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I recognized both men from the Meet and Greet. Reno O’Brien was the suntanned Floridian who’d wanted to know the exact number of books Jackie had sold in the last two weeks. He was a snappy dresser who looked as if he spent half his time in the gym and the other half at an expensive spa being oiled, massaged, and exfoliated. He walked like John Travolta in
Saturday Night Fever
and appeared to have twice as much ego. His friends probably called him Slick.

Gus greeted him with a controlled high five. “I assume you remember Emily from the Meet and Greet?”

Reno winked flirtatiously. “I can’t imagine anyone forgetting Emily. She’s the best-looking thing on this trip. Too bad she’s taken.” He tapped his name tag. “Reno O’Brien, in case you didn’t catch the name last night.”

“And this is Vern Grundy,” said Gus, thwacking the gut of the man with the buzz cut who’d grilled Jackie about how much money she made. “The Hamlets’ only three-star general.” Vern looked to be seventy-something and coping with two bad knees that added a slight limp to his gait. He was fleshy without being fat, had no smile lines on his face, and looked as if his idea of a great night out would be jumping into his Hummer and invading a neighboring state.

“Pleased to meet you, ma’am.” Vern nodded politely. “What’s your question, Manning?”

“Emily here has a question. What are we trying to keep out of the Hamlets?”

“Solicitors,” barked Vern. “We’re showing those jeezers they can’t knock on Hamlet doors trying to peddle everything from politics to religion. No Avon lady. No petition-toting environmental activists. No doe-eyed Girl Scouts sending us into cardiac arrest with their thin mint cookies.”

Wait a minute. I’d been a Girl Scout. “You’re not
required
to buy thin mints,” I spoke up. “They have some nice low-fat selections now.”

“Blah.” He waved off the suggestion. “I’d rather eat my wallet.”

“It’s a wonderful benefit, not having to open your door to strangers,” Gus asserted. “Living in a gated community is like having virus protection for your computer. It filters out potentially destructive unknowns and keeps your computer happy, healthy, and connected to only recognized web networks. You have anything to add, Reno?”

“Yeah, this is all news to me. I thought the wall was there to keep out alligators.”

“Damn fool,” grumbled Vern.

“Hey, no one’s been eaten. I thought it was working pretty well.” Reno gave me another playful wink. “Can I buy you a drink, Emily? Coke? Beer? If you’re waiting for these two misers to offer, you’ll have a long wait. They’re still carrying the first dollars they ever earned.”

I’d have to introduce them to the Dicks. They’d have a lot in common. “Thanks, but I need to grab a Coke for Jackie and get back to her before she dies from heat stroke. She was making funeral arrangements when I left her.”

“She’s really something,” said Gus as we moved up in line. “We appreciated her handing out copies of her novel last night. I don’t usually read commercial fiction, and I never read romance, but I skimmed the first page and was sucked in by page two. I read half the book before I fell asleep. It’s a real page-turner.”

“I read a few pages, too,” said Reno. “She’s a dynamite storyteller. I was right there in the Big Apple,
sipping that half-caf decaf caramel macchiato extra hot and suffering through those grueling Broadway rehearsals. But what’s with our heroine? Sharing an apartment for two years and not knowing her roommate bats for the other team? Get real.”

I stared at Reno. Emma Anderson had a gay roommate? Huh, what a coincidence.

“Remember,” said Gus, “Emma’s from the Midwest, so she’s probably more naive than dense. Her naivete is part of her charm. Where are you in the story?”

“Her roommate just ran off with another actor, so Emma’s scrambling to find a replacement.”

“I think she’s gonna ask the drop-dead-gorgeous detective to move in with her,” said Vern, “even though he doesn’t know he’s a detective. Hell, he might not even know he’s drop-dead gorgeous.”

“Impaired vision?” I asked.

“Amnesia.”

What
?

“I couldn’t buy the grandfather’s accident,” Reno admitted. “Too over the top. Real people don’t die like that.”

“Exactly how did he die?” I asked in a wary voice.

“The roof of his ice shanty caved in,” said Gus. “Killed him instantly.”

