The Last Word

Chapter 7

Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.

—EDGAR ALLEN POE

Nick Plumley’s glassy eyes were fixed on the ceiling. His mouth was misshapen, stretched unnaturally like a python expanding its jaw in order to swallow a fat rabbit. His lips were blue. A wad of paper filled the entire cavity of his mouth.

Olivia knew she should go back outside. There was nothing she could do to help the dead man, and though every fiber of her being longed to remove the papers crammed into his mouth, she knew that an influx of fresh air would provide him no relief. His lungs would never again expand or contract. They would no longer be invigorated by the sea breeze or by the sharp wind that raced ahead of a thunderstorm. The smoke from wood fires wouldn’t irritate the sensitive bronchioles. They’d never feel the keen ache of being outside on a frigid February morning or tingle as they were infused by the magic of the season’s first snow.

Exhaling slowly, as though she feared her own body might be affected by the writer’s immobility, Olivia tore her gaze from Nick Plumley’s frozen expression of agony. As her eyes traveled down the length of his body, she noticed an angry red welt encircling his neck, just above the larynx.

Plumley was clad in a cotton robe of blue and white checks and matching boxer shorts. He was barefoot and smelled of soap. Olivia noticed that he’d yet to put on his watch and that his hair was still wet. As her eyes returned to his face, she noticed a bead of dried blood on his chin, indicating that he’d cut himself shaving.

Olivia stared at the bright red drop. It was too vivid on a face that had already taken on the waxy pallor of death. She imagined him at the mirror, a handsome man in his midfifties, wiping away the fog with the corner of a towel. After squirting a cone-shaped measure of shaving cream into his palm, he’d have spread the foam over his face, noting the contrast between its whiteness and his tanned skin. Pivoting from side to side, he would have performed the daily ritual he’d begun many years ago as a shrill-voiced, lanky teenager. He would have winced at the cut, briefly, more irritated than injured, and stuck a shred of toilet paper on the wound to soak up the initial rush of blood.

“And then someone came to the door,” Olivia mused aloud. “And you let them in dressed like this. Did you recognize the killer?”

Knowing her proximity to the body could contaminate the crime scene, she tarried only long enough to examine the hardcover resting near Nick’s right arm. The book had been opened toward the middle and a handful of pages had been roughly torn from the binding. The header on an intact page identified the book as The Barbed Wire Flower. Nick Plumley’s mouth had been stuffed with pages from his own bestseller.

“Jesus,” Olivia whispered and stood up. Carefully maneuvering around the shards of glass, she returned to the patio. The force of the sunshine burned her eyes, but she was grateful for its heat. The wash of light made her acutely aware of her vitality, and she threw her arms around her agitated poodle.

“It’s all right,” she murmured as he bathed her face with kisses. “The chief’s on his way.”

Olivia and Haviland walked around to the front of the house. In the lee of a nearby sand dune, they waited for the police to arrive.

Rawlings was in the lead car. He jumped out, readjusted his utility belt, unclipped his holster with the practiced flick of a finger, and strode up to Olivia. Echoing her words to Haviland, he issued a firm command. “Stay here.” He then signaled to one of his men. “Please wait with Ms. Limoges.”

The officer in question tried to conceal his disappointment over having to babysit a civilian, but Olivia rendered his assignment void the moment she rushed after the chief. “The front door’s locked. I had to break a window around back to get in.”

Rawlings stopped and turned, blood rushing to his face. “And you did that because?”

“I had to see if I could help him,” Olivia stated with a calm she didn’t feel. “I couldn’t just sit on the patio and wonder if the man inside could be saved by CPR.”

Mumbling under his breath, the chief gestured at the officers following in his wake and jogged around the side of the house. Olivia glanced at the uniformed watchdog standing beside her and said, “I’d better show the chief what I touched in there.”

The young man was too eager to argue. He led the way with Haviland shadowing after him. Like most of Oyster Bay’s police force, the policeman had seen the poodle inside the station several times and knew he posed no threat. “How did you end up finding the body?” he asked Olivia.

“I walked over from my place to show Mr. Plumley a painting,” she explained.

The officer nodded. “And did your dog sense anything when you got here? Did he bark or seem nervous?”

Olivia reached out and touched Haviland’s head. “That’s an astute question, Officer . . . ?”

“Gregson, ma’am.”

They rounded the corner of the building, and Olivia stopped at the edge of the patio. “Haviland didn’t act like there was a malevolent presence nearby. If he had sensed any violence within the house—shouting or a physical altercation—he would have barked out a warning to me. But he didn’t and that makes me think the killer was well away before we arrived.”

