Page 4 of Love Notes

She brightened.“Shit, Ryan, really?Because your cabin would beperfect!”

“What?No!I can help you out withmoney.”

“Ry!”She reached across the table and caught my hand.“Please.If we cancel, it’ll tank our host reviews before we’ve even started!I’ll take care of everything, I promise.It’s only for six weeks, and—”

“Sixweeks!”

“You can move in here!”

I pinched the bridge of my nose.“My workshop is at my place.”The main reason I’d bought the cabin at the lake hadn’t been just for the cabin itself.It had been for the large shed at the back of the half acre block that I’d since converted into my workshop.“I can’t just stay here and drive out there every day.”

Rebecca wrinkled her nose.“It’s Caldwell Crossing to the lake.It’s hardly a long commute.”She let out a long breath.“Oh, are you still doing that thing where you go and work on stuff in the middle of the night whenever you get stressed out about being single and alone and tell yourself that’s a totally normal thing to do instead of taking some melatonin like the rest of us?”

Yes.

“No.That’s not the reason.”

That was totally the reason.

I wilted a little under her stare.“I like working in the middle of the night.It’s relaxing.”

“You’re such a weirdo,” she said, and wiped her nose on the end of her sleeve.Then she narrowed her eyes.“Didn’t you sleep in the workshop back when you were renovating the cabin when you first moved in?”

“Yes, but—”

“So it still has a camp bed and a mini fridge and everything?”

“Becca…” But I was going to cave, and she knew it.

“Please,” she said again, her eyes bright with hope.“I’ll take care of everything, and I’ll owe you literally forever, and…” She drew a triumphant breath.“And I’ll make you white chocolate and macadamia cookies every week for an entire year!”

Ugh.

How the hell was I supposed to say no to that?

I WAS PRETTYsure I’d been scammed.

Best-case scenario, this was a bait and switch, and instead of the nice cottage I’d looked at online, I was about to be offered a rickety trailer on some back lot.Worst-case scenario, I was following Google Maps down a winding, tree-lined road toward my death.My host, Rebecca, would turn out to be a couple of big, scary guys with guns, and they’d drive me to an ATM and force me to empty my account before they murdered me.It wouldn’t be a nice, cleanish death like those I gave my characters in my cozy mystery books.This would be more your True Crime kind of death.There would be crime scene photographs of blood spatter on the internet and a controversial podcast.There might even be merch.

Not that I’d get a percentage of it if I was buried in a shallow grave, but I was certain Anita, my agent, would make sure my estate got a cut.

She was scary in that way.

She was scary in all the ways, actually.I was very glad she was on my side.At least, for most things.

“Why the fuck do you want to go to Harmony Lake?”she’d asked me a few weeks ago on a Zoom call when I’d first brought the idea up.

“Well, I think it’s important to see how the light falls, you know, to get a real sense of—”

“Is this about that review bullshit?”Her Zoom background was rainbows—her kid had turned it on, and neither of us had any idea how to switch it off—and it did not vibe well with the cold-blooded murder in her eyes.

“No,” I said and aimed for a gently deflecting laugh that came out more as a wheeze.“No, this has got nothing to do with that.”

This had everything to do with that.

I’d been a writer forever.From the moment I could read, I’d been scribbling away at terrible little stories and poems.My first book had been published when I was twenty-two.God.It had been so exciting.My book, on bookstore shelves!Unfortunately, it was on bookstore shelves with thousands of other books that people preferred to read.My only big break had been heartbreak when the publisher had decided not to pick up the rest of the series due to abysmal sales.

Fifteen years later, I was an “overnight success” with my cozy mysteries set in Harmony Lake.I’d written the first book on a whim, recalling the beautiful New Hampshire countryside I’d visited as a kid and throwing in a bookstore owner who, with the reluctant help of a local deputy, solves some not-very gruesome murders in their postcard-perfect surroundings.

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