How honest should he be? He weighed up his options and decided he didn’t want to risk any more misunderstandings. “She always knew I wasn’t in Vermont, Eva.”
“But—” She stopped patting the snow and looked at him. “That would mean she lied to me.”
“I love my grandmother, but she’s not above telling a lie when she thinks it might benefit someone close to her.”
“Well—” Eva sat down on the snow with a soft thump. “The crafty—”
“Yes.”
“And now I suppose you think that proves that I knew all along.”
“I know you didn’t. What I think,” he said, “is that my grandmother genuinely loves you.” And it wasn’t hard to see why.
“I love her back.”
“My grandmother has two sons, and two grandsons. She has always yearned for female company.”
“Your mom?”
“My parents live in Upstate New York in the house where I grew up. They travel a lot. My brother and I are the ones who live closest and neither of us is great at visiting. We should do it more. She thinks you and I would be good for each other.”
Eva smacked another lump of snow into her snowman, harder this time. “She was wrong about that.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
It was his job to use words to manipulate people’s emotions. He knew how to create anticipation, excitement and sheer terror. But he had no idea how to handle this situation. All he knew was that when Eva had walked out, his apartment had once again become dark and soulless. She’d taken the sunshine with her, and he missed it. “You weren’t the only one who spilled secrets, Eva. I did, too. What we shared had nothing to do with my book. It had nothing to do with information gathering. It was about intimacy.” It was hard for him to admit it, but he knew it was true. There was something about the warmth of her that encouraged confidences.
“Sex, you mean.”
“We both had clothes on when we spilled our secrets, and I spilled more than you. There is plenty you could do with that information if you wanted to.”
Her eyes grew fierce. “I would never do that.”
“I know. And that’s my point. I trust you, and I’m asking you to trust me. I’m creating a character, that’s all. Does she have some of your adorable traits? Yes. But it’s those traits that will make her appealing to the reader.”
She was silent for a moment. “You think I have adorable traits? You’re not just saying that to stop me knocking you unconscious with the carrot?”
“I’m not just saying that.”
“She’s a murderer.”
“She’s human. Characters in books are more believable if they’re not black-and-white. The all-good person is boring to read about and the all-bad person makes readers roll their eyes because the truth is there is good and bad in all of us and it’s what brings out the good and the bad that makes for interesting reading.”
“Are you saying my character used to be a good person?”
“She’s a psychopath, but she also shows slight narcissistic tendencies and traces of mixed personality disorder. With a different upbringing and early life experience it’s possible she might have turned out differently, but everything that happened to her fed into that side of her personality.”
“Poor her.”
It was a typical Eva remark and it made him smile. “She’s fictional. That’s the great thing about writing, you can create the character that interests you. Books are so much more interesting when the characters are complex. There will be elements of her that readers will sympathize with. She had a rough start in life. They will be shocked by what she does, but a tiny part of them will wonder whether those guys deserved it.”
“Do you think you’ll finish the manuscript in time?”
“I don’t know. Are you going to come back with me?
“If it’s going well, you don’t need me anymore.”