Gregson’s brows rose. “The killer, ma’am?”

Olivia pointed to the shattered door. “You’ll see.” She sank into a lounge chair and invited Haviland to sit in the shade of the patio’s umbrella. “Don’t worry, I won’t move from this spot.”

During the course of the next hour, officers filtered in and out of the house. Olivia listened to the sounds of their work: the rapid-fire clicking of a camera, the crackle of radios, and the slap of measuring tape laid against the bare floor.

The men and women of the Oyster Bay Police kept their voices hushed, following the chief’s example. Olivia had witnessed Rawlings’ demeanor at crime scenes before and knew that he demanded respect be shown to the victim at all times.

Even now, she could picture him reservedly turning out the pockets of Nick Plumley’s robe or touching the stretched skin of his cheeks with his surprisingly gentle, bearlike hands.

Eventually, the coroner arrived and the body was removed. A pair of officers left to interview the neighbors. With half an acre separating the homes, Olivia doubted the men would glean any useful information, but Rawlings was methodical. Everyone living on the Point would be interviewed right away and then, when no clues were discovered, the chief would begin to widen his circle.

Impatient to provide him with her own statement, Olivia peered inside the house and saw that Rawlings was alone. He stood in the middle of the room, arms folded across his chest, head bent. He appeared to be staring at the damaged copy of The Barbed Wire Flower.

Car engines started in the driveway, and Olivia knew that a lone officer waited inside the remaining sedan. He would be sitting in the car for a long time, as Rawlings always lingered at a crime scene long after everyone else had left. He doled out assignments and his team leapt to work, but he chose not to focus on the raw data in the beginning of a case. His interest was in the story behind the crime.

He’d stand without speaking for a full thirty minutes in the place where violence had occurred. Whether a dank alley or a million-dollar home, he would become as still as a stone, close his eyes, and feel his way through the events leading to the crime.

Olivia watched him in silence and then eventually picked up the canvas bag containing Harris’s painting and stepped across the threshold of the open door. “I moved him,” she said softly. “He was facedown and I rolled him over. I couldn’t know that he was beyond help until then.”

He nodded, his gaze still on the book.

“May I come in?” she asked, examining the evidence of the police work. The body outline, the measurement marks on the floor, fingerprint and shoeprint dust, a scattering of sand.

“You seem to have a magnetic pull toward dead bodies, Ms. Limoges,” the chief remarked, his tone unbend-ingly formal. “Tell me what happened.”

They moved to Plumley’s kitchen, and Olivia began her recitation by describing how she’d first met Nick at Grumpy’s and continued by explaining the author’s unusual interest in Harris’s house.

“So your plan was to bring the painting here in order to elicit a response from Mr. Plumley?” Rawlings inquired.

“Yes,” Olivia answered. “By this point I’d put aside the theory that he had sinister motives. In fact, I felt guilty for assuming that he wasn’t sincere in his offer to help Harris polish his manuscript or provide the rest of us with tips on becoming published authors. Bringing the painting here was a peace offering, though Nick wouldn’t have realized that’s what it was meant to be. I did want to know whether it was pivotal to his research pertaining to the sequel to The Barbed Wire Flower, and if so, why hadn’t he just admitted that to Harris?”

Rawlings grew quiet, absorbing what she’d told him. He then unzipped the tote bag and spent a long time studying the winter scene.

Olivia was ready to get away from the beach house. The delayed shock of leaning over Plumley’s distorted face asserted itself now, turning her palms and forehead clammy. Unbidden, her mind flashed on a vision of her nephew lying in his incubator. A strange and unfamiliar emotion welled inside her, and she sucked in a deep breath to force it back down. Tiny babies, Plumley’s tortured corpse—those images didn’t belong on Olivia’s agenda. She should be concentrating on the hundreds of small details she needed to see to before Friday’s grand opening, but she couldn’t. Olivia squeezed her eyes shut, trying to focus all of her senses on the feel of the cool glass tabletop beneath her palms.

“Hey.” Rawlings reached over and touched her wrist. “Are you okay?”

She flipped her hand over in order to grab hold of him. His skin was warm and solid beneath her touch. It calmed her instantly. “Sawyer, the last twenty-four hours have been hell.”

Rawlings listened as she told him about Anders, his hazel eyes softening as he witnessed her relive the fear and worry. When she had finished, his mouth curved into the hint of a smile. “This kind of emotional display could damage your ice queen reputation, you know.”

