Dark in Death (In Death 46)

“She’s a thief.”

“Deann Dark?”

“No! Blaine DeLano. She stole from me.”

“Oh right, right.” Eve waved a hand in the air. “She mentioned something about some whack fan—that would be you—bitching and whining about her, DeLano, copying from the whack fan’s—yours—lame-ass excuse for a book.”

“My book is groundbreaking!”

And there’s a rise, Eve thought and nodded at Peabody.

Peabody reached into the satchel at her feet, pulled out the manuscript, dropped it with a thud on the table.

“Perfect cure for insomnia,” Peabody commented. “I was nodding off by page two.”

That earned a dark look under stubby lashes from Smith.

“You’re not wrong. Your book is bloated and self-indulgent,” Eve told Smith. “I can say that after suffering through the first chapter.”

“You know nothing about literature. Neither of you.”

“Literature? Is that what that waste of time and paper’s supposed to be?”

“More like purple pap.” Peabody snickered with it.

“Pap’s accurate. Just take the opening line. What was it? Yeah, yeah,” Eve murmured as she plucked up the first page. ‘With skill and grace, with focus and cunning, he tracked his victim like a sleek, predatory wolf to a plump, senseless lamb, but never showed the shine and keenness of his fangs.’ Seriously? If I didn’t get paid to do this, I’d have stopped right there. Bloated,” Eve said again. “And what’s the term—yeah, florid. DeLano writes lean and mean.”

Smith, an angry—and, yeah, sallow—face surrounded by incongruously cheery curls rapped a fist on the table.

“She took my work. My sweat and blood, and twisted it into something ordinary.”

“Your work doesn’t approach the lowest level of ordinary. But let’s say, for argument’s sake, she did. You get pissed off about that and kill Rosie Kent, Chanel Rylan, Loxie Flash?”

“Do you understand nothing?”

“Enlighten me.”

“Amanda Young killed Pryor Carridine. Justin Werth killed Amelia Benson. Gigi Hombly killed Bliss Cather.”

“Yeah, yeah, I read the books. Those are fictional characters, Ann. Fictional characters don’t bleed.”

“Of course they do.” Hazel eyes, edging toward brown—Jake had observation skills—bored into Eve’s. “You don’t understand, you’re incapable of understanding. You’re not a writer.”

“Explain it to me,” Eve invited. “Explain to me how and why as Young, Werth, and Hombly you killed Carridine, Benson, and Cather.”

Ann only shook her head, hunched up again.

“Come on, Ann, don’t be shy. A writer has to face criticism

, right? Has to stand up to it. Defend your work!”

Eve slapped her hands on the table. Ann Elizabeth Smith jumped, hunched tighter.

“You want to be somebody? You claim to be a writer, a groundbreaking writer? Your work’s so superior, so fucking lofty? Prove it. Prove it to me, A. E. Strongbow. Defend your work.”

Those eyes shifted up again, the fire in them brighter. “Art doesn’t need defending.”

“Bullshit. A true artist stands by her art, stands for it, fights for it. You want attention? You’ve got mine. Here and now. Defend your work or go back to being nothing and nobody, sitting in the shadows, cutting and pinning and sewing for rich bitches. Bitches like Blaine DeLano.”