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  “Teeny tiny?” Wilson was incredulous.

  “Itsy-bitsy?” I again shook my head and told my agent the rivalry act was absolutely, completely, and totally insane. “Even by Geez Louise Urko standards.”

  Wilson sat forward. “But back to tonight. Why didn’t Tori call Mia Madison, the Double D woman, for help?”

  “I just told you. Because we’re friends. Fantastically fast friends! Bosom buddies! Who else would she call at one a.m.?” Louise threw her hands up. “From jail!”

  “No one,” I said calmly, and they both did a double take. “No, really,” I added. “As I begin waking up, this starts to make sense.” I looked at Wilson. “Geez Louise Urko is the most competent and efficient person I know. If I ever landed in jail, I’d certainly want her on my team.”

  Wilson closed his eyes and mumbled something I didn’t quite catch.

  “What did you just say?” Louise asked him.

  He opened his eyes. “I said, I think I need an Advil.”

  ***

  Evidently Louise needed an Advil also. She grabbed the two I held out for Wilson, and the bottle of water.

  I went back to the bathroom for more supplies, we tried again, and eventually my husband got himself suitably medicated. “You need to find her a good lawyer,” he said.

  “Been there. Done that.”

  “Wow, you really are efficient.”

  “Patsy helped.”

  Ah. I reminded Wilson that Patsy Glee is an attorney.

  “She’s a criminal defense lawyer?” he asked.

  “Corporate law, but she spent the last hour giving me some recommendations.” Louise took a deep breath. “Why, oh why, oh why did your cop friend arrest poor Tori?”

  “Poor Tori?” Wilson was incredulous. “The woman’s a nightmare, Louise.”

  “A nightmare?”

  “A nightmare and my number one suspect.”

  “Wilson Rye! You know and I know poor Tori would never, ever, ever kill anyone.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Do we?”

  Louise tried again, this time with me. “Jessica Hewitt. You know and I know poor Tori would never, ever, ever kill anyone.”

  I avoided Wilson’s glance and told my agent, as gently as possible, that we had discussed the motive, means, and opportunity with Jo Keegan. “Because,” I said. “Even you have to admit Tori had ample opportunity to commit this murder.”

  Louise muttered a few thousand un-fantasticals, but she didn’t argue that point. She did, however, ask about motive. “Tori had no motive whatsoever to kill you or Penelope.”

  “Then why does she pull all these stunts?” Wilson asked.

  “What stunts?”

  “Harassing my wife, harassing Gavin McClure. And going back in time, how about dating Dewey Womac?”

  “Dewey?” Louise squinted. “That wasn’t a stunt. That was real.”

  “Yeah, right. It was real nice Tori pretended to date the librarian to keep Jessie out of the Hall of Fame.”

  “No! Tori didn’t pretend to date Dewey. Tori loved Dewey. Real, true, fantastical love.”

  “Yeah, right. And she just happened to fall out of this fantastical love and break up with the guy the minute she got the librarian vote for Charm?”

  “No! Dewey broke up with her.”

  “Yeah, righ—” He stopped. “Really?”

  “Really, Wilson. It was a short-lived romance for Dewey. But it was real for Tori. Real, true, fantastically fantastica—”

  “What about the other brothers?”

  Louise blinked. “You know about them?”

  “We know Tori’s dated a lot of Womacs,” I said. “But why?”

  Louise stared at my Cupid. “Because she never got over Dewey.”

  “You know,” I sang. “This would make a good premise for a romance novel.”

  “What a fantastical idea, Jessica! One woman, five brothers—”

  “And the brother she loves doesn’t think he loves her—”

  “Think being the key word!” Louise held up an index finger. “But in the end—”

  “In the end, when she’s about to marry the wrong brother, the right brother realizes his true feelings—”

  “And they sail off into the damn sunset!” That was Wilson. “Can we focus, please?”

  I slumped. “You’re the one who believes in happily ever after,” I said.

  “Yep, and you’re the one who says life’s no fairy tale. Focus.”

