Orson grinned and glanced at Luther, then back at Lucy. He leaned toward her and whispered. “He wants to kill you, Lucy.”
She felt a coldness spill inside her gut.
“Why?”
“It’s what he does. He can’t help himself. He’s sitting there imagining draining you in our bathtub. But don’t worry. I’ve told him you’re off-limits. Told him you might even be one of us.”
She glared at Luther. “You don’t scare me.”
He said. “You look like you’re scared, little girl.”
“Oh, you can read my thoughts? Well, if you could, you’d know I’m thinking how pretty your dark blood would look running out of your snow-white neck.”
Orson laughed out loud. “Isn’t she great?”
Lucy hadn’t averted her eyes from Luther, soaking in the psychotic malevolence.
“All right, listen,” Orson said. “I think we’re all a little hard-up for some fun. I had an idea while I was falling asleep last night. Darling’s room is already a wreck. Why don’t we all, together, find someone to take there this afternoon?”
Lucy’s eyes lit up. “Really?”
“Yeah, we’ll go right after Andrew Thomas’s speech.” Orson smiled. “I wouldn’t want to miss that.” He looked at Luther. “What do you think? You brought your toolbox, right?”
Luther smiled, and it was the scariest thing Lucy had ever seen.
For some reason, Orson didn’t want to sit on the front row for Andrew Thomas’s speech, so Lucy sat by herself, her heart pumping as the man walked up onto the stage.
She stood with the rest of the crowd and applauded the guest of honor, then sat with rapt attention as Andrew read an excerpt from a work in progress, one of the most gruesome and awesome things Lucy had ever heard.
The book was called The Passenger, a horror novel about an unnamed, psychopathic hitchhiker who travels around the country getting free rides from people, then robbing and killing them most horribly. In the section Andrew read, the Passenger ties a man to the back of his own car and drags him down the highway for five miles.
The signing line stretched all the way around the bookroom. The eight books in Lucy’s arms were heavy, and by the time she got close to the table, her muscles were beginning to cramp.
She couldn’t take her eyes off of Andrew as he signed books and made small talk with the fans. When it was finally her turn, she set her stack of books on the table and smiled and reached out her hand.
“Mr. Thomas, I am your biggest fan. I’ve read everything you ever wrote. I’m Lucy. I love what you read today. Will you sign my books?”
He shook her hand and smiled. “Of course.”
“Um, I’m sorry, Mr. Thomas can only sign three books.” Lucy looked at the woman standing behind the writer, a large woman in a horrific dress who looked like a librarian.
“But I want all of them signed.”
The woman pursed her lips. “If everyone brought eight books, we’d be here until Christmas.”
“But everyone didn’t bring eight books. Most only brought one.”
“Pick three. You’re holding up the line.”
Lucy glanced down at Andrew, flashed her puppy dog eyes.
“Margie, I think it’s okay to make one exception,” he said, grabbing the top book on Lucy’s pile and opening it to the cover page. As he looked down to sign, Lucy stuck her tongue out at Margie.
“So are you in high school, Lucy?” he asked as he went through the books.
“I’m in 10th grade.”
“Excellent. I think you might be the youngest person here.”
“When is The Passenger coming out?” she asked.
“Probably next year.”
“I can’t wait to read it.” As he signed the last book, she said, “Look, would you maybe like to get a cup of coffee after this? I’d just love to talk with you a little more.”
He smiled and pushed her stack of books toward her. “I’d love to Lucy, but I’m actually flying back to North Carolina in about two hours.”
“Oh.”
“It was great to meet you.”
Lucy lifted her stack of books and headed out of the book room. She might have cried if she didn’t have something else to look forward to.
“What about her?” Lucy said.
“No, I know who that is,” Orson said. “She’s a pretty well-known cozy writer. She’d never go for it.”
Lucy was sitting between Orson and Luther on a sofa at the edge of the hotel bar, the conference booklet open across her lap. Every writer in attendance was pictured in the booklet, along with a brief bio. It made the hunting so much easier.
“I see a possibility,” Luther said.
“Where?”
“Guy standing alone at the corner of the bar, looking around, talking to nobody.”
“Gotcha. Can you read his nametag?”
“No. Too far.” Luther stood up and pushed his way through the crowd, passing within several feet of the mark. He circled back around and sat down on the couch again, said, “Richard Bryson.”
Lucy flipped through the booklet and found the man’s picture and bio. She read it aloud: “Richard Bryson is not only the author of Against the Law, a thriller about a corrupt police force, but the publisher as well. He is currently working on a new book.”
“Perfect,” Orson said. “Luther, head on up. We’ll be there in ten.”
Orson sat with Lucy after Luther had left, watching Bryson drink his beer alone.
“All right, Lucy, tell me how you’d get this man we’ve never met up to our hotel room.”
“Um, I’d tell him we have a party going on and invite him to come.”
“Okay. If some person you’d never met invited you up to their hotel room, would you go?”
“I don’t know.”
“The answer is no. You wouldn’t. Listen, look at me. You’re small and young, you have no physical strength, so if you want to do this, over and over and over again, without getting caught or killed, you have to be smart.”
She rolled her eyes. He was sounding a little like her mother.
“Oh, am I boring you? Get the fuck out of here then, you little brat.”
“You’re not. I’m sorry.”
“I’m trying to help you. So tell me. How would you get Bryson up to our hotel room?”
“I don’t know.”
“You ready to learn something?”
“Yes.”
“Vanity. Know what that is?”
She nodded. “When you’re in love with yourself.”
“Exactly. We’re all in love with ourselves. It’s our weakness. Our main failing. If you can play on that, if you can appeal to someone’s vanity without them knowing you’re doing it, you can get them to do anything you want.”
“I don’t understand.”
Orson stood up. “Follow me. Keep your mouth shut. And watch and learn.”
She followed Orson through the throng of people, stood behind him as he leaned his elbows on the bar and waited for the bartender to notice him.
After a minute, Orson began to look around, and when his eyes fell upon Richard Bryson standing right beside him, Lucy saw a huge smile break across Orson’s face.
He said, “Oh my God, you’re Richard Bryson!”
As the man glanced over at Orson, Lucy got her first decent look at him. He seemed old as shit to her, at least fifty. His coarse blond hair was long and wavy and on the verge of turning gray, and he had what she thought was a gross mustache.
The man gave a skeptical smile that belied insecurity and said, “Um, yeah, who are you?”
“Well, for starters, I’m a huge fan of Against the Law. I thought it was the best book I’ve read this year.”
“Oh, well thank you. You know, I just made it available as an ebook.”