IN THE DARK, page 3
“Did you notice the page number?”
“No. Sorry.”
“Neither did I. Well, maybe it won’t matter.” She returned the book to its shelf and stood up.
The envelope was sealed.
“Want me to leave?” Brace asked.
“No, that’s all right, I already told you everything about the other one.” She looked at him. “You’re sure you don’t have anything to do with this?”
“Pretty sure.”
“Only pretty sure?”
“Almost a hundred per cent sure.”
“You mean, like you don’t want to rule out that it might’ve been done behind your back by one of your alternate personalities?”
“That’s about right.”
“Okay. Well, here goes.” She thumbed the button of her switchblade. The knife jumped slightly as the blade sprang out and locked. She slipped its tip under the envelope’s flap and slashed the top seam.
To free her hand, she reached forward and set the knife on the edge of a bookshelf. Then she spread open the envelope. Inside was a folded sheet of lined paper. She removed it, unfolded it, and pursed her lips.
“Whoa,” Brace said. “Looks like you’ve earned a raise.”
Jane slipped the hundred-dollar bill aside and read the handwritten message aloud.
“ ‘My dear Jane, Congratulations! You’ve taken your first, minor step on the road to fun and riches. More is waiting. Do you have the will to proceed? I hope so. At midnight, horse around. You’ll be glad you did. Yours, MOG.’”
CHAPTER THREE
When Jane finished reading the note, Brace said, “Looks like the game’s still on.”
She nodded. She felt awfully strange.
“You don’t have any idea who’s doing this?” Brace asked.
“No idea at all.”
“He’s generous.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Jane muttered. She tucked the message and money back into the envelope, then picked up her knife. “Keep your eyes open, okay? He might be up here.”
“Hope so. Maybe he’ll give me a hundred bucks.”
“As long as that’s all he does…”
Brace stayed at her side as she walked the remaining length of the aisle, turned around and headed back. He said nothing. He seemed watchful and tense.
He’s worried, Jane realized. That was good. It confirmed her own take on the situation: anyone who would write such notes and give away that much money to a stranger was certainly abnormal—possibly dangerous.
You’d think he might want to see my reactions.
Is he watching us? Hiding up here?
If he was lurking in the stacks, however, he succeeded in staying out of sight. And he made no sounds. Jane only heard herself and Brace as they walked the old, noisy floorboards.
Maybe he’s waiting in the stairwell.
She grew more tense as they approached the stairwell door. Moving ahead of her, Brace opened it. Nobody leaped out. While he waited, Jane stepped over to the panel of light switches. She flicked one after another, dropping sections of the room into darkness until no light was left except for the glow from the stairwell.
Jane hurried over to Brace. It was good to have him holding the door open for her.
Instead of starting down the stairs, she waited for him to shut the door.
“Do you want me to go first?” he asked.
“If you go first, I’ll have to take up the rear.”
“Ah.” Smiling slightly, he shifted Youngblood Hawke into his right hand, took Jane gently by the forearm with his left, and turned her around.
“I hate this sort of thing,” she said as they started down the stairs.
“What sort of thing?”
“Feeling spooked. Being afraid somebody might jump out at me. I’m not usually such a chicken.”
“You have every right to feel nervous. I’d be pretty shaken up, too, if somebody was sending me anonymous notes. Money or no money, it’s weird.”
At the bottom of the stairs, Brace let go of Jane’s arm and swung open the door.
She hurried into the bright lights and kept moving, wanting to put distance between her back and the stairway to the stacks. When she heard the door bump shut, she whirled around and smiled at Brace. “Thanks for the moral support,” she said.
“My pleasure.” He raised the novel. “Will you let me check out the book? I know we’re past closing time, but…”
“Happy to.”
She took up her position behind the circulation desk. Brace stepped to the other side.
“I really am grateful,” she said as he slid the book toward her.
He handed over his library card, “What are you going to do about midnight?” he asked.
The question made Jane’s stomach go cold. She shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m not even sure what I’m supposed to do.”
“Horse around.”
“Whatever that means.” She slid the book back to him, his library card on top.
Brace tucked the card into his wallet, then glanced at his wristwatch. “Not quite nine-thirty yet. You’ve got a while to figure things out.” He met her eyes. “I’d be glad to help. Do you need to be anywhere right now, or…?”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Maybe we could go to a restaurant, or something?”
She stared at him.
She liked his looks. Especially his eyes. They seemed warm and friendly, intelligent—and they looked like the eyes of someone who had known many troubles but had never forgotten how to laugh.
He had the looks of a good and decent man.
But she hardly knew him at all. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know him. He seemed all right, but he might be the man behind the peculiar notes. For that matter, he might be a rapist or a killer. You just never knew. Even if he was harmless, he could turn out to be jealous and possessive enough to make her life miserable, or a womanizer who would get what he could and dump her. He might be none of the above, but already married.
All sorts of ways for Jane to get hurt—or worse—by this guy.
Then again, she thought, he might be just what he seems.
Figure it one chance in a thousand.
“A wedge of pie,” he said. “A cup of joe, and thou.”
Her small cough of laughter took her completely by surprise.
