“You did? How?” She sat on the edge of the sofa. Hugo crossed his arms and leaned against the bookcase across from her. A bookcase haphazardly stuffed with rare first editions of legendary children’s books—Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, The Wind in the Willows, The Hobbit, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens…Books worth a few million dollars displayed as casually as the magazines in a doctor’s waiting room.
“Jack never liked his old illustrator. The publisher hired him, not Jack. When his publisher decided to re-release the books with new covers, Jack held a fan art contest. Davey, my younger brother—he loved Jack’s books more than life. I’d draw him pictures from the stories all the time—the Storm Seller, the Black & White Hat Hotel, all those. Davey saw a story about the contest and demanded I send in my drawings. Never thought anything of it except I wanted to make him happy. Lo and behold—”
“You won.”
He raised his hands to say, guess so. “I won. The prize was supposedly five hundred dollars. That wasn’t the real prize. I won the chance to be the new illustrator.”
Lucy grinned. “I bet Davey reminds you that you owe him big-time every single day.”
“He did, yeah,” Hugo said. “He died a few years ago.”
She looked at him, her eyes full of tender sympathy. “Mr. Reese, I’m so—”
“Call me Hugo.”
“Hugo,” she said. “You can call me Lucy. Or Hart Attack, I guess. That’s what you called me back then.”
“Sounds like me. Classic ass back then.”
“Only back then?” she said with a grin.
“Offensive,” he said. “But not inaccurate.”
“Hey, that’s my line.”
Hugo wanted to say something, to keep chatting her up, but they were out of time. Every clock in the entire sitting room and library began to toll the hour.
“We should go in,” he said when the clocks were silent again. “Jack will show his face soon, I hope.”
“Once more into the breach.” She reached for the doorknob.
Before he could stop himself, he put his hand on the door, preventing her from opening it.
“Do you remember the name of the man who drove you here?” he asked and immediately regretted it.
“Mike. Mikey if you likey. Why?”
“Never mind. Go on.”
She put on a brave face and opened the door.
“Lucy,” he said, and she looked back at him. “Good luck.”
Chapter Twelve
Lucy’s hand shook with nerves as she pushed open the library door. When she stepped inside the library, three pairs of eyes turned her way, scrutinizing her, sizing her up. Her competition.
She smiled shyly as she made her way into the room. “Evening, fellow runaways,” she said, giving them a little wave. “I’m Lucy.”
“Hi, Lucy. I’m Melanie. It’s nice not to be the only girl here.” An Asian woman in her late thirties with a Canadian accent approached her and held out her hand to shake. She was tall and thin with long dark hair pulled into one of those perfectly sleek ponytails that Lucy had never been able to master. She wore a soft cream-colored sweater, cashmere from the look of it, slim dark jeans, and brown leather boots.
Lucy shook her hand. “Nice to meet you.”
Melanie waved her hand at a handsome Black man standing by the sideboard in a dark blue suit. “This is Andre Watkins. Attorney from Atlanta.”
“How you doing, Lucy?” Andre took a step forward and shook her hand vigorously, like a politician. “You were great on TV. A real pro.”
“So were you,” Lucy said. “You nearly made Hoda fall out of her chair.”
“It’s what I do,” Andre said. Lucy could picture him running for governor of Georgia in a few years.
“Dustin,” said the other man in the room. “Welcome to the party.”
Lucy said her hellos. Dustin, she recalled, was the ER doctor. He looked like someone who hadn’t seen the sun for a long time. He was wearing jeans and a blazer, a crisp white button-down underneath. Everyone was better dressed than she was. Better dressed and older, and they seemed much more comfortable. She felt as if she’d shown up a day late at summer camp, and everyone had already made friends. It didn’t help that the library was so grand and imposing—dark wood and a massive fireplace, dark green wallpaper, and even one of those rolling library ladders.
“Sorry if I held things up. Long flight from California.” Lucy found the coffee on a sideboard, poured a cup for herself. Her stomach growled. She hadn’t eaten real food since breakfast.
“Thought you were from around here,” Dustin said, head cocked to the side as if he were weighing her in his mind.
She hadn’t expected these people to know her life story, but if they saw her as the competition, she guessed it made sense. She’d watched them on TV and googled their life stories. They’d been watching and googling her too.
“I was, yeah,” she said. “Then I moved out to California. Tired of being cold all the time.” That was her stock answer, and it usually warded off follow-up questions.
Dustin started to say something else when the door opened again. Jack?
But no, it was Hugo. He walked into the library and stood in front of the fireplace.
“Against my will and my better judgment…hello,” Hugo said.
He looked simultaneously miserable and handsome. Lucy laughed at him behind her coffee cup.
He might have looked different to her eyes than he had years ago, but Hugo Reese was exactly as she remembered him—crotchety as an old man yelling at kids to get off his lawn. They were the kids, and Clock Island was his lawn.
The contestants all responded with a wary hello.
“I have a message from Jack. My apologies in advance. The message is, ‘The game will begin at six o’clock.’”
“Wait, at six?” Melanie said. “It’s already almost eight. Six in the morning, then?”
Hugo sighed as if in physical pain. “Name? Hugo Thomas Reese. Rank? Underemployed artist. Serial number…I don’t know what that means. And Jack’s message is, ‘The game will begin at six o’clock.’ That’s what he said, and it’s all I can say.”
Andre snapped his fingers so loudly that Melanie jumped a little.
“Game begins at six o’clock?” Andre said to Hugo. “That’s the message?”
“That’s the message.”
Andre pumped his fist, then pointed at Hugo. “I got you. Come on. We’re going.” He waved his hands, indicating everyone needed to stand up.
“Wait. What’s happening?” Melanie said as she picked up her purse.
“We’re on Clock Island,” Andre said. “It’s not six o’clock, the time. It’s Six O’Clock, the place. Right? I’m right, right?”
Hugo gave a golf clap.
“Knew it. I remember Dad teaching me to drive, saying, ‘Hands at ten and two, always ten and two.’”
Lucy was annoyed at herself for not guessing that immediately. She’d seen the clock in the sitting room with her own eyes but couldn’t remember what was at the six. Time to stop acting like a fangirl and focus.
“Follow the smell of smoke,” Hugo said. “And don’t trip and break your legs in the dark.”
Andre, clearly ecstatic over his first victory, ushered everyone out of the library with the brisk efficiency of a school principal. He led them out of the house to the front porch. “Let me get my bearings,” he said, glancing around.
Lucy smelled the smoke first. Delicious smoke. A bonfire.