Oh. My. God. The…the…plagiarist! I was going to strangle her! Of all the sneaky, low-down, conniving—She’d handed out a suitcase full of books! Did she think I wouldn’t overhear details? Did she think I was entirely stupid? Her book wasn’t about Emma Anderson; it was about me!

“I hope Jackie’s working on a sequel,” said Gus.

“I’d read the next installment,” said Reno.

“Me, too,” said Vern. “But I have a few words of advice for her: more exploding vehicles and more midget wrestlers.”

I smiled as an evil thought took root. “You like her book so much, you know what would be fun? Why don’t you tell her about all the scenes you like in person? I can hardly
wait
to see the look on her face.”

All three men agreed to my suggestion, so after we bought our drinks, I led them through the maze of food stalls to our vacant tables, only to discover they were no longer vacant. “My whole group is back,” I said in surprise. “That was quick. They usually take forever deciding what to order.”

“That’s not your group,” said Gus. “It’s ours.”

“Yours?” I looked more closely. Aha. That explained the quick decisions. No one at the table was from Iowa; they were from Florida, and Jackie was making the rounds, schmoozing cordially with them all.

“Someone must have bought your friend a drink,” Vern observed. “She’s still alive.”

Yup, but when the gang returned to find their seats gone, she was going to wish she was dead.

I
caught Jackie’s eye and fired her a look that could have singed her eyelashes. To her credit, she excused herself immediately and hurried over to me. Being female had really increased her ability to interpret dirty looks.

“Emily, I’m so glad you’re back. Would you gentlemen excuse us for a moment?” She seized my arm and dragged me aside. “What am I going to
do?
They arrived
en masse
and just made themselves at home!”

“Did you happen to mention the seats were saved?”

“How could I? They’re my reading public. If I didn’t let them sit down, they might have gotten even by giving me a nasty review on Amazon. People can be so petty. Besides, Joleen Barnum was so nice. She gave me her own drink and made Jimbob go back and
get her another. How could I tell them to go plunk themselves down somewhere else?”

“The gang is not going to be happy about this, Jack.”

“I know.” She gnawed the nail on her pinky as she glanced back toward the tables. “Why am I driven by this exhausting need to please everyone? I never felt like that when I was a guy.”

“I think it has something to do with the female hippocamus.”

“Well, it’s really annoying.” She rolled her shoulders as if readjusting her bra straps. “I’m not sure I would have made the change if I’d known this was going to happen. Life was so much easier when I could be selfish and unaccommodating.”

“Speaking of which—” I poked my finger into her sternum. “Emma Anderson? Gay roommate? Detective friend with amnesia? Grandfather dies when an ice shanty collapses on him? Sound like anyone you know?”

“It sounds like you.”

“Don’t lie to me, Jack! You can’t bluff—” I paused. “You admit it?”

“Novelists are supposed to write what they know, Emily, and who do I know better than you? No one.”

“You splashed my life all over the pages of your book?”

“Honestly, Emily, who’s going to know? I gave you a new name, and I fudged most of the important details.”

“Like what?”

“Like…Emma is addicted to half-caf decaf caramel macchiatos. You, on the other hand, never cared for them.”

“You call that an important detail?”

“I’ll have you know that caramel macchiatos play a crucial role at the end of the book.”

“DICK, GET OVER HERE!” Helen Teig’s voice flew off the decibel chart. “SOMEONE’S IN OUR SEATS!”

“Uh-oh, you better get over there, Emily.” Jackie shielded herself behind me and nudged me forward. “Looks like trouble.”

“And whose fault is that? So help me, Jack—”

The Dicks, their wives, and the rest of the group huddled near the occupied tables with their arms full of takeout and their eyes throwing daggers, paring knives, and a few spitballs—the Iowa version of
Gun-fight at the O.K. Corral
. “Those are our seats,” huffed Dick Teig.

Portia Van Cleef elevated her chin at an imperious angle. “Obviously, if we’re sitting in them, they’re our seats.”

“We were here first,” Dick Stolee protested.

“And then you left,” said Portia. “Sorry.”

“Emily was supposed to save those seats for us!” sniped Lucille Rassmuson.

Portia took a calm sip of her drink. “She didn’t do a very good job of it, did she?”

“She doesn’t do a very good job of anything,” grumbled Bernice.

