"The whole time I'm doing my spiel, I'm thinking, 'Cookies, cookies ... how long until I get to eat the cookies?'" Slaughter said, laughing. Then the thought struck her: What if they were poisoned? (She writes thrillers.)
Slaughter eyed the author escort who was spending the day driving her to interviews: "He'll be my canary in the coal mine," she decided. She urged him to eat a cookie.