TWENTY-SEVEN

He checked a local bookstore first, where he cruised through Books in Print on their computer. It listed nearly every book written in the last five years, cross-referenced by title as well as author. Morgan had the clerk look under two different names: Jack Jermaine, and Kellen Raid, the name Abby had found on Jack’s passport. There was nothing.

Morgan was worried. He was in love with Abby and she didn’t seem to notice. Now she was off to the ends of the earth with a man she didn’t know, a man who, if Alvin Cummings was to be believed, spent his time in the military, slithering out of rivers like a snake to kill people.

Morgan trekked to the county library next. He could be dogged when something bothered him, and this did. It was nothing but a hunch, one of those nagging points that pick at the subconscious in your sleep.

Ever since Abby had told him about Jack’s passport in the name of Kellen Raid, it had been turning over in Morgan’s mind. Jack’s seemingly boundless desire to be published, almost compulsive, and the way he’d inflicted himself on Abby caused Morgan to wonder: had he used the name for something else?

In the library, Spencer located a volume that defined the origin and meaning of names. The name “Kellen” was Gaelic. It meant warrior. Raid was only a guess on Spencer’s part. But together the first and last name looked suspiciously like an action-oriented pen name, something an author might use who fancied himself a writer of military fiction.

He tried the library’s computer catalog next, and struck out. There was nothing under either name. But the librarian pointed him in one last direction. Public lending libraries, even large ones, didn’t possess copies of every book printed, especially when it came to popular fiction. Except for the classics, there was a short shelf life.

He went back to his office and called the phone number the librarian had given him. Several days passed before they called back. It had taken that long, but they found something. Morgan wasn’t sure exactly what it was. But it was enough to cause him to skip lunch and hoof it eight blocks through noonday traffic.

The shop was small, squeezed in between a cafe on the corner, and an art studio. It specialized mostly in collectors’ items, rare editions, and other obscure works. What they didn’t have on their shelves they could locate. The store belonged to a national network of used book shops. If a customer wanted something, he could place an order and put out the word. It might take a week, or a month, or a year, but if it existed, sooner or later they would find it.

It was a longshot, but Morgan was a gambler at heart. He knew that while the odds of finding anything might be slim, the payoff, if he did, could be huge. It was the kind of thing you prayed for in the closing days of a trial, that last-minute piece of evidence that showed your opponent was a convicted child molester. It was the kind of dirt you could shovel in front of a jury to tilt the entire case. Only in this case Abby was the jury.

Morgan was worried. For a hard-bitten lawyer, somebody on the jaded side when it came to publishing, Abby had become far too trusting of Jack. To Spencer it was beginning to look as if Jermaine had cast a spell over her. There was something about the man that Spencer didn’t like. Maybe it was his good looks, or his quick tongue, a little too quick for Morgan. As far as he was concerned, Jack was the wrong kind of man for Abby. When Spencer’s antennae was up, it was unfailing. At the moment he didn’t like the signal he was getting. Several times in their telephone conversations Abby had let slip that she was talking to Jack about her work. Increasingly she was turning to Jermaine. Sooner or later she would take him into her confidence. To Morgan that spelled trouble. He should never have allowed her to go off to the islands, especially with Jack.

He breezed through the door of the small shop setting chimes ringing over his head, shades of Dickens. The place was musty, and crammed with crude wooden bookcases to the ceiling, and as far as Morgan could see to the back of the building. There were narrow, dark aisles and an old wooden ladder against one wall for reaching books on the upper shelves.

A young man sat on a stool behind the counter. He didn’t look up when Spencer entered but continued pricing a stack of books with a pencil on the inside covers. The kid’s hair was dyed a shade of chartreuse and shaved on the sides, the kind of stuff that you saw all over town these days. He wore the single obligatory earring, like a medal of defiance. Spencer wondered why anyone would hire somebody who looked like this.

“Can I help you?” The kid was polite and businesslike, but Morgan had a hard time seeing past the appearance.

