Lock, Stock, and Feral by Addison Moore (free e novels .txt) 📕

the murder—before I was captured by your sister, Bizzy. It sounded like two men.

I relay it to Jasper.

“Go on,” Jasper says, picking up the tiny kitten. “Do you remember what they were talking about?”

One of them said, ‘You’ll make me a partner. With the two of us at the helm, we might actually make a profit for everyone.’

I quickly fill Jasper in. “What else did they say, Clyde?”

Then the other man said, ‘You’ll be in business with me over my dead body. No offense, but I’m making enough money without you.’

Jasper’s chest expands. “Sounds like Patterson and James were going at it.”

“Sure does,” I say, clicking the about section of the Higgins House website. “Higgins House”—I say as I start to read the tagline off the page—“where all of your publishing dreams can come true. For inquiries, send a writing sample via email and we’ll let you know if your book is a good fit for our company.” We scroll through the website and read over the extensive list of clientele and peruse their books on the website as well.

“Everything seems so normal,” I say. “Business as usual. But then again, I suppose that’s business.”

“Agree,” Jasper says. “Let’s try inputting Patterson’s name in the search engine. There might be an online bereavement journal we can find. Usually the mortuary provides one for the family.”

“Let’s see.” We type in his name, but nary a commemorative journal of any kind pops up. Instead, Patterson Higgins’ name is found on a few website forums for writers.

“Huh. Let’s check that out,” I say, clicking into the first article at the top of the page, which leads us to a website called The Writer’s Nest.

“There he is.” Jasper points to Patterson Higgins’ name under a thread called help me find a publisher for my manuscript. “Higgins House takes just about anything. Just be prepared to fork out the big bucks. They’re a bit on the pricey side, but they claim to do a lot of handholding,” he reads.

“Wait a minute.” I pull back to get a better look at my handsome hubby. “Publishers don’t charge authors. I think this is kind of what Macy was talking about.”

Jasper clicks to the next page. “Look at this response.” He points down to the next comment. “They’re not quality and they certainly didn’t hold my hand. But they sure did hold out their hand when I forked over twelve grand.”

“Oh no,” I moan as I look up at Jasper. “Do you think Patterson Higgins was a vanity publisher?”

“Someone who charges a mint to produce the work and then pockets the proceeds?” His cheeks twitch. “It’s not ethical as far as publishing houses go.”

“I know. I had a friend in college who got mixed up in one. She thought it was a legitimate publishing house that wanted to take on her work, and it turned out they took on any book they came upon—for a fee, of course. Her book never sold more than a few copies, and that was just to friends and family. She ended up with an entire garage full of boxes of her books. She went on to do great things in the book world, all within traditional avenues, but Higgins House sounds like the exact place she warned everyone to stay away from.”

“Wow.” He hands me a cookie. “I guess we know why James said that with his help they could make a profit for everyone.”

“Hey”— I say, pulling the cookie close—“James said something to me to the effect that Patterson had over six hundred angry authors.”

“That’s a lot of people to add to the suspect list. Okay, so we know James may have wanted Patterson out of the way in an effort to lay claim to the publishing house himself and to sink his hooks into Hadley. Let’s review the other five hundred and ninety-nine suspects.”

I make a face. “There’s Hadley herself. She had some insane desire to publish that triple X fantasy she wrote about you. In fact, I remember her thinking that night that she was about to secure a contract with him—and that it had something to do with her body.” I rack my brain to try to recall every last detail. “And then I remember her saying she had no part in Patterson’s demise, and her next thought—she confessed to having a part in it.”

Jasper casts a glance to the ground. “It’s hard for me to believe that Hadley could be capable of something like this, but when people are passionate about something, they’re capable of anything.”

“And then there’s Liv Womack. I saw her having a tense conversation with Patterson that night, too. She had wine, they all did—even the one who claimed he didn’t. I’m not sure what that tense conversation was about, but I did read her thoughts and she did say that Patterson was a damn fool who thought he had all the answers.”

Jasper grunts, “I don’t know that I’d disagree with her there, especially knowing what we do know regarding that vanity press he was running.”

“Agree. And then there’s Devan, mushroom farmer extraordinaire. She was his ex-wife, too.”

Sherlock barks. Doesn’t that mean what’s his is hers, and hers is his?

Clyde mewls, It does if they were married. That’s what Cinnamon said this afternoon.

“That’s right.” I look to Jasper. “Wait a minute—I think Devan mentioned she was still married to Patterson when he acquired the publishing company from his uncle.”

Jasper leans back, his eyes locked to mine. “That means, unless he bought her out, she’d have a vested interest in it.”

“And it just might revert to her upon his passing. Jasper, you have to come to the book club tomorrow night at the library. I can try to pick her brain and see if she confesses to wanting the press.”

“I’ll do you one better. I’ll start digging into it as soon as I hit my desk in the morning. It might take cutting through some red tape, but I think I have some friends in legal