The Last Thing She Said

by Lauren Carr

  “Oh, I love mysteries,” Chris said. “My dad is a detective and I’m going to be one just like him. But right now, I would rather be playing baseball with my friends.”

  “Well, Christopher, I’m going to make this weekend worth your while.” The writer held out her hand to a young man who Chris noticed had been standing next to her. “Fred, do we have any more advanced copies of Murder Yet to Come?”

  “Only one, Miss Spencer. It’s reserved for the USA Today book critic.”

  “The one that blew me off for Stephen King?” She snapped her fingers. “Fork it over. You snooze, you lose.”

  “Murder Yet to Come isn’t going to be released until Labor Day,” Doris gushed. Her eyes were wide. “Oh, thank you so much, Miss Spencer.”

  With trepidation, Fred extracted the book from his briefcase and handed it to the author along with a pen. He closed the briefcase and held it flat to make a desk on which she could write.

  She opened the book. “Do you prefer Chris or Christopher?”

  “Chris.”

  “What’s your favorite baseball team, Chris?” she asked while writing out the autograph.

  “Washington Nationals.”

  Frowning, she paused in writing. “I’m a Pittsburgh Pirates fan myself.”

  “At least you’re not a Baltimore Orioles fan.”

  “True.” With a flourish, she completed the autograph and held out the book, a hardback with a shiny cover, to him. “For being a good sport, Chris.” She winked at him.

  “Thank you so much, Miss Spencer.” Once again, Doris gushed.

  “Call me Robin.” She shook Doris’s hand and patted Chris on the shoulder. “Hurry up. You don’t want to miss this opportunity to get Mercedes’s autograph. This may be your last opportunity to meet the author and get an autographed copy of The Last Thing She Said. You never know.”

  Reminding the writer that she had an interview in the lounge, Fred ushered her away. Chris waved goodbye to her as Doris snatched the book from him and read the inscription:

  To Chris,

  A Fellow Baseball Fan

  &

  Future Mickey Forsythe!

  May Your Life Be Filled with Mystery!

  Robin Spencer

  “Who’s Mickey Forsythe?” Chris asked before Doris snapped the book shut and shoved it into her bag.

  She grabbed him by the arm and dragged him to the bookstore. Chris felt like his feet hadn’t touched the floor until they halted at the end of a line that spilled out of the meeting room designated for the conference’s bookstore. Increasingly anxious that she would be unable to score a Mercedes Livingston’s autograph, Doris shuffled from one foot to the other and checked her watch.

  “Surely, she can’t disappoint all of these people waiting in line for her,” said a fellow book lover with whom Doris had struck up a conversation.

  “I heard her tell someone that she has an appointment this evening that she can’t miss,” said an editor who Doris had become friendly with during the weekend.

  Doris continued to check her watch. Chris recognized the look of worry on her face. She was almost as frantic as she would become when his father was late returning home from work.

  “Who is Lacey Woodhouse?” Doris asked the editor. “Could The Last Thing She Said really be based on an actual murder?”

  “I only heard a rumor about it,” the editor said. “Her roommate was strangled. Mercedes found the body.”

  “The murder victim in Mercedes’s book was strangled. Her protagonist found the body. Did they ever—”

  “I don’t know,” the editor said with a shrug of her shoulders.

  Eventually, they drew closer to the table where Mercedes Livingston was signing books.

  “Mercedes, didn’t you say you have an appointment you have to go to?” the stocky woman said while checking her watch.

  Doris’s eyes grew wide. She was the next one in line. They couldn’t end it when she had gotten so close.

  “I can stay until we reach the end of the line. I don’t want anyone to be disappointed.”

  Chris noticed a sly grin cross her lips. Yep, the robot is gone. This lady is real.

  There was a collective sigh in the line which stretched out into the hall.

  Mercedes winked at Doris when she took her book. “Who would you like me to sign this to?”

  Doris’s mouth dropped open.

