Ellen’s face was flushed. It must have been the wine, which she seldom drank. He put his arm around her waist with what must have been a little too much enthusiasm, because he felt her flinch for a moment before she moved away.
Their friends knew they would have to wait to read the new book too. Ellen never revealed anything in advance, and she never pushed them to buy it. “Come get it at the library in a few months,” she told them, though she knew that many of them would head to the bookstore as soon as it was in stock.
“Just tell us one thing,” Annie Johnson had called back over her shoulder as she was leaving the house the night before. Her face was animated—and looked almost greedy in the overhead porch light that illuminated the front walkway. “How does he die this time?”
thisEllen