Pushing her chair away from the table, she put a hand on each of his cheeks and, after drinking in his scent of aftershave and coffee, leaned over and kissed him. “With your help, I may defrost yet,” she whispered, relishing the feel of his rough skin under her hands.

Carefully and with infinite tenderness, Rawlings pushed her away and rose to his feet. “I need to concentrate, Olivia.”

She nodded, unashamed, and pivoted until she faced the spot where Nick’s body had lain. Just touching Rawlings had brought her back to herself. She felt grounded again, in control of her feelings and ready to help him work through what had occurred in this living room.

After packing up the painting, Olivia said, “Plumley must have known his killer, to have invited someone in while wearing only a robe and boxer shorts.” She took a few steps forward and pointed at the book. “This was personal. Someone took pages from Nick’s own work and forced them into his mouth.” She hesitated and then asked, “Is that what killed him?”

“The medical examiner thinks he was strangled first. From behind. The pages were put in posthumously. That will have to be verified, of course, but that’s his initial assessment.”

Olivia felt a shiver of trepidation. “Feels like a crime of passion to me. The murderer choked the life out of Nick and then stuffed this own writing down his throat.”

“Made him eat his own words,” Rawlings declared solemnly. “Leaving us with the most significant question unanswered: Why? Who hated this man or his work enough to stop him from writing another word?”

There was no ready answer, of course. Olivia and Rawlings stood side by side for a long moment, and then he gave his gun belt a tug and gestured at the front door.

“I’d prefer your exit be less dramatic than your entrance,” he said with the ghost of a smile. “You made the right choice, Olivia, in coming to Mr. Plumley’s aid, but his killer could have still been inside. I wish you’d learn to curb your impetuousness.”

Olivia waved off his concern. “Haviland would have rescued me from harm, even if it meant shredding his paws on broken glass. I have complete faith in him.” She touched the chief’s shoulder before stepping outside. “And in you too.”

Pleasure flitted across the chief’s face, but he quickly hid it by sliding on a pair of mirrored sunglasses. The pair stepped outside, and Rawlings raised a hand at the officer waiting in the police cruiser. He then asked Olivia if she’d like a ride.

“No, thanks. I’ll provide an official statement when I come into town. I need to get to the hospital by eleven to give Hudson the key card for the hotel in Greenville.”

“You’re the only person in Oyster Bay who dictates when they’ll show up at the station.” Rawlings shook his head in mild exasperation. “Still, I know you’ll fit us into your schedule. And, Olivia, I might call on you to help dig up information on the previous inhabitants of Harris’s house.” His sunglasses glinted in the light. “I want to know what connection, if any, they had to that painting and, possibly, to Mr. Plumley.”

While Rawlings had been speaking, the other officer had eased out of the car, leaving the driver’s door open and the engine running. Obviously, it was now his task to watch over the house until it could be properly sealed, but he kept his distance until Rawlings made it clear that he was ready to leave both the crime scene and Olivia behind.

“I’d be glad to help, Chief,” Olivia replied, pleased that he’d asked. She kicked at some loose gravel, reluctant to part from Rawlings.

At that moment, Haviland ambled around the house from his napping place under the chaise lounge. He glanced at the chief and yawned widely, his white teeth gleaming in the midmorning sun.

Rawlings gave the poodle an affectionate pat on the flank.

“Keep her safe, Captain,” he murmured just loud enough for Olivia to hear. And with a professional nod in her direction, he climbed into the car.

Olivia watched the sedan reverse down the driveway in a cloud of sand-infused dust, gave a friendly but fatigued wave to the officer left in charge of the house, and climbed over the dunes toward home.

Standing in her kitchen, Olivia surveyed the three objects on her kitchen table. Her fingers moved past the canvas tote bag containing Harris’s painting and the hotel key card she needed to deliver to Hudson within the hour, to a tumbler filled with two ice cubes and an inch of Chivas Regal. She preferred to consume the twenty-five-year-old blend of Scotch whiskies before dinner, but her thoughts were too fractured, too frenzied for her to continue on with the day’s plans. Downing the contents of the glass in one gulp, she felt a rush of steadying warmth flow through her.

“That’s better,” she told Haviland, who was busy consuming his second breakfast.

She refilled the tumbler with tap water and drank it with more deliberation. Her hands stopped trembling and the tumultuous images swirling in her mind separated into cohesive, orderly thoughts.

