The Thriller Writers
TWO HOURS LATER, SIENNA IS SITTING CROSS-LEGGED on the floor of their yellow room, Fletch’s manuscript stacked neatly on the rug.
She reclaimed the opening chapters from Malcolm’s chest as soon as he started to snore, which was approximately five minutes after he started “reading.” Sienna’s annoyed, but unsurprised. She knows she’ll end up doing the lion’s share of the work.
She has been for years.
As she goes through the book, Sienna shifts the pages from one stack to the other, the first shrinking as the second grows, the room silent except for the whisper of paper and the steady sound of Malcolm’s breathing.
Until the pages run out.
One moment Julia Petrarch is in the tunnel, closing in on the killer she’s been hunting the last four books, surging toward the long-awaited confrontation, when—
It. Just. Stops.
Sienna knew it was coming, but the sudden jarring halt still takes her by surprise.
She rereads the last line, which isn’t the end of a chapter, or even a scene, but a sentence.
As her eyes adjusted to the dark, the thought that rang through Petrarch’s head was this: I should have known.
The line sits halfway down the page, the space below it rendered maddeningly—and permanently—blank.
Sienna runs her fingertip along the phrase.
I should have known.
And then she looks up, startled by how dark the room has gotten.
She has to hand it to Arthur Fletch. He knows how to spin a gripping tale. But, staring at the stack of paper now, she wonders if he really knew how to end it. There are no clues, or rather, there are too many, a dozen possible red herrings glinting in the narrative net.
Sienna stands, stiff from so long hunched over the manuscript.
Theories swirl in her head, but there’s no way to guess which would have paid off, because she was reading it as, well, a reader. And Fletch was notorious for keeping readers guessing.
She’ll have to crack it from the other side.
Sienna chews her thumb as she thinks.
It’s a daunting task, sure, but for the first time in years, she feels that familiar flutter in her chest, the excitement that comes not from reading a really good book, but writing one. The fear, and the promise, the what-if, what-if, what-if.
And Sienna knows, she knows that she can do this.
Even without Malcolm’s help.
Even if he gets half the credit.
Even if that means binding herself to him for another three books (but she’s not going to think about that right now).
First, she needs to crack this book.
Well, actually, first—
She needs a drink.
* * *
APPARENTLY, SHE’S NOT THE ONLY ONE.
As she heads down the hall past Jaxon’s and Millie’s rooms, she hears voices drifting up the stairs, the heavy wooden swing of other doors, the sound of footsteps in the corridors below.
Jaxon’s door is closed, but Millie’s is ajar, the room beyond awash in shades of blue, matching paper fed into the typewriter on the old-fashioned desk.
An open notebook sits on the chair, pages filled with looping script that she can tell, even from the door, is perfectly legible. It would be easy to slip inside and take a peek. Just to see what bright, bubbly Millie has in store for Julia Petrarch, what she would make of that climactic scene.
Sienna’s foot is halfway through the door when she catches herself.
For all she knows, it’s a diary, or a snippet of dialogue, undoubtedly overwrought, full of breaths people didn’t know they were holding. And even if it isn’t, even if every page is somehow full of detailed thoughts on Petrarch’s finale, she doubts Millie Mitchell has an idea worth stealing.
Sienna makes her way downstairs and hears the crisscross of voices coming from the kitchen.
But when she gets there, the word doesn’t really do the room justice.
Technically, the galley in their New York apartment is a kitchen, it has the component parts, but this—this is like something out of Downton Abbey, if the downstairs and the upstairs merged into one giant functional yet achingly aesthetic room.
There’s a range cooker at one end, copper pots hanging from the walls, a marble-topped island that’s larger than her living room.
Priscilla and Millie are already there, the former popping the cork on a bottle of champagne, the latter perched on the marble island, hair wet from a shower and bare heels tapping against the dark-wood cabinets, mid-story about how Jaxon stripped down and dunked her in the sea—which Sienna thinks is a bit inappropriate, given how Fletch died.
“But oh my god, he’s so ripped,” adds Millie, blushing as she waves a hand at her midriff.
Sienna grimaces. No amount of muscle would make up for the little she’s seen of that man’s personality.
Behind her pink glasses, Priscilla cocks a brow. “Did you find time to read the pages, in between your adventures with Mr. Knight?”
Annoyance flashes across Millie’s face.
