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  “Your system stinks,” Penelope told her, and I asked Gavin if he happened to have an Advil in his pocket.

  “I was hoping you did,” he said.

  “At least your cousin knows how to treat the guest of honor,” Penelope continued.

  “What now?” Hatsy asked.

  “The candy.” She pointed to Batsy, who was helping a couple of elderly fans find good seats. “It was delicious. I had some for breakfa—”

  “Surprise!” Wilson said, and I spun around.

  “What?” I jumped up and down. “What!?”

  “Surprise, Jessie!” my mother said. “Oops.” She clapped gleefully. “I mean, surprise, Adelé!”

  Chapter 9

  “Tessie!” I heard Geez Louise shout from somewhere close by. But I was too busy struggling to get around the table and past Tori, Roger, and countless others to notice how many “fantasticals” my mother’s arrival warranted.

  I finally made it and gave my elderly mother the hug she so richly deserved. Then I handed her off to Louise and gave Wilson the hug he deserved.

  “Surprise,” he whispered in my ear.

  “How long have you been planning this?”

  “We’ve been in cahoots for weeks,” Mother answered for him. “Wilson arranged everything. My flight, my hotel reservation, everything.”

  “The perfect paramour!” Louise said. “The man is fantastical, fantastical, fantastic—”

  “He is darling,” Mother agreed, but about then she noticed the crowd milling around. “Where are my manners?” she said. “Introduce me to your friends, Honeybunch.”

  Roaring Tori sprang forward.

  Ho hum. “Tori Fister,” I grumbled with a decided lack of enthusiasm.

  “And this is your mother!” Tori pumped Mother’s hand and told her she needed to talk to her after the ceremony.

  “No!” I said in no uncertain terms. “She’s off limits.”

  “I have plans for your daughter’s career!” Tori continued. “Big, huge, outrageous plan—”

  “Come on, Tessie.” Wilson took my mother’s arm and turned her toward the stairs. “Let’s find you a seat.”

  “Movies!” Tori called after them, and Mother stopped and turned.

  “Pardon me?”

  Tori pointed to my poster of An Everlasting Encounter behind the table. “I have connections in Hollywood.”

  I guarantee Geez Louise responded to that ludicrous claim, but I tuned out the conversation to stare at my poster.

  “You moved it,” I said.

  Penelope smirked. “See how you like being last.” She pointed to the poster of her latest release, Fiasco in the Fast Lane, which now occupied the tripod behind the fourth seat, and sat down. “You be number five.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Does it really matter?”

  “Yes, it does.” Lo and behold, Hatsy Glee was still on stage. “It’s supposed to be alphabetical.”

  “It’s fine, Hatsy,” I said. “I don’t mind being last.”

  “Last is best, isn’t it?” My mother spoke up. I motioned for Wilson to get her off the stage, but Mother held her ground. “They always save the most important for last at this kind of thing, don’t they?”

  “That’s right, Tessie.” My husband spoke up. “Just like the Academy Awards.”

  “There now, you see?” Mother smiled sweetly at Penelope and allowed Wilson to lead her away.

  ***

  “I do not see,” Hatsy Glee said after Mother was out of earshot. “We’re running late.”

  True, but the fans had finally left the stage, and the rest of the inductees were sitting down. I tried my best to maneuver around Hatsy to do so myself.

  “Where’s Charm?” she asked me.

  “Yes, Adelé,” Penelope sang. “Where is our emcee?”

  “How should I know?” I said. “It’s not my fault she’s late.”

  “Who’s late?” Charm asked from behind us. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  “But the seating,” Hatsy said. She pointed to the fourth and fifth spots. “Penelope and Adelé need to switch back.”

  Charm turned on me. “Why do you care? You’ve waited this long, what difference does it make where you sit now?”

  Ho hum. I didn’t bother answering and kept trying to get myself around Hatsy while she and Charm continued to bicker.

  “Let’s get this show on the road,” Charm repeated.

  “Okay, fine!” Hatsy snapped. “But now I have to switch everything.”

