Catch up on the previous chapters here
Adam took a deep breath and ran his hand over his hair. Nell couldn’t tell if this was him stalling or him figuring out what to say, so she pressed her lips together and crossed her arms and tried to wait.
“C. J. O’Connell’s real name is Bentley Beckett.”
Nell blinked, then frowned. “Pretty sure I’d remember a Bentley Beckett.”
“He goes by Ben, and it’s possible you never really met him. He was a janitor and worked for the company that cleaned the units between renters.”
Her frown deepened. “So … if I never met him …?”
“We’re back to him bugging the rooms. He’s had his own business for a while now, so we don’t really have a way to go in and check the apartments, but …” Adam shifted.
Okay, seriously. She could use a few interrogation techniques herself.
“He’s had his own business for a while, including cleaning up at crime scenes.”
“So …?” So what? It wasn’t like he’d worked any of the crime scenes that mattered the most to Nell, right? And, as a janitor, he’d only be called in after all the techs and stuff were done.
“So he’s had a full background check, and he’s clean. No reports of anything.”
At some point she’d reach maximum frown and not be able to force her eyebrows any lower.
“The story about agents picking him up and asking him about the truth of the book? Those are real.”
Nell pointed to a dough mixer. “I am sticking your arm in there and turning it on if you don’t start talking faster.”
“Look, Nell, all of this is already done and there’s nothing we can do, so I’m trying to be careful with how I explain it.”
“Then be careful faster.”
Adam scoffed and shook his head and crossed his arms. “Two agents went to see him, and asked him to come in and give them a statement, because he’d somehow Mindhuntered his way into connecting all five cases. They said he was kind of thrown by that—not too much, but they’d poked him. And they’re the ones who told him they want to talk to the real-life Rosie, because they think she killed all of them, but they can’t find her because …”
Oh, no. “Because?” It came out as a whisper.
“Because the real-life Rosie’s boyfriend had a dad who helped them disappear.” He licked his lips. “And he’s an agent. Nell—”
She shook her head and pulled away from his hand, bursting through the door between the café and the back room because her phone was out here. Art and Brandon looked up from one of the tables, startled, and of course Since You Went Away was there between them, because there was no escaping it.
“Kent said he’s coming right over,” Brandon offered before she ducked down behind the counter to grab her purse. “Didn’t even ask who Adam was.”
Like she was cheating on Kent or something. And why did her phone always fall out of its little pocket just when she needed it? Nell dug into the depths of her purse, went to her texts, and yep, there was one from Kent: I’m on my way. She checked the time stamp, but the bus schedule wasn’t in their favor.
Adam groaned, and Nell straightened up, phone in one hand, and then followed his gaze. “Exactly how many people have read that damn book?” he grumbled.
“How many people in the world, or how many people that matter to me?” she snapped, wanting to tell Kent to forget it and grab a cab or something, but Adam already said it: whatever was done was done, and it was all unfolding in another state, anyway. If Kent checked his messages he’d see she’d read it, but she stuck the phone in the pocket of her dress and crossed her arms.
Brandon looked at Art, then back at Adam. “If that’s not a rhetorical question … both of us.”
“Wait, you read it?” Nell asked Art.
He shrugged one shoulder. “All the new hype got me going. I like thrillers. This?” He tapped the book cover with one finger. “Not a thriller. And there’s no way Rosie did it. It’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.”
“Good reference,” Brandon murmured.
“You can say the compliments out loud,” Art countered.
Adam held up a hand. “The murder of who?”
“Classic Agatha Christie,” the head librarian explained. “It’s a Poirot novel, but it’s not narrated by Hastings. His Watson,” he added, either because he thought Adam needed the explanation or because he was simply used to clarifying. “The narrator’s a doctor, and it turns out he’s the one who committed the murder. He just tricks the reader by neglecting to mention it, and then he follows Poirot through the case and pretends to help him, but it doesn’t end well for him. Poirot figures it out, anyway.”
The agent shook his head a little. “You think the Cal character’s a serial killer?”
“Hell, if we’re saying this whole thing is based on real life, I’m thinking C. J. O’Connell’s the serial killer,” Art almost laughed. “It can’t be Rosie.”
“You’re blinded by his clear adoration of her,” Brandon protested.
“Wait, so you think Rosie is a serial killer?” Nell wanted to know.
Brandon shook his head. “I don’t think there’s a serial killer. I looked into those cases. The bus driver was killed by her boyfriend, the neighbor guy got whacked by a loan shark, the one friend was in a bad part of town, the next one was drunk driving, and the last one was murdered. That’s one murder.”
