Page 70 of Without a Clue

And to my surprise, she frowns deeper. “Why? What does that have to do with anything?”

A thought is forming, but it’s too vague to see any clear shapes yet.

“Just answer the question.”

“Thirty-six.”

“Thirty-six,” I say, typing it down. “Half the number of Hugh’s books, and yet he can recall every single one.”

“He had a sharp memory.”

“As do you,” I reply. “In fact, you often pride yourself on that sharp memory.”

She does. We can’t have a conversation in the group without her informing us who wore exactly what on which day.

“You’re simply wrong. Perhaps your memory isn’t as sharp as you think,” she retorts.

“Tell me, what is the premise of The Black Portrait?” I say, throwing out a book of hers from a few years back. I’ve read it. It’s your typical Jackie Ann work: depressing plotline, multiple tragedies, war nurse who gets the guy briefly before he dies in battle, that kind of thing.

“A young nurse defies her isolated, dying father and joins the war force, finding love and ultimately death in Okinawa,” she spouts back.

It sounds rehearsed. The elevator pitch, a perfect twenty words.

“And the plot to The Coal Sisters?” I say.

“Two widowed sisters fight to keep their farm running during the most devastating fire to engulf their Appalachian mountain town,” she says automatically.

And there it is again. That elevator-pitch response.

I switch it up.

“You say that your first two books were less than successful. But after you teamed up with The Seven, sales grew. Was it right away?”

“Alliance with the group gave my books immediate results. Yes.”

“Which, I assume, led to higher and higher advances. Royalties.”

“And?”

“Remind me, Jackie,” I say, tapping my head. “What happened again in that scene in Where the Jasmine Grows? Did Jasmine tell Hunter she was a Confederate supporter or keep the secret to the end?”

And to my surprise, she does exactly what I found myself wanting her to do, what I suspected, and yet at a deeper level, what I didn’t really expect at all.

Jackie squints at me.

Her mouth opens; she’s poised to answer.

Wanting to answer.

And yet . . . doesn’t.

Turns her attention to the water glass beside us.

Takes a sip.

“I don’t know,” she says at last.

I’m already two steps ahead of her now, though. I’ve already gotten into my email, found the file, opened the pdf document of one of her former books, scrolled down to a random place, read a few lines.