  “I already moved the posters,” Penelope said helpfully.

  “Okay, fine!” Hatsy reached for a water glass, but Charm slapped her hand away.

  “Leave it!” she said, and before Hatsy could protest, Penelope picked up the glass and drank the whole thing in about three gulps.

  “Chocolate for breakfast made me thirsty,” she said. She put down the glass and wrinkled her nose. “Yuck.”

  Hatsy blinked twice. “Chocolate?” she asked. “What about your diet?”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake!” Charm took Hatsy by the shoulders and pointed her in the opposite direction. “Forget about Penelope and go put the stupid Cupids in order. And you!” She pointed me to the five spot. “Sit!”

  ***

  Okay, so I sat.

  And Charm Willowby got the show on the road.

  To her credit, she actually did turn on the charm. She welcomed everyone and began with an introduction of our publishers, Roberto Santiago and Mia Madison. With the rigmarole down at our end of the table, I hadn’t even seen those two arrive. But there they stood, poised at the Cupids table.

  While the audience applauded for “the two most renowned and prestigious names in romance publishing” I took a moment to look around. Louise and Tori had taken up positions at opposite ends of the front row. And Wilson and my mother were sitting with Mykal, directly behind Louise. Everyone was smiling and happy.

  “So far, so good,” I whispered to Penelope, but she paid me no attention as Charm moved on to the inductees.

  “Zelda Bell!” she announced. “From the first of her Wayward Witches series, Witch One, to her latest masterpiece, Witchever Forever, Zelda Bell has set the standard for paranormal romance.” Charm pointed to the poster of Witchever Forever, and Zelda stood up amid hearty applause to receive her Cupid from Mia.

  Charm moved on to Faith Hollingsworth. While she discussed Faith’s work, from Sweet Surprise to her latest novel, Sweet Suggestion, I scanned the audience for Roger and finally located him standing at the doorway. Faith held up her Cupid and waved, and Roger walked out.

  Next up was Gavin McClure. As Charm read her introduction on his groundbreaking work in the LGBT category, Mia and Roberto switched spots, and soon Gavin was receiving his Cupid from Roberto.

  Before Gavin sat down he winked at me over the top of Penelope’s head. I gave him a thumbs-up, and Charm continued. “Next we have Penelope Shay,” she said. “One of the romance industry’s finest and funniest—”

  One of?

  I hazarded a glimpse at Penelope to see what she thought of that description. But she was facing the podium and not me. She sat still and silent while Charm listed her accolades.

  “Ladies and gentleman,” Charm said. “This decade’s Hall of Fame inductee for Contemporary Romance—Penelope Shay!”

  Roberto lifted Penelope’s Cupid, and everyone applauded. But Penelope didn’t move.

  I gently nudged her.

  Nothing.

  Gavin did the same from his angle.

  Nothing.

  “Wilson!” I screamed, and jumped from my chair.

  Chapter 10

  About the only thing I didn’t knock over was Penelope. My chair went flying into the tripod holding An Everlasting Encounter. That fell into Penelope’s tripod, and in domino fashion, everything tumbled.

  Luckily, most people handled the situation better than I did. For instance, my husband the cop was on stage before Zelda’s Witchever Forever poster crashe
d into the pink podium. He told everyone to remain calm and called for a defibrillator. And by the time he and Gavin got Penelope stretched out on the floor, Hatsy was standing by with the machine.

  Batsy also acted fast. She asked if there was a doctor in the house, ordered someone—anyone—to call 911, and got herself onto the stage, kneeling beside Wilson.

  “Do you know what you’re doing?” she asked. “If not, I do.”

  “He’s a cop,” I reminded her, and Wilson kept on working.

  I couldn’t watch, and I wasn’t helping. “I need to sit down,” I told no one in particular and staggered away.

  A lot of people were murmuring questions and concerns, but the only person I wanted to talk to was my mother. I passed Tori and Louise, both of whom seemed as shell-shocked as I was, and nodded silently to Mykal as I took the seat Wilson had vacated.

  “She’s dead,” Mother whispered.

