Dark in Death (In Death 46)

“In the follow-ups, it goes to a giant leap over that line. You’ll see the response from DeLano’s mother there as well.”

“Yeah, I’m looking at it. Quick response this time, coming less than ten after Strongbow’s. Sending the manuscript back, unopened and unread, as DeLano has a firm policy, on advice of her agent and lawyers, not to read unpublished work. Lots of encouragement and congrats on completing the book, blah blah. Lots of good-luck wishes, but a little more careful, just a little distant. Audrey’s no idiot and obviously saw this had crossed that line. And Strongbow responded?”

“Crushed, disappointed. Understood the policy, but believed the connection to DeLano meant they trusted and valued each other as writers. It’s sad, actually, and you’ll read it for yourself, see how the edges start to fray. Audrey didn’t respond.”

“Smart. Cut the cord.”

“Strongbow wrote back at the end of September, shortly after the publication of Sudden Dark. And dark’s the tone.”

“You read it.”

As he did, Eve pushed up to pace.

“ ‘Blaine,’ ” Roarke read,

I opened Sudden Dark with a sense of anticipation. Imagine my shock, imagine the depth of my sense of betrayal as I read your twisted bastardization of my own work. Did you think I wouldn’t see? Did you think I wouldn’t know you’d torn the guts out of Hot Blood, Cold Mind and used its bloody flesh to cover your own inferior work?

How could you? How dare you?

Your thin and pathetically drawn character of Lucius Osgood is so obviously your feeble attempt to make my Evan Quint your own creation. You fool no one!

Do you think making Osgood a struggling artist rather than a successful businessman gives you cover? Do you think giving Osgood a beard disguises him?

I see him, Blaine, and I see you. I see you for what you are. A thief, a liar. How many other far superior writers have you betrayed in this way to build your fame, your fortune?

I trusted you. I believed in you. I sacrificed everything to emulate you.

In the end, you’re nothing. Your work is nothing.

Anyone can copy, Blaine, anyone can cheat. You stole my soul when you stole Hot Blood, Cold Mind. And you murdered it when you tore it to pieces and called it Sudden Dark.

Yes, anyone can copy, and you’ve proven I was right. Sometimes the villain wins.

It’s past time you, Hightower, and Dark learned that.

I will never forgive you,

A. E. Strongbow

“That book’s in the library, right? Sudden Dark?”

“Yes. I can get it for you.”

“Later.” Eve waved that off for now. “If Strongbow’s the killer, she doesn’t start with Sudden Dark, the book that snapped her. She goes back to the beginning. Because that’s orderly and organized. It’s linear.

“Are there any more communications from her?”

“There aren’t, no. At least not under this name. You could be right about her using other names. Don’t you think she’d need to keep the connection?”

“Yeah, I do. I haven’t hit on anybody sending a manuscript to DeLano in my batch, but there’s got to be a few here and there. The response had that sense of ready statement. Policy, agent, lawyers, blah blah. We’ll check out the post office boxes, see what we find. She’d have shut the one in Delaware down when she moved here, shut the Brooklyn one down, at least under the Strongbow name, when she turned on DeLano. But we may get data to follow.”

“You think she’s smarter than that.”

“I think she’s plenty smart. Being delusional doesn’t mean she can’t be plenty smart. She took a long time to stew, to think, to work it all out before the first kill. I’m going to bet she doesn’t just have the next target selected, researched, worked out, but every one of them, down the line.”

“Sacrificing for craft, for art, that’s a common theme—and very often true. Obviously, she sees her sacrifice as great and courageous.”

Eve nodded slowly. “Moving to New York—inspired by DeLano, maybe thinking something in the air in Brooklyn sparked creativity or some shit. If she had a job in Delaware, she probably had to quit if she couldn’t do it long-distance. If she had a family, she either left them or convinced them to relocate. And I’m going with left them, if she had one, because she’s completely self-involved. So unless she had a pot of money, leaving to move here equaled a financial sacrifice. Leaving the familiar, a sacrifice.”