THIRTY-THREE

It was early morning, just a little after six, when Abby burst into Morgan’s room. She threw open the door so hard that it slammed against the wall and came back at her.

“Get up. Get out of bed!” she yelled. “Jack’s left the island.”

Spencer rolled over in the bed and lifted his head, sleep still apparent in his eyes.

“What?”

“He’s gone.” She grabbed his feet at the bottom of the bed with both hands. “And he’s taken my outline with him.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I left it on the table next to the computer last night and this morning it’s gone. I called Jack’s room at the Buccaneer. They told me he left for the airport early this morning.”

“Where’s he gone?”

“They didn’t know, but if I had to guess I’d say New York.”

Morgan wiped sleep from his eyes, sat up and shook his head. “He checked out of the room?”

“No.”

“You said he wasn’t scheduled to go back to New York for three more days,” said Morgan.

“I know. It looks like you were right. He’s making a move on the book.”

Morgan got out of bed and started looking for his clothes, stepped into the bathroom, and they talked through the closed door while he changed from his pajamas.

Abby had turned the house upside down, but there was no sign of the outline to the sequel. Apart from the copyright, it was her only remaining point of control. She remembered leaving the outline on the table by her computer before going to dinner the night before. Now it was gone.

“You heard him last night. Something’s going on in New York. He’s cut some kind of a deal with them. He intends to deliver the outline. So what do we do?” she asked.

“We don’t panic,” said Morgan.

“He’ll deliver the outline. Maybe he already has. He could have faxed it this morning for all we know,” said Abby.

“We need to think. The important thing now is how to deal with the publisher,” said Morgan.

“That’s going to be tough with Jack in the middle,” said Abby. Morgan came out of the bathroom with his clothes on looking for his socks and shoes.

“That’s why we took precautions,” said Morgan.

She looked at him.

“The documents. The registration of copyright and the contracts we had him sign. It’s time for plan B,” said Morgan.

“What are you talking about?”

“I guess it’s O.K. to tell you now. You promise you won’t kill me?”

“Kill you for what?” said Abby.

“I never trusted him from the beginning,” said Morgan. “I was worried he had too much control. So I contacted another lawyer in New York, with a major firm that specializes in publishing matters, First Amendment, copyright infringement, that kind of stuff. I knew sooner or later there would be a problem with Jack. So I wanted to flank him.”

Abby gave him a look. “What about this firm?”

“I figured they would give us credibility if we got into a shoving match with Jermaine. It’s a large firm, one that publishers deal with all the time. I put them on retainer about two months ago and made arrangements with one of the partners. Kept ’em in my hip pocket,” said Morgan. “I hope you don’t mind. I used your money.”

Abby smiled at him. Morgan was always two jumps ahead. It was the reason she valued him. His mind was like a taxi meter, running twenty-four hours a day. If his billings had kept pace, he would have retired as a millionaire ten years earlier.

“How much have you told these lawyers in New York?”

“They know Jack didn’t write the book. At least they have my word for it. The trick now is to get to them with the documents, the copyright, and the contracts that Jack signed. To have them finesse it with the publisher so as to minimize damage.”

“Minimize damage hell,” said Abby. “I want to kick his ass.”

“Trust me,” said Morgan. “Damage control. That’s the key right now. Otherwise we run the risk of scaring Bertoli. If he sees a protracted court battle with all of its bad press, he’s gonna pull the plug on the book. That leaves you and Jack fighting over a bag of bones. This is business. We’ll get even later.”

Morgan was hopeful that they could keep the ball rolling on the book without missing a beat. Simply have the publisher make Jack disappear. That would be much easier with a powerful New York law firm that talked the publishing language. Their lawyers could nail Jack’s feet to the floor with one hand while they finessed Bertoli with the other.

“We can forget about waiting thirty days to tell Bertoli the truth,” said Abby. “Jack made that impossible. Every day we wait gives him more time to erode our position.”

“So what now?”

“First we’ve got to get the documents, the contracts, and the copyright, and then we’ve got to get to New York.” Abby’s brain was in hyperdrive. “If we’re lucky, we might be able to do that by tomorrow morning.” It was now Sunday.

“They’re in a safe-deposit box at the bank. I didn’t trust Cutler. He’s probably been going through my files at night. No. I’ll have to get them myself.”

He laced up his shoes. “I’ll call the airline and make reservations.”

“What do we do about the outline?” she asked.

“Do you have an extra copy?”

“In my computer.”

“Print it out. In the meantime, you package up your computer and your printer. See if you can find a box for shipping, we’ll send them directly to the firm in New York.”

“What for?”