“My name’s Morgan Spencer. You’re holding a book for me.”

The clerk spun around on his stool and thumbed through a stack behind him against the wall. “Did they call you?”

“This morning,” said Morgan.

“Spencer. Spencer. Ah. Here it is.”

The clerk plucked the volume from the shelf. The title was printed in gold letters on the cloth spine: Shadow War. The clerk opened the cover and looked for the price in pencil on the inside. He punched a few numbers into a calculator on the counter next to him.

“With shipping that comes to nineteen dollars.” That didn’t include the search fee that Morgan had already paid on a credit card over the phone.

“Can I look at it first?”

“Sure.”

Morgan checked the copyright for the date of publication. The book had been published nine years earlier by one of the large publishing houses in New York. This alone caused Spencer to suspect that he was barking up a wrong tree. If Jack was as talentless as Abby had said over the phone, how could he ever get published, let alone by a major publisher? Still, nine years. That was enough time for the book to have been forgotten in the perpetual tidal surge of fiction.

“There’s no paper cover,” said Morgan.

“The dust jacket,” said the clerk. “Probably came in without one. We get a lot of them like that. Jackets get tattered over the years, people toss ’em out.”

“Is there any way I could get one? The dust jacket?”

The clerk gave a big sigh, and checked a card catalog behind the counter. “It’s the only copy we found. If you want, I can take it back and try again.”

“No. No.”

Morgan’s interest in the dustcover had nothing to do with the book’s value. It was purely informational. The dustcover was where the author’s picture would be if there was one, along with any biographical note. Without it, all he had was a title, and a name, the author’s name: Kellen Raid.

“Have you ever heard of this guy before?” said Morgan.

The clerk shook his head.

“So there’s no way for me to find out if he’s ever published anything else?”

“If he’d published anything before this, they would usually list those titles in the front of the book, right before the title page.” The clerk looked. There was nothing.

“Do you know where I could get a biography, anything at all on the author?”

“There are some literary source books. But I can tell you, he’s not going to be there.”

“Why not?”

“They mostly cover classics and maybe some commercial authors,” said the clerk.

Morgan was up against the proverbial rock. It was a unique name. Still, it left Jack enough wiggle room. He could claim it was a coincidence. Maybe Jermaine had read the book and liked it. He could have used the author’s name on the passport for that reason. He might even say it was subconscious. Morgan was a cynic. He was sure he had something. But Abby wasn’t likely to buy it unless he had proof. She would want to give Jack the benefit of the doubt. innocent until proven guilty.

“Would the publisher have anything on him?”

“You could try.”

Morgan feathered the pages of the novel. There were more than five hundred. He felt the cloth cover with his fingers and wondered if Jack was capable of writing such a thing.

“Can I have a minute?”

“Take your time.” The clerk turned to other duties. He rolled a cart out from behind the counter to an area a few feet away, climbed a footstool, and began stacking some new arrivals.

Morgan opened the book and began to read. The writing was O.K., a little clunky in places, but the book opened with a gripper, an action sequence set deep in the jungle, according to a headnote somewhere in Southeast Asia. He read the prologue, eight pages. The story had a good hook, but Morgan was looking for something else. When he finished he was no closer to proving the identity of the author.

He turned back to the title page, flipped to the next page. There was a lot of small print, the name of the publishing company and its address. This was followed by a disclaimer that the characters in the story were all fictional. There was something about the Library of Congress. And after that was the author’s name, Kellen Raid, and the designation of copyright in that name. Underneath, at the bottom of the page, was a line of numbers, what looked like three through ten, but printed in a peculiar order, odd numbers to the left, even to the right, with the number ten in the middle.

“Do you know what this is?” said Spencer.

The clerk turned to him from the stool and then down for a closer look.

Morgan pointed to the numbers at the bottom of the page.

“That’s the press count. It tells you how many times the publisher went back to press for further printings. This is not a strict first edition.” If there had been any doubt, the clerk now knew that Spencer was no book collector.