“What do you say?” Brace asked.
“Sure, why not?”
At Ezra’s, a block from the library, they sat at a corner booth and Brace plucked two menus out from behind the napkin holder. He handed one to Jane. “Hope you don’t mind if I order a full meal. Do the same, if you’d like. It’s on me.”
“What happened to the wedge of pie and cup of joe?”
He grinned. “I only said that for effect. Thing is, I skipped my supper tonight.”
“On purpose?”
“Forgot about it.”
“You forgot to eat?”
A waitress came to the table. Jane ordered a Pepsi and chili-cheese fries. Brace ordered a bacon cheeseburger, seasoned curly fries, and a root beer.
When the waitress was gone, he said, “I suddenly got this bug to read Youngblood Hawke. Does that ever happen to you? There’s some book or author you’ve always wanted to try, and all of a sudden you have to?”
“Oh, yes. Sometimes, I need an 87th Precinct fix. Or I get a sudden a craving for a Travis McGee. And there are times I feel like I can’t get through the night without reading a Hemingway story.”
“Really? Unusual tastes for a woman. But I did have you pegged for a book nut.”
“Must’ve been quite a leap, considering I’m a librarian.”
Brace laughed. “Takes one to know one. I teach lit. over at D.U. Anyway, I got the urge to read Youngblood Hawke, so I went over to the university library. Their only copy was checked out, so then I tried the B. Dalton—no luck—the Waldenbooks—no luck. Finally, I gave your library a try. Success! I grabbed the book and hurried over to the nearest carrel to start reading. Thus did I miss my supper.”
“And thus did you miss closing time.”
“My powers of concentration are awesome. And often a pain in the rear. Give you an example. I picked up an F. Paul Wilson novel at an airport gift shop last Christmas. I was supposed to fly home to spend the holidays with my family. While I was waiting for the jet to start boarding, I began to read the book there in the waiting area by the gate. A very crowded waiting area. When I came out of the book, the crowd was gone. So was my flight.”
She saw the glint in his eye. “You’re kidding.”
“It’s the truth. Stuff like that happens to me all the time.”
“But that’s awful!” she gasped, trying not to laugh.
“Oh, everything balances out. Tonight, for instance, my little problem introduced me to you.”
“Lucky you.”
“You’re quite an improvement over your predecessor.”
“You knew her?”
“Oh, yes. Old Phyllis Favor. An awful thing.”
“Her death?”
“Her life.”
Jane laughed. “That’s terrible.”
“You never met her, did you?”
“No, but…”
“I know people who stayed away from that library because of her. Real book-lovers, too. Including myself, when I finally couldn’t stomach any more of that woman. I’ve seen her make people burst into tears by the way she looked at them. Not a nice person, may she rest in peace.”
“I’ve heard she was… unpleasant.”
“The earth is a far a better place, now that she’s beneath it.”
Jane tried not to laugh, but couldn’t stop herself. “And you seemed like such a nice man.”
“People are often mistaken that way.”
The waitress arrived with their food and drinks. When she was gone, Brace lifted his glass of root beer toward Jane. “Here’s lookin’ atcha, Madame Librarian.”
She raised her Pepsi and winked at him.
And wondered if she had ever before in her life winked at anyone.
For the next few minutes, she sipped her drink and forked chili-cheese fries into her mouth and watched Brace devour his burger and fries. He didn’t say anything, just ate and looked at her and sometimes smiled. From the expressions on his face and his occasional moans, he seemed to be relishing every moment.
Done, he wiped his mouth with a napkin. He sighed. “Good eatin’.”
“Would you like to polish off my fries?” She had plenty left. She pushed the container toward him, but he shook his head.
“Gotta watch my figure,” he said.
Jane blushed. She couldn’t help it. Brace was slim and trim and looked as if he didn’t need to lose an ounce. Jane was the one who should be watching her figure, who’d been neglecting it for way too long. She hadn’t allowed herself to grow fat, but the extra weight and lack of exercise had thickened her, softened her.
Enough so that Brace’s mention of “figures” had triggered the rush of heat. With her fair complexion, a blush never failed to turn her face bright red. Brace couldn’t help but notice it.
“So,” he said, “what do you want to do about your mysterious friend?”
“I’m not sure,” she said, surprised that he’d made no comment on the blush. You are a good guy, she thought. “I guess I’m pretty curious. Who is he? Why is he doing it?”
“He or she,” Brace said.
“It might be a woman.”
“Of course, he doesn’t call himself ‘Mistress of Games.’”
Jane nodded. “So it probably is a man.”
“A man with money to spare.”
“Yeah. Jeez. Fifty bucks. I mean, I’m not exactly rich. To me, that’s a lot of money. It’s a pair of decent shoes, or a week’s worth of groceries. It’d pay my telephone bill for a couple of months.”
“He gave you a hundred and fifty.”
“I know. Fifty in the first envelope, a hundred in the second. Which means he doubled the amount the second time around. What if I find the third envelope, and he’s doubled things again? There might be two hundred in it. Or even three, if he doubles the whole amount instead of just the previous installment.”
“Or there might be nothing,” Brace said.
