Authors: Elizabeth Peters
Naked Once More (50 page)
“Of course,” Jacqueline murmured. “What did you have in mind?”
She made an appointment with him for dinner the next night, at a charming out-of-the-way restaurant. Watching him leave, she mentally checked one more item off the list she had made. She only hoped the out-of-the-way restaurant was a hell of a long way off, and that he would sit there till his food froze and everybody in the place realized he had been effectively stood up. Craig would be even more put out when he realized that there would be no more rich pickings from the Darcys. St. John couldn’t afford to hire him now, and if Kathleen didn’t comprehend how badly the Craigs had overcharged her, somebody would soon set her straight. Jacqueline only hoped Ron Craig Junior would blame her for Kathleen’s defection; that would sweeten her revenge even more.
Finally there was no one left except Jacqueline, Paul and Kathleen. The situation might have been awkward if Jacqueline had permitted it to become so.
“There’s one little point that still eludes me,” she said. “The quotation from Dunbar that was found in your purse. Was that simply a red herring, or am I missing something?”
Her tone of voice implied that the second alternative was so unlikely as to be virtually impossible. Kathleen smiled. “I guess that’s what it turned out to be. I wanted to leave some kind of statement, accusation, implication, hint… But I couldn’t directly accuse someone of murdering me, could I, when I had engineered my own disappearance? I wasn’t thinking very clearly, I suppose; you were absolutely right about my state of mind, Jacqueline, I felt like a devout Christian who has found incontrovertible proof that there is no God. Either someone was trying to kill me, or I was losing my mind—sinking into a quagmire of paranoia. All I could be certain of was that I had to get away—find an oasis of quiet, safe from pursuit and distraction. If I was right, if someone had tried to harm me, my disappearance would punish him or her more painfully than a prison sentence. It would be months, perhaps years, before he could be certain he was safe. And the quotation would have meaning to him, if to no one else. So I believed, at any rate. I suspect now the hint was altogether too subtle. Jacqueline… I’m so sorry about the sequel to
Naked.
I know you’d have done a fine job.”
Jacqueline grinned. “Don’t be a hypocrite, Kathleen. You aren’t a bit sorry, and neither am I. Believe me, I am infinitely relieved I won’t have to write that book.”
“But you can write another book,” Kathleen said. “Change the names of the characters, and write a few introductory chapters, and you’ve got a classic Jacqueline Kirby plot. The Dark Lady was an inspiration. I still have your floppies, Jacqueline. I took them with me, but I couldn’t bring myself to destroy them. Do you forgive me for the awful thing I did?”
“I’d have done the same.” Jacqueline thought it over. “No. I’d have dumped the back-up disks too. Incidentally, how do you like your present agent? I’m going to be needing a new one.”
“She’s great. I know she’d be delighted to have you on her list. When are you going back to New York?”
“I’m not. I had this idea…” Jacqueline stopped. “It’s late, and you look exhausted, Kathleen. We’ll talk another time.”
“I am tired,” Kathleen agreed. “Rising from the dead can be wearing. But I can’t leave you until you’ve answered one last question. It’s been driving me wild, but I was afraid to ask you before, in case there was something… Jacqueline—what did you do with the reporter from the
Sludge
?”
“I didn’t do anything with him.” Jacqueline looked shocked. “I have been told that he was drinking rather heavily; apparently he had one too many. He was-er-taken ill—they tell me—and had to be carried to his room.”
“I see.” Kathleen smiled and held out her hand. “Good night, Jacqueline. Paul…”
Ignoring her outstretched hand, Paul bent and kissed her on the cheek. “My dear. Sleep well.”
There were tears in Kathleen’s eyes when she turned away. There were none in Jacqueline’s; in fact, the smugness of her expression as she took Paul’s arm and went with him out the door would have driven some of her acquaintances to homicide. Once again the world had adjusted itself to the requirements of Jacqueline Kirby. So far as Jacqueline was concerned, the world was all the better for it.
