Page 7 of Cadaver Lab: Mind Over Murder
“As I’ve explained, it’s fiction!” Harper tried again and again to defend herself but the comments came faster from even the quieter among them.
"It's not fiction when your fans come to town and locate us and our businesses based on your books."
Harper’s head whipped up at that comment and she got a determined expression on her face. “Yes, let’s talk about that. When my books bring visitors to this village, Laney’s bar gets more business. Morgan Farm Market gets more business. Red’s Resale gets more business. Ruby’s Salon gets more business. So what are you all complaining about? You should be thanking me!”
“Ooo. Harper’s mad.” Gabe chuckled at the same time as Liam.
Meanwhile, the Rotary president had picked up the gavel. She banged the table, shouting, “Order! Order!”
When the room finally, mostly quieted, she said, “I’d like to keep on schedule. Thank you, Harper, for uh joining us tonight and sharing your… uh, thank you.”
Red-faced from the confrontation, Harper nodded and mumbled, “Thanks for having me.”
“Well that delivered even more than expected,” Liam said.
“Glad you enjoyed it,” Natalie began as she watched the President visually sweep the room and look relieved when her gaze landed on Liam.
“Now for our second speaker…”
As the President began the introduction, Natalie turned to smile at Liam, “Because you’re up next.”
His eyes widened in what could only be described as an oh, shit expression that had Gabe laughing so hard he doubled over, which luckily Liam neither heard nor saw.
Harper stood at the end of the row, waiting for Liam to get up. When he finally stood, Harper said, “Have fun.”
Looking grumpy once again, Liam said low and with a definite undercurrent of sarcasm and misery, “Yeah, thanks.”
The status quo had been restored.
Chapter Three
Loud tapping on the front door of the shop early the following morning had Natalie glancing up from where she’d been filling the antique cash register slots with the necessary stacks of small bills, mostly singles and fives with a few tens.
It wasn’t a surprise when she saw Harper through the glass. She knew Harper’s ranted postmortem of the evening’s events during the walk home last night hadn’t been enough of a purge for the insulted author. It might take a solid week, maybe more, for Harper to get it out of her system.
Since she could see the two large coffee cups and bag of pastries Harper held, Natalie was okay with being the audience for her friend’s continued complaining.
After unlocking the front door and flipping the sign to Open, Natalie pulled the door wide and stepped back before Harper knocked her over.
“I’m sorry I’m here so early.” Harper made a beeline for the back counter.
“Not a problem,” Natalie said, following behind her.
“I just couldn’t get last night out of my head.” Harper set the coffees and bag on the counter and spun to face Natalie.
“I can imagine.”
As she pulled her jacket off and tossed it on the shelf beneath the counter, Harper continued, “I didn’t sleep a wink last night. When Stone left for the farm at dawn, I just got up too. Of course, I was too upset to write.”
“Of course,” Natalie agreed.
Harper lifted both coffee cups and thrust one at Natalie. “This will be like my third coffee this morning.”
Natalie bit her tongue and didn’t say what she was thinking. That it was pretty obvious Harper was over caffeinated. The coffee in addition to her being angry and upset was going to make for a very animated and borderline manic Harper and a very interesting morning for Natalie.
“But can you believe what Pompous Doug said to me? He thinks he can sue? Me? Ha! Though I shouldn’t be surprised really. This is the man who convinced the planning board to write an ordinance that calls for jailing any village resident for up to fifteen days if they have more than three yard sales in a year,” Harper spat while pacing in front of the counter.
As Harper ranted, motion in the back of the shop caught Natalie’s eye. She saw Liam halt in the doorway, take one look at Harper and then back away.
