‘Yet you have time for detective missions?’ She sounded sceptical and a little put out. ‘You could write while she sleeps?’
‘I can’t concentrate as well if I’m listening out the whole time. Look, I’m not saying no. Just not right now, maybe. And don’t make me feel bad for helping Stephen; the guy lost his mother less than a year ago. He’s trying to fulfil the wishes in her will. That’s a worthy cause, wouldn’t you say?’ If my literal career wasn’t.
‘It is.’ She sighed. ‘Sorry. I can ask Mom to babysit I suppose. I just feel bad. It’s like she’s only just escaped having a little one to look after. I can really appreciate why she’s been so exhausted for the last, like, twenty years.’
I could too, and just the thought that Lucy might turn to Mom instead had me feeling guilty. I didn’t think Lucy was being manipulative – it wasn’t really her way. She was just desperate. ‘Look. I’ll see what I can manage.’ I grabbed a carton of smoothieout the fridge. ‘I’m coming over the weekend after next for the barbecue. We can arrange it then, yeah?’
‘Thank you. I love you!’
‘Yeah, yeah. I love you, too. You totally broke your own rule for this conversation by the way.’
‘I know. It’s pathetic – oh, andthere’sthe baby.’ There was a thin wail in the background. ‘Guess Iwon’tbe getting forty-five minutes of adult time. See you at the barbecue.’
I said goodbye, then went to check out the Post-it-wall-of-increasing-anxiety while I chugged mango smoothie straight from the carton. I wouldn’t be able to dothatif I was cohabiting either.
Seriously, how had I managed to let her cajole me into babysitting?
Partly because she was right. Iwasprocrastinating with detective work. I could at least procrastinate in a way that helped her out, I supposed. But if I did it once, and she thought I was capable of working while doing it, I’d have no excuse not to keep being her babysitter. Why couldn’t anyone understand that I had toconcentrateto write? Not just sit down with a coffee and a laptop for a few hours. There was actual thinking involved. Words did not appear on the manuscript by osmosis.
That was the problem I’d had with the two men I’d actually had more serious relationships with over the last few years. As soon as we lived together, they thought my working at home meant I was at their disposal to keep the flat sparkling, pick up their dry-cleaning and deal with every other household job basically. Like writing didn’t actually take any real amount of focus or time. Ugh.
I pulled out the chair from my desk and continued staring at the pink and blue sticky notes, until my eyes crossed. Whenever my mind cleared, the only image that crept into my head wasthat of Stephen’s eyes, dark as the coffee he’d brought me. The thrill as they coasted over me from head to toe.
Shaking my head, I grabbed a blank character worksheet from the folder I’d found. First, I would write one about Trevor Moorcroft; pool all the information I had so far, and then I’d do another one about James, to refamiliarise myself with the womanising snake from my last book, who Keisha thought I should reintroduce. This would serve two purposes: it would count as work towards my book and also, it would remind me that any fantasies I might have about handsome, smooth-talking men were best channelled into my fiction, where they couldn’t hurt anyone. Least of all me.
Chapter Nineteen
Elle
He looks like a cross between Clint Eastwood and a serial killer,’ Stephen commented dryly when we met up at a bar halfway between Little Italy and Gramercy Park. I’d just showed him the poster and he’d stared at it for a full minute, face giving nothing away apart from a subtle downturn at the corner of his pretty lips. ‘Small wonder half the calls I’ve received have been from people concerned as to whether he’s on a register of some kind.’
‘Oh come on, he doesn’t look that bad and it’s totally obvious that’s not the reason we’re looking for him. Why don’t peoplereadthings anymore?’ I rolled my eyes and dragged the poster back across the sticky bar.
It was Friday night and I was painfully aware that a full week had passed since I’d last been in a bar with him and I’d received my edit letter. One week down on my deadline and even though I had felt it for the first time the other day – the wispy strand of a solution to my plot problems, floating around like a hair caught on my eyelashes – I still wasn’t in the right place to grab at it. If I didn’t get work underway, I was definitely going to need an extension on my deadline. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t mind asking for that, but with my first draft being such a flop and the fact that I wasn’t signed up for another contract, I was worried it would be another black mark in the column against re-signing me. I’d been really happy with my editor and publisher and over the years I’d come to realise that was not something to take for granted in my industry.
I’d spent some time looking up small towns in the Midwest since I’d had the idea to change the mystery to something in Charmaine’s past and therefore would need to send her back toher hometown – an area I was realising I’d neglected nailing down sufficiently in previous books. Settings are very important in cosy crime; they create constrictions and therefore conflict but all my energy had gone into where she was in the present, not where she’d come from.
Anyway, despite doing this very important work, it was frustrating how many times I could accidentally open social media apps and fall down a wormhole of nonsense, pinging silly dance routines back and forth with Daisy and listening to songs that Beth was sharing with me on Spotify to help me build an inspirational playlist for the book I should be writing.
Stephen scoffed. ‘They’ve had no issues reading the number on the poster. I’m considering getting another phone so I can switch it to voicemail; it’s not terribly convenient trying to field these calls while I’m working. I’m not certain why we needed to have my number on it at all.’
‘Are you suggesting it should bemynumber on there?’ I asked coolly, because he probably thought I had nothing better to do during the day than act like his secretary.
‘Absolutely not. I’d remove every poster if you did that.’ He shrugged out of his jacket. ‘You can’t have strangers getting hold of your personal number.’
I tilted my head as I looked at him. I was definitely just trying to figure his personality out and not at all watching the way his broad shoulders moved underneath his crisp light pink shirt. ‘I can’t work out if you’re being passive-aggressively sarcastic to make a point or you’re being genuine,’ I admitted.
‘I’m not being sarcastic.’ He shook his head, looking around for somewhere to rest his suit jacket. It was a struggle; everywhere looked sticky or grimy. This bar was a far cry from the one on Fifth Avenue. ‘What I meant was, why do we have to have a number on it at all? An email address would be preferable. Or, better yet, not bother with the poster.’
‘I used a cell number because a lot of older people prefer to talk to someone. And if you think putting an email on the poster instead would save us from weirdos you’ve clearly never heard of the phenomena that is dick pics.’ I gave a little shudder. ‘Why do you want to quit with the poster, already? It’s got us this lead hasn’t it?’
‘Hmm.’ He settled for draping the jacket over his thigh. ‘If you can call this a lead. Surely if he had any useful information he was inclined to share, he’d have told me over the phone?’
‘Depends. If he knows Trevor, maybe he’s checking us out for him? I mean, if I found out someone was looking for me, I’d want to know who they were before I got in contact with them.’
‘I suppose.’ Stephen raised his hand to catch the attention of the burly barman, who loomed over us. ‘Could I get a bourbon, neat, please and…?’ He looked to me again.
‘Half a Guinness, thanks.’