“If it were a first edition, the number one would appear there on the left-hand side,” said the clerk. He checked the numbers. “This is the third printing. There were two earlier printings. That’s why the numbers one and two are missing.”

“What does that mean?”

“What it says,” said the clerk. “It affects the value of the book as far as collectors are concerned. First editions are usually worth more.”

“Is it unusual that a book would go back to press that many times?”

The kid gave him an expression like he wasn’t sure. “Most books probably only get one printing. They get a small initial run. Unless there’s demand for the book, that’s it.”

“So this book would have been in demand?”

“Enough for three runs.”

“Could it have been a big book?” said Spencer. “Commercially successful?”

“Depends what you mean by big. If it had been huge, I think I would have remembered the author. If somebody writes one that hot, they usually do another. Law of the marketplace,” said the clerk.

“But it could have been successful?”

“Possibly. It would depend on the size of the press runs. There’s no way to tell that from the information here.”

Again Morgan had nothing to show for his efforts. He offered the clerk a deep sigh and reached for his wallet. He paid with a credit card, and while the clerk was processing the slip, Morgan continued to scan the page, over to the other side, to the acknowledgments. There were only five paragraphs. Morgan didn’t find what he was looking for until he got to the last one. There, buried in a single line, was what he’d been looking for all along.

Mostly I thank my father, Joseph Jermaine, for an inquisitive mind and the questions that inspired this story.

St. Croix rests on a shallow shelf at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. It is separated from its sisters of the Virgin Islands, St. John and St. Martin, by a rift in the ocean’s floor more than four miles deep, a canyon known as the Puerto Rican Trench. The chasm divides a chain of islands that define the outer edge of the Caribbean Sea.

But for Abby it was as if somehow a barrier had been bridged. Their time on the ship, the embrace of his arms, the sharing of intimacy, brought her to know Jack in ways she never thought she would. The combination of power and gentleness that was Jack overwhelmed her. For the first time in her life she felt safe. They made love and they talked about things they had not discussed before: Jack’s time in the military, and his relationship with his father. He wanted to know about her marriage. There was a time when she actually thought she loved Charlie. But now Abby was certain that she had never really fallen in love. She had just stepped in it.

For the first time since Theresa’s death, Abby opened up with another human being. In bed, Jack was tender and warm, as warm as the afternoon sun that cascaded down upon them as they stepped off onto the dock at King’s Wharf in Christiansted.

Jack had ditched the shorts and fanny pack, in favor of a pair of pleated khaki pants that draped his long legs, and a safari vest with a million pockets. Abby wondered if one of them held the semiautomatic pistol. She was still uncomfortable about this, traveling with a man who thought nothing of being armed.

Up on the docks the first thing that caught Abby’s eye was the bright yellow walls of the little Dutch Colonial fort, and the village-like atmosphere of the town. She heard people on the docks, visitors speaking French and German.

Jack had told her that tourists from Europe spilled over from the British Virgin Islands to the American side for a day of shopping and sight-seeing. The place reminded Abby of some exotic port of call, Java in the last century. The calm water of the little harbor was azure blue illuminated by the white sand on its bottom. There was a small island a quarter mile off the docks, with what looked like a hotel perched over its sandy beach: Protestant Cay.

“We’ll have to clear Customs,” said Jack. “Shouldn’t be a problem.” The captain of Enrique’s yacht had greased it for them on the ship-to-shore radio coming in. A Customs agent met them at the dock, asked two or three questions while their luggage remained on board, unopened. He stamped their passports and left. Being friends with the largest rum dealer in the world had its advantages.

Jack hailed a taxi and they headed out of town, east past Gallows Bay along what was called the East End Road. The taxi driver drove on the left, British style. They passed lush fields and old stone towers. The island was dotted with the remnants of ancient windmills, their wind-catching apparatus snatched by hurricanes whose names had long since been forgotten. They passed ruins of eighteenth-century sugar plantations where the windmills had been used to crush cane, and drove through a rain squall that seemed to be the width of a cloud so that the hood of the car was awash in water and the trunk was bone-dry.