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe there isn’t a third envelope. Maybe you’ll figure out where it’s supposed to be, go there looking for it, and he’s waiting for you.”
“Yeah.” Though she was aware of that possibility, she didn’t like hearing it spoken. The words, especially coming from Brace, seemed to give the idea more weight. “If he wanted to jump me,” she said, “he could’ve done it in the library.”
“I was there. And you left with me.”
Jane suddenly smiled. “Ah! But at the time he left the message telling me to ‘horse around’ at midnight, he couldn’t have known I’d be leaving with you. Which means he never intended to attack me in the library.”
Brace nodded.
The waitress came to their table. “Will there be anything else, folks?”
“I’d like a cup of coffee,” Brace told her. “How about you, Jane?”
“Sure.”
As the waitress walked away, Jane shivered slightly though the restaurant was warm. She was nervous, but excited. She had goosebumps. She pressed her thighs together. She wanted to rub her arms, but that might draw Brace’s attention.
The waitress returned quickly with two mugs of coffee, and set them down in front of Jane and Brace.
Brace raised his mug. He blew a soft breath at its top. “So you’re fairly sure you want to go ahead with this?” he asked.
Jane shrugged. Her shoulders trembled slightly. Her shivers didn’t seem ready to go away. Just don’t get any worse, or Brace’ll notice.
“Is that a maybe?”
“More of an ‘I think so.’” She gritted her teeth to stop her jaw from shaking. She hadn’t attempted to drink her coffee yet. She didn’t dare lift the mug. Not while she felt like this.
Brace took a few sips from his. He watched her closely, concern in his eyes. “Are you okay?”
“Just a little nervous. Very nervous, as a matter of fact.”
“I know a great way to get over it.”
“How’s that?”
“Choose not to play the game. Keep the money you’ve gotten so far, and forget about going after any more.”
You’re probably half right. There’d still be the problem of you.
I could follow the same advice with Brace, she told herself. Choose not to play. This thing with him doesn’t have to go anywhere. It can end right here.
A corner of Jane’s mouth twitched. “Quitters never prosper,” she said.
“You want to go ahead with it?”
“I have to, don’t I?”
“You do not have to,” Brace said. “All it would take is a decision against acting on the second note.”
“But then I’ll never know what might’ve happened.”
“Do you think it’s worth the risk?”
She grimaced and rubbed her chin. Her fingers felt like ice. “I guess so. Up to a point. You know what they say: nothing ventured, nothing gained. I wouldn’t want to get hurt, though. You know? I don’t want to get myself… attacked by some lunatic. It wouldn’t be worth it, not for a couple of hundred bucks. But maybe this guy isn’t a lunatic.”
She picked up her mug. It shuddered, coffee sloshing up its sides but not quite spilling over the brim. With the help of her other hand, she managed to bring the mug under control. As she took a drink of the coffee, she met Brace’s eyes.
“You won’t have to go alone,” he told her. “Okay? If you want to follow through, I’ll go with you. I’ll do whatever I can to protect you.”
She set down her mug, but didn’t let go of it. “That’d help,” she said.
Brace reached forward. He lowered his hand down onto Jane’s left wrist, wrapped his fingers around it, and gently squeezed. His hand felt warm. It didn’t tremble at all.
“That’d help a lot,” she added. She could feel her tremors and chills subsiding.
Because he’s touching me? she wondered. Or because he’s coming with me?
“I wouldn’t be able to guarantee your safety,” he said.
“So when do we ever get guarantees?”
“When we buy a wristwatch.”
She smiled. “When we buy anything from L.L. Bean.”
Brace laughed softly. He squeezed her wrist again. “Feeling better?”
“A little bit.”
“Anyway,” he said, “we have no reason at all to believe that your mysterious Master of Games has any intention of harming you.”
“I know, I know. But if it’s not something like that, why is he doing it?”
“Could I have a look at the notes?” He let go of her wrist. It was warm where he’d been holding it, and now it felt bare and cool.
Jane turned aside. Her purse stood upright on the seat cushion, close to her hip. She reached into it and pulled out both the envelopes. She passed them to Brace. He studied the outsides of the envelopes. Then he plucked out the folded sheets of paper. He removed the fifty-dollar bill and the hundred-dollar bill, and handed them to Jane. “Why don’t you go ahead and put these in your wallet?”
“Should I?”
“They’re yours.”
“Guess so.”
While she searched her purse, found her wallet and slipped the money into its bill compartment, Brace unfolded the two notes and held them side by side.
Jane dropped the wallet back into her purse. “So, what do you think?”
“Same paper, same handwriting, same mind behind the notes. On the surface, it all seems fairly straightforward. He calls himself Master of Games, and these notes are basically instructions to the player.”
“Me.”
“You. In the first note, he invites you to play the game with him. The fifty dollars is the hook, of course. With money like that coming to you out of the blue, you can’t help but be intrigued. He’s hoping it’ll be enough to tempt you into giving his game a try. Your instruction is to ‘look homeward, angel.’ The clue is fairly ambiguous, but not at all difficult. He wanted to make things easy for you, I think. He wasn’t trying to confuse you, just get you to play along.”
