Writing and Reading

Last night's meeting of the New York/Tri-State Sisters in Crime chapter was a reading session. 17 members read their work. We were each allowed 5 minutes. We got to hear works in progress, works slated for publication, and published works. It was great. And they weren't all mystery, either; the Sisters write all kinds of things!

Anyway, I thought I would post here the draft of the prologue to my romantic suspense I read. It's still rough (I was editing it on the train on the way to the meeting...I'm lucky I could read it at all!), but I'm getting comfortable with it.

St. Martin, FWI
Nicole Lewis Brody made a beautiful corpse. But then, being long on looks and short on life came with her genes. Her killer chuckled at the thought as he duct taped her ankles together and wrapped them in a cashmere stole from her closet. He was going to have to drag her down the hall, and he didn’t want to leave scuff marks on the polished wooden floors.

He hadn’t planned to kill her just yet. The minute she’d started making noises about trying to find her biological father, her death had been inevitable, but he’d hoped to be able to do away with her in such a manner as to keep the police out of it, as he had with her mother. Nikki's fondness for parties and pills would have made the job a breeze if he could have taken his time. He’d even bought the supplies, but she--in typical female fashion--had screwed everything up. She’d found the picture of that damned writer, Calliope Pearson, and the situation had become urgent.

He put his hands under her shoulders and hoisted the upper part of her body with a grunt and a grimace. The bitch was heavy for being so skinny. He hadn’t had to move any of the others, and he dropped her back to the floor while he reconsidered his plan. Maybe he should put her clothes back into the drawers, her suitcases back in the closet, and leave her for her husband to find, as had been his original design.

The idea brought a thin smile to his lips. Hell, Nicole owned half the hotel where Calliope Pearson was planning to stay; maybe management would shut the place down for a couple of weeks for a proper mourning period. He snickered again. Talk about two birds and one stone. Even if they stayed open, his New York associate could more than likely get rid of Pearson before she ever set foot on the island. He’d call the man in the morning and put him to work.

Timing, however, was crucial. If he could rely on the New York connection to rid him of the final difficult woman in his life, he could leave this one to rot where she lay. But he had to plan for all contingencies, and if Pearson did make it to St. Martin, her appearance would raise questions he’d prefer Nicole’s corpse not be available to answer.

Plus, without a body, people might believe Nicole had simply up and left her husband, postponing--if not entirely eliminating--an investigation. Aidan Macmillan Brody was another little complication, another rock Nicole had tossed into the smooth waters of his life. If she’d chosen anyone but an ex-cop to marry, he could have framed her husband and been done with it. But pointing a finger at a cop, even an American cop, even a former American cop, was a risky proposition. No, as much of a pain in the ass as removing her corpse might be, having Nicole disappear was safer and smarter.

Once again, he lifted the bitch’s upper body and began dragging her toward the back door.