“Evidence,” said Morgan. “You produced the outline with that equipment, didn’t you?”

Abby nodded.

“A good expert can probably prove it. One more piece of evidence for our side,” said Morgan.

It hit Abby like a thunderbolt. “Oh my God!” The missing typewriter from her house. She looked at Morgan still sitting on the bed lacing his shoes.

From her expression Morgan knew that she’d finally figured it out.

“That’s why it was missing. Jack took it. How long have you known?”

“I didn’t want to say anything,” said Morgan. “I had no proof. But when we couldn’t find it, you had to figure whoever demolished your house also took the typewriter. Ask yourself one question: Why take an old manual typewriter and leave a perfectly good television set behind?”

“Because the manuscript had been typed on it,” said Abby.

“Precisely.”

A sober look came over Abby as she stood at the edge of the bed. “And the accident with the electrical box.”

“It was intended for you,” said Morgan. “Theresa just showed up at the wrong time.”

“And he killed Joey,” said Abby.

“One more loose end.”

“Aw God! I’m gonna lose it,” she told him. Abby felt sick, nauseous. She turned away and nearly retched thinking about it. She had made love to the man and all the while she was sleeping with Theresa’s murderer.

“I never loved him. Never.” As if by saying it she could erase the intimate moments they’d spent together. Abby also knew if was a lie. She started to tear up.

Morgan reached out for her, but Abby was too angry to be held. She wanted to lash out. “I’m sorry,” she told him. “I’m going to the police.”

“With what?” said Morgan. “There’s no evidence. What are you going to tell them, that Jack stole your outline?” He was right. She had nothing.

“I don’t know. But I have to tell them something. At least point them in the right direction.”

“That’s what he wants you to do. While we’re trying to explain to the police, he’s going to be selling the outline to Bertoli. He’s probably already making plans to revoke the power of attorney.”

She looked op at him. She had forgotten about the power of attorney, the document that directed Bertoli and the film producers to send the royalties and advances to Morgan’s office. Now that he’d broken from them, Jack, with a single stroke of a pen, could divert the stream of money to himself.

“He’s going to have problems when he tries to write the book. I’ve seen his writing,” said Abby.

“For a quarter million he can find somebody to ghost it. That leaves him with four or five million and change,” said Morgan, “Not bad for a day’s work. And right now he’s got the only commodity that counts.”

Abby looked at him, a question mark.

“The name you gave him, Gable Cooper,” said Morgan. He was right, Bertoli’s ad campaign had turned it into gold.

“I wanted a commercial book. I guess I got it,” said Abby.

“The question is how to keep it. If he cuts off our stream of cash, starts getting his hands on the advances and royalties, he’ll be using your money to fight you in court. Where do you think Bertoli will come down if Jack gets his own army of lawyers?”

“I don’t know,” said Abby.

“I don’t want to find out,” said Morgan. “We’ve got to move fast. Oh, shit, I forgot!”

When she looked over, Morgan was looking at the ceiling.

“What’s the matter?”

“I’m supposed to meet with the client in San Juan tomorrow. The maritime case I told Cutler about.” He made a face at Abby, a lot of consternation.

“Break the appointment,” said Abby.

“Don’t worry. I’ll find some way to get out of it,” said Morgan.

He headed for the kitchen and the telephone. Morgan called the airlines looking for reservations while Abby packed a bag, and boxed up the computer and the printer. Fortunately she’d kept the boxes she’d bought them in.

When she came into the kitchen Morgan had his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone and a dour look on his face. Things were not going well.

“Next flight doesn’t leave until seven tonight.”

“Book it,” said Abby.

“Problem is they only have one seat available.”

Abby thought for a moment. “You take it. You’ve got to get to Seattle and then back. I can catch a flight in the morning and go directly to New York. We can meet there. Is there anything open on the morning flights?”

Morgan went back on the line.

“They’ve got open seats tomorrow. Early morning flight.”

“No problem,” said Abby.

Morgan hesitated. “I don’t like it.”

“Why not?”

“What if Jack comes back?”

“Why would he come back?” Abby shook her head. “By tonight he’ll be having dinner with Carla and Bertoli. They’ll be working changes into my outline and suggesting casting for the film. He’s not coming back.”

“I don’t know,” said Morgan. “I don’t feel comfortable.”

“What choice do we have?”

Morgan had no answer for that. He got back on the phone and ordered the tickets using his credit card, then hung up.

“We can pick them up at the airport tonight. Deliver the computer and printer for shipping at the same time.”

“I wish I knew where Charlie was,” said Abby.

“Yeah. Then we’d have your car.”

