Buried in a Book Read online

  In unison, Iris and Trey stuck their heads inside the cabin and beckoned urgently.

  “Ms. Wilkins?”

  “Mom! We gotta go back.”

  My head swiveled to the entrance and then back into the dimness. “I’m coming.” I redirected the flashlight beam to the cabinet. On impulse, I grabbed the journal and jammed it into the waistband of my jeans, untucking my shirt to conceal the bulge. I followed Iris and my son, glancing back once at Marlette’s deteriorating cabin. It seemed as though it was aware that its owner would never return and was now willing to be claimed by the encroaching forest.

  My sleep that night was deep and dreamless, thanks to my being exhausted from the day’s packing and cleaning, settling into my mother’s place, and all that followed at the Red Fox Co-op. Unfortunately, I’d set the alarm for five thirty to get a head start on my work, and its buzzing woke me all too soon.

  At six twenty I stood at the door to Espresso Yourself but was dismayed to read on its sign that it wouldn’t open for another ten minutes. Through the window I could see Makayla behind the counter stocking the bakery case with muffins, so I tapped on the glass. She looked up and smiled, opening the door for me just as my mouth stretched into a big yawn.

  “Girl, you look like you need a triple latte!” she exclaimed in a voice far too chipper for such an early hour. “Sit yourself down and I’ll bring you one.”

  Gratefully, I lowered myself into the closest chair, dropping my bag full of unread queries onto the floor. I had intended to tackle them when we got back to my mother’s last night, but by that point I couldn’t find the energy to even take them out of the bag. Besides, I was far more interested in Marlette’s journal, which I took to bed with me. I’d been just about to delve into it when my mother quietly opened my door. Jamming it under my pillow, I pretended to be snuggling in to sleep.

  “I made you an infusion of lemon balm and chamomile, honey. I reckoned you needed somethin’ to help you relax after your long and crazy day,” she said and then plunked herself down at the foot of the bed. I sat up and took the cup she offered. I sipped while she chatted. Later, I had a vague sense of her weight leaving the bed, and then, nothing. The next thing I knew, my alarm was buzzing.

  “Here you go, sugar,” Makayla said as she handed me my coffee, and I realized that I was lucky to have two women plying me with drinks and comfort within the space of a few hours. “This’ll put some sparkle in your step. What’s up? Too much partying?”

  I proceeded to give her a synopsis of my weekend. It was hard to believe all that had happened over the last three days.

  “Girl, you are living some kind of exciting life!” She shook her head. “What’s that boy of yours think about living in Inspiration Valley with his grandma?”

  “He’ll adjust.” I shrugged. “It’s only temporary until I find our own place here in town. He made a friend at the Red Fox Co-op last night, so that should help.”

  “You mean the coop?” Makayla laughed. “That’s what we call it here. The hippie coop. All that hemp—there’s a rumor they grow the kind you smoke, too.”

  My heart sank. I was trying to get Trey away from such temptations. “They seemed legit to me.” I took a sip of my latte. It was delightfully strong. “I found Marlette’s place just outside the co-op.”

  “Marlette? The homeless guy you think was murdered?”

  I nodded. “He wasn’t homeless. He had a house of his own…so to speak.”

  “With the way he looked and smelled, he might as well have been.” Makayla’s lovely face turned somber. “It’s sad, but there are way too many folks just like him. The other day I read an article that said there are over twelve thousand homeless people in North Carolina alone. People tend to think that they’re degenerates, but many of them are mentally ill or victims of abuse. And most people don’t care what their story is. They just want them off the streets.” She turned as a customer came through the door.

  “But I care about Marlette.” I stood. It was time to get to work. “I found a notebook of his…a journal of some sort…Hey! Do you want to get together for lunch so I can show it to you? We can examine it together to see if it contains anything that could help the police figure out why someone might have had reason to murder him.”

  She gave me a sympathetic smile. “Sure, I’ll meet you for a quick lunch, but the police aren’t going to invest too much manpower in Marlette. Not after that big fire in Dunston last night.”