“There’s been a terrible mixup,” I explained as I
inserted myself between the two groups, “but I know we can fix the problem with minimum inconvenience to everyone.” The number one rule of being a successful tour escort was to sound as if you knew what you were doing, even if you didn’t have a clue.

Portia smiled without humor. “Really, Emily, our only problem is how to make your group disappear so the rest of us can enjoy our meals.”

“Okay, blondie, I’ve had all I’m going to take of you.” Bernice stepped out from the group like a self-deputized Wyatt Earp. “Give up the seat.”

“That’s not going to happen,” said Portia.

“You better do what she says,” warned Dick Teig. “She’s armed with Diet Coke.”

“And she just shook the can,” added Helen.

I stabbed my finger at Bernice. “You will
not
open that can anywhere around here. Understood? We’re going to find a way to accommodate—”

“You tiresome little troll,” Portia flung at Bernice. “Are you vying for the title of most irritating person on the planet? News flash. You’ve won, so go crawl back under your rock. We’ll be able to digest our food much better if we don’t have to look at you.”

Bernice’s face glazed over with justifiable shock. Who would have thought that Portia could sound more like Bernice than Bernice herself?

“Come on, ladies,” I appealed, “we don’t have to resort to name-calling.”

Portia laughed. “Calling her a troll was a compliment.”

Gasps from the Iowans. Silence from the Floridians.

Bernice stood statue-still, looking small and unexpectedly wounded. “You’ll be sorry you said that,” she vowed in a steely voice.

Portia let out a tedious sigh. “I seriously doubt that.”

“There’s a table opening up by the water!” George Farkas yelled. “Run for it!”

They took off like stampeding wildebeest, proving that when it came to priorities, nursing a grudge would always lose out to nursing their appetites.

Click clack click clack click.
Jackie’s stilettoes sent up a Gatling gun clatter as she joined us. “Thank goodness that’s over. Isn’t it nice how another table opened up? Some problems are so easy to solve.”

“Yeah, especially if you pass them off to other people.” I narrowed my eyes. “Weren’t you about to die from heat stroke?”

“I’m so much better now that I’m rehydrated.” She touched Portia’s forearm. “When I fly down for my book signing, I’ll have to bring Joleen something special to repay her for her kindness.”

“About your book signing,” Portia demurred. “There’s been a slight change of plans.”

“You want me to come in August instead of July? I can do that. My schedule—”

“Actually, I don’t want you to come at all.”

Jackie looked confused. “Not come? Why not?”

“Because I finished reading that rubbish you gave me last night. You don’t honestly expect people to buy anything so stupid, do you?”

In the blink of an eye, I watched one supremely
confident transsexual shrink from six-foot-four to four-foot-six. “You didn’t like it?”

“Where should I begin? With the insult to my intelligence or the cardboard characters? It was poorly written, cartoonish, and perverted. Not only is your mind in the gutter, your overuse of exclamation points and Batman sound effects is positively juvenile. I refuse to have my name connected with either you
or
your book.”

“But I’ve already contacted my editor. She’s probably placing the book order even as we speak.”

“That’s not my problem.”

“It is
so
your problem. We had an understanding!”

“It was
my
understanding that your novel was readable. It isn’t.” Portia glanced up and down the table. “Did anyone else make the mistake of opening up her book last night?”

“Vern, Gus, and Reno did,” I piped up. “They loved it.” I encouraged the men with a nod. “Tell everyone what you told me.”

Gus massaged his beard, looking as if he wished he were somewhere else. “I give her an A for effort, but Portia’s right. It’s nothing more than sensationalized tripe.”

“A bad soap opera,” Reno agreed.

“Complete nonsense,” Vern snorted, “and like Portia said, way too many exclamation points. I like periods myself. They’re solid. Manly.”

I stared at them, aghast. “You
adored
Jackie’s book! You told me yourselves.”

“You obviously misinterpreted what they said,” Portia accused.

“Really? How would you interpret ‘I hope Jackie’s working on a sequel,’ and ‘I’d read the next installment’?”

“I hope you’re not always this naive, Emily. They probably want to have sex with her.”