  “Focusing!” Louise closed her eyes and held her fingertips to both temples. “Focusing! Focusing!”

  Wilson caught my eye. “Fantastical,” he muttered.

  ***

  I tapped Louise’s knee to get her attention. “Did Tori ever mention the Womac sister?”

  “Who? What?”

  “Charm Willowby’s a Womac. She’s Dewey’s sister.”

  “Who!? What!?”

  “Tori never mentioned that minor detail?” Wilson asked, and proof that there’s a first time for everything, Geez Louise was rendered speechless.

  I utilized the unexpected silence to do a little thinking. “This brother-sister connection might be a major detail,” I said. “It could bode well for Tori’s innocence.”

  “It could?” Louise shook her head. “It could!” she said, but then reconsidered. “It could?”

  “It could,” I said, and Wilson mentioned his lingering headache.

  I tossed him the bottle of pills. “Think about it,” I said. “Since Dewey is Charm’s brother, Tori had no need to date him to sway the librarian vote. Presumably he would have helped his sister anyway.”

  “Ingenious!” Louise said. “Fantastically ingenious!” She nodded vigorously and encouraged me to continue.

  I looked at Wilson.

  “I’m listening,” he said.

  “So.” I kept thinking. “Since Tori didn’t date Dewey for the librarian vote ten years ago, she set no precedent.”

  “No precedent!” Louise bounced. “No precedent?”

  “No precedent,” I repeated. “Roaring Tori never really pulled a stunt to change the outcome of the Romance Writers Hall of Fame last time, so therefore, she didn’t pull a stunt this time.”

  “No precedent! Tori was stuntless then, and Tori is stuntless now!” My agent bounced enough to revive my headache also. “Tori didn’t kill anyone!” she told Wilson. “So go tell your cop-friend to release her.”

  “No.”

  “No!? What do you mean, no? You’re glad Tori’s under arrest! You’re happy she’s in jai—”

  “Louise!” I held out a hand, and she made a visible effort to calm down.

  Wilson waited until she would look at him.

  “I’m focusing,” she told him.

  “Do we agree someone has to be the culprit?” he asked.

  She agreed.

  “And we agree the sooner they’re behind bars, the sooner Jessie’s safe?”

  Another nod.

  “And I agree with you, okay? This arrest is premature. We don’t have the evidence yet. But.” He held her eye. “I still hope Jo’s right. I hope Tori’s the killer, and I hope this is over and done with.”

  I expected Geez Louise to throw another fit, but she remained disturbingly calm.

  “Jo Keegan is wrong,” she said. “This isn’t over and done with.” She reached for my hand. “Jessica is still in danger.”

  Chapter 23

  Conrad Montjoy awoke with a start. “Miss Vervette!” he hollered.

  He threw on his trousers and rushed to the lady’s tent. Slipper Vervette stood on tippy-toes amidst her bed linens, “Eee-Eeeing” at the top of her lungs.

  Conrad barely had time to appreciate how diaphanous her nightclothes were in the early dawn light before he saw the cause of her distress. A scorpion! Poised a mere yard from Miss Vervette’s tender toes!

  Conrad sprang to action!

  He grabbed the lady’s parasol, opened the contraption, and ensnared the scorpion.

&nbs
p; Slipper clutched her bosom and attempted to control her breathing as Mr. Montjoy hastened away. She found it difficult to calm herself, however. For Mr. Montjoy had been bare chested, and what with the urgency of the situation, had not had time to button his trousers. Slipper blushed and was reflecting on the immodesty of her own attire when Conrad slipped back inside.

  “Did you get stung?” he asked.

  ***

  “Diaphanous, huh?” Wilson reached out from under the bed linens and pointed to my computer screen. “Did she get stung?”

  “She’s certainly been stung by something,” I said. I set my laptop on the nightstand and squirmed back under the covers. “But not by that scorpion.” I nudged his ribs. “Not bad for three hours sleep, no?”

  “You or Conroy?”