“Not that,” said Abby. “I just don’t want to leave him here alone. I know he doesn’t deserve it, but I’d like to give him a heads-up. Tell him to get off the island.” While she was telling Morgan that Jack wouldn’t be back, Abby was worried. She remembered Joey. He knew very little about the book, but if Morgan was right, he was killed because of that knowledge. Charlie was in danger and he didn’t know it. She remembered Jack’s comments about reasoning with him and the fight in San Juan. True, it may have been self-defense, but Jack thought nothing about leaving a bleeding body in the street.

“Leave a message for him at the Buccaneer,” said Morgan. “Something discreet. Tell him to get back to Seattle. Tell him there’s a pile of money waiting there for him. He’ll know what to do.”

They spent the rest of the morning and the afternoon planning their moves in New York. Spencer called and left a message on VoiceMail with the lawyers in New York, telling them that things were now on a fast track and that a meeting was necessary Tuesday. Then he made reservations for two rooms at the Hilton in Manhattan for Monday night. Morgan, if he was on time, would come in Monday afternoon. He checked the flights between Seattle and New York and made another set of reservations. He would be flying through the night.

About six o’clock Abby called the cab while Morgan made a note with the law firm’s name and address on it and taped it to the outside of the boxes with the computer and printer inside.

Ten minutes later they were on their way to the airport. Morgan gave the driver twenty bucks to forget all the speed limits. They raced through Christiansted and out toward the north end of the island. They headed west and got to the airport with only a few minutes to spare.

Morgan got the tickets at the counter, separated them, and handed Abby hers.

“I don’t like this at all,” he told her. Morgan didn’t want to get on the plane without her.

“There’s nothing to worry about. He’s in New York. I’ll be out of here first thing in the morning.” She checked her ticket. “Seven-fifteen sharp,” she told him.

“Transfer in San Juan, then to Miami, hold over for an hour and to JFK.” He repeated her itinerary as if it wasn’t on the tickets.

“Now listen to me.” Morgan had a stern look on his face, all business. “After I leave, take the package to air express and as soon as you’re finished, go back to the house, go inside, and lock the doors. Don’t let anybody in. Catch a cab in the morning and come right back here. No other stops, do you understand?”

She nodded dutifully and gave him a mock salute.

“I’m not kidding.”

“I know. I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll call you tonight, from San Juan.” He looked at his watch. “I should be there in about an hour and a half. Stay by the phone.”

“I will.”

“Then I’ll see you in New York Monday night.” He paused. “When I asked you to come away with me, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

Abby smiled. “I know. I have no right to ask this of you.”

“You didn’t. I offered. Friends, remember?”

He kissed her on the forehead, then the cheek, then disappeared through the gate.

Abby went back to the taxi and told the driver to take her to air freight. There was a line, and by the time she finished, it had taken almost forty minutes to process the packages, and more than a hundred dollars to send them. She put it on her debit card.

On the drive back in the taxi she actually fell asleep so that the motion of the car stopping in front of her house woke her. When Abby opened her eyes the driver was waiting with his hand over the front seat for the fare. She collected herself, looked at the meter, then fished in her purse and came up with the money.

The cab drove away and left her standing out on Shoy Beach Road. She turned and started down the dirt driveway. It wasn’t until she was halfway down that she saw it. The little blue BMW with its top down was parked in the carport next to the house. Charlie was back. At least she wouldn’t be alone. She moved quickly down the driveway to the house. The front door was unlocked. She thought Morgan had locked it, but she couldn’t remember.

“Charlie,” She called his name. There was no answer. She checked the kitchen, then walked through the hall to the bedrooms. He wasn’t there. She opened the sliding glass door and looked out on the beach. It was getting dark and the sand was deserted. Stars had begun to emerge in the night sky. A fingernail moon was riding a ridge of clouds on the horizon.

Abby closed the sliding door and locked it, then looked at the clock on the wall in the kitchen. Morgan’s plane would be approaching San Juan. He would be calling in half an hour.

“Charlie. Don’t play games with me.” Her tone was now that of a mother giving a final warning to a child. She had visions of Charlie drunk, hiding in the house, getting ready to jump her bones as she got ready for bed. It was the kind of thing Charlie would do, especially with a few drinks under his belt. Tonight he would get all he was looking for. Abby was already on edge.

His fingers moved deftly to sever the line at one of the fittings. He used two adjustable wrenches, one to hold the pipe and the other to turn the fitting. He covered both on the inside with cloth to dampen any noise and avoid scratches on the fitting. Scratches on an old pipe might be something investigators would key in on.

He loosened the pressure fitting until he heard the hiss of gas. It would look better that way, something that worked its way loose. It would also give him more time to finish the job before the air in the crawl space became unbreathable.