  Chris stared up at his mother. Never had he seen her speechless. “Mom?”

  Mercedes gazed up at her.

  “I’m your number one fan!” Doris blurted out.

  “Would you like me to sign this to my number one fan?” Mercedes asked.

  “Doris and Kirk,” Chris said. “Make it out to Doris and Kirk.”

  With a grin, Mercedes proceeded to sign the book. “I’ll sign it to Doris and Kirk, my number one fans.”

  Chris looked at the stack of books around her. He would have thought with all the excitement that she would have written many books. There was only one title.

  The Last Thing She Said.

  The reviewers and readers were saying that it was a tremendous mystery that had basically changed its genre forever.

  Mercedes held out the book to Doris, whose hand trembled as she took it. “I’ll treasure this book always.” Doris clutched it to her breast.

  “Are you working on any other mysteries?” Chris asked to make conversation.

  The author’s blue eyes traveled over to meet his. The corners of her lips kicked up. “Actually, right now, I’m working on the greatest mystery ever.” She turned back to Doris. “You’ll want to hang onto that. It’s going to be a collector’s item. I guarantee it.”

  Chris took his mother’s hand and led her away from the table to allow the next fan access to the author.

  As they walked out, he turned around. His eyes met those of Mercedes Livingston’s. Once again, she flashed him a wicked grin and winked at him. It was like she was letting him in on a joke, but he wasn’t quite sure what it was.

  They were hurrying across the hotel lobby when a loud voice brought them to a halt. “Doris Matheson! Is that really you?”

  Like prey trying to escape a known predator, Doris ducked her head and attempted to continue toward her goal of the exit.

  “Mom, look!” Chris pointed across the lobby. “It’s Mr. Cravats!”

  A pained expression crossed her face as she came to a stop. She forced the corners of her mouth upward into a smile and turned to the tall, exceedingly slender man sauntering in her direction. “Hello, Angus.”

  Dressed in a mustard-color suit with a big bow tie, Angus Cravats, a local historian, made no pretense of looking the attractive blonde up and down. Clutching a hardback book under his arm, he licked his lips while closing the distance between them. “I didn’t expect to see you here. I would have expected you to be home getting dinner on the table for that big bad police detective husband of yours.”

  “That’s where I’m going now.” She turned to the door only to have Angus step forward to block her path.

  “I guess you came for the conference?”

  “I couldn’t really not come,” Doris said. “I am a librarian and a lot of my patrons are attending. Great opportunity for me to actually talk to authors and get new books.”

  “Did you meet Mercedes Livingston?”

  Doris held up the signed novel. “She signed it to me and Kirk.”

  “We also met Robin Spencer,” Chris said.

  “After Christopher practically knocked her off her feet,” Doris said.

  “She said I’m going to be the next Mickey Forsythe,” Chris said, “whoever that is.”

  “He’s the protagonist in her novels. I saw her talk today.” A wicked grin crossed his face. “Talk about a figure that won’t quit.” His bushy eyebrows
rose high on his forehead—almost reaching his hair which rested on top of a beaker-shaped head.

  The expression that crossed Doris’s face reminded Chris of the time a friend, Rodney Bell, had stayed for dinner. The two boys had been making jokes about Clifford, an overweight schoolmate. They laughed so hard over their jokes about how Clifford resembled a walrus, elephant, or even whale that water squirted out of Chris’s nose.

  Not wanting to humiliate her son in front of his friend, Doris sat in silence, often directing her eyes, narrowed to gray slits at him, while he and Rodney delighted at their wit.

  Then, Rodney went home, at which time Doris lowered the boom.

  By the time she had finished, Chris was in tears of shame. Even though Clifford was not there to hear their insults, Chris was no less embarrassed to have been so insensitive.

  The punishment did not end there. Doris had ordered him to invite Clifford to their home. That made Chris cry harder. Clifford was an outcast. How could she be so mean? What were his friends going to say? His mother left him no choice.