  “Both. And it’s Conrad. Conrad Montjoy.” I snuggled in closer and related the basics. After a rather restless night, Slipper Vervette had awakened to a rustling noise near her feet. She sat up straight for fear the vile Barney Splawn had dared enter her tent.

  “But it wasn’t the evil villain.” Wilson pretended to shiver. “It was the scorpion.”

  “Exactly. And what follows is, of course, inevitable.”

  “Skipper’s first sex scene.”

  “Slipper.”

  “They are half-dressed,” Wilson mused. “Seems a shame not to get a little action.”

  “A lot of action.” I glanced over and fluttered my eyelashes. “No matter how exhausted.”

  ***

  “Call Jo,” I said.

  “That’s what you’ve been thinking about?”

  I giggled and assured Wilson he had swept me away from my troubles for a little while. “However.”

  “However, I should call Jo.” He tweaked the tip of my nose and got up to find his phone.

  I also stood up, performed a yawn and a stretch that would make my cat Snowflake proud, and headed for the tiny coffee pot provided in our room.

  Wilson held the phone to his chest. “Use bottled water.”

  How our tap water could be tainted without killing off the entire Goodnight Inn population was beyond me, but I did as I was told and concentrated on eavesdropping.

  He was doing a lot of mm-hmm-ing and ah-ha-ing, but very little no-no-ing.

  “Tell Jo she arrested the wrong person,” I said when I couldn’t bear another mm-hmm. “Tell her what we decided at three a.m. Tell her Tori Fister is stuntless. Tell her—”

  “Could you hold on a minute?” he told her. He again held the phone to his chest and stared at me.

  I sighed dramatically. “Tell me to go take a shower,” I said and left him on his own.

  ***

  “So?” I said. “What did you tell her?”

  “That this coffee is pathetic.” Wilson handed me a cup of tepid liquid and stepped into the shower I’d just vacated.

  I waited patiently and was pressed and dressed, and Wilson was shaved and dressed, before he’d say anything about his conversation with Chief Keegan.

  “You won’t like it,” he warned me.

  “She’s standing by this arrest.”

  “Very good.”

  “No, it is not good. She plowed ahead without consulting us.” I flapped my arms. “Arresting people, willy-nilly.”

  “Not exactly willy-nilly.”

  “Wilson!”

  “Jessie!” He mimicked my tone. “If it helps, I told her she better hope she’s right. If she isn’t—” He let me think about it.

  “Tori Fister could sue for false arrest,” I said.

  “Bingo.” He took me by the shoulders and sat us down on the couch. “Jo panicked, okay? She’s got a murder and a ticking clock on her hands.”

  “She wants to solve this while we’re all still here.”

  “Yep. The Happily Ever After crowd disperses, and the killer gets away. She felt pressured to arrest someone.”

  “But she arrested the wrong someone.”

  “I still hope it’s the right someone.” He let out a breath. “But if it’s not, I blame myself.”

  “Come on, Wilson. You explicitly told her it was too soon to arrest Tori. I was there last night. I heard you.”

  “But you didn’t hear my conversations with Densmore. I explicitly told him to focus on Tori Fister and Charm Willowby.”

  I cringed. “Because they’re so obnoxious?”

  “I let my personal dislike of these women influence my thinking. Densmore had some info on Roger Hollingsworth well worth investigating, but the minute I saw that list of aliases—” He stopped and shook his head.

  “You locked onto the Tori Fister-Dewey Womac-Charm Willowby saga.”

  “I convinced myself Tori was our answer. Very unprofessional.”

  I gave his chest a little push and reminded him he wasn’t the one who had made the arrest. “And besides, no one can blame you for taking this murder personally. Now then.” I gave his chest another shove. “What’s the dirt on Roger Hollingsworth?”

  “His failed import-export business. It’s so dirty Densmore needs time to sort it out.”

  “Well, tell him to be quick about it so we can get poor Tori out of jail.”

  “Please don’t call her poor Tori.”

  “But if she’s innocent, we’ve got to help her.”

  He waited until he caught my eye. “You’re forgetting the other reason we should help Tori.”

  I swallowed. “To find the real killer,” I said. “The one who might still be after me.”