“I wouldn’t mind starting the book,” said Lauretta Klick, “but finishing could be a big problem. There’s just not enough time left for me to get through the whole thing. I’d be really bummed out if I had to spend Eternity not knowing how the story ends.”

“There she goes again,” June Peabody whined. “Spreading gloom and doom with her end-of-the-world scenario, trying to convince everyone it’s curtains. Listen to me, Lauretta, if you and Curtis ruin another holiday for us, I’ll start a petition to make sure that you’re never allowed to sign up for another one.”

“Knock yourself out,” Curtis shot back. “Maybe you didn’t get the message: there’s never gonna be another one.”

“Hush up,” Portia chided the Klicks. “I’ve told you what would happen if people started popping antidepressants because of you. I’m giving you fair warning: you’re teetering on the brink.”

“You don’t scare us,” Lauretta said defiantly. “Not anymore.”

“She scares me,” cried Jackie. “I’ve never known anyone to enjoy trashing someone else’s work so much—other than New York theater critics. Mean-spirited witch. Didn’t your mother teach you that if you can’t say something nice, don’t say it at all?” She
was six-feet-four again, and cranky. “I want my book back.”

“Sorry. I performed a good deed before I left the hotel this morning. I threw it in the wastebasket to spare the next poor schmuck from having to read it.”

“You threw my book in the trash?”

Portia shrugged. “It’s exactly where it belongs.”

Jackie puffed up with so much hot air that she looked like an inflatable sex toy. “Even with my author’s discount, that book set me back fifteen bucks! Do I look like I’m made of money? You are
so
going to regret doing that.”

“Don’t you dare threaten me.”

“It’s not a threat.” Jackie’s eyes narrowed to vengeful slits. “It’s a promise.”

“MAN OVERBOARD!” an elderly voice yelled from dockside. “HELP! SOMEBODY HELP!”

I shot a look toward the water. “One of yours?” Jackie asked me.

“Not mine,” I said with a surfeit of confidence, unable to see through the crowd. “I conducted a seminar on ocean safety before we left home. My guys aren’t going anywhere near open water unless there’s a guard rail.”

“HURRY! HE CAN’T SWIM!”

“Oh, God, it’s one of mine.” I dodged around market goers and hurdled pools of melted ice cream as I pounded across the cobblestones. “Hold on! I’m coming!”

Clackclackcclackclackclack.
“I’ll get this one!” Jackie sped past me on her long legs, hair flying and arms
pumping. “I owe you. Out of the way!” she yelled in a gruff baritone. “I’m comin’ through!”

Onlookers leaped out of her path as she barreled toward the end of the quay. Kicking off her stilettoes, she made a spectacular running leap into midair and plunged into the harbor with a resounding—

“Wait! My sweater!”

Splat!

“That was actually quite refreshing,” Jackie said as we hoofed it back to the hotel an hour later.

“I’m glad you thought so,” I said tightly.

“I recognize that tone, Emily, so you might as well come right out and say it. You’re still mad.”

“It was my favorite sweater in all the world, Jack! Now look at it.” The sleeves hung below her hands like sock puppets. The bottom drooped to her thighs. “It’s a plus size minidress.”

“Would you rather I’d let George drown?”

“No! But I could have saved him. And here’s the important part:
I’m
not wearing cashmere!”

“Well,
ex
c
uuu
se me. Who packs cashmere to go on vacation anyway?”

“We’re going to be traveling above the Arctic Circle. I even threw in a scarf and mittens because…
it’s supposed to get cold!
”

She stopped in her tracks. “Really?”

“Didn’t you look at the map?”

“Nah. I’m not good with maps anymore.” She bobbed her head sheepishly. “You know, the girl thing.”

I sighed with resignation. “All these other issues
aside, Jack, I really appreciate what you did for George. Thanks.”

“No problem. He should think about getting that artificial leg of his replaced with a lighter material, though. It dragged him down so fast, I had to dive twice to find him.”

“It’s not the leg; it’s the steel-toed boots. What he really needs to replace is his footwear.”

I looked up and down the boulevard and across the street to the shaded lawns of Esplanade park, where an outdoor aerobics class was being conducted for stunning blonds with tanned legs and no body fat. “Do you see a shoe store around here?”

“Nope, but I wouldn’t mind browsing in the one behind you.”