Chasing Venus Read Free Page A

got inside the cruiser
and settled on its cracked black Naugahyde .
    On a rational level she
knew she wasn’t a likely target.   True, three big-name mystery writers had been murdered.   One after the next, in the space of a
few months.   First Seamus O’Neill,
then Elizabeth Wimble, and a week ago Maggie Boswell.   All of them literary superstars.
    That didn’t describe
her.   She was a little-known name
with a small to middling readership.   But it was growing.   Each of
her four mysteries had done better than the one before.   And with the latest release, the series
was really building.
    What if it does really well?   What if I do become a bestseller?   For the first time it seemed
possible.   Her publisher was really
pushing her.   And she knew that Devil’s Cradle , which had just come out,
was her best work.   After Philip
told her he wanted a divorce, she’d poured her heart and soul into her writing
and the effort showed.   How ironic
it would be if the success she’d struggled so hard for was a double-edged
sword.
    She gazed out the
cruiser’s window as hills and trees flew past, hulking shadows in the
dark.   Mystery writers getting
killed was terrifying.   It wasn’t
theoretical, like writing mysteries.   There she had no problem spreading bodies around like peat moss.
    These people she
knew.   They were flesh and
blood.   She’d met them, talked to
them.   Just days ago she’d gone down
the coast to Santa Barbara to attend the book party where Maggie Boswell was
killed.
    Meaning, she knew, that
the murderer had been there as well.   He’d probably had a few drinks, told a few jokes.   He might have been within inches of her.   Maybe he’d brushed up against her.   Maybe he was standing outside when she
left the party, watching her go.   The same man who shot Seamus O’Neill and plunged the crochet hook into
Elizabeth Wimble’s throat.
    She slid on the seat as
Helms made the left turn that led past the churchyard cemetery, its weatherbeaten headstones decades old.   She’d been renting in Bodega Bay for
almost a year and she completely understood why Alfred Hitchcock picked it as
the site for The Birds .   It was perfect.   The windswept terrain and unforgiving
rocky cliffs, the fog rolling in from the cold surging Pacific …
    Ahead she could see her
house.   With none of the lights on,
it didn’t look welcoming.   It was a
rambling, rundown yellow Victorian with cockeyed front steps.   Several of its black shutters were one
storm away from falling to pieces.   It needed a paint job and a security system and since it was a rental it
wouldn’t get either.
    Helms stopped the
cruiser and Pincus got out to open her door.   She thanked them and hightailed it
indoors, aware of two pairs of eyes on her back.
    Inside the house, she
double-locked the door, hooked the chain, then went around and switched on
every lamp she owned.   When the old
house was lit up like a Christmas tree, she headed for the kitchen and pulled a
Gatorade from the fridge.   Then she
sat down at the small pine table tucked into the corner beneath the curtained
kitchen window.
    You have to stop thinking about the murders.   You’re not getting enough writing done.
    It was so difficult to
focus.   And tomorrow she had to
attend Maggie Boswell’s funeral, which would bring it all back full-force.   But Michael had asked her to go with him
and she couldn’t refuse, not after everything he’d done for her over the years.
    Nobody’s coming after you.   Keep your eye on the ball.   Write.
    Her next deadline
wasn’t far off.   And she had to meet
it, with a fabulous manuscript.   The
best way to build her name was to get those books out thick and fast, keep her
readership captivated.   This was her
chance to break through.   She
couldn’t let it slip away because she turned into a basketcase .
    That’s just what Philip would expect you to do.
    No greater motivation
existed.   “That’s