  “What fire?” I hadn’t listened to the news since yesterday afternoon. For a brief second I missed being at the Dunston Herald.

  “It was all over the TV and radio this morning.” Makayla stepped behind the counter at which a short, stout man in a suit was patiently waiting to place an order. “Hold on a minute while I get Mr. Cahill his macchiato.”

  The man pulled out his wallet. “Thank you, Makayla,” he said in a surprisingly deep voice, and then he turned to me. “I couldn’t help overhearing, but I believe our beautiful barista was referring to the fire at Dover Import Warehouse where two night watchmen died of smoke inhalation.” He put some bills on the counter. “WRAL News reported that the warehouse was insured with a multimillion-dollar policy, and since my firm insures that warehouse, I expect to have a very stressful day.”

  Makayla was right. The police weren’t going to bother with the death of an insignificant someone like Marlette when big money was at stake. It would be up to me to solve his murder.

  WHEN I REACHED the stairs leading to Novel Idea just after eight o’clock, Bentley Burlington-Duke was already on her way up, her heels tapping out a staccato on the marble steps. At the top she turned, her eyes widening at the sight of me.

  “You decided to return, I see.”

  “Of course. I’m committed to this job.” Careful not to spill my second cup of coffee, I hoisted my bag as I entered the reception area after her.

  “It’s good to know that you’re dedicated.” She waved her hand at the stack of papers sticking out of my bag. “Did you manage to get through all those queries?”

  “For the most part.” A little white lie couldn’t hurt, could it? “I still have a few more to get through.”

  “Well, carry on then.” She strode toward her office. I hustled after her.

  “Ms. Burlington-Duke? Could I have a bigger workspace?” I hated to ask, but it seemed that was the only way I’d move out of that silly student desk.

  “Of course. Your office is right next to Flora’s. It contains everything you need,” she remarked while unlocking her door.

  My own office! Soon I’d have a brass placard bearing my name, just like the rest of the agents. Striding past Flora’s office, I paused in front of my door, envisioning where the nameplate would be, and turned the knob.

  The doorway revealed a small, dim cube, not much bigger than a utility closet. A tiny square window aimed a shaft of light onto an old-fashioned wooden chair and a large desk that took up most of the room. On its surface stood a lamp, a phone, a cup holder filled with pens, and two stacked desk trays. One was heaped with papers. More queries, no doubt. In the middle of the desk sat a laptop. I guess I must really have passed muster with Burlington-Duke, since I now had a computer, too.

  Switching on the lamp, I put my coffee down and slung my bag onto the desk. The office was tiny, but I could pretty it up, make it my own. However, that would have to wait. Right now, I had a pile of queries to read.

  I sat down, causing the chair to creak, and reached into my bag for the file folder of queries. I pulled it out, and Marlette’s journal slid onto the desk. I touched it and shifted my gaze from it to the queries, then back to the book. Picking it up, I slowly opened the cover.

  Chapter 7

  THE MOMENT I OPENED THE JOURNAL, A RUSH OF FOREST scents—fir trees and wood smoke and a trace of damp earth—escaped from between the pages.

  Right away, I could see that this book did not contain orderly diary entries or a cohesive fictional narrative. The first pag
e didn’t even have any writing. Instead, there was an exquisite pencil drawing of a cardinal perched on a birch branch. Marlette had also drawn a squirrel racing along the bottom of the page, an acorn awaiting him in the bottom right-hand corner.

  “How wonderful,” I breathed, feeling as though I’d just discovered a folio belonging to Beatrix Potter. However, the next page didn’t feature mischievous rabbits, fastidious mice, or daft ducks, but what seemed like a textbook example of stream of consciousness.

