Bell, Book, and Scandal

Not as sorry as I am, Jane wanted to shout after her.

Jane tried to go back into the book and calm down, but the woman had spoiled it for her. She closed the book and glanced at her watch. Shelley ought to be turning up pretty soon if she meant to attend the next session.

A moment later Shelley appeared, walking noisily on her heels and flopped down angrily in the chair across from her. 'I'm so angry. That awful woman that Felicity and I think is Miss Mystery cornered me as I was stopping at the drinking fountain.'

'She caught up to you, too?'

'What do you mean? Has she been harassing you as well? What did she ask you?'

'She wanted to know my name and all about the plagiarism thing.'

'You didn't tell her either, did you?'

'Of course not. I turned over my tag and told her she'd mistaken me for someone else, and I didn't even know what she meant by food court much less plagiarism and didn't want to know.'

'Good for you!' Shelley exclaimed. 'Almost word for word what I told her. Except I wasn't wearing my tag in the shopping area.'

'She obviously wanted to name the two of us as her source.' Jane paused, then exclaimed, 'Oh,no! We have to find LaLane and tell her what the woman is doing.'

Shelley leaped up as if her chair had exploded. 'You're right! Do you know where she is or her room number?'

Jane remembered the room number and they called her from the nearest house phone.

'LaLane,' Jane said when she answered, 'this is Jane Jeffry.' She went on to explain what had happened and begged LaLane not to give Miss Mystery their names. 'She claimed her name was Lucille Weirather. That's probably not her real name either. So just don't tell our names to anyone who asks you, if you don't mind.'

'My lips are sealed. And I assure you I wasn't the one who let the information out.'

'We never doubted that,' Jane said.

'We never doubted what?' Shelley asked when Jane hung up.

'That she'd spilled the beans.'

'I suspected her briefly,' Shelley admitted. 'But you convinced me it wasn't her.'

Twenty-four

'Who else knows us by name?' Shelley asked.

Jane smiled. 'I've introduced myself to several dozen people after taking your advice to mingle. None of them remembered my name. Only Felicity. And she wouldn't tell Miss Mystery.'

'No, but she might slip up and tell someone else sent in by Miss Mystery,' Shelley warned.

'I guess we should catch up with Felicity. Wonder where she'd be. Want me to call her room?'

Jane didn't have to.

'Do I hear my name being taken in vain?' Felicity said from behind them and sat down in the third chair.

'Not in vain,' Jane said. 'The woman you think is Miss Mystery has gone after both of us to find out our names so she can blame us for telling the plagiarism story. I turned my name tag over, Shelley wasn't wearing hers, and we refused. You were right that she was eavesdrop-

ping. We only wanted to remind you not to tell her either.'

'I already told her,' Felicity said.

'No!' Shelley and Jane both yelped.

Felicity was smiling. 'Shelley, I told her that your name is Enid Potts and Jane's name is Olga Strange. You are cousins who live in a home in Alaska so remote that you don't even have electricity and you light your cabin with oil lamps and heat it with wood. There isn't even a road to the cabin. You flew clear to Chicago on your private plane. You keep it in the nearest town, which is fifty miles away and which you drove to in your matching yellow Humvees.'

Jane and Shelley were both laughing so hard they were almost falling out of their chairs.

But Shelley finally pulled herself together well enough to say, 'I'd rather have been Olga than Enid. It's more glamorous.'

'Did she buy that story?' Jane asked.

'She did,' Felicity replied. 'But she didn't like it. After today she can't possibly find you to try to pump you again. Obviously you don't have Internet access if you don't have electricity'

Jane pulled out the paper in her plastic tag, turned it over, and wrote in the same style, 'Hi, I'm Olga Strange' then reinserted it with the new message facing out.

Still chuckling, Shelley did the same thing. Shelley said, 'I can see why you're such a good writer, Felicity. You have a fabulous imagination to think that story up on the spur of the moment.'

Felicity preened. 'Making up stories is what I do for a living.'

'And you do it very well,' Jane said. 'On another topic, if I may. Is it worth staying here until the closing ceremonies? I want to go home and work on my book so I can fix it and send it on its way'

'I'm stuck here because I flew in and am flying back, so there's no choice. Besides, I hear it's going to be fun,' Felicity said.

'Do you have plans for this evening? We're on our own for dinner, the brochure says,' Shelley asked.

'No plans at all,' Felicity admitted.

'We found the most wonderful restaurant over in the mall across the street. We'd like to go back,' Jane said. 'Want to come along?'

'I'd love to escape from here. When shall we go?' 'I think we should go early,' Shelley said. 'We had an early lunch there, and by the time we left, the place was mobbed. How about five o'clock? Then we could find a good parking place, not wait in line, and do some shopping afterwards.' 'No shopping,' Jane said firmly.

'I'd love to shop,' Felicity said. 'But as it is, I'm going to have to break the bank and FedEx home all the books I've bought. I won't have room in my suitcase for anything else. I've already purchased some new clothes as well from

one of the shops in the tunnel. I'm going to need a forklift to transport this stuff to the airport.'

'We'll meet you here at about ten to five, then. You'll love this restaurant,' Shelley promised. 'And you'll have the thrill of riding in Jane's brand-new Jeep.'

'You have a Jeep, too?' Felicity asked Jane. 'I love my big Grand Cherokee but it's an old gas-guzzler. I'm thinking of buying a more efficient one.'

'This is the new version,' Jane said with all her excitement about it returning in a flash. 'It's called a Liberty and is slightly smaller and is supposed to have great gas mileage.'

Since Jane and Felicity were clearly going to go on and on about Jeeps, Shelley excused herself. 'I'm going up to the suite to call home and see how the kids are doing and if my husband's sister Constanza has figured out the code to our safe. See you two later.'

Jane took Felicity out to the parking lot and showed off the Jeep. She even let her drive it around the parking lot and was glad to know Felicity didn't drive anything like Shelley did.

Felicity vowed she was going to buy one just like Jane's when she returned home.

It was a good thing that they'd arrived early for dinner. The restaurant was already filling up when they arrived. 'It's Sunday,' Shelley said.

'Lots of families are shopping in the mall and are eating dinner out before going home.'

By agreeing to sit in the smoking section next to the bar at the back of the restaurant, they avoided having to