Lauren, still dressed in her sequined top and miniskirt from the party, froze, her eyes looking ridiculously large behind her horn-rimmed glasses. She had a pizza box in one hand and an empty champagne bottle in the other.
Will and I had leaped away from each other at the sight of her, but she was the one who seemed the most surprised.
“Oh, hi, Ms. Wright,” she cried. “And Mr. Price! How are you?”
“Um.” I stepped quickly in front of Will so Lauren wouldn’t see the bulge our kissing had created in the front of his trousers, which was truly impressive and which I had every intention of exploring at a later time. “We’re fine. How are you?”
“Oh, I’m fine. Great, actually! Would you happen to know where the recycling is?” She waved the bottle and pizza box in the air.
With my brain not quite functioning properly yet due to the fact that my body was still tingling all over from Will’s kiss, I pointed limply toward the tiki bar. “Over there.”
“Oh, thanks!” Lauren trotted to the recycling bin. She was wearing platform heels on which she appeared to be having trouble balancing. She looked a bit like a toddler wearing her mother’s high heels. It wasn’t until I saw her go a few more steps that I realized it was because she was drunk.
I glanced at the open doorway through which Lauren had appeared. It was on the first floor.
A male figure filled it, peering out into the courtyard. Because his back was to the light inside the room, it was difficult to see who he was.
Difficult, but not impossible.
Before I could even figure out what was happening, Will was racing across the courtyard.
“Garrett,” he said. “Get out here.”
I saw the figure in the doorway jump—Will’s voice, coming from the darkness, must have sounded to him like a gunshot—and try to close the door.
But Will was too quick for him. He reached room 102 in a flash, and thrust his foot inside the door just as Garrett was closing it. I have no idea what the soles of Will’s shoes were made of, but it must have been sturdy stuff, because it kept Garrett from shutting the door on us.
“Don’t even try it, Newcombe,” Will growled as he pressed his shoulder against the door. “Did you know the entire Little Bridge Coast Guard was out there searching for you? There are probably still little kids sitting on that dock, waiting for you to rematerialize. And you’re tucked up safe back here in your hotel room with a girl? Get out here and face me like a man!”
“I—I—I’m not feeling too well,” I heard Garrett cry. “I think I caught a chill. I’ll see you tomorrow at the event—”
“No chance.” Will was shoving against the door as hard as Garrett, inside his room, was pressing against it to keep him out. “I’m going to take that sodding cape of yours and wring your neck with it.”
“Mr. Price?” Lauren came tripping over from the recycling bin just as I, too, reached room 102. She looked curious, but also a little scared. “Is everything okay? What’s going on?”
I had other things on my mind besides the fact that Garrett had been found alive and—for now, anyway—well.
“Have you been in there with Garrett all night?” I asked Lauren.
“Well, not all night.” Lauren wobbled a little on her platform heels. “He and I caught a rideshare over from the marina. He’s been helping me with my manuscript.”
Of all the things I’d expected her to say, this was not one of them. “Your manuscript?”
“Yes.” Lauren’s eyes lit up behind the lenses of her glasses. “It’s a modern retelling of The Great Gatsby, only with a female bisexual Gatsby, and set during the heady cocaine era of the 1980s. Mr. Newcombe thinks he can get his agent to represent me!”
I blinked, only this time, it wasn’t because I felt like crying. Well, actually I did, but for different reasons than before. “I’ll bet he does,” I said, sending a baleful look in Garrett’s direction. He’d given up trying to close his door on Will and finally come out of his room—but only when Will, having also heard Lauren mention her manuscript, lowered his fists.
“It’s not what you think.” Garrett was wearing his hotel bathrobe over a pair of swim trunks and the bright yellow complimentary Little Bridge Island Book Festival T-shirt we’d all been given in our swag bags. He had both his hands up in a defensive gesture, as if he were afraid that Will might still jump him—a valid concern. “I’m just helping her with her book.”