  No one knows what I’ve put into the story, and I won’t let her ruin my chances of seeing it published. All the nights I worked until the sun rose, in shades of pink grapefruit and tangerine beyond the window of my cabin, yet even now she would stop at nothing to punish me, to seek revenge for the imagined injury. I notice the worried looks from the corner of the eye from my colleagues when they think I’m not watching, and I can hear the words swirling in their minds silently wondering, “Did he do what she claims? Is he crazy? Will he end up in some kind of institution?” But I am not crazy or mentally ill or unstable. I just prefer my own company and that of my characters. I have lived in their world for so long now, have mapped out their lives from the cradle to the grave, that I cannot believe that their story is of no value. I won’t believe it. Everyone’s life is worth something, a great many things. If only the people who used to believe in me could see that I am more than I appear. I will prove it to them all. I will not let some spoiled little girl like that manipulative she-devil Sue Ann take this away, too. I want her to bear witness when someone else reads it. I want her to see that she hasn’t beat me. Notyetnotyetnotyet.

  To hear Marlette’s voice, speaking from a page covered by splotches of ink from a bleeding pen, strengthened my connection to him. A few days ago, I thought of him as the sad, neglected figure who’d died my first day on the job, but now that I’d seen his cabin and was holding his journal in my hands, my sense of Marlette as an individual had deepened. He was an eccentric recluse before his death, but there had clearly been someone important in his life at one point. Who was this Sue Ann? A wife? A girlfriend? Where was she now?

  I was about to examine the next page when there was a tapping on my door.

  “Come in!” I called brightly, relishing the fact that I had my own space in which to invite people.

  It was Jude. He held up a white paper bag and flashed me a smile that made my toes curl. This man was James Bond handsome. Setting the bag on my desk, his warm brown eyes met mine, and neither of us spoke for a moment. Desire crackled between us, as though we were tied by an invisible wire made of lightning.

  Shaking his head slightly, as though to chase off lustful thoughts, Jude gestured at the bag. “You had such a rough start at Novel Idea that I wanted today to be a fresh beginning for you. This is a raspberry crème croissant from the bakery in town, and if this doesn’t give you the energy to burn through those queries, then I don’t know what else can…” he trailed off, and again, the room felt close, the air weighted down with heat.

  My skin felt prickly beneath my clothes. I tried to call up a picture of Sean’s face to help me get a grip on reality, but it was impossible. I couldn’t see anything but Jude.

  “Thanks,” I murmured, embarrassed by the huskiness of my voice. After all, this man, beautiful though he was, could be Marlette’s murderer. He’d been the last one holding the bouquet and therefore had had plenty of time to pocket Marlette’s query letter. Recalling this fact allowed me to draw in a full breath, breaking Jude’s spell long enough for me to reach for the bakery bag and peer inside.

  A rush of sumptuous aromas sprang from within. Plump, tart raspberries blended with soft cream cheese inside a pocket of warm, flaky dough nearly seduced me all over again, but I folded the bag closed and smiled at Jude. “Wow, thank you. I’m going to save that as a reward for finishing twenty-five query letters.”

  “Good for you.” He leaned against the doorframe. “I’m more of an instant gratification kind of guy.”

  Lord help me. In another second I was going to have to fan my flushed cheeks with a file folder. Mercifully, Jude gave me a little wave and made to leave.

  I couldn’t let him go without asking him about the flowers, so I called his name. “This might sound strange,” I said, “but there was a piece of paper attached to the bottom of Marlette’s bouquet—the one you threw out on Friday. Do you know what it said?”

  Jude shrugged, his expression betraying nothing. “I assumed it was another query letter. I haven’t read any of them, but our interns have never seen a reason to pass Marlette’s on to an agent, so I didn’t bother looking at Friday’s version. Besides, I was kind of preoccupied with Carson’s deal.”

  “So the letter was still wrapped around the flower stems when you tossed the bouquet in the Dumpster?”

  “Yeah.” He cocked his head inquisitively. “Why?”

  I feigned nonchalance. “I just wanted to read his query. Professional curiosity, I guess.”

  He nodded. “Hopefully you’ll have a winner in your current pile or in the hundreds of emails that probably came in over the weekend.”

  “Ugh,” I groaned, wondering if I’d ever catch up. “I’d better get to it, then.”