He made his way to another junction in the line. This one led to the kitchen and up through the floor to the propane stove.

He had already smothered the pilot light for the furnace and disconnected the electronic ignition for the stove. He didn’t want any unintentional accidents.

There was an open chase four feet away that led from the crawl space under the floor along an outside wall to the attic above. This was used as a passage for plumbing and electrical lines.

He fed a plastic tube he’d brought with him up into the chase measuring off twelve feet. The polyurethane tube would begin to melt at three hundred degrees. It would vaporize at the temperatures ignited by a large propane fire. They would find none of it when it was over. He opened the other fitting, and using duct tape fastened the open end of the tube to the leak in the line. It wasn’t a hundred percent efficient, but it would work. Gas began to move through the tube into the attic where it would lie like a deadly fog until it was time.

Abby checked the two bathrooms. There was no sign of Charlie. Finally she went outside to the carport. The keys to her car were in the ignition. They were still on the ring with a little piece of red ribbon around it, just as they had been when Jack took them out of the envelope at the front desk of the Buccaneer the day they arrived. So much had happened since then. It seemed like another lifetime.

She removed the keys from the ignition and put them in her pocket. Abby looked around to see if maybe Charlie had taken a walk, perhaps to have a cigarette outside, but there was no sign of him.

Maybe he’d gone back to the Buccaneer. Knowing Charlie, that was it. To get a drink or carouse on the dance floor until they closed up. Half of her wanted him to stay there, to work off his horny attitude on somebody else. Half of her wanted him to come back to the house, if for no other reason than to give her someone to talk to.

Still her mind kept picking at something that didn’t fit. If he wasn’t here, what was the BMW doing in the carport? Maybe Charlie’d had a sudden pang of conscience? She thought about it. Not Charlie.

Abby went back inside and remembered Morgan’s advice. She locked the front door and put the chain on. Then she went around the house and checked all the doors and windows. She felt paranoid, but she did it anyway.

Trade winds and open windows were the only air-conditioning the house had. The night was warm and muggy and within a few minutes the house began to feel uncomfortable. Abby felt dizzy. She didn’t know why. The accumulation of the day’s heat trapped in the attic was now finding its way out down through the ceiling. There was a cool breeze outside on the beach. But tonight Abby would have to try to sleep with the windows closed.

She stepped into the bathroom, dropped her clothes on the floor, and climbed into the shower. She allowed cool water to run over her body for ten minutes, keeping track of the time on her waterproof sports watch. She didn’t want to miss Morgan’s call. If she failed to answer, he would panic and think something had gone wrong. He would be back on the next flight. Abby knew Spencer.

With five minutes to spare before his plane was scheduled to land in San Joan she turned off the water, toweled herself dry, and threw on a robe. She continued to towel her hair and grabbed a diet Coke from the refrigerator. Then she picked up around the house. The place was a mess. Abby had no idea when or if she would be back. She thought about arrangements to have the car shipped to Seattle and how much it might cost. She hoped Charlie had enjoyed it. Between Charlie and Jack she had only been behind the wheel twice. Men were such pricks.

It would take only a slight spark, the completed synapse of an electrical circuit, to ignite the gas. He pulled himself through the small hole at the side of the house and out from under the crawl space, then took his first deep breath in several minutes.

Quickly he moved to the little metal box nailed to the siding. He lifted the cover and attached two fine lead wires to the copper terminals inside, then looked at the wire going from the box along the side of the house. It joined the power lines at the corner near the front and from there disappeared into a plastic conduit for the journey underground.

In the islands burying utility lines was the least of two bad options. Hurricanes blew down power poles and surge tides flooded underground lines.

He wired one of the fine lead wires to the end of a small spark plug and wrapped the other around the metal tip near the gap. Then he tossed the spark plug as far as he could through the hole into the crawl space.

He sniffed the fumes of gas that were now surging under the house. With every cycle a new spark would bridge the gap in the plug. He couldn’t imagine that it would take more than one or two.

Abby had laid her airline tickets on the kitchen table when she entered the house, and now she picked them up to place them in her briefcase so she wouldn’t forget them.

It was getting too hot. Advice or no advice, she needed some air. She opened the sliding door and stood there facing the ocean. Cool currents washed over her, blowing open the folds of her robe and bracing her naked body in the crisp salt air of the sea.

She drank her Coke and remembered the first nights on the island when ignorance was bliss, before she knew about Jack and all of his lies. Thoughts flooded her mind, all the things she had to do before morning. She remembered her manuscript, the hard copy of which was printed and piled on her work table in the bedroom. Without her computer she was out of business, at least until she got to New York.