  Within hours of Clifford’s nervous arrival at their home, Chris had seen beyond his weight to discover that they actually had a lot in common. They became fast friends. To Chris’s surprise, as a result of his acceptance, his friends accepted Clifford as well.

  “Well,” Doris said in response to Angus Cravats’s assessment of Robin Spencer’s presentation, “I was more interested in what she had to say than what was in her bra.”

  Angus’s upper lip quivered with nervousness. “Are you coming to my reading?”

  Score one for Mom. Her slap down actually made Mr. Cravats change the subject.

  “You’re doing a reading here?” Doris asked with genuine surprise.

  Angus held up the book he had been clutching under his arm. “In the lounge. During cocktail hour before the banquet.”

  “But-but this is a mystery conference,” Doris stammered. “Your book isn’t a mystery. It’s a local history book.”

  “It’s got mystery in it.” Angus thrust the book into her hands. “There’s the mystery of—”

  Chris knew when Angus thrust his hands into his pockets that they were going to be a while. Eventually, he sensed, Angus would convince his mother to stay for the reading—not because she was a fan of Angus Cravats’s work. No, Chris knew for a fact that she wasn’t an Angus Cravats fan. Truthfully, she would be obligated to stay for the reading because Angus Cravats was a big library patron.

  Resigned to his fate, Chris pulled Mercedes Livingston’s book from Doris’s arms, took a seat in a vacant wing-backed chair, and sat back to start reading the novel that everyone had been talking about. It was a thick chapter book with no pictures, but that didn’t intimidate Chris. One of the first things he had learned was to read. He had been reading on his own by the time he had finished kindergarten.

  As expected, Doris ended up telling him to stay put and headed for the lounge with Angus. “I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

  “What about dinner?”

  “We’ll pick up some fried chicken at the supermarket.”

  Chris pumped his fist into the air. “Yes!”

  Before diving into The Last Thing She Said, he took a longing look out the window to the hotel parking lot. Recalling the sporty red Camaro, he searched for it. To his disappointment, it was gone.

  “You’re not getting away with this, Mercedes Livingston!”

  With a start, Chris jumped back from the window and turned around in time to see the odd woman from the speech grab Mercedes Livingston by the arm, spin her around, and slap her across the face.

  “You were supposed to be her best friend!” She advanced on the author who backed away while clutching the growing welt on her cheek.

  A man in a suit, who Chris concluded was the hotel manager moved toward them. “Now let’s just calm down here.” He stopped short when the woman yanked a dagger from her handbag.

  There were gasps and shrieks as everyone fell back.

  A demented smile filled the woman’s face as she told the growing crowd. “You think Mercedes is so great! Well, let me tell you about the great Mercedes Livingston! She’s no Maisie Peabody! She could have helped my daughter! At the very least, she could have helped the police catch her killer, but she refused! Instead she used my Lacey to become rich and famous! Blood money!”

  Abruptly, someone who had crept up behind her dropped a jacket over the woman’s head. Blinded, she dropped the knife to the floor and two men tackled her.

  “Go, Mercedes! You can’t be late!” Chris heard a familiar voice call out from within the mob holding the crazed woman back.

  It was Robin Spencer, the author he had bumped into earlier. She, he realized, was the one who had dropped the jacket over the woman’s head.

  Chris craned his neck to peer out the window to watch Mercedes jog around the corner of the hotel—bypassing the parking lot. She must have someone picking her up.

  “Let my mother go!”

  Chris spun back around in time to see a mountain of a man grab Robin Spencer in a bear hug from behind. Before anyone could stop him, he lifted her off the ground. Just as quickly, he dropped her when she elbowed him in the nose. Blood splattered everywhere.

  “You just wait, Mercedes!” the woman screamed in the direction of the door through which the author had escaped. “What goes around, comes around! I’m going to take someone you love away from you and then you’ll see how it feels!”