Rawlings needed her help. She’d be no good to him if she couldn’t find the time to research the families who’d lived in Harris’s house.

Decisively, Olivia grabbed her car keys and the other items off the table and drove to the hospital. She told Haviland his wait would be brief and called Hudson from the lobby. Olivia wasn’t ready to see Kim today. She just did not possess the strength or the proper words to comfort a woman separated from her newborn son.

Hudson was as taciturn as always. He took the key from Olivia with mumbled thanks and then told her he was sorry to be missing the staff meeting at The Bayside Crab House.

“You don’t need to be there. You’ve got everyone trained perfectly and this isn’t my first rodeo, Olivia assured him. After all, she was well accustomed to giving orders to the staff and supervising their practice runs. For the soft opening tonight, a motley assembly of diners had been hand-selected to test the wait and kitchen staff. Dixie and her husband were among them, and Olivia had made special arrangements with her friend. In other words, she’d asked Dixie to be curt, picky, and demanding.

“Test their mettle,” Olivia had told her bemused friend over the phone. “Request extra lemon wedges and butter sauce and send back a dish because it doesn’t taste right. Spill your wine and complain about spots on the flatware. I want to know that they can handle belligerent customers.”

Dixie had been delighted by both the assignment and the chance to share a free seafood feast with Grumpy. “If you really want to see what your employees are made of, let me bring my kids. You’ll get yourself a pack of fussy eaters, a whole lotta extra noise, and crab claws a-flyin’ every which way. Your poor waiter might just quit before dessert.”

“I love the idea, Dixie. Most of the tourists will have families in tow, and some of them may very well be boisterous or superfinicky.” Olivia had grinned. “Tell your brood to let loose.”

“You do not know what you’re sayin’, ’Livia, but for the record, I’m not responsible for the dischargin’ of fire extinguishers or any structural damage,” Dixie had stated seriously before hanging up.

Now, standing in the hospital’s lobby, Olivia tried to convince her brother to forget about the restaurant and focus on his family, but no matter what she said, he refused to take a week off to be with his wife and daughter. She knew fear kept him from making the right decision. Not only did Hudson fear his newborn son’s fragility, but he was clearly terrified that the restaurant would fail and he’d have moved his family to Oyster Bay for nothing. And though Olivia understood both fears, she still chastised him for putting his job ahead of his family. He stood firm though.

Eventually, he did accept the key card but made no move to return to his wife’s room. “I know what I’m doing in the kitchen,” he muttered miserably. “I belong there.”

An image of Anders’ little face, his translucent skin covering the rivers of blue veins carrying fresh blood from his newly stitched heart flashed through Olivia’s mind. She narrowed her eyes in anger. “You belong with your son. And with your wife. It’s probably killing her that she can’t be at that baby’s side. You might not know how to handle this, but you’re going to figure it out. You’re a father to two children, so start acting like one.” Her tone allowed no argument. She handed him a slip of paper. “That’s the combination to the hotel room’s wall safe. If Kim and Caitlyn are going to live there for the next two weeks, I want them to be comfortable.” Her brother looked so terrified that she relented a little and gave his thick shoulder an affectionate squeeze. “I’ll see you tomorrow, after you get back from driving your family to their temporary home.”

Nodding in compliance, Hudson grabbed her hand and clung to it for a moment before walking away.

Olivia watched him go, imagining how tomorrow morning would pass for the Salters. Kim would be taken by wheelchair to the hospital’s front door. She’d climb out of the chair, the pain in her belly from her cesarean forcing her to cringe, and get into Hudson’s car. She’d sit in the back, holding her daughter and comforting her as she and Hudson spoke of the future. Kim would try to keep everyone’s spirits up while silently noting the passing of every mile marker, her hands clenched in impatience as the distance closed between her and her tiny son.

“Enough with the maudlin imagery,” Olivia chided herself, got back in the Range Rover, and headed for the office park east of town.

Harris worked in a three-story concrete box that was completely unremarkable except for the Yoda replica in the lobby. The green-skinned, elfin-eared Jedi rested on a podium in the middle of a fountain surrounded by tropical plants. He welcomed visitors with a wise and wrinkled gaze and a plaque bearing the company logo.

Olivia glanced at the statue in puzzlement and then turned her attention to the young receptionist who was jotting a message onto a pink memo pad. She recognized the girl’s pretty face immediately.

“Hi, Estelle.”

