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I knew who she was, of course: the heroine of her own genre—that of the forensic anthropologist.
“Very pleased to meet you,” I said, rising to shake her hand. “Perhaps you’d care to join us?”
“Thank you, I shall.”
“This is Emperor Zhark,” I said, “and the one with the spines is Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle.”
“Hello,” said Zhark, sizing her up for matrimony as he shook her hand. “How would you like the power of life or death over a billion godless heathens?”
She paused for a moment and raised an eyebrow. “Montreal suits me just fine.”
She shook Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle’s claw, and they exchanged a few pleasantries over the correct method to wash linens. I ordered her some coffee, and after I’d asked about her Outlander book sales, which were impressively large compared to mine, she admitted to me that this wasn’t a social call.
“I’ve got an understudy covering for me, so I’ll come straight to the point,” she said, looking with apparent professional interest at Zhark’s high cheekbones. “Someone’s trying to kill me.”
“You and I have much in common, Dr. Brennan,” I replied. “When did this happen?”
“Call me Tempe. Have you read my latest adventure?”
“Grave Secrets? Of course.”
“Near the end I’m captured after being slipped a Mickey Finn. I talk my way out of it, and the bad guy kills himself.”
“So?”
“Thirty-two readings ago, I was drugged for real and nearly didn’t make it. It was all I could do to stay conscious long enough to keep the book on its tracks. I’m first-person narrative so everything’s up to me.”
“Yeah,” I murmured, “that first-person thing can be a drag. Did you report it to Text Grand Central?”
She pushed the hair away from her face and said, “Naturally. But since I kept the show going, it was never logged as a textual anomaly, so according to TGC there’s no crime. You know what they told me? ‘Come back when you’re dead, and then we can do something.’”
“Hmm,” I said, drumming my fingers on the desk. “Who do you think is behind it?”
She shrugged. “No one in the book. We’re all on very good terms.”
“Any skeletons in the closet? If you’ll excuse the expression.”
“Plenty. In Crime there’s always at least one seriously bad guy to deal with per book—sometimes more.”
“Narratively speaking, that’s how it appears,” I pointed out. “But with you dead, everyone else in your books would become redundant overnight—and with the possibility of erasure looming over them, your former enemies actually have some of the best reasons to keep you alive.”
“Hmm,” said Dr. Brenann thoughtfully, “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“The most likely person to want to kill you is someone outside your book—any thoughts?”
“I don’t know anyone outside my books—except Kathy and Kerry, of course.”
“It won’t be them. Leave it with me,” I said after a moment’s pause, “and I’ll see what I can do. Just keep your eyes and ears open, yes?”
Dr. Brennan smiled and thanked me, shook my hand again, said good-bye to Zhark and Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and was gone, muttering that she had to relieve the substandard and decidedly bone-idle understudy who was standing in for her.
“What was that all about?” asked Zhark.
“No idea,” I replied. “It’s kind of flattering that people bring their problems to me. I just wish there were another Thursday to deal with it.”
“I thought there was.”
“Don’t even joke about it, Emperor.”