“Whacking’s a murder,” Art argued.
“Different purpose.”
Art shrugged. “The FBI thinks it’s a serial killer. Don’t you,” he added pointedly to Adam.
“Oh, come on,” Brandon laughed. “Next you’ll tell me he’s here because Nell’s the real Rosie, so he’s going to arrest her.”
Nell froze, but Art was already looking at her, ignoring Brandon’s laughter. If she tried to un-freeze, he’d see that, too, and note it, and know …
“Rosie’s a college senior,” her boss said conversationally. “In the book.”
Nell swallowed.
“So she’s probably about twenty-two. Right?”
She could feel Adam practically vibrating just behind her.
“But maybe she looks younger?”
“Art?” Brandon asked, like someone else should’ve already stepped in.
Still ignoring him, Art held Nell’s eyes. “Rosie doesn’t have a boyfriend in the book. But if she did, Nell … how much older would he be? Not ten years.”
“Art, I think you’re getting fact and fiction confused here.”
Nell looked away, toward the window where she’d see Kent coming, but it wasn’t time yet. The stupid buses might run on schedule, but the stupid schedule wasn’t all that frequent.
The silence stretched until Brandon broke it. “For fuck’s sake. You’re not telling me my sarcastic ass is actually right about something?”
For once, Nell thought, but didn’t say. Maybe she didn’t have to say it.
“Fuck, Nell …” Brandon shook his head and slouched, ready to laugh it off, then caught sight of the book again and stilled. “Fuck, Nell.” It was the same words, but the tone meant he’d truly stopped laughing.
Art looked at him, then back up at Nell. “Someone from your past was reaching out again. That’s what you said.”
She nodded, because yes, she’d said that much.
“And that would answer your question, wouldn’t it?” he asked Brandon. “What’s going on with the two of them. Why they’re not telling.”
“Okay, it would, but …” Brandon took a breath and turned to look at Adam. “You’re not here because you think Nell’s a murderer. You’re here … what, because you think Art’s right? The author somehow …?”
“Nell, we really should talk in private,” Adam nearly muttered.
“All the paperwork I’ve ever seen tells me she’s Penelope Harris, age twenty-two,” Art pointed out mildly, like it wasn’t actually an argument. “Social security, driver’s license … if I started claiming it wasn’t her real name, that would be slander, wouldn’t it?”
God, he was talking like Kent’s dad had after Heidi’s murder. Soon he’d point out that he wasn’t asking for any favors.
“Brandon?” he prompted.
The librarian shook his head. “I don’t deal with paperwork. Klara did all that.”
“Was there a boyfriend mentioned in the articles you read?”
“Uh.” He blinked and shook his head like it was an Etch-a-Sketch. “If the surviving girl had a boyfriend?”
“Lida-Rose Dawson, yeah.”
“No. There wasn’t any mention of that. The roommate, though—Hailey’s real name?”
“Heidi?” Nell answered automatically, but her frown was back on again. Heidi didn’t have a boyfriend. There were times Nell thought her roommate would’ve had a girlfriend if she’d had anyone, but no one had ever come forward to say they thought Heidi had a boyfriend.
Art shrugged, still looking at Brandon. “I headcanon it, though. I think Rosie had a boyfriend.”
The door chimed, making Nell jump, but it was Kent. Before he could open his mouth, Art turned to him. “Kent. We’re discussing whether Rosie”—he tapped the book again—“could’ve had a boyfriend. Making fanfiction, you know. I say she does, but I’m having trouble figuring out the details.”
“Uh.” Kent stopped, one hand on the strap of his backpack, and looked first to Nell, then Adam. “You’re writing fanfiction for a book that’s not even out yet?”
“A lonely man fills his hours as he can.”
Kent looked at Nell again, then shrugged. “I think,” he said slowly, taking off the backpack as he approached their table, “he’d be a year ahead of her, so he’s not in the book because he graduated and he’s off at his job. Plus Cal wouldn’t want to see him, anyway.”
“A year, huh?” Art mused. “Does he look a lot older than she does?”
Nell laughed. “Only after he grew the beard.”
Art turned to Adam. “Did that give you enough time to get your thoughts in order?”
Aw, shit. This part. Nell came out from behind the counter and went to Kent, who hadn’t sat down. “He said two agents picked up O’Connell, whatever his real name is, and questioned him, and gave him …” God, how was she supposed to word it?” “The boyfriend’s dad’s name.”
Kent’s head snapped up as his gaze homed in on Adam. “What?”
“I can explain.”
He leveled a pointed finger at the agent. “Then get started.”
This is the end of Part Three.
Rebecca Frost 
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