She took another sip of Coke and looked down at the tickets in her other hand and suddenly, as if the drink had done something for the mental synapse of her brain, it hit her like a lead weight. Her passport! Abby didn’t have it. It was locked in the ElSafe in Jack’s room at the Buccaneer. She had forgotten about it. Where was her mind? Without it she couldn’t get off the island.

She headed for the bedroom. A cold sweat broke out on her forehead. Somewhere she had a key to Jack’s room, one of those plastic coded cards with holes drilled in them. But where was it? Abby hadn’t used it in weeks. She couldn’t remember the combination for the safe. Jack had asked her for her birthdate that day she put the passport and the second debit card in the safe, and Abby had lied. She couldn’t remember what she’d told him, the year. What if he’d changed the combination, or destroyed the passport? She would be trapped on the island with no way off, not before filling out a flood of forms for the bureaucracy. A million worries flooded her brain.

She headed down the hall to the bedroom. The first thing she needed was clothes. She opened the closet and as she did, something caught her eye in the corner of the room. It was a jacket, one she had seen before, Charlie’s jacket. When Abby turned her head to look for her slacks her heart nearly stopped.

“Oh shit!” It was fright on the edge of pain, like ice in her veins.

“Damn it. Jesus, Charlie.” She turned and walked away. She was gasping for air, deep breathing and feeling dizzy.

“The next time you do something like this so help me!” She felt her pulse pounding in her chest. Her hand, still clutching the airline tickets, was in the opening of her robe above her breast. For a moment she thought she was actually going to pass out.

“Damn you, Charlie.” She struggled to catch her breath. She was doubled over, one hand on her knee. Charlie wasn’t saying a word.

“If you ever . . .” It took a couple of seconds for her pulse to steady, and then anger started to take hold. She stood up straight, stretched the muscles of her rib cage, and took a deep breath. As she did this, Abby stared directly into the mirror over the dresser drawers.

Charlie was still in the shadows of the closet. He hadn’t moved. He was wearing some artsy tie-dye shirt, white with a brown-red blaze from shoulder to waist. No doubt some hot threads for the clubs, she thought.

She looked in the glass without turning around and suddenly realized that Charlie seemed to have legs of rubber. His knees were splayed akimbo like some puppet, his shoes lost in the hanging garments at the rear of her closet. It was a posture that defied gravity.

His expression was the queerest smile, and when Abby turned she saw the reason. The black wire of a coat hanger was coiled around his neck and wound over the clothes rod that held up his body. The rust-colored hue of Charlie’s shirt took on new meaning.

Abby’s hands went to her mouth, but the scream never came out. She ran headlong down the hall. Two strides and a piercing screech that she hardly recognized as her own echoed off the walls. Like water finding the course of least resistance, she erupted into the living room and saw only one thing—the open sliding door to the deck. In an instant she was through it into the darkness beyond, bare feet over rocks and marsh grass, not feeling the broken conch shells like knives cutting her flesh.

She was twenty feet from the house, breathless, and frantic, out of her mind when she heard it. The ringing of a telephone somewhere in the distance behind her. It stopped her dead in her tracks like she’d been hit by a bullet from a rifle. Morgan! He was calling. She turned and took one step back.

The next chime of the phone was seared in her mind by the heat of the blast. It lifted her off of her feet, and toasted the front of her body as the concussion of the shock wave threw her ten feet onto her back in the sand. It was like a surreal dream. The fiery mushroom jumped a hundred feet into the night sky, its brilliant orange and yellow flare obliterating the stars. The roof of the house actually lifted skyward and buckled in midair. An instant later it disintegrated into a million flaming pieces.

Abby scrambled to her feet and ran, then dove for the sand as burning embers and fiery shards of wood descended around her. There was a secondary blast and the remains of a water heater bounced with a dull thud on the ground twenty feet from where she lay. One hand went to her face and she felt the warmth of blood. A tiny piece of glass was embedded in her cheek just below her right eye. She plucked it out and lay there dazed. A corner of her robe was on fire, still burning. She finally gathered enough sense to sit, and managed to pound out the flames on her clothing in the sand.

Then she crawled toward the beach under the shelter of a young tamarind tree. She pulled the robe tight around her naked body and looked back toward the house. The walls and roof were gone. All that remained were the flaming innards fueled by the night air, and flickering embers on the dark ground like stars as far as she could see.

In the glow of the burning house a solitary figure was silhouetted on a bluff above the house near the road. For an instant, Abby started to get up to run toward it. Then she froze, trained her eyes to the night sky, took a closer look and realized—it was Jack.