Estelle beamed as though the very sight of Olivia had made her day. “How nice to see you here! And your cute doggie came too! Are you visiting Harris?” Her words tumbled forth rapid-fire, every syllable infused with a shrill energy. Before Olivia could answer, the phone sitting directly in front of Estelle began to ring and she answered it with a lengthy, well-rehearsed greeting. She filled out another sheet on the pink memo pad and then, as the caller continued talking, her hand drifted to a massive desk calendar, where she idly drew a series of small hearts around Harris’s name.

Finally, she said good-bye and replaced the receiver. She was about to speak to Olivia when the phone rang again. Estelle held out her index finger, signaling for Olivia to wait until she finished with her next caller.

“Could you just tell me where to find Harris? It’s important,” Olivia said, placing her hand on the edge of Estelle’s desk. The phone continued to ring.

Something ugly flickered in the young woman’s eyes, but she blinked it away and pasted on a bright smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll call him for you. But I’ve got to answer this first.”

Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she repeated the extensive greeting she’d used on the previous caller, her pen poised over the memo pad.

Annoyed, Olivia covertly examined Estelle’s calendar. To her surprise, she saw that Estelle had added Harris’s last name to her own and had practiced the signature over and over in the margin. Wedding bells and tiered cakes danced along any available white space, and plump hearts were scattered about.

This evidence of Estelle’s vision of her future with Harris didn’t please Olivia at all. Harris would make a wonderful husband someday, but Olivia didn’t think that Estelle was a suitable life partner for her friend. In her mind, Estelle was merely one of the girls Harris would date to discover exactly what he was looking for in a spouse. Estelle was pretty, sweet, and bubbly, but she was about as deep as a puddle.

She was practice for the real thing.

And then there was Millay. The tension had been escalating between Harris and Millay ever since Estelle had entered the picture, and Olivia knew that it stemmed from the fact that the two young writers were attracted to each other. Millay had dated dozens of men, from bikers to stockbrokers, but she’d never stayed with anyone long enough to form a genuine relationship. Though Millay had an undeniable connection with Harris, Olivia knew that Harris hadn’t ripened into the man he needed to be in order to capture the beautiful bartender’s heart. He was getting closer, but he wasn’t quite there. He needed another dose of confidence, a dash of bravado, and a bit more worldly experience before he had the necessary ingredients to woo his fellow writer.

Olivia was positive that Harris was precisely what the fearless bartender needed: someone to challenge her on a mental level, treat her tenderly, and win her respect not by possessing a muscular physique or fat bank account, but with a sharp wit and ready humor.

“I’ll ring Harris’s extension now, but I’m not sure what the company policy is about having dogs in the building,” Estelle said, a jester’s practiced smile stretched across her face. “And what can I tell him this is about?”

“It’s personal,” Olivia said flatly. “And you have my word that Haviland won’t soil the carpet.”

Again, that flicker of hostility appeared in the young woman’s eyes, but she looked down at the phone and pressed some keys with manicured nails. She baby-talked into the receiver until Olivia had to step back lest Estelle see the disgusted curl of her lip.

Harris jogged into the lobby less than a minute later. “This is so cool!” He exclaimed to Olivia. “I’ve never had a friend visit me at work before!” He scratched Haviland on the head and then noticed the canvas tote bag. “Whoa. Is that the painting?”

Olivia nodded. “Can we go sit somewhere? An empty conference room or staff lounge?”

“Sure.” Harris waved at Estelle. “Thanks for paging me.”

“Anytime, sweetie,” she cooed. “And I won’t tell anyone that you’ve got a dog back there with you.” She drew a finger across her lips to seal in the secret.

Flushing, Harris led Olivia through a warren of hallways. He poked his head in a small conference room and signaled for Olivia to enter. “This one has food left from the bigwig’s lunch meeting. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.” He gestured at a sandwich platter flanked by a bowl of red apples and a row of soda cans and snack-sized bags of potato chips. “It doesn’t look like much, but this is the best chicken salad you’ll ever eat.”

Olivia raised her brows. “You do recall that I own a five-star restaurant?”

“I know!” Harris enthused. “That’s how good it is.” He loaded two sandwiches, an apple, and a bag of Fritos onto his plate.

Olivia carefully laid the tote bag on the conference table and then idly chewed on an apple as Harris devoured his lunch. They small-talked about their writing and Harris’s current software project until he finally pushed his plate away.

“It was totally nice of you to bring this here,” he said. “But it wasn’t necessary.”

Exhaling, Olivia touched the canvas bag. “There’s a reason I came to your office. Harris, this painting may be more important than any of us can comprehend. In fact, it may figure into a murder investigation.”

