Chapter Seven
SOME PEOPLE GROW IN THE SUN, AND others shrink.
Cate Newhouse is a shrinker.
She looks even smaller in the chair, pulling her cuffs down over her hands in a way he might think suspicious—out, out, damn spot, and all that—if she hadn’t been doing it since the moment she arrived on Skelbrae.
Malcolm looks at her and sees what could have been.
If he’d met Sienna ten years earlier, they might have had a daughter like her.
Malcolm thinks he would have enjoyed being a father.
Sienna disagreed. She liked to use his feelings toward that dumb Chihuahua, Edgar, as proof he wasn’t “parenting material,” but he never thought that was a fair comparison.
Most kids stop pissing on the floor at some point.
The irony of course is that now, with Sienna gone, the ratty little dog is the closest they’ll ever get to having a child. Not exactly the legacy he imagined for himself. But Malcolm will do his best, in Sisi’s absence. It’s what she would have wanted.
Besides, Edgar is what, sixteen? With any luck, he’ll kick the canine bucket before too long.
Cate shifts in her chair and smiles weakly. “How are you holding up?”
Malcolm blinks, returning to himself. Funny—even though she’s the one who asks, he can’t shake the urge to comfort her instead, that old British need to smooth feathers instead of ruffling them. But he can’t bring himself to lie either, so he asks something else instead. To put her at ease.
“How long have you wanted to be a writer?”
Cate frowns a little, perhaps thrown by the direction of the question. But when she replies, there is no waver in her voice. “All my life,” she answers earnestly, and he’s impressed. Sienna was so shy about it, as if she didn’t want to lay claim to something she hadn’t earned.
“Who doesn’t like telling stories?” She looks down at her fingers, where they poke out from her sleeves.
“But there’s a difference, isn’t there?” she adds.
“Between making things up, and being a real author. Seeing your name on the cover of a book.” There’s a hungry look in her eyes when she says it.
Malcolm understands that hunger all too well.
“Not that any of our names will be on the last Petrarch book,” she adds.
Malcolm nods. “I imagine that’s why they’re offering the other deal.”
Cate bobs her head, dislodging a chunk of blunt brown hair from behind her ear. “Right,” she says, “but I don’t think I have a chance at winning that.”
“You never know,” he says, but the words ring as hollow as they feel, and Cate doesn’t strike him as the type to fish for comfort, so he changes tack. “Even if it’s not this time around, you’re young. You have all the time in the world.”
Cate frowns, picking at the hem of her green cardigan.
“What is it?” he asks.
Her hands go still. “It’s just, Sienna said the same thing to me yesterday . . .”
She doesn’t have to finish. And look at her now.
Malcolm looks down at his notepad, wishing he’d brought the bottle of Scotch with him into the office. The shroud of warmth is slipping, and he’s in no mood to face sobriety.
He clears his throat and tries to summon Leo Hardwick.
“Do you know why I wanted to talk?”
Cate goes back to picking at the hem of her cardigan.
She doesn’t look strong enough to lift a typewriter, much less murder someone with it—doesn’t even look strong enough to shove a full-grown woman down a flight of stairs—but a keen eye considers all the angles.
“Jaxon said you were conducting interviews. About what happened to Sienna. But surely it was just an accident.”
“Ah, but it wasn’t,” he says, reaching behind him. “And I have proof!”
He means to flash the paper with the killer’s message, only his fingers don’t quite catch it, and he ends up having to look over his shoulder to find it, which admittedly steals a little of the flair.
But Cate’s eyes still widen when she sees the page.
“A note,” he says. “Found on her body. Just like the one on Millie’s desk. ”
“But that was just a prank!”
Poor thing, thinks Malcolm. He forgets how young she is. Young enough that she still sees the best in people, instead of the worst.
“Was it?” he says, arching a brow. “Or was it a warning?”
Cate swallows. “You really think someone would be willing to kill for this?”
Malcolm finds himself recalling what Jaxon said.
“I don’t know, love,” he says. “But people have done more for less.”
Cate shakes her head. “I really hope you’re wrong.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because if you’re right, and someone’s willing to murder for this prize . . .” Her voice drops to a whisper. “What’s to stop them from doing it again?”