  “I think so,” I said.

  “Poisoned,” she said.

  “I think so.” I turned to face her. “That wasn’t a question, was it?”

  ***

  I closed my eyes and prayed for strength, and by the time I opened them, Louise and Tori had roused themselves to join us. In fact, everyone who’d been involved in the presentation ceremony gathered around Mother and me.

  Meanwhile, the EMS crew arrived and relieved Wilson. He stepped aside to make a phone call, and then left the stage. Several people asked him if Penelope was dead. He offered a curt nod, and ignoring any further questions asked everyone to sit still. Then he zeroed in on the Glee Club, and asked Batsy and Patsy to guard the doors.

  “What about me?” Hatsy asked.

  “You go wait for Jo Keegan in the lobby.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “She’s the chief of police.”

  “I know that.”

  Hatsy took several deep breaths and then headed for the door.

  “She?” I asked as Wilson finally joined us.

  “Jo as in Josephine,” he said.

  “Do you know her?”

  Wilson knows a lot of other cops, especially in the southeast. And sure enough he had met Chief Keegan at several law enforcement conferences.

  “But we don’t call our meetings Happily Ever After,” he said. He gave me a meaningful look, and I excused myself to follow him a few steps away. I watched him watch the paramedics. “She was dead before I got up there,” he whispered.

  “She was poisoned,” I whispered back.

  He shifted his focus. “She was sitting in your spot, Jessie.” He kept staring at me. “Your spot.”

  ***

  I was remembering how to breathe again when Jo Keegan arrived. But the chief of police didn’t exactly inspire calm.

  “We need to let these people go,” she told Wilson as Adam and Hatsy led her over. “You didn’t tell me you were detaining five hundred people.”

  “More like three hundred.” Wilson used a far more hushed tone. He told Adam and Hatsy he’d take it from there, but neither of them got the hint.

  Finally, a job for me. “Let’s sit down,” I said. I took them by the elbows and set our course toward the group surrounding my mother. Adam was fairly compliant, but Hatsy proved a bit harder to steer.

  “Chief Keegan is right,” she said as I tried shoving her along. “The seminars get underway right after lunch. We need to be moving along.”

  I suggested she rethink her priorities and sat her down next to Faith Hollingsworth. But Faith had some odd priorities also.

  “I don’t like the looks of this.” She squinted at the chief of police. “Roger will have a cow if there’s any funny business.”

  “Penelope is dead,” Zelda snapped. “There’s nothing funny about it.” She glanced at me, and her expression softened considerably. “How?” she asked.

  I hesitated. “I’m not sure,” I said and asked if anyone had noticed anything.

  Not much, unfortunately.

  Charm, Mia, and Roberto had been too busy handing out the awards. “We were concentrating on Zelda and Faith,” Mia said.

  “And Gavin,” Roberto added.

  “We were working hard,” Charm said in a tone that implied I’d been twiddling my thumbs all morning.

  I spoke to Gavin. “Did you see anything?”

  “You were sitting right next to her,” Faith said.

  But like me, Gavin’s attention had been on Charm and the Cupids. “Although she did seem a little dazed when I came back with my Cupid,” he said. He tapped his Cupid, now resting on his lap, and I noticed Faith and Zelda also had their Cupids firmly in hand.

  I looked up at the two remaining Cupids—Penelope’s and mine—forlorn and abandoned on the stage.

  “Even from out here, she seemed a little dazed,” Mykal was saying.

  Louise agreed. “I assumed she was overwhelmed by the fantastical honor she was about to receive.”

  “No,” Tori said. “I’m sure she was thinking about my offer from Double D.”

  I swallowed a groan and asked my mother if she had noticed anything.

  Mother gazed at the stage. Wilson, Jo Keegan, a uniformed cop, and the EMS personnel were all up there, but Mother had her eyes focused at floor level.

  “Tessie?” Louise asked.

  I held up a hand. “Don’t rush her.”

  Eventually, Mother spoke. “Penelope liked to upset the apple cart, didn’t she?”

  “What else?” I prompted.