It was a short drive, less than ten minutes, when they pulled between a pair of pink and white pillars and onto a private drive. It wound a half mile in off the highway, past tamarind trees, some of which Jack told her were more than a hundred and fifty years old. They came to a stop at an old stone building, two stories, with a guard and barrier gate.

“Another of your friend’s estates?” said Abby.

“A resort,” said Jack. “You should get to know it. It’s close to where you’ll be. We’ll just spend the night. We can get groceries in the morning and you can move into the house. It’s just down the road, off the grounds.”

In locating the house Jack had thought of everything. “The resort has a good bar and a restaurant,” he told her. “A well-stocked wine cellar, all the comforts of home. If you don’t want to cook, you can just come over here. It’s a little walk, but not that far.”

The resort was gorgeous and private. On the land side were acres of manicured grass, a golf course. The buildings were all flamingo pink and old mortared stone. Most of them looked like they were at least three hundred years old. The place had once been a sugar plantation. The main building of the hotel sat on a promontory overlooking a deep bay of Caribbean blue water.

The taxi pulled up to the entrance and an attendant got their luggage. Jack headed for the front desk just beyond a pink-and-white-covered portico. Over the entrance was a sign, black letters on old marble:

1653 THE 1947
BUCCANEER

Abby stayed with the luggage. She had no intention of losing her little computer. The outline to the sequel, now nearly completed, was in it. This was becoming an increasingly important document. With the first book presumably worth millions, the outline to the second was like gold, and Abby treated it like a state secret for good reason. She kept one paper copy and a backup on a disk. The notebook computer was quickly becoming her lifeline if she was going to finish the next book on time.

By the time she caught up with Jack at the desk he had a message for her from the clerk.

“Seems your friend Spencer’s caught up with us.”

“How?”

“I told him to leave any messages here before we left,” said Jack. “He’s sent you a gift.”

“What is it?”

“It’s out in the parking lot, right in front of the building.” Before Jack could speak, the woman behind the counter answered the question with a broad smile. She was convinced they had some luminary staying with them. Gifts like this were unusual.

Abby looked at Jack quizzically.

“Don’t ask me.” He shrugged.

She stepped outside to the end of the walkway. There at the curb was a sporty little convertible, a Z-3, with its top down, parked in the shade.

Abby went back inside. “Did he rent it?”

“Seems he bought it,” said Jack, “with your money.” He dangled the keys from their ring on his little finger while he read a note from an envelope and then passed them to Abby.

Greetings from the Home Front.

Knew you were going to need wheels so had this shipped from a dealer in Miami. Don’t get mad. You can afford it. Besides, you need to celebrate. Trust me.

Morgan.

Abby wasn’t just angry, she was steaming. It was an act of extravagance, something that brought attention to her on the island, the precise thing that she didn’t want. The woman behind the counter was smiling at her. She knew the car had to cost at least thirty thousand dollars. Now it marked her as a rich tourist, making it that much more difficult for her to blend in with the locals. Morgan had no right. He had overstepped the bounds of friendship.

Inside the envelope was another smaller one, this one very stiff and still sealed. She opened it. There were two small plastic cards inside with the name of a bank in French, and another note. They were debit cards on a bank in Martinique, two separate accounts, a place where Abby could now draw funds without being found. He would give her the PIN numbers over the phone.

It was like Spencer. With one hand he infuriated you, and with the other he saved your bacon.

Abby and Jack checked into separate rooms in a part of the resort down on the water. The place was dated, just enough to be comfortable, blue tile floors in some kind of Dutch print with a king-sized bed and a large bath. Each room had a private patio overlooking the water. The beach was off to the right a hundred yards away, where it formed an arc and disappeared into a cove.

“Give me your passport and any credit cards you’re not gonna use regularly,” said Jack. “Got any jewelry?”

