Mystery Writer's Mysteries Box Set 1-3 Read online

  But again, my speech was the least of my worries. What was I missing about Hanna and Viv? About Jack and saRAH? About Roz and the rehab place? About Garth?

  Anything? Everything?

  Writing it down would help. I’ve always thought more lucidly on paper. I turned to a fresh page on my yellow pad and doodled ACHIEVE down the side. I tried to clear my mind of everything, like I do when beginning to brainstorm the plot of a new novel.

  I let my tongue droop from my mouth and shook my head like a basset hound until the creaks and pops in my neck quieted.

  I opened my eyes only wide enough to get things in the right place.

  After the capital letters, I added:

  A ll

  C ops

  H ate

  I t when

  E very

  V ictim

  E nds

  I stared at the way my pen had manifested my subconscious. And stared. And kept staring until I accepted what my brain was telling me to do.

  Right or wrong, I had to talk to the police.

  But not in the lobby where I might alarm attendees, volunteers, or hotel staff. I topped off my coffee and headed upstairs to my room to make the call.

  Halfway to the elevator, I heard Lily’s voice calling me. I turned and she caught up to me. Her enthusiastic arms were piled high with enthusiastic papers. “Hi, Charlee!”

  I eyed the papers suspiciously. “Hi …”

  “Remember that storm I told you about? That one headed for our east coast faculty?” Her bright eyes danced. Because that’s a thing enthusiastic people can do to themselves.

  A smile slowly spread across my lips. The storm must have veered away. Finally. A problem Mother Nature solved for us. “It didn’t hit?”

  Lily’s grin never faded. “No! It hit! Dumped like two-and-a-half feet of snow!”

  My smile faltered but I remained hopeful. “But it didn’t close airports or divert the agents and editors?”

  “Oh, no! They’re completely stuck! Probably won’t get out of New York until late tonight or early Saturday morning!”

  I gave her the classic palms upturned are-you-crazy gesture. “Then what are you so chipper about?”

  Lily tilted her head. “Because we have you!”

  “I’m not an editor or an agent. I can’t do what they do. Besides, I have something important to attend to.”

  “It’ll have to wait!” Lily spoke in a singsong voice while handing me the stack of papers from her arms. “You have to do their critiques starting in”—she looked at her watch—“twenty-seven minutes.”

  “Critiques?”

  She nodded with gusto. “The attendees each submitted the first page of a manuscript and they want your input about it.”

  “My input?”

  “Well, no.” Lily looked pained. “They wanted the input from industry professionals.” Then she brightened. “But they got you!”

  I didn’t want to do the critiques, but it nonetheless hurt my feelings that Lily didn’t consider me an industry professional.

  “Lily, I’m not the right person for this job. I’m too blunt. My mind is too scattered this weekend … I’m going to traumatize somebody.”

  “Don’t be silly! You’re fantastic! Everyone will be thrilled you stepped in!”

  “I really don’t think—” I tried to hand the manuscript pages back, but she was smarter than that.

  “You’re in the Multnomah Room from one until three, then from three-fifteen until five-fifteen in Deschutes.” I started to ask who else was available, but she stopped me with a perky, “And then you’re done!”

  I realized arguing was pointless. “Fine.” I only had twenty-four minutes to call the police and prepare to dash the hopes and dreams of a room full of writers filled to the brim with shaky optimism. Scratch that. Two rooms. “I’ll take these upstairs to read. Where it’s quieter.”

  “Oh, what a great idea! You ARE fantastic! I’m so glad you agreed!”

  Agreed. Riiiight. Saying no to Lily seemed as likely as saying yes to Brad Pitt.

  I got to my room and plopped the pages on the desk before returning to hang the Do Not Disturb sign out. Housekeeping hadn’t cleaned yet and I didn’t want the maid interrupting my call to the Portland Police. The stack of manuscripts made me feel guilty. I’d just have each writer read their own first page and improvise a critique during the session. I looked heavenward and whispered, “Please don’t let me make a bunch of writers want to quit writing. Or cry.”

  I moved into the bedroom so I could concentrate on the job at hand without being judged by the stack of manuscripts. Sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed, I found the number for the Portland Police Department. Before I could dial, I heard the door to my suite open.

  I froze in place, a literal sitting duck. I very slowly straightened my legs. Silently scooted off the end of the bed. Tiptoed to the bedroom door. I stood behind it and peeked through the gap of the hinged side. All I could see was the alcove outside the bathroom, where the tall rolling luggage rack was parked. I heard indistinct noises. Was someone going through my things? Searching? For what? It must have something to do with the kidnapping, but what?

  Suddenly a blast of dark blue passed by. I gasped and hit my head on the wall.

  Somebody else gasped and glass shattered. “Oh no!” The girl’s voice sounded familiar.

  I slowly maneuvered my eye to see the alcove. saRAH knelt, plucking the large shards of a drinking glass off the tile and into her open palm. Next to her was a stack of towels with a set of tiny bottles of lotion, shampoo, and conditioner lying on top.

  “Why didn’t you knock?” I peered at her from behind the door, through the gap.

