Part 1 (2/2)
Grilled vegetables, garlicky shrimp in some kind of wine sauce, and a heap of rice pilaf went by on a platter. He felt as if all the delicious smells were seizing him by the nose, floating him through the air like a cartoon character.
A hostess swiftly seated them at a table near the window, brought gla.s.ses of wine, and recommended a combination plate containing samples of the day's specials. A short time later-Carolyn hadn't even finished her wine before the food began arriving, a first for her, in Chip's experience-ecstasy ensued.
Smoked-salmon pizza slid down like ambrosia, the lobster in spinach sauce tasted like heaven, and the duck with a conserve of ginger and pa.s.sion fruit ... absolute bliss. After half an hour Chip sighed, relaxing into the pleasure of a decent meal after a long day's drive, then looked up to find Carolyn eyeing him sourly.
The spinach sauce curdled on his tongue. ”What?”
She'd ordered a whisky neat and was sipping from it, never a good sign. ”I should be asking you.”
Her blue eyes regarded him coldly across the table. He wondered if her legions of devoted fans ever noticed that they looked like ice chips, shaped and polished to resemble human eyes.
She sipped more single malt. ”Because I got an e-mail today. A very puzzling e-mail. From Siobhan Walters. About you.”
Oh, h.e.l.l. He felt the comfort of the good food slide away. Siobhan-p.r.o.nounced Sha-vaun but spelled the old Irish way-was Carolyn's New York editor.
He'd felt he could trust Siobhan. He'd believed he could confide in her, without everything he said to her getting back immediately to Carolyn.
He'd thought that Siobhan could just possibly manage to keep her mouth shut. Wrong.
He swallowed some wine, felt it go down badly and barely saved himself from a coughing fit.
”And Siobhan says”-another harmless-looking sip of the single malt, the way gasoline was harmless when you trickled it onto a fire-”Siobhan says you've got ambitions.”
She gave the word a knowing twist that told him the jig was up, so under her ice-chip gaze he decided to come clean.
”Look, Carolyn, don't take it the wrong way. You had to know that being your a.s.sistant wouldn't be a permanent career for me. I mean, don't get me wrong,” he added. ”It's been great.”
He could practically feel his nose growing. He hadn't told Carolyn about his foray into online music criticism, either. But that was minor compared to this.
”But I do have a book of my own in mind, and I did talk to Siobhan not long ago, just in an exploratory way-”
Carolyn laughed, a cawing sound of derision that drew looks from people at other tables nearby. She drank off the remaining whisky.
”Hey, it's not that I blame you for trying to slide in on my coattails,” she said. ”And Siobhan doesn't, either.”
Outside the big window, the junky pickup truck went by again. The kid behind the wheel looked happy, like he didn't want any more than he already had.
Or if he did, he wasn't worrying about it; Chip wondered enviously what it felt like not to be always desperately trying to achieve something while at the same time being afraid you couldn't.
”So I'm not very p.i.s.sed off,” continued Carolyn. ”I mean, I do get it. You want something all for yourself, and it's perfectly understandable that you would try for a shortcut.”
He looked down at his plate, where a smear of pa.s.sion fruit sauce stained the edge of a remaining bit of pizza crust. He had not been trying to take a shortcut.
”You called Siobhan?” he asked. But of course she had. At one of the rest areas on their way here, probably, on her cell phone.
Miserably, he imagined how the talk between her and Siobhan must've proceeded, their pitying laughter. His own call to the eminent editor now appeared to him for what it was: a pathetic try at raising himself above his station.
He put his napkin on the table. ”I'm sorry if I embarra.s.sed you.” There was wine still in his gla.s.s, but he didn't want it.
”You embarra.s.sed yourself, that's all. Think of it as a learning experience.”
Right, he thought bitterly-learning his place, which was that of a paid servant. He hadn't always been one, he reminded himself. But he'd bought that trip when he'd started working for Carolyn, and now he was on it. So if he was unhappy, he supposed he had no one to blame but himself.
A naturally gifted researcher, he'd discovered fifteen years earlier how easy it was to go online, learn all about nearly any subject, then sell the info nuggets he had mined to his less adept cla.s.smates for their essays and term papers.
Later on, he'd found his talent for writing things himself. He'd learned that he was fast and accurate, with an effortless knack for the phrase that summed up a whole subject in a smooth, easy-to-read way. He'd sold a few of them, too.
But stories and articles in publications that paid pennies per word didn't put food on the table, even if you liked instant mac-and-cheese alternating with ramen noodles. He'd been teaching part-time at a rural community college in Kansas, still trying to get a freelance career going, when he found Carolyn's card pinned to the student center bulletin board and called the number on it.
She'd been struggling toward writing for a living, just as he was. Six months later, he'd gathered every possible fact about the violent deaths of two pretty young women in Nevada.
After that, together he and Carolyn had come up with the kicker. The killer, a high-school track star and honor student from a wealthy family, had been stalking and murdering other young women for years, unsuspected by his parents and teachers.
Armed with the knowledge, Chip had written part of Carolyn's first draft and, let's face it, most of the book's rewrites. When the sensational trial ended in ”guilty” just as their work on it came out, Young Blood had started climbing the bestseller lists, and Young Savages was doing even better.
Immersed in these thoughts, he didn't notice Carolyn getting the check. But now he got up and made his way between the tables to pry the charge-card receipt from her.
It was part of his job to record every penny Carolyn spent, a routine she liked in theory but got irritated about in practice. But never mind, she would thank him in April, when he also handled the visits to the accountant.
Or rather, she wouldn't. His paycheck, she'd once informed him when she was feeling p.r.i.c.kly enough to be honest, was grat.i.tude enough. And anyway, he'd already decided he wouldn't be working for her anymore by then.
Tomorrow, he promised himself. After they'd met up with the anonymous e-mail informant they'd come here to see-Mr. Mystery, Carolyn had begun calling him-then he would tell her.
Music criticism, fact-checking, even freelance researching again ... anything was better than this. He followed her outside, where Eastport's main street seemed even more empty than before. No cars moving, no people; at just past nine-thirty it might as well have been midnight.
Across the bay a few lights gleamed, spa.r.s.ely sprinkled over Campobello. To the north, a lighthouse beam stabbed rhythmically at the sky.
A foghorn hooted, though the night was clear and the stars overhead shone frigidly. s.h.i.+vering, he headed for the car.
”Come on,” he told her over his shoulder. ”We'd better go find our rooms before the innkeeper turns out the lights and goes to bed.”
He'd wanted a place here in town, but Carolyn had chosen a rental cabin on the sh.o.r.e of a nearby salt.w.a.ter inlet instead. It would be more authentic, she'd said, more atmospheric.
Yeah, yeah, he thought. ”Nearby” meant at least ten miles in this part of the world. Also, the car's on-screen mapping gadget didn't work here, so on top of everything else, he would have to find the place himself.
Digging his car keys from his pocket, he hoped the cabin at least had hot running water. Then he realized that she wasn't behind him. ”Carolyn?”
A self-described free spirit, she was capable of wandering off on her own, especially with a few drinks in her. A spurt of mean glee seized him at the idea that she might get lost, but the self-indulgent emotion was fast followed by a pinp.r.i.c.k of real fear.
The guy they were meeting tomorrow was no model citizen, at least if what he'd told them about himself so far was true. But then Chip spotted her slim figure hurrying along, already halfway up the street.
”Carolyn, come on, it's late, and-”
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