  “Well now, I don’t like to find fault, but your poster was outdated, Jessie.” She tilted her head toward the posters scattered on the stage. “Seduction in the Shadows is your latest book.”

  “Oh, spare me!” Charm rolled her eyes. “No one cares about her stupid poster.”

  “I care,” Hatsy said. “But 3P sent me the wrong promotional material.”

  “And I most certainly care.” That was Roberto. “I apologize, Adelé. I do not know how my marketing department could make such a grave error.” He raised a fist. “Someone will pay for this offens—”

  Bless her heart, the chief of police interrupted. “May I have your attention, please?” Jo introduced herself and stated what everyone already knew—Penelope Shay was dead, and the cause of death was uncertain. “Which means I need to talk to a few people.” She looked down at our little group. “I want whoever’s in charge to stay put. And I want anyone who was up here during this induction thing.” She waved a dismissive hand to the rest of the crowd. “Everyone else needs to clear out.”

  I tried to catch Wilson’s eye, but he refused to look at me while Jo gave further directions. “Business as usual,” she ordered. “I’m sure y’all have a busy day ahead. When’s lunch?”

  Hatsy stood up. “Twelve o’clock sharp,” she said. “And the afternoon programs start promptly at two.”

  As the Glee Club began herding people out, Mother asked me what she should do. I was at a loss until Adam offered to escort her to her room. Apparently he had delivered her luggage without her, so she could get to the induction ceremony on time.

  “Room 402,” he told me as he helped her to her feet. “I knew you’d want her close by.”

  I promised my mother I’d be with her as soon as possible, and she and Adam took their leave. I glanced at Mykal. “I’m afraid Wilson won’t be shooting any golf balls this afternoon.”

  “Hitting,” he said. He gave Gavin’s hand a quick squeeze and followed Adam and my mother.

  Louise Urko and Tori Fister held onto each other for support and also headed out.

  “Geez,” Gavin said as the literary agents staggered away. “They’re almost being nice to each other.”

  “I’ve never seen Louise so quiet,” I said.

  “What about Tori?” Zelda asked.

  “No roar whatsoever,” Charm said.

  “Definitely not business as usual,” Faith concluded.

  Chapter 11

  The second Patsy closed the ballroom doors, our attention was redirected to the stage, where the EMS
crew was unfolding a body bag.

  “I’m glad I’m sitting down,” Zelda said, and those of us still standing thought she made an excellent point.

  “Bag everything on this table,” Jo Keegan ordered the uniformed cop. He asked about the water, and she told him to get some containers from the kitchen to keep the contents of each inductee’s glass separate.

  “What?” Hatsy Glee rushed forward. “Why?”

  “It’s evidence,” Wilson said.

  “Evidence!? Evidence of what?”

  “Supposed evidence.” Jo said.

  “Supposed evidence of what?”

  The chief of police pointed to me. I braced myself and spit it out. “Penelope was poisoned.”

  “What!?” most everyone screeched.

  “Everyone needs to stay calm,” Jo said sternly.

  “Calm?” That was Hatsy again. “I was the one who filled those water glasses.”

  “We’re not even sure it was the water,” I said.

  “We’re not sure it was anything.” Jo directed a glare at me. “But I assure you, it will all be crystal clear in due time.”

  Sorry, but a few things were already crystal clear to yours truly. “Penelope was poisoned,” I said with even more conviction.

  “How do you know?” Charm asked.

  “Intuition,” I said, and Charm barely had time to roll her eyes before Jo again insisted no one knew anything for certain.

  “But what if it really was poison? What if it was in the water?” Hatsy stared wide-eyed at the cop gathering the evidence on the stage. “I didn’t kill anyone!”

  “No one’s accusing you.” Wilson used his most authoritative cop-like voice. “Everyone and his brother had access to those water glasses this morning.”

  “And we don’t know it was the water,” I repeated.

  “We don’t know anything,” Jo tried again.

  “What about Adelé’s intuition?” Charm’s sarcasm was hard to miss, but poor Hatsy was taking things a lot more seriously.