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“You can’t say that!” I hissed.
“Too soon?” Heathcliff’s voice tinged with dark humor.
“Did you hear that?” Vivianne piped up. “Did you hear that man’s callous disregard for my poor, deceased husband? Surely he must be on our suspect list.”
“If you can propose a way he got into the room, then sure,” I shot back. “But he wasn’t even anywhere near the library at the time of the murder. I’m sure security footage will place him in the contemplation room until the moment that the power went off. As we’ve already established, the room was locked at the time, so only one of us inside the room could be the murderer.”
“And what’s this about your poor husband?” Donna piped up. “Half an hour ago, you were celebrating getting revenge on him by publishing a book that obviously contained half-veiled personal details about him. You’re hardly a picture of innocence.”
“Vivianne is protesting a little too much,” Charlie cut in. “I believe she’s the murderer. In all my years as a detective, it was usually the spouse who did the deed.”
“Hugh and I have been divorced for five years,” Vivianne scoffed. “If you want to look for a suspect, I suggest you ask the person he was sleeping with, although that could be any young woman in this room.”
“Not me.” I was proud to say it.
Neither Christina nor Donna made such a claim.
“But Christina was just sleeping with Hugh to get a contract,” Killian said. He sounded as though he was trying to convince himself. “It was business. She did it for me, forus, so I would get my deal. I don’t exactly like how it happened, but neither of us would have any reason to kill Hugh because we got what we wanted—”
“That’s not what Mina heard this morning,” Morrie said.
I elbowed him in the ribs.
My face flushed even hotter as every eye in the room turned to me. “I took a walk outside before breakfast and I went up to my room just as everyone else was settling in the restaurant. I overheard Hugh and Christina…er…in flagrante delicto. And Christina said that she wanted to make sure that Killian didn’t get a cut of her royalties with Red Herring.”
“Christina, you didn’t?” Hugh spun around to face her.
“It didn’t mean anything!” she spluttered. “He said that going to bed with him was the only way I could get to work with him.”
“I don’t care about the sex. I care that you tried to cut me off without a cent! After all the work I’ve put into you—”
“Work? What work? I’m the one who does all the work. I slave over the computer, night after night after long shifts at that gross Italian restaurant, surviving on stale popcorn and four hours of sleep, while you go to your industry parties and drink free booze and don’t even lift a finger!” Christina was practically screaming now. “You don’t deserve a penny!”
“They’re both suspects. They both have a motive for killing Hugh.” Charlie Doyle’s chair creaked as he leaned back in it and crossed his own feet on the table, mirroring Heathcliff. “But I do not.”
“That’s not strictly true, though, is it?” I said. “I overheard you and Hugh talking outside this morning, too. With Hugh out of the way, you’d get another editor at Red Herring who would allow your book to be published – the bookyouwrote, not the ghostwritten manuscript that Hugh wanted.”
“You think I would kill Hugh because he wouldn’t publish my book as I wrote it?” Charlie sounded affronted. “It’s ridiculous. If that’s the kind of motive that you come up with in your amateur sleuth books, no wonder Hugh considered your work garbage. No, I’m sure that I’d have been able to convince him of the merits of my work. After all, he’s a man of refined taste, and so am I.”
I really, really don’t like this guy.
“You said yourself that you worked on that book for years,” I said, trying hard to keep my voice calm. “It had to hurt to have the publishing deal of the century, only to find out that it wouldn’t be your book on the shelves.”
“You’re one to talk,” Charlie shot back. “We all know whose book Hugh didn’t think was even worthy of being critiqued, let alone published. All those things he said to you had to have stung. And aren’t you bragging about how you’re an amateur detective like the heroine in your story? Well, that would give you all the knowledge you need to pull off this crime—”
“Silence!” Jonathan yelled. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re all guilty until the police get here to sort out this crime. No one in this room is going anywhere. I must protect this house and the people in it, and I will stand by this door all night and make sure that no one else gets hurt.”
CHAPTEREIGHTEEN
“Ineed to go to the bathroom,” Christina complained two hours later.
“I put a bucket for ye in the corner,” Jonathan said.
Donna sighed. “Jonathan, please be reasonable. I’m not going in a bucket. The bathrooms are just down the hall.”
“And what if you’re the killer? What if I let you out to wipe your arse and you go into the restaurant and kill some perfectly innocent patrons?”
“This was a calculated, deliberate attack on Hugh,” Charlie said in his I’m-a-police-detective-with-thirty-three-years-experience voice. “This killer has achieved their aims, and they wouldn’t kill again unless it was to cover their tracks, so we can all bloody well go to the bathroom. I’m a detective, I know these things.”
