Dying to Get Published Read Online Free PDF Page B

causes that disease.
     
    Not too bad. Fairly poetic. And it wouldn't look bad in print. Even if the press didn't quote the entire letter, they couldn't butcher it beyond recognition—or so she hoped.
    Jennifer scrawled her name across the bottom and folded the stationery. She slipped it into an envelope, licked the flap, and sealed it. It would go out Monday morning. She'd need another one for Tuesday and a third, maybe even a fourth. Yes, a fourth. One letter meant irritated; two angry; three irate; but crazy didn't start until at least four.
    She pulled out another sheet of paper.
     
    Dear Ms. Richmond:
    The sins we commit are tallied.
     
    She squished the sheet into a tiny ball. It was better not to mention sin. Murder, after all, was a biggie.
    How was she ever going to create three more convincing letters? She tapped her pen i mpatiently against the desktop. She hated writing letters… but her serial killer in Poisoned Pen, Poisoned Heart tormented his victims with vicious notes for weeks before he murdered them.
    She went to the hall closet and rummaged through the manuscripts, extracted one, and carried it back to her desk, Muffy close at her heels. Leafing through the printed pages, she stopped at page thirty-seven. There it was, Marcus' first threatening letter. All she had to do was substitute the word bullet for the word knife .
     
    I'm sitting in the dark thinking about how I'm going to kill you. The bullet will pierce your heart and stop it suddenly in mid-beat. I will hear that little gulp of air rushing to fill your chest cavity and deflate your lungs like useless, overstretched balloons. And I will silently watch your astonished face as your life gently ebbs from your irreparably damaged body.
     
    Yuck. What kind of demented mind had she been suppressing? No matter. The letter would do just fine. No sane person would write something like that.
    She copied it in pen onto a blank sheet of paper. She didn't need to sign this one. The first letter would provide a sample of her handwriting.
    All she had to do was find two more letters. That would be a cinch. Her villain, nasty creature that he was, had written at least eight. She was on her way. Once all the letters had been sent, they'd lay the perfect trail for the police to follow when Penney Richmond turned up dead.
     
     
     
    Chapter 8
     
    "'I've never met anyone like you,' he whispered. His greedy mouth found hers as he crushed her to him, leaving her breathless. His fingers kneaded the silky flesh of her neck and then fell to explore the sensual secrets of her body. He groaned.'"
    "He's not the only one groaning, Leigh Ann," Jennifer muttered from her spot on the floor next to Monique's sofa.
    "You're not supposed to interrupt." Leigh Ann's eyes flared as she stuck out her diminutive chin. "You just don't like love scenes."
    "Oh, no, sweetie. You don't get off that easy, Leigh," Teri said. "You've spent two hundred pages throwing these two people together and pulling them apart and all your hero can think of to say is ' I never met anyone like you'? He's met dozens of women like her, but he never got one quite as pure as she is into his bed. She makes his blood boil. Honey, let us see him sim -mer." Teri's shoulders undulated with each syllable.
    "So what do you want him to say? 'Hey, Babe, you make my blood boil'?"
    "Nice alliteration," April observed.
    "Is that the best you can say about my writing?"
    "It wasn't your writing. The blood boiling thing was my idea," Teri reminded her.
    "Ladies, please." Monique spoke in a quiet, commanding tone. "You know the rules, Jennifer. When one group member is reading her work, we all listen. No comments are welcome until she has finished. Do we all understand? Go on, Leigh Ann. I think you were somewhere amid the sensual secrets of your heroine's body."
    "'Sensations he had never experienced stung his fingertips as he…'"
    Maybe Leigh Ann was right, Jennifer thought. Maybe she had no romance left in her.