The sequel to
Naked
stayed at the top of the charts for months. Jacqueline’s opus,
The Passion of the Dark,
was only a modest success by comparison, but for once Jacqueline bore no malice toward another writer. As she sat in her charming book-lined study in her lovely old Victorian mansion, with a large black cat on her lap, she read the reviews with a smile only a few degrees less bright than the one with which she had read the results of the trial that found Booton Stokes guilty of murder in the first degree. The conclusive evidence consisted of a few shreds of cloth found in the bookstore and identified as having come from a pair of Stokes’s trousers. They had been ripped out by the claws of an animal, possibly a cat.
E
LIZABETH
P
ETERS
is the author of twenty-one acclaimed mysteries, including
Die for Love, Trojan Gold,
and her most recent,
The Deeds of the Disturber.
She has also written twenty-two novels of suspense under the bestselling pseudonym Barbara Michaels. In 1986 she was awarded the first Anthony Grand Master Award for her work in this genre. Ms. Peters, whose novels are often set against historical backdrops, earned a Ph.D. in Egyptology at the University of Chicago. Today she lives in Frederick, Maryland.
NAKED ONCE MORE
THE DEEDS OF THE DISTURBER
TROJAN GOLD
LION IN THE VALLEY
THE MUMMY CASE
DIE FOR LOVE
SILHOUETTE IN SCARLET
THE COPENHAGEN CONNECTION
THE CURSE OF THE PHARAOHS
THE LOVE TALKER
SUMMER OF THE DRAGON
STREET OF THE FIVE MOONS
DEVIL-MAY-CARE
LEGEND IN GREEN VELVET
CROCODILE ON THE SANDBANK
THE MURDERS OF RICHARD III
BORROWER OF THE NIGHT
THE SEVENTH SINNER
THE NIGHT OF FOUR HUNDRED RABBITS
THE DEAD SEA CIPHER
THE CAMELOT CAPER
THE JACKAL’S HEAD
“You’ll love Jacqueline Kirby, the writer-sleuth protagonist of…
Naked Once More.
You’ll love her especially if: you’ve ever tried to give up smoking… you’ve ever bedded down with a cat who wants more than his fair share of the mattress… you yearn to tell impossibly rude folk, right to their faces, just where they ought to get off.… Jacqueline Kirby’s not spectacular, she’s real!”
—
Washington Post Book World
“Jacqueline Kirby, spirited librarian-turned-romance writer returns to lightheartedly skewer the publishing world… [and] unmask[s] the culprit with panache and mastery remarkably similar to Peters’ own.”
—
Publishers Weekly
“Delivers some hilariously cynical reflections on book tours and literary fans.”
—
New York Times Book Review
“Whether she is writing mystery spoofs as ‘Elizabeth Peters’ or romantic suspense as ‘Barbara Michaels,’ this author never fails to entertain.”
—Barbara Bannon,
Cleveland Plain Dealer
“If best-sellerdom were based on merit and displayed ability, Elizabeth Peters would be one of the most popular and famous adventure authors in America. She picks her stories well, tells them nicely, populates them with original characters, adds convincing details both great and small and has a humorous touch that keeps things as interesting as they are lively.”
—
Baltimore Sun
“A writer so popular that the public library has to keep her books under lock and key.”
—
Washington Post Book World
“No one is better at juggling torches while dancing on a high wire than Elizabeth Peters.”
—
Chicago Tribune
“[Elizabeth Peters] really knows how to spin romance and adventure into a mystery.”
—
Boston Herald American
Elizabeth Peters
New York Times
Bestselling Author
A Jacqueline Kirby Mystery
spine:
New York Times
Bestselling Author NAKED ONCE MORE Elizabeth Peters MYSTERY
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Other Books by Elzatheth Peters
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 1989 by Barbara Mertz
Cover design by Andrew Newman
Cover Illustration by Michael Racz
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First ebook edition: August 2013
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ISBN 978-1-4555-5263-4