“Murdered how?”
“Blunt force trauma to the head?”
“Great. Keep going.”
“Right … so … our assassin … was in a tree, stalking the man. He was supposed to be her next mark. See, he was divorced from his wife, and she’d been hiding the children from him because she knew he was dangerous.”
“Gooood.” Sylvia drew out the word with an encouraging lilt. I could practically hear her inching forward in her chair as I scanned the next reminder on the list.
Check lost and found at school for Delia’s missing gloves.
“But the man found her,” I continued. “He kidnapped the children from their school, whisking them away to a remote cabin in the woods where he was certain no one would come looking for them.”
“Bastard!” Sylvia whispered.
“Meanwhile, one of the man’s enemies had become fed up.”
“With what?”
“I don’t know,” I said, tossing the list on the desk. “I haven’t figured that out yet. Whatever reasons bad guys kill for: money, jealousy, revenge, whatever … So this mystery enemy hired our assassin to kill the man.” I rose from my chair, the words tumbling out freely as I paced, as if some clog in my brain had finally shaken loose. “Our heroine had hunted her mark, tracking him to his cabin, but when she looked through her binoculars and saw his children were with him, she knew she couldn’t act. Not then. Not there. Who would care for the children if their father was dead? How could she get them to safety while keeping her own identity secret?” Sylvia had gone quiet. I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but I pressed on, the story growing more dramatic as the pitch took on a life of its own. “Our assassin perched in the tree, wrestling with her decision as she watched the man and his children from a distance. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to her, someone else was in the woods. It had begun to snow. The forest was growing cold and dark, the visibility poor. Just as the man and his children turned back for the cabin, another killer leapt from the woods, murdering the assassin’s mark and leaving the children for dead.”
“No!” Sylvia gasped.
“Our heroine was forced to make a choice: expose herself and save the children from certain death as temperatures dropped and night closed in, or pursue the other killer who’d stolen her bounty.”
Sylvia’s voice was breathy and urgent. “What did she do?”
“She saved the children.”
“I knew it!”
“But in the process of turning them over to the authorities, she was arrested for the murder herself.”
“But she breaks free,” Sylvia insisted.
“No, she goes to jail.”
There was a sound like Sylvia’s heels hitting the floor. “Wait a minute,” she said, her acrylic nails clicking against the phone as she switched ears. “She goes to jail? We’re already into the second act and I’m not hearing any B plot. Where’s the romance? Where’s the sex? How’s she supposed to get it on with the hot cop if she’s stuck behind bars?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “There is no hot cop.”
“What about the cop from the first book?”
Why was everyone so hung up on the cop? “He’s not in this one?”
“Why not? Everybody liked him.”
“Because now she’s in love with an attorney.”
“And they have sex in jail?”
“I’m getting to that.”
“Well, get to it a little faster. I’m picking up a cab in twelve minutes.”
I slumped into my chair, dispirited and ready to rush through the rest, certain Sylvia was going to reject the whole pitch. “So she falls in love with this attorney who’s been assigned to her case. He’s young and smart—”
“And hot?”
“And hot.”
“As hot as the cop?”
“Maybe hotter. Because he believes in her, Sylvia!” In her and Hanlon’s razor and pizza and beer. “He swears he’s going to prove her innocence. But then…” I choked, scrambling for my list.
Find attorney.
“Then her attorney goes missing,” I said, smacking the desk. “He disappears without a trace. No calls. No texts.” I left out the part where he was probably lounging on a beach, slathered in baby oil, drinking beer with a bunch of bikini-clad coeds. “And she knows in her gut someone’s abducted him—or worse—to make sure she suffers a lifetime in prison.”