Page 18 of Kill Your Darlings

But no.He was seeing the real me.In all my fucked-up glory.

After a second or two he snapped out of his trance and rose.

“You got it,” he said, and walked away.

Chapter Five

I was shivering when I climbed out of the pool.

The truth was, it was too cold for swimming.But it wasn’t the gray skies or wind off the ocean that had me shaking as I clumsily toweled off.I fumbled into my jeans, nearly over-balancing, dragged on my sweatshirt, slid my glasses on.They immediately fogged up.

Business is business.You can’t fall apart every time something doesn’t go your way.What Lila told Finn was true.Most authors don’t stay with their first editor throughout the entire course of their career.Some do.When you’re lucky enough to find right combination of personalities and creative vision— It takestimeto develop that partnership.

But fair enough.If Finn believed someone else could help him reach The Next Level—whatever he imagined that might be, because he’d already reached a level of success most authors fantasized about—that was that.I sure as hell didn’t want him feeling he had to stick with me out of loyalty if he no longer thought working together was in his best interests.

And, although I’d believed it in the moment, I didn’t know for a fact that anyone wanted to get rid of me.It’d be pretty stupid.I was a good, experienced editor.Did they want to get me under control?Oh, hell yeah.It had been clear in my meeting with Vaughn and Lila they thought I was all but running amuck at Millbrook House.

If there was a funny side to all this—well, there wasn’t.But it was ridiculous that I was as upset about Finn as I was over someone trying to blackmail me.Or threaten me.Or whatever it was that U.N.Owen was trying to do.

I’d been awake since three o’clock in the morning trying to figure that out.

I’d tried some Google-Fu, and come across several non-Christie references to U.N.Owen.

According to Wikipedia, “U.N.Owen Was Her?”was a theme song composed by ZUN for the sixth Touhou Project game Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.

No.Me neither.

And according to a wiki Fandom, U.N.Owen was the newly created organization by Ludger Cherish and his brother Hans, created after Ludger destroyed the Red Society and started a Cooperative with the other three organizations (Black Rose Woman, Circus, and Old Kids).

Not ringing any bells.

I did come across a U.N.Owen who had self-published a fantasy novel in 2016.Sadly, that writing career appeared to have ended as the majority of writing careers did.It was hard to watch all that initial hope and excitement—the genuine passion for words and worlds—fade away through his many socials.I hoped he’d love the writing itself because so often that’s the only reward for the hard work.

A quick scan of the Read Inside sample on Amazon convinced me that this Owen was a completely different writer from the author ofI Know What You Did.

And that was pretty much it.

A dead end.

Then I’d tried researching Owen’s address in Steeple Hill.

Through the property’s sale and tax history, I was able to see that it had been a rental for the last decade.Through Redfin’s Homeowner’s Tools dashboard, I was able to get a list of names of possible previous owners.

Warren & Sherri McClendon

Blaine R.Adler

Maria E.Campos & Hector S.Ortega

Judith A.Latham

The Devlin Family Trust

None of the names meant anything to me.In any case, I wasn’t planning on contacting the owner for the name of their tenant.I’d have that information myself once I drove to Steeple Hill that afternoon.

It was cold inside the hotel—the lobby being climate controlled for 600 conference attendees—and colder inside the elevator.I should have settled for the coffee maker in my room.But it was still early enough—or people had been drinking late enough—that I didn’t run into anyone I knew.By the third floor, I was on my own again.

On the fourth floor, we lurched to a stop, the bell dinged as the doors began to open, and Lila stepped inside the car.

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