Without A Clue

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“Excuse me?”

“You are my killer.”

“The maid is your killer.”

He looked utterly exasperated. Although he looked really good exasperated, she felt she should own that emotion at the moment. He was driving her nuts.

With the patience of a saint trying to reform a sinner, he said slowly, “What motivation does the maid have for murdering her boss? That puts her out of a job.”

Talk about motivation. She was becoming more motivated by the moment to be his killer. “She’s having an affair with one of the men that you are promising to ruin.”

He shook his head. “Too many affairs happening. Just you and me.”

Meg tossed down her pen. “Why don’t you just rewrite the entire script?”

“As a matter of fact—”

Meg stood, knocking over her chair. “Stop right there. We are one day away from this production. The actors all have their scripts. You’re asking them to change at this point?”

“It’s not a huge change.”

“You’re changing the murderer. That sounds pretty drastic to me.”

“Wouldn’t you like to kill me?” he asked, a twinkle in his brown eyes.

“Right now? Absolutely. And I’m a pacifist.”

“Good. Then you won’t have to fake it.” He sat down and laid all of his notes between them, sideways. “Now here’s how I see it…”

Meg looked down at a detailed checklist.

Murdering him was not going to be a problem.

MATT SPENT the rest of the day checking off, one-by-one, the items on his list. He knew Meg was seriously hacked off at him, but she’d surprised him by going with the flow. He knew if the situation were reversed, he’d be furious. He didn’t like people changing his game plans. He also recognized he was doing exactly that to hers, and it was pretty intrusive. Unfortunately, it was just who he was.

Matt couldn’t pinpoint exactly what explosive event in his life had turned him into the man he was now. Not that it mattered. So far almost every goal he’d ever set he’d accomplished. So that was a good thing, right?

Except he didn’t feel triumphant about it all right now, and he didn’t know why. Megan Renshaw was exactly the type of woman who drove him crazy. She let any change in plan roll right off her back. She didn’t seem to care when things went wrong. She just amended her plans.

Take this morning, for instance. The cook had practically burned his kitchen down by experimenting with a flambé that obviously had a little too much fire power in it. Meg had walked in, calmly doused the flames with an extinguisher, then patted the woman and said, “It’ll be better next time.”

He’d about had a stroke. Meg sailed out of there as if the cook had simply put a little too much salt in the soup.

Matt had followed her, trying to keep from exploding. When he’d confronted her with “That woman is dangerous,” all she’d done was smile and say “I’ll keep an eye on her.”

There was something about Meg that was dangerous, too. And it wasn’t just that she found disasters amusing. Although that was part of it.

He wasn’t accustomed to being indulged. He was accustomed to being listened to. Having his plans followed.

And while Meg seemed willing to follow his game plan to a certain extent, twice she’d looked at one of his proposed changes and just grinned and said, “That’s cute. No.”

But she had given in on his suggestion that her character was having an affair with his character. He liked that. He wasn’t so sure that he was as enthusiastic at her cheerful willingness to kill him.

5

REHEARSAL WAS TURNING OUT to be an utter disaster. In a kind of funny way, Meg decided. Maybe they could turn this into a comedy. As it was right now, it would be a mystery if it actually worked.

Lori Benedict, the actress playing the maid, Molly, was running her lines with all the enthusiasm of a convict being walked to the gas chamber. She had been really relishing her role as the murderer, especially when she took one look at the victim, and she wasn’t happy with the change in plans.

The rest of the cast—which included the butler, three couples whose lives and livelihoods Lionel De Wynter would threaten to ruin, the homicide detective, Matt, and Meg—was still enthusiastic about the gig, but since so much of the script had changed, they were all a little confused.

Except for Rossi, of course, who’d studied his lines for about three and a half seconds before tossing down his script.

And although he was a godsend, his talent still irritated Meg. And she wasn’t quite sure why. Maybe because he kind of reminded her of Mike in a way. Mike, with his charm and looks and brains, seemed to have had it easy all of his life. He hadn’t had to work too hard at anything.

Now she didn’t know Matt well enough to make such a sweeping judgment about him like that, but so far he’d pretty much taken command without batting an eye, and had gotten his way with just about everything so far.

Even when she’d surprised him by agreeing to the plot twist that the two of them were having an affair, he’d just smiled as if she’d just dumped a floor full of Christmas presents under his tree.

She had drawn the line at the two of them getting caught in flagrante delicto, and he’d instantly erased the line, arguing that when suspicion was being cast her way, she could always protest that she had no motive, since she was madly in love with him.

“What is her motive?” the elegant elderly woman playing the better half of the Holmes family asked.

“He stinks in the sack,” Meg whispered, for his ears only. The smile she shot him was pure innocence.

His, on the other hand, turned a tad feral. But then he faced the woman who’d asked and said, “After years of faithful service, he’s about to terminate her both in the office and out. She’s furious. Of course, none of you as guests will be aware of that. If you follow your scripts and hit your cues, the paying guests will have to puzzle it out. So absolutely no hints except the ones we want them to discover.”

Meg crossed her arms at the “we” thing. She tried to think back on the exact moment she’d lost control of this weekend. As near as she could figure, it was the moment this man had stormed through the front door.

“Okay, folks, let’s go through the dinner scene one more time,” the idiot commanded. “You can use your scripts. But by tomorrow’s run-through, know your lines. And remember your time lines.”

Meg caught his eye and raised her brows.

He shrugged, then said with a slight smile, “Okay with you, boss?”

She had this fleeting need to overrule him, just for the sake of doing it, and to assert her authority to everyone in the room.

Unfortunately, her practical side said they needed to do exactly as he said. She just wished she’d said it first.

“One more thing,” she said. “Remember that you aren’t to acknowledge the guests in any way. As far as you’re concerned, they’re invisible.”

“That seems kind of un-Southern,” drawled the woman playing Agatha Bond, wife of Jim, the owner of a nationwide chain of bookstores. “We Southerners pride ourselves on our manners. You might not realize that, being a…you know.”

The woman made it sound like a curse. Which was pretty good, considering Agatha hailed from Cleveland. Meg gave her brownie points for staying in character. “They’re going to know you’ll be pretending not to see them. They won’t be upset.”

“It’s just…unseemly.”

Okay, there was “in character” and there was annoying. “Not to worry,” Meg said, “they’re all from New York.” They weren’t. “They’ll feel right at home.”

Meg felt a boatload of satisfaction when she heard Rossi choke on his Coke.

“WHY AM I BARGING INTO the master bedroom an hour after supper now?” the man playing Watson Holmes asked. “I thought I was supposed to be rifling through the bast—er, the Lord of the Manor’s desk then.”

Meg jumped in before Matt could explain in lurid detail. “You’re confronting him in a murderous rage. You’re furious that he’s just informed your wife that she either sells him her pipe and violin empire, or he’d see her go up in smoke, so to speak. But what you come upon is a little more interesting. You’re going to share what you discover with your wife, but she’s never been known to keep a secret, and will soon inform all of the other guests.”