Death By Chick Lit by Lynn Harris Page B

and Doug stared; Bobbsey turned. The paramedics were trudging up the small hill with the body in a shapeless brown bag that Daphne really would have hated.
    Bobbsey accepted Lola’s offer to take in Daphne’s dogs for the night; once they’d contacted Daphne’s family, he assured her, they’d help make canine custody arrangements. (This service, like the new cut-the-cord command for misbehaving car alarms, was a recent well-received police PR move.)
    “By the way, you ever see that guy again? Oddball from the party?” Bobbsey asked.
    Reading Guy. “You know, I did, but randomly. At a bodega. Near here, actually. But that was early this morning. Nowhere around here since then. And nowhere near, you know, the bridge. Probably just lives out here,” she said, a deliberate shrug in her voice. She was telling the truth, of course, but she also wanted to play her Reading Guy cards close to her vest, just to make that potential angle her own.
    Bobbsey didn’t write that down. Good.
    “Thanks,” Lola said.
    “You think of anything else, you let me know,” said Bobbsey.
    Lola and Doug stood and watched his car’s taillights shrink to pinpoints.
    “Doug, I—” Lola started. “Can’t even finish a sentence.”
    “I know, sweetie, I know. Let’s get everyone to bed.” He rotated her toward home and urged her forward with the arm he had around her shoulder; with the other, he pulled the dogs along. Lola’s left hand held tight, on Doug’s waist, to his cotton shirt; her right, in her pocket, to Daphne’s cell phone.

Fourteen
    Feeling bitterly, dramatically insouciant about germs—we have other killers to worry about!—Lola popped out her contacts without washing her hands while Doug ran the dogs out. Too tired to even get under the covers, she flopped on the bed as he came back in. Gibson and Sidecar padded behind, puzzled, but going with it.
    “Mimi and Daphne,” Lola murmured, eyes closed. “Why? Chick lit isn’t that bad.”
    “Even if it were,” Doug said, curling up next to her and touching her cheek. “I mean, your fatwa on the author of The Bridges of Madison County was purely symbolic; everyone knew that.”
    “Wait a minute,” said Lola.
    “It wasn’t symbolic?”
    “Hold on,” said Lola, shaking her head.
    “The movie was surprisingly touching?”
    “No,” said Lola. “Wilma Vouch.”
    “Wilma?” said Doug, rolling back. “As in the Jane Austen Liberation Front?” Lola nodded. The dogs pawed at their legs. “She’s strident, irritating, and chooses poor battles, but that doesn’t make her a killer,” he said.
    “I know, but think about it. Can’t believe she didn’t occur to me hours ago. Two chick lit authors in two days. It can’t be a coincidence. Something must have set her off. I mean, who else has that much against them and is a little bit crazy?” asked Lola, eyes still closed in thought.
    “Well, what about another author? Someone who wants to wipe out the chick lit competition?” said Doug. “Good touch, by the way, being the one to ‘find’ both bodies.”
    “Yeah, yeah, I thought of that. But Wilma is even more obvious, I think.” Lola opened her eyes and looked at him. “Technically, my book is not chick lit.”
    “I know, but you know what I mean. Lo, I’m not accusing you! Of writing chick lit, or of committing two murders. I’m just thinking that maybe—”
    “Sorry. I know. Reflex. I mean, for God’s sake, Pink Slip probably would have done better if it had been officially marketed as chick lit. Makes me nuts.”
    “I know, Lo. Sorry.”
    “But what really makes me nuts,” said Lola, “is that so far, it doesn’t seem that my book’s done well enough for me to make the chick lit killer’s hit list.”
    “I thought you said—”
    “Whatever it takes,” Lola grinned.
    “You are insane.” Doug smooshed closer.
    “No, you, muffin.”
    Their lips touched softly, then harder.
    Cue bassets. The dogs bounded onto the bed, pawing and