  “Very good.”

  ***

  I got up to find the pathetic coffee pot and refilled our cups with the pathetic remains.

  “Okay, so what do we do now?” I asked as I sat back down. “How are we supposed to act? How much are we supposed to know? What aren’t we supposed to know?”

  Wilson told me to relax, and in the next breath informed me Jo Keegan would be by at lunchtime to make an official announcement about Tori Fister.

  I rolled my eyes. “And let me guess. Until then we’re to go about our business as usual?”

  Wilson ignored the sarcasm. “Stay observant,” he told me. “Let’s be alert for any rumors about Tori Fister.”

  “What rumors?” I asked. “Louise promised to keep her big mouth shut. Which means no one knows this news but us.”

  Wilson suggested I think again. “You think Roaring Tori left the premises quietly last night? In handcuffs?”

  A very good point.

  “Patsy Glee knows, too,” he said.

  I winced. “Which means Hatsy and Batsy know. Which means everyone here knows.” I sipped my supposed coffee. “Which means the sleuthing team should be alert to any rumors.”

  “I hate that phrase.”

  “Alert to rumors?” I smirked and told him to make himself useful. “Go find us some real coffee. Preferably in a gallon-size jug.” I pointed to the sorry liquid at the bottom of my cup. “Believe it or not, this isn’t cutting it.”

  He got up to find the car keys. “How about bagels?” He mentioned he’d seen a bagel shop nearby, and I told him to get enough for my mother also. “She loves bagels.”

  “Meanwhile you write.” He pointed to my computer. “Some sizzling sex for Conroy and Skipper.”

  Chapter 24

  “Conrad and Slipper,” I said for Mr. Cupid’s benefit. I grabbed my computer, and we were just getting started on the sizzling stuff when Karen called.

  “So?” I asked. “How did your second date go? I want all the details—every single teeny tiny-itsy bitsy—”

  “Would you give me a break? I’m calling to apologize, Jess. I’m sorry I hung up on you last night.”

  I argued I was the one who should apologize. “It was very late.”

  “And I’d had a long night.”

  “Excellent!” I smiled broadly. “So where did Pierpont take you this time? LA, New Orleans, Venice, Pari—”

  “Try the Stone Fountain. And, hello, I wasn’t with Piers.”

  I slumpe
d. “With Candy?”

  “I never should have agreed to it.”

  I slumped some more. “Why?”

  “Because she pumped me for every detail about my trip to New York City. We went over the same old story a gazillion times.”

  I informed my friend that her romance with Pierpont Rigby was most decidedly not an old story.

  “It’s not a romance, either.”

  “Maybe not yet,” I persisted. “But what about that second date? Where’s he taking you next? Paris, Rome, Hong Kong—”

  “Try nowhere. I told him I’m not interested.”

  “What? Well, no wonder Candy told me to talk some sense into you.”

  “Do you guys even know the meaning of privacy?”

  “No,” I said honestly. “And fair’s fair, Karen. You and Candy have been butting into my relationship with Wilson since day one. Since the first time I beat him at the Stone Fountain pool table.”

  “That pool game was your destiny.”

  “Yes, but right now we’re discussing your destiny. The one with you and Pierpont and happily ever after.”

  Karen groaned. “How about let’s discuss the real Happily Ever After? You know, your romance conference?” She asked for an update on the murder. “Is the bad guy behind bars yet?”

  “Someone’s behind bars, but it’s the wrong someone.” I thought again. “It’s probably the wrong someone.” I explained the latest, and my chocoholic friend was suitably appalled that Penelope might have been poisoned by chocolate candy.

  “There should be a law against that,” she said, and I told her there probably was.

  “But personally, I hope it was the chocolate, because that would mean I wasn’t the intended victim.” I scowled. “Of course that would also mean Tori Fister is the guilty party, which I don’t want.”

  “You’re mixed up, girlfriend. You want the killer caught, whoever it was. You got it?”

  “You’re beginning to sound like Wilson.”

  “As usual, he’s right, and you’re wrong.”