The Queens of Crime: A Love Story (Whitebridge) by Sienna Waters

Author:Sienna Waters [Waters, Sienna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-03-22T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty One

Ant closed the laptop.

“So?” Adelaide asked.

“There’s a problem.”

“Which is?”

“I need to know what happens next.”

Adelaide laughed. “That’s the sign of a good book. And since I haven’t written the rest yet, you’ll just have to wait.”

“It is going well though,” Ant said, feeling more than slightly relieved. “And in the spirit of you bringing me gifts the other day, I’ve got something for you.”

“You didn’t have to.”

Ant sighed and rubbed her eyes. “Maybe I did. You… you were the adult. You apologized. You faced up to what happened. To, um, to the fact that we, you know… And I should have been able to do the same. This wasn’t exactly a one sided affair and you shouldn’t shoulder all the blame. So I got you something.”

Adelaide grinned and accepted the small package that Ant held out. She unwrapped it so slowly that Ant wanted to gnaw on her fingernails. But when the package was finally undone, she held up the book and laughed.

“You like it?” asked Ant, anxiously.

“I love it,” said Adelaide. “The only problem is that I know exactly who did it. For once, it was the butler.”

“It’s a piece of crime literature history,” Ant said. “Don’t expect it to keep you up all night though, The Door isn’t exactly the best thing that I’ve ever read.”

“I shall read every word,” Adelaide said, starting to flick through the book.

It was important to Ant that Adelaide liked the gift. Not just because she did want to return the favor, but also because she wanted to know how good her judgment of Adelaide was.

The surprise party was coming together.

Okay, she’d had her doubts. After The Kiss, she’d thought that probably she should back off and not be so personal. But then Joss had called anyway and the idea had percolated in her head, and she’d decided why not?

It was unspeakably sad to her that Adelaide had never had a birthday party, and Ant suspected she wasn’t likely to tell many people the truth. So it was up to her to arrange something and arrange she had.

Not without help, of course. But that was one of the pleasures of living in a small town. Everyone had jumped in and everyone was keeping the secret. Which left one big job for Ant.

“Um, I was thinking that maybe tomorrow afternoon you could come down to the shop for a while.”

“I write in the afternoons,” Adelaide reminded her, still flicking through the book.

“Oh, not until later. Say around four maybe? Half past?”

Adelaide looked up. “I suppose I could. Why?”

Huh. Here was the tough part. There was really only one good excuse that Ant could think of. And whether Adelaide accepted it or not was a good test of just how good Ant’s judgment of her was. “I thought you could sign a few copies of your books if you’d like?” she said in an off hand way.

Adelaide’s eyebrow raised.

“Not in front of people, obviously,” Ant went on. “But just scribble in a few copies, put them out on the shelves.

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