“What is this, a robbery?”

“Henry told me there’s no safe at the house. You have to be careful down here. A U.S. passport is worth a lot of money.”

Abby looked at him, wondering whether she should. Then she handed over her passport and one of the debit cards.

“Come in here and I’ll show you.” He led the way. “We’ll use the one in my room since I’m gonna keep the room.” They went into the closet in his room through the adjoining door. Inside on a wooden platform was an electronic ElSafe, the size of a large microwave oven.

“What’s your birthday?”

“You don’t know me well enough for that,” said Abby.

“Lie,” said Jack.

She gave him six digits that would have made her thirty-four. Jack punched them into the electronic combination and removed a metal pin from the inside of the door. “Now it’s set. Unless somebody puts the pin back in and changes it, that’s the combination that will open it every time.”

He closed the door and pushed the lock button. The steel door hummed and sealed itself tight. He punched in the combination. It hummed again and opened. Jack put Abby’s passport and one of the debit cards into the safe, closed the door, and pushed the lock button.

“You can put your outline in there, the manuscript, whatever you want. Feel free to use it.” Jack helped her with her luggage, then told her they could get lunch at the bungalow out near the beach.

She looked at her watch. “I have a phone call to make first. Give me fifteen minutes.”

Jack smiled. He knew she was going to call Spencer and chew his ass. Abby wore her anger on her sleeve, and at the moment she was still steaming over the little car.

“It’s beautiful,” said Jack. “Wish I had a friend like that. You should thank him.” He wanted to stay and listen.

“See you in a few minutes,” said Abby.

“Can I take it for a spin?”

Abby gave him a look that pointed to the door.

“Just kidding.” He left and closed the door behind him.

It was nearly noon. Four hours’ difference. It was not yet eight o’clock out on the coast. If she was quick, she could catch Morgan before he left for the office.

She tried to dial direct, but it didn’t work. The phone system on the island was primitive. She had to go through the hotel operator, who in turn connected her to a long-distance operator who placed the call. The phone line kept crackling. Water in some of the underground lines on the island from the last hurricane according to the operator. Abby listened as the phone rang on the other end, a lot of static. She was hoping she wouldn’t lose him.

“Hello.”

She heard Morgan’s familiar voice.

“What in the world do you think you’re doing?”

“Abby.” Spencer’s voice was elevated, almost euphoric. “It sounds like you’re in a tunnel. Where are you?”

“St. Croix. I didn’t order a car, Morgan. What are you thinking?”

“I know. But I thought you could use it. Besides, I got a sweet deal. Don’t be mad at me. Please.”

The pleading tone of his voice and the familiarity of it from thousands of miles away instantly cut her anger by half. It was the thing about Abby. She would flash fury, but she could never stay mad for long, especially with those she liked. The phone crackled again.

“Are you there?” he said.

“I’m here. Everybody in the place knows my name,” she told him. “The woman with the flashy little car.”

“Have you driven it?”

“Not yet.”

“They’re a kick in the ass,” said Spencer. “I tried one at a dealership here in town before I ordered yours. Stop on a dime, turn on a nickel,” said Spencer.

She could see him, his mane of graying hair streaming in the wind. It was the kind of thing that Morgan lived for, the staid attorney acting like a child.

“You shouldn’t have done it.”

“You have to learn to enjoy your success,” he told her. “I knew it was something you would never do for yourself.”

He was right and Abby knew it. She could never slow down enough to enjoy what she’d achieved in life, whether it was graduating from law school or authoring a novel. She was always too busy working, trying to find the seam of opportunity or to make one; moving on. And now she had managed to cut herself off from any public acclamation on her own book, by putting Jack and his picture up front. She was beginning to wonder if she would be able to reclaim her property. Maybe Jack was right. Maybe the public would never accept her.

“Do you want me to see if they’ll take it back?” Spencer was talking about the car.

It would be a graceless thing to do. Besides, the dealer would never take it back and the damage was already done. It wasn’t the money. It was the fact that Spencer was asserting control that angered Abby.

