Page 6 of Jenny
CHAPTER TWO
Jenny sat on the big, overstuffed reading chair in the corner of her office. It was more comfortable working on revisions on her laptop here than at her desk. Her back couldn’t take much more sitting there.
She reread part of her editor’s notes onAssassin Fever. Rewriting a short scene had taken her the entire morning. This didn’t bode well for the rest of the manuscript. Still, making the story better was worth the work.
Her stomach growled.
She needed food—not the M&M’s peanut or plain variety. Maybe after she rewrote another scene.
Footsteps sounded on the hardwood floor. “Ready for lunch?”
The sound of her sister-in-law’s voice brought a smile. Jenny should have known Missy would come to her rescue. “Yes, because I’m starving.”
“Not enough to stop writing and feed yourself.” Missy Hanford carried a tray of food. As she walked, her auburn-colored ponytail bounced. “Which is why you have me around.”
The smells made Jenny’s mouth water. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Same, though I have enough sense to eat more than peanut M&M’s for breakfast. Plus, enough self-control I can avoid the internet without having to ask someone else to turn off the router when I need to get something done.”
Missy and Rob, Jenny’s little brother, had known each other their entire lives, became boyfriend and girlfriend in middle school, and married at eighteen after Rob joined the United States Marines. Their dreams of having a house full of kids and a happily ever after ended when an IED in Afghanistan killed Rob. He’d been twenty-three.
“I’m a writer. I have no sense. Most days, I don’t even get out of my pajamas,” Jenny admitted. “If I turn off the Wi-Fi, I know I can turn it on, but I don’t even know where the router is.”
“Whatever gets the book finished.” Missy set the tray on top of the desk, which was covered with marked-up pieces of paper. “I don’t mind turning the router on and off, but you should know where it is. I’m not always here.”
Six years had passed since Rob’s death, and not a day went by that Jenny didn’t think about him. Missy continued to struggle with her grief. If not for the two cats she and Rob had adopted before that fateful deployment, Missy might have given up, but her good days now outnumbered the bad ones. Although she hadn’t shown any interest in dating or men in general.
“I don’t mind waiting for you to get home,” Jenny said.
Rob had asked her to watch out for his wife before he deployed, and Jenny had. After her first Thorpe Files novel hit it big, she’d wanted to move out of her tiny apartment and buy a house. One of the selling points of this place had been a two-bedroom separate guesthouse where Missy could live. They had privacy, but could still look out for each other. The arrangement had worked out well, especially after Missy became Jenny’s personal assistant. She knew it was what Rob would have wanted.
“Chicken satay, spring rolls, wontons, yellow curry, shrimp pad thai, and white rice. I ordered extra so there would be leftovers.” Missy drew her eyebrows together in an exaggerated expression. “You do know how to use a microwave, right, or should I leave instructions for that?”
“Ha-ha.”
“Don’t laugh,” Missy said. “I’m going to be working longer shifts this week at the cupcake shop. The chemo is hitting Elise hard. I offered to take on more hours so she didn’t have to keep juggling work schedules. Bad timing with your revisions, I know. Sorry.”
“It’s not a problem. You’re the best assistant an author could ask for, and that’s a nice thing to do for your boss.” Missy had worked at the same cupcake shop since she was fifteen. She didn’t need the money as much as she liked the familiarity and staying busy. “Elise needs more help than I do.”
“Yeah, right.” With a laugh, Missy fixed herself a plate. “Come over here and eat before you pass out. Did you sleep last night?”
“A couple of hours.” The smells called to Jenny. Eating would give her the energy to keep revising. “I couldn’t stop thinking about what changes the manuscript needed, so I decided to make some of them.”
As Jenny reached for the top of her screen, she noticed an email in her inbox. She’d been obsessive about not letting her emails get out of control again. Maybe she could delete it without reading. She clicked on the postage-stamp icon on the bottom of her screen.
The message’s subject line sent her pulse racing. DOR had replied.
Re: Re: Message in Bottle Found
DOR2008@…
To: Jenny <8675309@…>
Pic or it never happened.
Short and sweet, but the words made her smile.
“What are you looking at?” Missy asked.