  She gasped again and dropped the shards, breaking two of the more sizable ones. She looked into the bedroom, then into the bathroom, then back out toward the living area. She didn’t know where I was.

  I cautiously stepped from behind the door. She rose and moved into the bathroom, away from me. Without taking my eyes from hers, I slowly squatted and picked up the largest remaining shard of glass and held it like a weapon.

  “Why didn’t you knock?” I repeated.

  She shrank further into the recesses of the bathroom. “I did knock. Nobody answered.”

  I looked at the door to the suite, which she’d propped open using the security bolt. Keeping my eyes on her, I stepped over the broken glass in the alcove and sidled toward the living area. The curtains were pulled open all the way now, but everything else looked untouched. Had she been signaling someone, using my curtains?

  “What were you doing out there?” I asked her.

  “I opened the drapes.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m sorry. Did you want them closed?”

  “Why’d you open them? Who are you signaling?”

  “Signaling? Nobody.” She sniveled. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “Trying to clean your room?” Sniff, sniff.

  “Why would you clean my room when I left out the Do Not Disturb sign?”

  “People leave it out all the time. But then I get in trouble for not cleaning.” She had moved further into the bathroom. “Please don’t tell.”

  “Don’t tell what?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure what’s going on.”

  I exhaled deeply. “I’m not either.” I crossed to the bathroom and dropped the piece of broken glass I held into the trash can.

  saRAH jumped, eyes wide as Frisbees.

  “Are you sure you’re just here to clean?”

  She nodded so hard I was afraid her headwrap would fly across the room.

  “Then let’s get this cleaned up.”

  From her housekeeping cart she collected a whisk broom and dustpan, which I held as she swept up all the glass. She insisted on shining a flashlight around the alcove to make sure no slivers remained. I reached for the towels and toiletries to place into the bathroom, but she stopped me.

  “Thos
e might have glass in them.”

  “In the shampoo?”

  “Well, on them.” She took everything from me and retrieved all new supplies from the cart. After she’d placed them in the bathroom, she asked, “I’m happy to make the bed while I’m here.”

  When I left that morning, I’d yanked the blankets up like I did at home. “No, that’s fine. Everything’s fine.”

  She made no attempt to leave. “You can go.”

  She stared at me.

  “Really. It’s fine.” More staring.

  “I won’t tell anyone.”

  She let out a big breath. “Thank you!”

  She closed the door behind her, making a show of replacing the Do Not Disturb sign on the outside handle.

  It all seemed innocent enough, and her explanation was logical, but everything had been so confusing that I didn’t exactly know whether to believe her. I guessed I had no choice for the moment.

  I barely had time to call the Portland PD now. Those writers would just have to wait.

  “Can I speak with a detective?”

  “Regarding?”

  “A kidnapping.”

  “Your name?”

  I paused, debating if I should go real or fake. “Charlemagne Russo.”

  “One moment.”

  “This is Detective Kelly. You’re reporting a kidnapping?”

  I told him the story as best I could, leaving out everyone’s names.

  “You didn’t hear these alleged phone calls?”

  “No.”

  “This girl is twenty-five?”

  “Yes.”

  “And has disappeared before?”

  “Apparently.”

  “Do you have any evidence that a crime has been committed?”

  I was slow to answer, realizing where this conversation was going. “No.”

  “I don’t mean to be rude, Miss Russell—”

  I didn’t correct his misunderstanding of my name, since this phone call suddenly seemed like a very bad idea. All the possible outcomes flooded my brain. I’d been thinking all along that the police would fix everything. A little piece of me kept thinking that Lance was wrong, that as soon as someone reported the situation, it would be out of my hands and into the hands of people who could fix it. Who could do something. Solve it.

  But Detective Kelly’s questions followed the exact path that Lance’s had.

  Viv and her history of tall tales and money problems loomed large.

  Nobody was worried about Hanna. She disappeared all the time. She was a twenty-five-year-old with a history of drug abuse. That’s what we should be worried about.

  And Viv? Her unpaid taxes and/or debt from Hanna’s stints in rehab would be mentally and financially crushing. The bank account for the Stumptown Writers’ Conference would be an attractive cash cow for anyone in her desperate position.

  Detective Kelly was still talking but I wasn’t listening. Embezzlement was a bigger crime than false reporting, but not as big as kidnapping. My brain whirred and tripped over itself chasing these facts, or whatever they were. Then it stopped as suddenly as if I’d flipped a switch.

  How dumb could I be? I wore my stupidity like a bright red clown nose, finally seeing myself as Lance and Detective Kelly did. Of course there was no kidnapping, no kidnapper, no ticking clock, nobody going to be killed if the ransom wasn’t paid on time.

  “—call me if you get any useful information,” Detective Kelly finished, then disconnected.

  I don’t know how long I sat with my phone in my hand, mind flipping and flopping about this kidnapping-that-wasn’t. As I sat, though, I felt anger churning the bile in my stomach. My jaw ached from clenching. My knuckles were white around the phone.

