, a little unsteady. “I think I should lie down for a little while. I’m feeling a little woozy. I’ll order something later, I think.”

  “Okay. You deserve a break.” I walked with her out of the bar, down the long hallway. The conference rooms were still bustling with attendees as the last of the day’s sessions wrapped up. Nell and Trixie would be ready for chow soon enough.

  “Thanks for listening.” Georgia gave me a hug before stepping into the elevator.

  “Your secret’s safe with me,” I promised before letting her go.

  Now, all that was left was finding out who’d met Lawrence by the closed pool and killed him.

  A shiver ran down my spine. He might not have looked like much when it came to stature and strength, but it was pretty clear that Brian was the more likely suspect. He was agent to both authors and would’ve had to explain how he didn’t know his most successful client was using a ghostwriter for years.

  And how he didn’t notice the similarities in Georgia’s writing.

  The publisher would’ve been angry, to say the least. Brian’s golden goose would stop laying eggs. The way he swanned around, practically bragging about how successful his clients were, made me wonder how devastated he’d be if the well ran dry.

  I was mixing my metaphors, but that was the least of my problems.

  As I found out when I turned around to find Brian Murphy standing behind me.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Oh, jeez!” I laughed, a hand to my chest. “You scared me! I didn’t know you were there!”

  “No, you didn’t,” he murmured. Gone was the jovial light that had been in his eyes just that morning. The grey eyes peering at me from behind his round lenses were flat. Dangerous. Like a snake’s. “I think you and I have a little talking to do.”

  “Can it wait?” I asked, feigning ignorance. “Or maybe you’d like to come to dinner with me? We can talk about it there. I’m starved.”

  “Don’t play innocent with me,” he warned, stepping closer.

  How was it that he managed to make me feel small and threatened when there were so many people around us? I could’ve screamed, but he could easily have laughed it off. Or even disappeared in the crowd.

  My body acted before my brain had the chance to catch up. I darted away, half-crazed. He must’ve been watching and listening the whole time. Even if he wasn’t listening, he could’ve read our body language at the bar and known she was unburdening herself.

  I didn’t want to run and attract attention. Besides, there was hardly the chance to run with so many people all around. I wove in and out, glancing over my shoulder to find Brian hot on my heels. Shoot!

  Instead of continuing to fight against the current, I turned down the first hallway jutting away from the conference room section of the hotel’s first floor. There was less foot traffic here, and I jogged while glancing behind when I had the chance. He was still there, still following, but not as closely. People might remember a girl being chased by a man.

  Where could I go? I might be able to lose him, or I could find a security guard. If only there were any around!

  The hall I’d cut down bordered the patio and pool, which were empty, thanks to the draining and cleaning that had to go on. But the door leading out there was open. I pushed through, deciding to cut across the patio and back toward the lobby area on the other side. This was no time to rely on myself. If he’d followed me all this way, I had good reason to alert the staff.

  I looked over my shoulder again to find him still on my tail.

  And that was when I tripped over a planter and tumbled to the smooth, hot concrete.

  So many things went through my head on the way down, I could barely keep them all straight. How stupid it was of me to run away in the first place instead of asking for help. How clumsy I was. How I should’ve kept running instead of looking behind me.

  How Brian’s grip was a lot stronger than I would’ve expected as he held me by the arms, helping me to my feet. “What was that all about?” he asked, clicking his tongue and shaking his head. “Why did you run? Good thing you’re wearing jeans instead of a skirt or shorts. You would’ve torn your knees to shreds!”

  I would have, too. My hands were scraped like crazy wit
h thin lines of blood oozing from the palms.

  “What do you want from me?” I asked, pulling my arms away and trying to ignore the pain in my knees. I might’ve escaped without bloodying them, but they stung like crazy, even with the jeans.

  “Why did you run?” he asked again, like he honestly couldn’t understand.

  “Because you looked so threatening.”

  “Me?” He laughed. “Honey, you might be the only person who’s ever called me that.”

  “You told me not to play innocent with you. That we had to talk.”

  “Yes, and I believe we should. But what did you expect? For me to pull a gun?” He laughed, opening his seersucker jacket. “As you can see, I have no weapons. A gun would ruin the line of the jacket and make me look bulky.”

  Was I imagining things? Maybe that wine had gone to my head a little more than I thought it had. “What did you wanna talk about?” I asked, finally catching my breath. Lord, he had to think I was completely bonkers.

  He looked around, frowning when his gaze swept over the glass-walled corridors. “You should sit after that spill. Here. The pool chairs are still out.” He gestured through the open gate. Why they’d left it open when the pool was empty was beyond me.

  “Gee,” I said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were luring me to the pool on purpose.”

  “You really have an active imagination,” he chuckled. “Are you sure you don’t want to write fiction? I could make money off an imagination like yours.”

  “Marsha would never forgive me,” I pointed out with a tight laugh. I still wasn’t completely convinced this guy didn’t have a sharp edge to him. The look he’d given me by the elevator wasn’t all in my head.

  Even if he hadn’t meant to intimidate me, he’d done a good job of it.

  “True, and then she’d never forgive me, either.” He waved a hand. “Oh, well. Plenty of fish in the sea.”

  The fenced-off pool area was surrounded by potted trees which provided cover, privacy from prying eyes. I wasn’t sure I liked being somewhere alone with him, where nobody could see what was going on.