Page 43 of Crime and Publishing

We raced along the winding corridor. Oscar’s toenails clacked against the tiles, matching the pounding of my heart. Quoth shoved open the library door. The fire had burned down to embers now, which thankfully meant I could barely see Hugh’s dead body slumped beside it. The room appeared empty, but I knew better.

“What happened?” I cried. “Who did you kill now?”

“What are you talking about?” Heathcliff growled from a not-so-subtle hiding spot behind the curtains.

“No one’s come into the room,” Morrie unfolded his long body from behind the cuckoo clock and crossed in front of the fire. “And what do you mean, who did we killnow?”

I ignored his question. “So the scream didn’t come from this room?”

“Nope. It must have been the other end of the house, or outside.”

“Mina, are you okay?” Quoth squeezed my hand.

Cold determination settled inside me.I have to find out the truth, even if it’s what I don’t want to hear.

I crossed the room and slammed the door shut. “We need to talk.”

CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR

Quoth took my hand and pulled me and Oscar across the room, moving all of us closer to the fire where he knew I could see a little. He leaned in close, his face shadowed with worry. “Mina, what’s this about?”

“It’s about…” I swallowed. “You. Us. What’s been going on this weekend.”

“If you’re referring to what Heathcliff and I got up to this morning, we would have happily invited you, gorgeous, but you were off with the birdie—”

“No, it’s not about that.” I squeezed my eyes shut. I couldn’t bear to look at them. “I’ve been putting the clues together, and…it all adds up.”

“What adds up?” Quoth squeezed my fingers so tight it hurt a little. “Mina, you’re scaring me.”

“Just tell me one thing…what you were talking about when Donna caught the three of you whispering together in the broom closet? Tell me what you were discussing, and I’ll go back to my hiding place and let you get on with catching the murderer.”

No one spoke. My stomach churned. I opened one eye. Lightning forked through the sky outside, and I could just see the three of them exchanging a long, meaningful look with each other.

“What do you think we were doing?” said Heathcliff in a slightly accusing tone. “We were discussing my outburst. Morrie was recommending me some anger management courses.”

“I know an excellent fellow in London,” Morrie said. “He was wonderful to talk to after I first came into this world with an insatiable thirst for revenge.”

Their words sounded so plausible. But I knew better. Heathcliff wouldnevertalk about his anger issues,especiallynot with Morrie. He didn’t regret hurting Hugh, because Hugh had hurt me and Heathcliff would never stand for that. He had real ‘touch her and die’ dark romance hero energy.

Which was what had led us to this point in the first place. ‘Touch her and die’ might be a fun, sexy trope for a romance novel, but in real life, it was crazy and creepy andillegal.

“That’s a lie, and you know it. The three of you conspired to kill Hugh, didn’t you?”

“Wh-wh-what?” Quoth stammered.

“Oh, gorgeous.” Morrie’s lips curled back into his signature smirk.

“You think we murdered that bastard?” Heathcliff glowered.

He whirled around and stuck his sword into the wall. It stuck out, the thin blade wobbling. Heathcliff’s shoulders heaved with distress.

“Isn’t that what you were threatening to do? Isn’t that why you’re all hiding in the library right now, and why you destroyed the pen under the guise of catching the killer? You’re trying to figure out how to cover up what you did, how to frame one of the other writers for it.”

I squeezed my eyes shut again. I couldn’t bear to stare into Quoth’s eyes while I talked about this. I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t. And yet…

I had to be strong. I had to go with what the evidence said.

“You already didn’t like Hugh because of what he said to me at the opening ceremony. Maybe you even planned some kind of trick to get back at him then. But then Heathcliff overheard Hugh in the library, and he flew into a rage. When you realized that you couldn’t kill him in front of all those witnesses, the three of you had your secret meeting and decided to get your revenge on Hugh.”

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