  Chris peered out the window again to see if he could catch another glimpse of her—but Mercedes Livingston was gone—never to be seen again.

  “Actually, right now, I’m working on the greatest mystery ever.”

  It was the last thing she’d said.

  Chapter One

  Bolivar-Harpers Ferry Public Library – Present Day

  Library Director Doris Matheson stifled a yawn and checked the time on her cell phone.

  It was almost noon. With a quick glance over her shoulder, she saw the sunbeams dancing through the new leaves of the trees outside her office window.

  Spring was in full bloom.

  The library was quieter than usual because most people were outside enjoying the warm sunny weather.

  Doris didn’t blame them.

  Her phone dinged. She checked the text message from Christopher. “Soccer games over. Going to P U pizza now. C U soon.”

  Another text popped in from her granddaughter, Emma. “We have a surprise 4 U!” The text was followed by a series of hearts and kiss emojis.

  “Judging by that smile, I conclude those messages are from your girls.” Shannon Blakeley slipped into the chair across from Doris’s desk.

  “And boy.” Doris set the phone on her desk. “They’re picking up pizza and bringing it over for lunch.” She favored Shannon with a soft smile.

  Shannon Blakeley was the library’s associate director and Doris’s closest friend. They had worked together for almost four decades—supporting each other through births, marriages, illnesses, injuries, and deaths.

  Over the years, Shannon had been offered numerous promotions, including library director, but turned them down because the job meant additional hours and driving to other branches in the library system. She’d preferred to remain at the Bolivar-Harpers Ferry branch where she could walk to work from her home, which was only three blocks away.

  Looking at her dearest friend, Doris suppressed a groan as she recalled meeting her on that first day of training. Shannon and Billy, a doctor in literature at Shepherd University, had been newlyweds when she’d started working at the library. Her job was not so much a task to keep her busy during her husband’s long work hours as it was a labor of love. During down times, Shannon absorbed books—particularly mysteries. There was not a mystery novel in the library system Shannon had not read. Many an evening, Doris and Kirk enjoyed
a dinner and literary debate with the Blakeleys about a new book release.

  Over the decades, Shannon had become an expert on the mystery, suspense, and thriller genre. Many of the library’s patrons sought her recommendations for novels to add to their to-be-read lists. She was so revered for her knowledge in the area of crime fiction that many were perplexed about why she did not pursue a literature degree herself—or, at the very least, write a book.

  Two years earlier, Shannon had been there for Doris when Kirk, her husband of over forty-five years, had died suddenly from a massive heart attack. Doris’s grown son Christopher, who had recently lost his wife, returned home with his three daughters. He took care of the family farm while Doris helped to raise his girls.

  Chris was compassionate, but his support was not the same as that of a fellow woman. Shannon shared so many of Doris’s joys—a wife, mother, and grandmother. Shannon could better understand her needs.

  Little did Doris know that soon Shannon would be needing her when her husband would become terminally ill. Two months after Billy’s death, Shannon still looked as grief-stricken as she had on the day of his death when she stepped into Doris’s office.

  Doris wondered if she was having problems sleeping.

  “Yes, but that will get better,” Shannon responded to her question.

  “I still wake up and reach across the bed for Kirk.” With a grin, Doris added, “And I’ll tell you, when Elliott stays over, and I have one of those moments, it can be quite awkward.”

  The two women giggled like the young women they had been when they’d first met.

  “Well, I don’t have to worry about that,” Shannon said with a wry grin.

  “I’m sure Billy would not want you to be alone,” Doris said.

  “I’m seventy years old.”

  “And you’re still hot.” Doris tossed her head to send her blond tendrils behind her shoulder and arched an eyebrow at her with a sexy grin.

  In contrast to her friend’s fair coloring, Shannon’s short hair was black with one white streak jutting from the left side of her forehead. Her dark coloring combined with her sapphire blue eyes gave her an exotic appearance. She combed her fingers through her hair. “Doesn’t matter anymore. Billy was my life.”