  Viv had kept telling me to butt out, so it was high time I did. Let her deal with her family and financial drama. It had nothing to do with me. Nothing. I’d promised her I’d help put on this conference, so that’s what I’d do. Not for her but for all those enthusiastic, hopeful writers out there, coming to fulfill a dream, or scratch an itch of curiosity, or step into their destiny. That’s who deserved my energy.

  How could I have been so wrong? Granted, I had plenty of experience being wrong, but that didn’t make it any easier or less disconcerting every time it happened. Crucial times. Life-changing times. I’d been clueless about my dad. Clueless about my agent’s murder. Clueless about my critique group friends. And now clueless about Viv.

  Fiction was so much easier than real life.

  A banging on my door jostled me from my anger and self reproach. I heard Lily’s panicked voice. “Charlee! Charlee! They’re waiting for you in the critique session! You’re late!”

  I opened the door and she grabbed my arm. “C’mon!” She yanked me into her crisis and out of my own. I grabbed the stack of manuscripts and raced for the elevator. At least I could remedy this crisis.

  When I got to the Multnomah Room, I left thoughts of Hanna and Viv behind while I tried to channel my inner Lily, willing myself to be chipper and positive.

  “Hey, everybody!” I spoke extraordinarily loud and scared many of them with my enthusiasm. I modulated to my indoor voice.

  “Change of plans. I don’t know if you heard, but a big snowstorm stranded some of our faculty.” At their groans, I added, “I’m sure they’ll be here real soon, but for now, I’m taking over this Read and Critique session. I have your pages here, so when I call your name, you’ll read from your copy and I’ll follow along and make notes on these copies. We only have a few minutes for each of you, so let’s get going!”

  I called the first name. “James?” No response. I looked around the room. Twenty-seven terrified faces stared at me, but only one had a full-tomato blush going.

  I didn’t want to let on I was as terrified as they were. I’d have to listen closely to their first page—not even two hundred words—judge what worked and what didn’t, and then explain myself, all while being constructive, kind, and brief. How was that even possible?

  I nodded toward the blushing middle-aged man and said his name again. His eyes widened like I’d asked him to disrobe. He stammered and sputtered and finally reached for his computer. While it was firing up, I said to the rest of the group, “How ’bout all of you get your pages on your computer or out of your bag or whatever. I don’t want to run out of time and have to miss anyone.”

  Actually, that was exactly what I wanted, but the option seemed unavailable to me at the moment. I didn’t want to be responsible for crushing dreams or dashing confidence, and I knew that’s exactly what could go down with these on-the-spot critiques. Because it had happened to me.

  During my junior year, I paid twenty bucks for this type of critique of my writing at a conference my college had organized. Even at the time, I knew not to submit anything that wasn’t polished, but my naive idea of polished writing was definitely not the same as that held by the brusque New York editor who filleted and gutted both me and my manuscript like it was a Coho salmon. He yanked out my bones and ran a thumb up through my confidence, splattering it onto the floor where it disappeared, oozing into the carpet. I’d watched it fade into nothingness.

  In less than three minutes, I knew I’d never be a writer. I sat frozen in my seat, rigid and numb for the rest of the session, then fled to my hotel room where I hibernated, huddled under the covers eating room service nachos and watching bad cable movies on TV for the rest of the conference. I never told anyone.

  It took me six months to pick up that manuscript again, and when I reread it, I realized something. It was good. Not great, not perfect, but it had good structure, a roller-coaster plot, intriguing characters, and mostly the right words in mostly the right place. That asshole didn’t know anything.

  Three weeks later, I submitted a revision of it to a New Voices contest and won first place.

  So as I looked out at the terrified writers before me, I smiled. “Before we get started, I want everyone to take a deep breath.” I led them in a cathartic lung exe
rcise. “Now I want you to repeat after me: I am a good writer.”

  “You are a good writer,” they intoned.

  “No! Say I …”

  “I …”

  “Am a good writer.”

  Twenty-seven voices repeated.

  “My writing may not be perfect, but it can be.”

  “My writing may not be perfect, but it can be.”

  “Criticism does not define me. I can take what makes sense and leave the rest.”

  “Criticism does not define me. I can take what makes sense and leave the rest.”

  “What that ninny Charlemagne Russo says about my writing is simply her opinion at this particular time on this particular day. She has been known to be wrong. In fact, she’s usually wrong. She puts potato chips on her peanut butter sandwiches, so her opinion is dubious at best.”

  Everyone laughed and visibly relaxed.

  “Ready, James?”

  After a nod and shuffling of papers, James read the beginning of his science fiction. I was thrilled he did so many things right—intriguing first line that pulled us into the story immediately, no backstory. But he could have grounded us in the setting better, and I pointed out a couple of places where he could do that.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Maybe I’ll have to try chips on my sandwich now.”

  Next up was a hackneyed young adult story with “frenemies” as the two main characters, of course, fighting over a boy, of course. I had a twinge when I thought about Hanna, saRAH, and Jack, wondering about their story. But the poor girl reading this one reminded me so much of AmyJo from my critique group. I knew that both aspiring writers wanted to ease the way into adulthood for some young reader and teach a tender-but-worthy lesson, but still, fiction for young people shouldn’t make that its main goal. I pointed out some language that could be less preachy, which the girl seemed to appreciate.