Harris blanched. “What?”

Gently, for she knew that her young friend idolized Nick Plumley, Olivia told him that the writer had been killed that morning.

“How? Why?” Harris stammered, clearly shaken.

After admitting that she didn’t know the reason, Olivia hesitated and then softly explained that Plumley had been strangled.

“Harris, this is going to sound strange, but did Nick poke around your house the day you two were painting the living room?” Seeing the confused look on her friend’s face, she went on. “Was he especially interested in loose floorboards or in seeing the attic? Did he ask if you’d discovered any hidey-holes?”

Harris’s eyes widened. “Yeah, he did. He was telling me about this old house north of Beaufort he’d visited a bunch of times. It had a hidden space behind a wallboard in one of the closets and a niche carved from an exposed beam in the kitchen. Nick asked if I’d found any secret hiding places in my house, but I told him I doubted there were any.” He shook his head in befuddlement. “It’s not that old of a building. And except for being moved a few decades ago, it wasn’t important, historically speaking.”

“But what if it wasn’t the house that captured Nick’s interest?” Olivia wondered aloud. “What if he wanted to find this painting all along? Maybe the message on the back indicates that there’s more to Heinrich Kamler’s story. What if Nick believed he could track Kamler through this painting? Could you imagine the book he could write?”

Harris touched the canvas tote bag possessively. “Why didn’t Nick just ask me? I would have fessed up that I hadn’t found anything but would gladly show him if I did.” A hurt look crossed his features. “He never cared about my manuscript, did he? I bet he never read it.”

“That’s his loss, Harris.” Olivia gave her friend a fond smile. “If it’s any consolation, I believe he genuinely liked you and would have helped you with your writing, but for some reason, he wanted to keep the knowledge of this painting to himself.”

This notion seemed to trouble Harris. “What makes you say that?”

“When I called him this morning and told him about the painting’s existence, I could practically feel his desire to see it surge through the phone line. The emotion was so strong that I could picture a pair of hands reaching out to me.” She shook her head at the theatrical depiction. “Okay, that’s a bit much, but it meant a great deal to him.”

Crushing the remaining Frito on his plate into corn-colored bits, Harris’s expression grew thoughtful. “If you hadn’t just told me that Nick was dead, I’d assume the watercolor was important to his research and that he wanted to use it as a plot device in his sequel. But now . . .”

“Now?” Olivia prodded.

Harris pushed the bag toward her. “You’d better keep this. It would be safer at your restaurant or in a bank vault or something. Give it to the cops. Don’t even tell me where you put it, just take it away.”

It was unlike Harris to be dramatic, and Olivia frowned, but she’d just told him that his potential mentor had been murdered and he had every right to be upset. “All right, I’ll see to it.”

“Listen, Olivia. The killer stuffed Nick’s own book pages into his mouth. That means not only is it likely that some homicidal maniac had cause to hate The Barbed Wire Flower, but also didn’t want Nick to write the sequel.” Harris’s face was pink with anxiety. “This painting might be a pivotal part of the book Nick planned, so it might be important to his murderer too.”

Nodding, Olivia fed Haviland a few hunks of chicken. “I’ve been concerned about the same thing, but we could be blowing this out of proportion. We have no facts as of this point, and we need to gather some quickly.”

Harris opened a can of Fanta and drank a swallow. “Yeah, because I don’t want any of us to end up with pages of manuscripts crammed down our throats.” He ran his hands through his ginger-colored hair. “We need to figure out why Nick’s research set the killer off. If we don’t, I could be the next victim. This lunatic might come to my place in search of the painting or whatever connection Nick thought my house had to his story.”

Olivia saw the fear in her friend’s face. “Chief Rawlings has asked me to investigate the history of the families who used to live in your house, and I intend to begin this afternoon. Harris, I will do everything in my power to figure out this riddle. Millay and Laurel can assist me. Laurel can dig through the newspaper archives, and Millay can help me sift through the records at town hall.”

“I can’t just send my female friends all over town to solve this mystery while I design a fairy forest for some stupid computer game.” Harris squared his shoulders and sat up a fraction straighter. “I need to get my hands on Nick’s computer. There’s got to be a clue in his files as to why someone wanted to silence him before he could publish that sequel.”

“Talk to the chief.” Olivia rose and carefully shouldered the tote bag. “And forget about critiquing my chapter on Saturday. We’ve got more important things to do.”

Harris absently put a hand to his throat. “Like staying alive.”