“Her book?” I don’t think Will was capable of speech, he was still so angry, so I had to do all the talking.
“Of course he was just helping me with my book.” Lauren seemed more bewildered than ever. “What else would we have been doing?”
“And the champagne? Lauren’s underage, you know.”
Garrett flung a startled look in Lauren’s direction, but she parried quickly with, “No, I’m not. I keep telling you, I’m nineteen! And the legal drinking age in Manitoba, where I come from, is eighteen.”
“Yes, well, here it’s twenty-one.” I narrowed my eyes at Garrett. “Something Mr. Newcombe, who is twice your age, knows perfectly well.”
“I’m not twice her age,” Garrett began to protest, but he shut up pretty quickly when he noticed Will’s expression, which was as dark as a thundercloud. “Well, okay. Almost twice her age. But I wasn’t going to try anything, I swear! You see, I consider myself something of a mentor—”
“I think what we need here is a little less explaining and a little more apologizing,” Will said. He was leaning against the doorframe to room 102, looking as threatening as a panther about to pounce. “Come on, get to it, Newcombe. You owe me fifty grand for that search, and you’re going to bloody well pay up. Get your checkbook out.”
Garrett let out a bark of nervous laughter. “What? You can’t be serious.”
“Would you prefer I call the sheriff’s department?” Will reached into his trouser pocket for his cell phone. “I’m sure they’d be very interested to know where you are . . . and who you’re here with.”
“Wait.” Garrett held up both his hands. “Wait just a minute here. I researched this. It’s not illegal to fake your own death. It’s not illegal anywhere in the United States.”
“That may very well be true, but it is illegal to misuse emergency services.”
“I’m not the one who called them,” Garrett pointed out. “You did that. You people were the ones who thought I died. I was very clear with all of you before I jumped that I was going to be back. I said I would see all of you soon, when I returned from the spirit world, didn’t I, Lauren?”
Lauren was looking less and less enthusiastic about the situation with each passing minute. “I mean . . . I guess you did say that, Mr. Newcombe. But I could also see how people might have been afraid that something bad had happened to—”
“Jo.” Seeing that Lauren was going to be of little help to him in this situation, Garrett appealed to me. “You were standing right next to me. I said I’d be back, didn’t I?”
“You did,” I said. “What you didn’t say was when, and also that you had scuba gear stashed under the dock and that you were going to swim to it, then use it to get over to the next dock and take an Uber back to your hotel with one of our teenage guests.”
Garrett chewed on his lower lip. “I couldn’t tell you all that, Jo. A good magician never reveals his tricks.”
“I hate to be the one to break it to you, Newcombe,” Will said. “But you’re not a good magician.”
“Oooh.” I couldn’t help but glance admiringly at Will. “Good line.”
He didn’t smile. He was still angry with Garrett, and in no mood to joke. “Feel free to use it sometime.”
“I will. Maybe in Kitty Katz number twenty-seven, after Rex Canine and Kitty Katz break up, Rex will take up magic.”
“Rex and Kitty are going to break up in your next book?” Lauren looked shocked. “But why? They’re made for each other!”
“Well, the truth is, Lauren, characters grow and change, just like people.” The warmth in the look Will shot me after I said this made my knees weak.
Garrett was appearing more at ease now that the conversation had shifted away from him. “That’s true,” he said. “So very true. Characters—and people—learn their lessons, and vow to do better next time. So I take it we’re all in agreement: everything’s good here? No need for anyone to call the police or write any checks?”
He made the mistake of laughing and raising a hand as if to give Will a high five—then froze as the latter scissored a look in his direction that was as cold as the look he’d sent me had been warm.
“I think we’re all in agreement,” Will said acidly, “that you can be trusted to phone the sheriff’s department yourself and let them know that you’re safe, then show up tomorrow morning for the farewell brunch at the library to make sure everyone who saw your disappearing act from tonight knows the same thing.”
Garrett lowered his hand. “Uh, sure. Yeah, I can do that. I’ll go inside and make that call right now. And I’ll see all of you in the morning.”