“Obviously I did that first,” she says. “I’ve always been, like, a really fast reader.”
“If I could have any superpower . . .” Cate drifts in, clutching a copy of the first Petrarch novel to her chest like a totem. “Right now it would definitely be that.”
She tosses the book onto the counter and presses her palms into her eyes. “It’s been ages since I read these.”
“I’m surprised you ever did,” says Sienna. “You must have been in kindergarten when the first one came out.”
Cate smiles shyly. “My mum’s always been a big fan.
So we had them around.” She pulls the sleeves of her cardigan down over her hands, and Sienna mentally pockets the gesture.
There’s something endearing about it, vulnerable, the sort of thing a character might do to indicate some past trauma.
Or maybe she’s just cold. It is, in fact, freezing in here.
Scotland in March, who knew?
“Anyway,” says Cate, “I thought I should reread them, but at this rate it’ll take me all weekend just to catch up.”
Fear lances through Sienna. Should she be doing that? She has a vague memory of the previous books, but it took all afternoon to read the newest, and it’s not even done. Besides, seventy-two hours is barely enough time to come up with an ending.
Of course, they don’t have seventy-two hours anymore.
She checks her watch, and flinches as she does the mental math.
They’re down to sixty-eight.
She’s always hated deadlines. Malcolm would insist he works best under pressure, but that’s a crock of shit, he’s just not good at managing his time. Sienna’s always been the one to keep an eye on the clock.
She wonders, absently, what he’ll do when she leaves.
Guilt flashes, like heartburn, in her chest, but she squashes it as Priscilla reaches out and rubs Cate’s back. “I’m sure the editor cares more about the cleverness of the idea than whether you can make a callback.”
And even though the words weren’t meant for her, Sienna finds herself clinging to them.
Priscilla’s right. Surely the editor understands.
Writing a book is like building a house.
There’s a time for putting up walls and a time for decorating rooms, and this right here, what they’re being asked to do, it’s carpentry.
Priscilla pours a glass of champagne for Cate, but she shakes her head, and Millie groans and says, “Oh my god, please tell me that you’re old enough to drink.”
Sienna and Priscilla both laugh, and Cate flushes. “I am,” she says. “I just turned twenty-two.”
Millie manages an awkward chuckle. “Oh god, that makes me feel ancient,” she says, which makes Sienna want to crawl out of her skin. She turned forty-two last month, which isn’t old, but this conversation is making her feel like it is.
She remembers her thirtieth birthday, when Malcolm brought her a cake with all those candles crammed on top, and how she looked into the thirty little flames and burst into tears because she’d never be a prodigy.
And Malcolm laughed. He laughed, and laughed, but did nothing to console her. Because it was true. If you succeed before a certain age, then society deems you extraordinary.
But after a point, no matter what you do, you’re not special.
You’re just good at your job.
Not that she’d ever want to go back to being twenty-two.
Especially not twenty-two in publishing.
It might seem fun from the outside, but the industry will eat you alive if you let it.
Cate tries to shrink even farther into her green cardigan, and Sienna wants to take her by the shoulders and tell her to stop making herself small, to take up space, if she’s going to survive.
“Maybe a glass of champagne would help you relax a little?” says Sienna.
“I don’t drink,” says Cate. “But point me to a bar of chocolate, and I’m a goner.”
Sienna laughs as Priscilla hands her Cate’s untouched glass.
Just then Jaxon walks in, wearing a pristine white tank top and sweatpants.
“Ladies,” he says, and Sienna takes a large sip to keep from grimacing.
She almost wishes Malcolm were there, just so she’d have someone to share a pointed look with, and is surprised and relieved to catch Priscilla’s gaze instead.
The romance writer rolls her eyes behind her pink glasses, and Sienna smiles, glad to have a co-conspirator, if not a friend.
Sienna could use a few more of those—friends, not co-conspirators—since the vast majority of the people in her life are in Malcolm’s too, authors they see three or four times a year on the thriller conference circuit, bonds forged out of a shared passion for the work and a shared frustration with the industry in which they do it.
And she’s not actually sure she’d consider any of them actual friends.
As for meeting people outside of publishing, she’s tried, but it’s hard when your whole life is built around the making and selling of stories.
The job is all-consuming, and you’re constantly surrounded by your colleagues, who are also your competition, or by people who hold your future in their hands.