Bell, Book, and Scandal

conference,' Jane said. 'Two of them totally rejected me without even reading my material. Not that I'm even at the budding stage yet. More like a feeble little seed.'

'You can't ever let yourself think that way again,' Felicity said fiercely. 'Now let's order a nice big breakfast before the waiter throws us out.'

Jane and Shelley were still feeling a bit rocky from their chocolate overload the night before and or-

dered unbuttered toast and glasses of watered-down orange juice.

'You two make me look like a pig,' Felicity said, tucking into a spicy Spanish omelette to which she'd added hot sauce and lots of pepper.

In spite of her strong resolution to forget all about Vernetta, Sophie, and Zac, a tiny bell at the back of Jane's mind kept tinkling, as if saying 'Remember, remember.'

Somebody had said something revealing in the meeting in Sophie's suite. Her subconscious was sure of it, whether Jane cared or not. She wished she could muffle the thought and enjoy the last day of the conference.

Just as they were finishing breakfast, a friend of Felicity's dropped by their table with a huge wad of copies of Miss Mystery's picture. 'Do any of you need more of these?'

Felicity introduced her to Jane and Shelley, but didn't give their names. 'No, thanks, Sudie. There are hundreds of them floating around already, and she can't possibly find all of them.'

Sudie said, 'Then I'll just follow her and replace what she's picked up.'

When she was gone, Felicity said, 'She's not even a writer. She's a fan and means well. She always goes overboard though. I really need to finish my packing so I can have everything waiting at the concierge desk when the final activity is over. May I just leave my bill and tip and let you pay the waiter and give me a copy

of the bill later on? I'm a fanatic about keeping receipts.'

'Of course it's okay,' Jane said. 'I'll protect it with my life.'

When Felicity had gone, Jane asked, 'What shall we do until this noon thing?'

'Shopping?' Shelley asked faintly, knowing Jane would object.

'Nope. I'm shopped out. I might make one last trip to the book room if the booksellers haven't already started packing up.'

'It's still shopping, isn't it? I'll come along.'

Each of them managed to snatch up one last book from a bookseller to take upstairs. Shelley picked one out of a box that had been filled but not yet sealed. As they passed the front desk on the way to the elevator, Sophie was chewing out someone at the front desk about her bill. Corwin was standing with his back to her, pretending he wasn't with her.

Sophie said, 'I have the receipt in my purse. Corwin, I left it in the room. Go find it.'

Jane glanced at Corwin and was astonished at the look on his face. It was purest example of sheer hatred she'd ever seen.

How interesting, Jane thought, frowning, as Shelley pulled her along to the elevator.

Twenty-seven

The elevators were mobbed with conference participants who were going down to the lobby to check out. There were also families checking out, dealing with tired, overwrought children, luggage, shopping bags, and backpacks, all of which had to be removed before anyone could enter the elevator to go up.

Shelley and Jane found themselves nearly cheek by jowl with Corwin and the rest of the people who had waited impatiently. All three of the conference attendees made a successful effort not to acknowledge each other.

Jane and Shelley were silent all the way to the suite. When Shelley closed the door behind her, she laughed and said, 'If looks really could kill, that look Corwin gave Sophie would have vaporized her into a small pile of ash.'

'I didn't realize that you saw that, too. He really despises her,' Jane said. 'And no wonder. Treating a grown man like that. Not even a 'please.' '

'A 'please' would have made it marginally less offensive,' Shelley agreed.

'You don't think…' Jane began.

Shelley stopped her. 'No, we're not thinking about Corwin. We've done all we could or should have done. We've stepped out of this and slammed the door behind us.'

'But wouldn't you like to know if Corwin or someone other than Vernetta poisoned the chocolates that made Sophie so sick?'

'If someone else found out and told me, yes. That would be mildly interesting.'

'And why she or he attacked Zac?'

'That doesn't seem to matter to Zac. Why should it matter to us? What possible reason would Corwin have for doing that?'

Jane knew from that remark that Shelley hadn't entirely shut the door of her own mind to the events.

'Look, Shelley, we assumed that Corwin probably didn't like this job with Sophie, just because nobody possibly could. I suppose our impression was that he was probably well enough paid to tolerate her while looking for a better job and more congenial boss.'

'I never gave Corwin much thought. I guess you're right though. So what?'

'Now that we've seen how he really feels, doesn't that alter your view even a little bit? He could have poisoned Sophie, actually trying to kill her so the dreadful Vernetta would be the obvious suspect. That way he could be free to seek another job in publishing without Sophie sabotaging him. As she would. She has no idea of how much contempt he has for her. We do. And she's mean enough to say anything to ruin his chances if he dared to escape from her.'

'I'll accept that reasoning. Marginally. But where does Zac come into it?'

'Maybe he doesn't. These might be entirely unrelated events,' Jane claimed, knowing as she spoke she wasn't on firm ground.

'Jane, you know that's absurd. It was all about Zac's book and Vernetta's plagiarizing. Vernetta is responsible for that. Now she's on her way back to her trailer house or wherever they live, and it's someone else's problem to bring her to justice.'

'You're right about the book being at the center of it. But there must be some connection we're just not seeing clearly.'

Shelley dropped wearily onto a sofa. 'We don't have to! All we have to do is go to this last ceremony or game or whatever the closing event is, and then go home and return to our own lives.'

Jane sat down across from her. 'So you don't care if we ever know the truth?'

'I do care. I just don't want us to be the ones who waste our time and effort hunting it down. Unless the part of your brain that produced Frederic Remington comes up with something new. We put two and two together, you working on

Zac and me working at the computer, and found out that Vernetta had plagiarized Zac, and let the proper people know about it. We've done a good job there.'

She went on, 'With Felicity's help, we've put that awful Miss Mystery in her place. We don't have to unravel something else that we don't truly need to care about.'

Jane was hard-pressed to argue any of these points. Shelley was right. They hadn't truly needed to do any of these things. They'd come here to have a good time and learn interesting information that would be valuable to