I wanted to believe him. It seemed incredibly unlikely that he would lie about something so serious.
But then again, it was Garrett.
Which was why I slipped my hand through the crook of Lauren’s elbow and said, “Great. Then Will and I will give Lauren a lift back to her hotel. Right, Will?”
Will didn’t skip a beat. He slipped his phone back into his pocket and nodded. “Certainly.”
Lauren was a little mystified by the turn of events, however. “Wait. What are we doing?”
“What hotel are you staying in, Lauren?” I asked as I steered her back toward the hallway leading to the lobby. “Will’s car is parked right outside.”
“Oh. We’re staying at the Marriott Beachside.” Lauren kept glancing back toward Garrett. “Mr. Newcombe isn’t in any trouble, is he?”
“Not at all.” Garrett was in a heap of trouble, as far as I was concerned. But I wasn’t going to worry about that now. “Tell me more about your book. What’s the title?”
“Oh! Well, I was going to call it Gatsby’s Girl, but I looked that up on Goodreads and it’s already taken. So I decided to go with Gatsby! with an exclamation mark—you know, like the musical Oklahoma!”
Lauren chattered on, seemingly completely unaware of the danger from which Will and I had just saved her. Or possibly not. Who knew? Maybe the rumors about Garrett were untrue, and he wouldn’t have tried anything.
Except that, judging by what I’d seen with my own eyes, that seemed highly unlikely. He was a bestselling author in a position of power. She was unpublished, half his age, and more than a little tipsy. Really, Garrett was getting off easy. Judging from the expression I’d seen on Will’s face as he’d been pushing on that door, the evening might easily have gone another way entirely.
In any case, Lauren was prattling away about the characters in Gatsby! when, as we stepped outside the Lazy Parrot, the author bus finally arrived.
“Jo! Will!” Kellyjean was the first person off the bus, most likely because she’d been the last person to climb on board, thanks to her missing wrap. She’d apparently found it, because a shimmery gold shawl was loosely tossed around her shoulders. “There you are! I was wondering where you two had disappeared to.”
“Excuse me.” Frannie pushed past her, anxious to get inside and catch the last few minutes of her ball game. “Hi, Jo, hi, Will. Excuse me, but I have to go. Bye.”
“Bye.” I watched as Frannie disappeared inside the hotel. “Um, so, yeah.” I turned toward Saul, who was the next to disembark from the bus. “We found Garrett. He’s fine. He was in his room here at the hotel the whole time.”
“Oh, hey! That’s great.” Saul looked over his shoulder at Jerome, who was climbing down from the bus behind him. “Hey, Jarvis. Newcombe was in his room the whole time. Pay up.”
Jerome let out a colorful expletive and reached into his pocket. “I fell right into that one,” he said as he ruefully peeled a twenty from the wad of bills in his wallet and handed it to Saul.
“So how’d he do it?” Bernadette was the last author off the bus. She was carrying a to-go cup of what looked like champagne. “Did he have someone waiting under the dock with a boat?”
I shook my head. “Scuba. Saul was right.”
“Darn it!” Saul looked angry. “I’m hardly ever right about anything, and the one time I am, Frannie isn’t around to hear about it. Well, anyway.” He held up the twenty-dollar bill he’d just won. “Who’s up for a drink by the pool? I’m buying!”
“Oh, uh, I’d love to,” I said. “But we’re going to drive Lauren back to her hotel. Rain check?”
Saul wasn’t the only one who gave me an odd look. Bernadette was smirking at me, too, over the rim of her to-go cup, as if to say, Sure, driving the kid back to her hotel. That’s all you’re doing. Only Jerome acted halfway normal, waving as he walked into the hotel and calling, “Okay! Well, see you later, then.”
It was Kellyjean, of course, who had to wiggle two fingers at Will and me and squeal, “Oh, y’all are just so cute together! No wonder the entire Internet is calling the two of you literature’s new hottest couple.”
