Page 68 of By the Book

“One would think,” Bobby murmured.

I whipped my head around to stare at him.

Bobby raised his hands in surrender. “Unfortunately, there’s not much. They’ve got a partial tire track, but it’s a commonbrand and size, so it’s not going to be any help until we have something to compare it to.”

“Also,” Fox put in, “Dash prefers to solve mysteries without inconvenient things like evidence or due process or eyewitness testimony.”

“Are you kidding me?” I asked. “I’d love to have witnesses. I’d love evidence.”

“Then how does he solve them?” my mom asked.

“Usually he just muddles along until the killer corners him and confesses.”

I mean, they weren’t wrong.

Still, my jaw dropped. “That is so rude!”

“And that works?” my dad asked.

“No! I mean, I don’t just muddle along—” I drew a deep breath. “We’re thinking about this the wrong way. We’ve got to come at it from another angle.” I looked at my mom and dad. “If you were writing this, how would you do it?”

“If we werewritingit?” my dad said with an insulting amount of disbelief in his tone.

“I forgot about this part,” Fox said. “Comparing it to mystery novels. Another step in his process.”

“Look who’s talking,” I snapped. “You’re the one who thinks we’re living in an episode ofLaw & Order.”

“But I’m only a humble sidekick,” Fox said. “Oh, did I tell you about the dream I had about Stabler and that strapping CSI chap—”

Bobby cleared his throat. “I feel like I need to say that this isn’t representative of Hastings Rock in general or the sheriff’s office in particular.”

“Yes, you’re very good at your job,” I said. Then, to my parents: “How would you write this?”

My mom narrowed her eyes. “It’s a little too plotty for a psychological thriller. It’s more your dad’s style.”

“Are you kidding?” my dad asked. “If I tried this, my readers would riot. The body count is way too low.”

“Will you please—” I drew another calming breath. Then I pointed at my mom.

“I don’t know, Dashiell.” But she thought for a moment. “There’d be some sort of untrustworthy information, of course. Maybe Colleen was experiencing blackouts. She might not know if she killed the mayor or George, and at the end, we find out her elderly neighbor had been gaslighting her. Or she might have killed them and then experienced dissociative amnesia.”

I chose not to comment on the amnesia bit. To my dad, I said, “You?”

“Well, there’d be some kind of second layer to everything. You think you know what’s going on, the library, the book, the scam. But then you’d find out that this was actually how one of the cartels laundered their money, and the entire town was in on the conspiracy, oh, and the cartel was sending a kill squad to clean up the mess.” He frowned. “There’d be some sort of betrayal, too. Someone in town who had been a little too helpful. Maybe, uh, a lady.”

He actually blushed.

I decided to hurry past that fresh trauma. “It’s not a psychological thriller. It’s not a military thriller. It’s an art heist, maybe, but that doesn’t make sense either.”

“What if we try a timeline?” Bobby asked. “Everything started when someone stole the diary, right? Or maybe before that, when the mayor recognized Colleen. We work our way forward—”

“How would you write it?” my mom asked.

“What?” I said.

“If it were your story, how would you write it?”

I almost said,I’d write it as a cozy noir. But I honestly didn’t think I was emotionally prepared to hear my parents’ opinions on my groundbreaking genre mashup—

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