Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead(Finlay Donovan #2)(15)

The cordless phone lit up on the nightstand beside me. Sylvia’s name flashed on the caller ID. I checked the time on my cell phone and swore, swiping away her three missed calls.

“Ooooh,” Vero sang from the kitchen, probably seeing the same thing on the cordless downstairs, “someone is in troooouble. Told you, you need to start working on that book!”

I considered the possible consequences of letting the call ring to voicemail. But knowing Sylvia, she would keep calling until I eventually picked up. I wiped sweat from my hands and pressed the phone to my ear.

“It’s eight A.M.,” Sylvia said before I could get a greeting out. “On Monday,” she clarified.

“I know. And I’m sorry.”

“I’m meeting with your editor in an hour to discuss your pitch, which is not in my inbox.”

“I meant to get that to you. Really, I did. But the weekend got away from me.” I scrambled down the hall to my office, as if the pitch I had neglected to come up with over the weekend would magically appear the second I opened my laptop. “And well, see … here’s the thing.” I sat down at my desk, pushing aside used sticky notes and receipts. “I’ve got it all in my head. I just haven’t had a chance to type it up yet. I’ll do it right now, I swear. I can have something to you before you meet with her at nine.” I wasn’t entirely sure what that something would be, but it would buy me an hour to figure it out.

“Let’s get something straight, Finlay. The title on my business card does not say Ms. Donovan’s Assistant. I am your agent—one you are very lucky to have, I might add. Taking dictation for an author who can’t stay on top of her deadlines is not in my job description, but because I would like to get paid, I will do that for you. Just this once. Now,” she said, her chair creaking through the phone as she settled into it, “I’m all ears. Give me everything you’ve got.”

“Right, everything I’ve got.” I sifted through the crumpled-up sticky notes in the trash can, frantically searching for all the horrible ideas I’d jotted down and discarded over the last month. Most of the damn notes were just grocery lists and reminders. I pulled the most recent one from my laptop screen, skimming the first item on the to-do list and chuckling darkly over the irony.

Pitch for Sylvia by Monday.



Awesome. Way to go, Finn.

Sylvia huffed impatiently as I skipped to the next item on the list.

Contact Guy to cancel visitation.

“So, there was this man … a father,” I began slowly, gathering my scattered thoughts. “He was … a businessman of questionable character who’d made plenty of enemies.” I closed my eyes, groping for inspiration in the dark. I needed a scary setting. A place where something suspenseful and terrifying might happen. “The man was outside…” I said, “hiking in a dark pine forest with his children … when he was attacked from behind and brutally murdered.”

“Murdered how?”

“Blunt force trauma to the head?”

“Great. Keep going.”

“Right … so … our assassin … was in a tree, stalking the man. He was supposed to be her next mark. See, he was divorced from his wife, and she’d been hiding the children from him because she knew he was dangerous.”

“Gooood.” Sylvia drew out the word with an encouraging lilt. I could practically hear her inching forward in her chair as I scanned the next reminder on the list.

Check lost and found at school for Delia’s missing gloves.

“But the man found her,” I continued. “He kidnapped the children from their school, whisking them away to a remote cabin in the woods where he was certain no one would come looking for them.”

“Bastard!” Sylvia whispered.

“Meanwhile, one of the man’s enemies had become fed up.”

“With what?”

“I don’t know,” I said, tossing the list on the desk. “I haven’t figured that out yet. Whatever reasons bad guys kill for: money, jealousy, revenge, whatever … So this mystery enemy hired our assassin to kill the man.” I rose from my chair, the words tumbling out freely as I paced, as if some clog in my brain had finally shaken loose. “Our heroine had hunted her mark, tracking him to his cabin, but when she looked through her binoculars and saw his children were with him, she knew she couldn’t act. Not then. Not there. Who would care for the children if their father was dead? How could she get them to safety while keeping her own identity secret?” Sylvia had gone quiet. I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but I pressed on, the story growing more dramatic as the pitch took on a life of its own. “Our assassin perched in the tree, wrestling with her decision as she watched the man and his children from a distance. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to her, someone else was in the woods. It had begun to snow. The forest was growing cold and dark, the visibility poor. Just as the man and his children turned back for the cabin, another killer leapt from the woods, murdering the assassin’s mark and leaving the children for dead.”

“No!” Sylvia gasped.

“Our heroine was forced to make a choice: expose herself and save the children from certain death as temperatures dropped and night closed in, or pursue the other killer who’d stolen her bounty.”

Sylvia’s voice was breathy and urgent. “What did she do?”