Poisoned Prose (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

She walked to the back of the room and dimmed the lights again. She wanted five minutes to think about how Violetta’s brand of storytelling magic could breathe life into her dying manuscript. Taking a seat in the middle of the room, Olivia could still sense Violetta’s presence. It lingered like the fresh, metallic scent following a summer rainstorm.
    Suddenly, she felt chilled again. Rubbing her arms, which had erupted in gooseflesh beneath her cotton sweater, she turned to her right and saw a figure sitting across the aisle.
    “There’s always one person who doesn’t leave,” Violetta said. “Somebody like you who wants to soak up the power of the stories for just a little bit longer.”
    Violetta didn’t sound the same as she had onstage. Her speech was no longer clear and crisp. It was now the mumbled cadence of her native mountain drawl. It wasn’t seductive or hypnotizing, but Olivia still hung on to every word.
    “I was hoping to learn your secret,” she confessed. “I’m writing a novel, and my characters have gone flat. You’re able to inject unique and magnetic personalities into dozens of different voices. We can’t see these characters, and yet they’re there, as real as the people sitting next to us in the audience.”
    Dipping her chin to acknowledge the compliment, Violetta focused her electric blue gaze on Olivia. “What’s your story about, then?”
    Olivia told her as succinctly as possible. She knew that Laurel was probably on her way to the lighthouse keeper’s cottage and didn’t want to keep her waiting. As she talked without pause, she studied the lovely, enigmatic storyteller. Violetta still wore her old-fashioned mountain dress, boots, and gloves. Her face was remarkably unlined for someone in her early forties. It had such a chalky hue that Olivia assumed she must have been wearing stage makeup.
    “That ain’t your story,” Violetta instantly proclaimed when Olivia was done. “Some tramp livin’ in Egypt a billion years ago? You can’t give her a voice ’cause you don’t know her. You want her to live and laugh and sing and weep? Then give her
your
story. Fill her with your joy and loneliness and all the love you’ve found and lost and found again. If you don’t, she’ll always be a paper doll. You want a marionette. You want somebody that can dance at the end of your string.” She mimicked the motion with her small hands. “You’re in control, but she’s connected to you. See?”
    “Is that why your stories feel so real? Because you’ve been cold and hungry? Because you figured out how to survive using your wits and courage?”
    A humorless laugh bubbled from between Violetta’s lips. “That makes me sound like some storybook hero. Things were the same for all of us mountainfolk. Ain’t nobody drivin’ Mercedes where I come from. Bein’ rich meant that your ribs weren’t stickin’ through your skin. Everybody struggled.”
    Olivia didn’t want to steal Laurel’s thunder, but she couldn’t help but ask, “How did you discover your gift?”
    Violetta shrugged. “My daddy and granddaddy told their tales to me. Most nights, it was how we passed the time. I didn’t think I could ever tell ’em like they could. In the beginning, I was scared that I was no good, but I got over that. Soon as I saw that lots of folks wanted to hear our stories, I tried real hard to tell them like no one else could. I’d rather sing for my supper than spend my days scratchin’ in the ground and sewin’ quilts.”
    “Did you ever marry?”
    “Nope. You?”
    Olivia smiled. “Never even came close.” She didn’t want to talk about her relationships, past or present, so she waved her arm around the room. “Why are you more comfortable in the shadows?”
    Violetta’s eyes flashed, and Olivia wondered if she’d crossed a line. She was about to apologize when the other woman touched her cheek with her fingertip. “I have things to hide. More than most folks.”
    When it became clear that she would say no more and moved to rise, Olivia said, “Trust me, I have my share too. Old family secrets. Things I can’t talk about even with those who know me best. Those who love me for who they think I am.”
    Violetta waited a few heartbeats before speaking again. “I’m the last true Devereaux. When I die, the whereabouts of a certain treasure will die with me. That’s a relief to me and a source of mighty vexation to others.” She grinned, her thick makeup nearly