Bob took the first crack at answering the question. “Obviously, for me, this was a new way of working. But it turned out to be exactly what was needed to finish the series. Normally in a coauthor situation, you’ll see one of two things.” He held up a finger. “First, a single writer—usually the less famous of the two—does most or all of the writing, while the more famous one takes most of the credit.” He added a second finger. “Or two coauthors will take turns writing from the point of view of a single character.” He turned his hand to cut it through the air. “But we didn’t do either of those.” He looked over at Bridget.

She pulled her mic closer. “First we brainstormed an outline of the book. That was new for Bob, but he says it really helped.” Next to her, Bob nodded. “Then we each picked which chapters we wanted to write. Bob called it putting the meat on the bones, and that part went really fast. Once one of us had finished a chapter, we emailed it to the other, who then used track changes to suggest edits. It was a little complicated, but it worked for us.”

Bob pointed at another waving hand. “The person dressed as, if I’m not mistaken, Prince Orwen?”

The questioner, who looked to be in his late teens, grinned at being recognized. “How much did it hurt to have the books burn up in that cabin?”

The audience murmured as the Powell’s events coordinator jumped to her feet. “I made it clear that they would not be taking any questions about what happened.”

“I’ll answer this one, but after that, no more, okay?” Bob said.

The police had asked Bridget and Bob not to speak publicly about the kidnapping. If they had been hoping to keep a lid on information, it hadn’t worked. The bizarre chain of events had been covered extensively in newspapers, magazines, and blogs, and on TV, radio, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, podcasts, and even TikTok. All six previous Swords and Shadows books returned to the bestseller lists. Five weeks after the fire, an unauthorized book about their kidnappings had been rushed out, filled with blurry screenshots from the Haldon Cam. And of course Reddit was overrun with threads about every conceivable aspect of the case.

When Bridget had climbed on the treadmill desk to broadcast their plea, most people had thought it was just part of some elaborate joke or hoax. But a handful had called the police. Derrick had as well, with a slightly different and equally fantastic story. The police had eventually decided to dispatch a couple of officers to check things out.