  The moment he was gone, the fuzzy feeling in my head evaporated, and I vowed not to be so affected by Jude’s charms that I overlooked the very real possibility that he might be a killer. I didn’t know him well enough to trust that he’d told me the truth, no matter how much I wanted to believe that he had nothing to do with Marlette’s murder.

  With the workday now in full swing, I couldn’t afford to spend more time perusing Marlette’s journal. I’d save that investigation for my lunch with Makayla.

  Reaching for my query folder, I began to read. It didn’t take long to place twenty in the rejection pile, and I noticed that these aspiring writers were following a similar trend. Of all twenty queries, nineteen writers had compared their work to that of a contemporary bestselling author. Within the first two or three sentences of those letters, I’d been assured that I was being given the opportunity to discover the next John Grisham, Nora Roberts, Stephanie Meyer, Stieg Larsson, and so on. Yet not one of the writers had illustrated a strong enough voice, plot, or hook to convince me that their novels were worthy of consideration.

  By the time my coffee was finished, I’d read over thirty query letters and had placed only one in the possibilities folder. It was for a young adult fantasy novel about twins who traveled back in time to a variety of ancient cultures. The high school sophomores, who were academically gifted but not always popular, never knew when they were going to embark on a new journey. However, their inventiveness and ability to blend in with their surroundings always enabled them to survive long enough to return home. I figured that the success of Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series had created an interest in ancient cultures and decided to bring the query to Flora while getting myself a second cup of coffee.

  Her office was empty, but I found her in the break room. Her back was turned, and I could see that she was concentrating on pouring boiling water into a ceramic cup covered by a design of wild roses with one hand while steeping a tea bag with the other. She hummed all the while, and I paused at the threshold, smiling at the pleasant sound.

  “Hi there,” I said when she’d finished pouring. “That’s a pretty song.”

  “It’s ‘In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening.’ Rosemary Clooney.” Flora poured two sugar packets into her tea. “A little before your time.”

  Putting the query letter on the counter, I gave the stainless steel coffeepot a little shake. Empty. As I searched the cupboards for ground coffee and filters, Flora sat at the square table and sipped her tea.

  “They’re in the freezer, dear,” she informed me.

  Spying several one-pound bags of coffee bearing Espresso Yourself labels, I focused on prepping the coffee machine, set it to brew, and then took a chair opposite Flora. “I have a query letter to show you. I think it has po
tential.”

  Flora accepted the letter and read it on the spot. I pictured the author, a middle school teacher in nearby Chapel Hill, standing in front of her class and waiting to call on a student. Did she experience a slight tingle? Did her sixth sense whisper that the woman in charge of selling the children’s books and young adult novels of this literary agency was, at this very moment, perusing her query? If she knew, would her palms go clammy? Would her hand tremble as she wrote vocabulary words on the dry-erase board? Would she suddenly have to sit down? I grinned to myself, imagining the teacher’s delight should Flora send her an email asking for the first three chapters of her manuscript.

  Setting the paper down, Flora sighed. “It has potential, but it’s too big of a story for the young adult genre. If they only traveled to one culture per book, that would be doable, but three? Too ambitious, I’m afraid.”

  I was surprised by my disappointment. Trying not to sound defensive, I said, “Couldn’t you ask her to rewrite the book so that it focused on a single ancient civilization? She could turn this idea into a three-book series. I bet she’d jump at the chance to make those changes.”

  Flora reached across the table and gave my hand a maternal pat. “You’ve got a good heart, honey, I can tell. But we get letters that are close to the target all the time. We’re looking for the ones that hit the bull’s-eye, that make our blood rush through our veins. When we read one of those letters, we hope and pray that we can get in touch with the author before some other agent does.” She fluttered her eyelashes and looked up at the ceiling. “Ah, the sensation is heavenly—that connection you make when a writer pitches a saleable idea and has the talent to back it up. It makes all the tough days worthwhile.”

  I didn’t ask what she meant by “tough.” My first day on the job had been fairly traumatic already, and I wanted to concentrate on the positive aspects of becoming a literary agent. Still, Flora’s statement reminded me that she had disliked the man who died in this office Friday morning.