down. “Well, other than your wardrobe is history, and you’ve been shlepping around in the same dress for three days.”
Since she’d slept through breakfast, I’d given her the lowdown on last night’s disasters on the trek over, so she was up to speed with current events. “My wardrobe is not history. I’ll get my things back. You’ll see. I’ve set a plan in motion.”
“Good. Let’s talk about me then.” She clasped her hands in a pleading gesture, hung her head, and in a pathetic voice cried, “I hate my roommate! Can I room with you instead?”
Unh-oh. “Who’s your roommate?”
“Jeannette Bowles. A food critic from Burlington, Vermont. She writes a column critiquing all the ski resort restaurants in the New England area. I’d like to write a column critiquing her. Too pushy. Too self-absorbed. Too arrogant. While I was sleeping last night? She drank all the bottled water I’d gone out to buy earlier and left me with the twenty-thousand-lire stuff, which, by the way, tasted so terrible, I spat it out and dumped the rest down the sink. Stay away from that brand, Emily. Where does the hotel get that crap? The local sewage treatment plant? And then she skulked out this morning before I could confront her about it. Plus, with
all
her skill and expertise in the field of journalism, she
knows
she has this romance contest all sewn up and feels
dreadfully
sorry for all the other poor shmucks who are even bothering to enter. Blahblahblah. Yadayadayada. On, and on, and on. Don’t leave me in the same room with her, Emily. I’m bigger than she is. It could get ugly.”
I exhaled a long breath that echoed softly through the stairwell. “Is there anyone on this tour who isn’t having roommate problems?”
Jackie looked gleeful. “Oh, goody. You mean, I’m not the only one stuck with a dud?”
“Amanda Morning thought she was stuck with a dud.”
“Amanda. She’s the one with the spiked hair and the vegetable peeler lodged in her nose, right? I met her the other night at the book signing. I hear she’s writing a groundbreaking zombie romance. You know what they say. Write what you know.”
I rolled my eyes. “Well, she was apparently wanting to ditch her assigned roommate and move in with Brandy Ann Frounfelker, the body builder, when lo and behold! Brandy Ann’s roommate conveniently takes a header from the top of the stairs and Amanda gets her way.”
Jackie’s windpipe rattled with an odd choking sound as she proceeded to suck all the breathable oxygen out of the passageway. “Oh, my God! That’s what’s wrong with you! You think someone deliberately pushed that woman, don’t you?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But that’s what you’re thinking. Out with it, Emily. What do you know?”
I regarded her sternly. “Oh, God, I’m
so
glad you asked. Okay, here’s the deal.” I gave her the blow-by-blow version of what I’d learned about Amanda, Brandy Ann, Keely, and Cassandra, and when I finished, she nodded.
“You’re right. Way too many coincidences. I think she did it.”
“Me too!” I hesitated. “Which she?”
Jackie shrugged. “I don’t know. One of them. You have the roommate thing going with Amanda. She might have given Cassandra a shove to open up space for herself in Brandy Ann’s room, but that seems pretty over - the - top to me.”
Over-the-top to a normal person, maybe, but would it seem over-the-top to someone who wrote zombie romances?
“Brandy Ann has the obvious body strength to push someone down a flight of stairs. You said she read Cassandra’s stuff, so she knew the kind of talent she was dealing with. Seems possible Brandy Ann might have been trying to eliminate her strongest competition, especially if she heard Cassandra threatening to influence Gabriel Fox by offering him sexual favors.”
Sexual favors in
my
corset dress. The nerve!
“Keely has ‘suspect’ plastered all over her. She’d worked with Cassandra. She knew her writing
Since she’d slept through breakfast, I’d given her the lowdown on last night’s disasters on the trek over, so she was up to speed with current events. “My wardrobe is not history. I’ll get my things back. You’ll see. I’ve set a plan in motion.”
“Good. Let’s talk about me then.” She clasped her hands in a pleading gesture, hung her head, and in a pathetic voice cried, “I hate my roommate! Can I room with you instead?”
Unh-oh. “Who’s your roommate?”
“Jeannette Bowles. A food critic from Burlington, Vermont. She writes a column critiquing all the ski resort restaurants in the New England area. I’d like to write a column critiquing her. Too pushy. Too self-absorbed. Too arrogant. While I was sleeping last night? She drank all the bottled water I’d gone out to buy earlier and left me with the twenty-thousand-lire stuff, which, by the way, tasted so terrible, I spat it out and dumped the rest down the sink. Stay away from that brand, Emily. Where does the hotel get that crap? The local sewage treatment plant? And then she skulked out this morning before I could confront her about it. Plus, with
all
her skill and expertise in the field of journalism, she
knows
she has this romance contest all sewn up and feels
dreadfully
sorry for all the other poor shmucks who are even bothering to enter. Blahblahblah. Yadayadayada. On, and on, and on. Don’t leave me in the same room with her, Emily. I’m bigger than she is. It could get ugly.”
I exhaled a long breath that echoed softly through the stairwell. “Is there anyone on this tour who isn’t having roommate problems?”
Jackie looked gleeful. “Oh, goody. You mean, I’m not the only one stuck with a dud?”
“Amanda Morning thought she was stuck with a dud.”
“Amanda. She’s the one with the spiked hair and the vegetable peeler lodged in her nose, right? I met her the other night at the book signing. I hear she’s writing a groundbreaking zombie romance. You know what they say. Write what you know.”
I rolled my eyes. “Well, she was apparently wanting to ditch her assigned roommate and move in with Brandy Ann Frounfelker, the body builder, when lo and behold! Brandy Ann’s roommate conveniently takes a header from the top of the stairs and Amanda gets her way.”
Jackie’s windpipe rattled with an odd choking sound as she proceeded to suck all the breathable oxygen out of the passageway. “Oh, my God! That’s what’s wrong with you! You think someone deliberately pushed that woman, don’t you?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But that’s what you’re thinking. Out with it, Emily. What do you know?”
I regarded her sternly. “Oh, God, I’m
so
glad you asked. Okay, here’s the deal.” I gave her the blow-by-blow version of what I’d learned about Amanda, Brandy Ann, Keely, and Cassandra, and when I finished, she nodded.
“You’re right. Way too many coincidences. I think she did it.”
“Me too!” I hesitated. “Which she?”
Jackie shrugged. “I don’t know. One of them. You have the roommate thing going with Amanda. She might have given Cassandra a shove to open up space for herself in Brandy Ann’s room, but that seems pretty over - the - top to me.”
Over-the-top to a normal person, maybe, but would it seem over-the-top to someone who wrote zombie romances?
“Brandy Ann has the obvious body strength to push someone down a flight of stairs. You said she read Cassandra’s stuff, so she knew the kind of talent she was dealing with. Seems possible Brandy Ann might have been trying to eliminate her strongest competition, especially if she heard Cassandra threatening to influence Gabriel Fox by offering him sexual favors.”
Sexual favors in
my
corset dress. The nerve!
“Keely has ‘suspect’ plastered all over her. She’d worked with Cassandra. She knew her writing
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