“No. I should thank you. But I want you to promise that you won’t do anything like this ever again.”

“I promise.”

“Do I have your word?”

“Hope to die,” said Spencer.

She didn’t want to humiliate him.

“Then you’re not mad at me any longer?”

“I’m not mad at you.”

There was a deep sigh on the other end.

“Then let me give you the good news. First, the car is a business expense, at least part of it is. Think of it as a gift from the tax man,” said Morgan. “And you’re going to need more of them.”

“What? Cars?”

“Business expenses,” said Morgan. “You better start thinking about setting the next book someplace expensive. Maybe in the South of France, a private villa.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m going to be depositing a lot more money than we thought into the account. Hold your breath,” said Morgan. “Nearly”—there was crackle on the line “—million dollars.”

“Say again?”

“I said three million dollars.”

“We weren’t supposed to see that kind of money for almost a year.”

“I know,” said Spencer, “but the foreign sales are way beyond Carla’s original estimate. She says it’s the dynamic of the film sale. She didn’t have the numbers when you guys met at the convention. There’s a feeding frenzy going on in Europe over the book. And she wants to talk to Jack, to give him the good news. You know, agent to author,” said Morgan. “She’s been bugging me for days trying to figure out where you guys went. You’d better prep him. Tell him to act surprised and to kiss her ass when she calls. She’ll figure she deserves it.”

Three million dollars. Abby’s knees folded like a tent with the news. She sank onto the edge of the bed. She had no idea what to do with that kind of money, how to spend it or invest it. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She was sure of one thing. It would change her life, perhaps in ways she didn’t like.

“What do I do?”

“What do you mean?”

“With all that money,” said Abby.

Morgan told her not to worry. He had it parked in a safe place, growing interest “I wish I had that kind of problem,” he told her. “Cutler and his pals are circling like vultures at the firm. They want my blood. Every day it’s a new move. Always watching my backside, and it’s more difficult now that you’re gone.”

“If we keep doing this, you won’t have to worry about it. You can quit and go to work for me, full time,” said Abby.

It was what Morgan wanted to hear: that he was back in her good graces.

“Did you get the bank card?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He gave her the PIN number and she wrote it down. “You don’t have to worry. There’s plenty in the account, and the authorities won’t be able to trace you when you use it. They might look in the Caymans, but Martinique, I don’t think so. It’s a little too far. Besides, it’s French and you know the French,” said Morgan. “They are notoriously difficult to deal with. If the cops go poking around, they’ll find themselves in diplomatic hell.”

“Good,” said Abby. “That should give us the time we need.” In a way Abby wanted to talk to Sanfillipo, to find out what was happening in Theresa’s murder. But she knew that if she did, she would be trapped in Seattle, facing questions not only from the detective but from the press. And it wasn’t just Thompson anymore. As buzz around the book grew, others were circling, trying to track down Jack and anybody who knew him.

“There’s one more thing,” said Morgan. The phone began to break up again.

“I can’t hear you,” said Abby.

“Be careful with Jermaine. Don’t trust him, Abby.” Morgan was shouting into the phone to make himself heard. It was a terrible connection, like talking through a tube underwater. “Is he there with you right now?”

“No.”

“We have to talk, but not on the phone. I’m taking a few days and coming down there.”

“Why?” More crackling on the line. Abby sensed that she was about to lose the connection.

“I have a briefcase full of foreign contracts to be signed by his majesty,” said Spencer. “And something else we need to talk about. Very important.”

“Tell me now.”

“I can’t. Not over the phone. I’ll try to clear my calendar and come down there.” He didn’t know how he was going to do it with Cutler on his back, but somehow he would have to figure a way.

“Tell me now,” said Abby.

“Not on the phone.” He didn’t know if she’d heard him or not. The line had gone dead. It was just as good. Spencer was a firm believer. Bad news, especially when it was this good, had to be delivered in person.