The FBI had stopped by a month after the Fitzgerald heist at Princeton. Of course, Joel knew nothing. A month later, they were back, and he still knew nothing. After that, though, he learned a lot. Fearing the FBI had tapped his phones, Joel had disappeared from the D.C. area and went under deep cover. Using prepaid and disposable cell phones, he had made contact with the thief and had met him at an interstate motel near Aberdeen, Maryland. The thief had introduced himself as Denny and his accomplice was Rooker. A couple of tough guys. On a cheap bed in a double room that was worth seventy-nine dollars a night, Joel took a look at the five Fitzgerald manuscripts that were worth more than any of the three could imagine.
It had been obvious to Joel that Denny, undoubtedly the leader of the gang or what was left of it, was under enormous pressure to unload them and flee the country. “I want a million dollars,” he’d said.
“I can’t find that much,” Joel had replied. “I have one and only one contact who will even talk about these books. All the boys in my business are extremely spooked right now. The Feds are everywhere. My best, no, my only, deal is half a million.”
Denny had cursed and stomped around the room, pausing occasionally to peek through the curtains and glance at the parking lot. Joel got tired of the theatrics and said he was leaving. Denny finally caved and they completed the details. Joel left with nothing but his briefcase. After dark, Denny left with the manuscripts and instructions to drive to Providence and wait. Rooker, an old Army pal who had also turned to crime, met him there. Three days later, and with the assistance of another intermediary, the transfer had been completed.
Now Denny was back in Georgetown, with Rooker, and looking for his treasure. Ribikoff had given him a good screwing the first time around. It would not happen again. As the gallery was closing at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, May 25, Denny walked in its front door while Rooker pried open a window to Joel’s office. When all doors were locked and all lights were off, they carried Joel to his apartment on the third floor, bound and gagged him, and began the ugly business of extracting information.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE BEACHCOMBER
1.
With Tessa, the day began with the sunrise. She would drag Mercer out of bed and hurry to the deck, where they sipped coffee and waited with great anticipation for the first glimpse of the orange glow rising on the horizon. Once the sun was up, they would hustle down the boardwalk and check out the beach. Later in the morning, as Tessa worked in the flower beds on the west side of the cottage, Mercer would often ease back into bed for a long nap.
With Tessa’s consent, Mercer had had her first cup of coffee around the age of ten, and her first martini at fifteen. “Everything in moderation” was one of her grandmother’s favorite sayings.
But Tessa was gone now, and Mercer had seen enough sunrises. She slept until after nine and reluctantly got out of bed. As the coffee brewed, she roamed around the cottage in search of the perfect writing space and didn’t find one. She felt no pressure and was determined to write only if she had something to say. Her novel was three years past due anyway. If they could wait for three years in New York, then they could certainly handle four. Her agent checked in occasionally, but with less frequency. Their conversations were brief. During her long drives from Chapel Hill to Memphis to Florida, she had loafed and dreamed and plotted and at times felt as though her novel was finding its voice. She planned to toss the scraps that she’d already written and start over, but this time with a serious new beginning. Now that she was no longer in debt, and no longer worried about the next job, her mind was wonderfully uncluttered with the nagging irritations of everyday life. Once she was settled and rested, she would plunge into her work and average at least a thousand words a day.
But for her current job, the one for which she was being handsomely paid, she had no idea what she was doing, and no idea how long it might take to do whatever she was supposed to do, so she decided there was no benefit in wasting a day. She went online and checked her e-mails. Not surprisingly, ever-efficient Elaine had dropped a note during the night with some useful addresses.
Mercer typed an e-mail to the Queen Bee: “Dear Myra Beckwith. I’m Mercer Mann, a novelist house-sitting on the beach for a few months while I work on a book. I know virtually no one here and so I’m taking a chance by saying hello and suggesting we—you, Ms. Trane, me—get together for a drink. I’ll bring a bottle of wine.”
At ten on the dot, the doorbell rang. When Mercer opened the front door an unmarked box was on the porch but there was no delivery guy in sight. She took it to the kitchen table, where she opened and unpacked it. As promised, there were the four large picture books by Noelle Bonnet, three novels by Serena Roach, the rather slim literary edition by Leigh Trane, and half a dozen romance novels with artwork that fairly sizzled. All manner of skin was being groped by gorgeous young maidens and their handsome lovers with impossibly flat stomachs. Each was by a different author, though all were written by Myra Beckwith. She would save those for later.
Nothing she saw inspired her to pursue her own novel.
She ate some granola as she flipped through Noelle’s book about the Marchbanks House.
At 10:37 her cell phone buzzed, caller unknown. She barely said “Hello” before a frantic, high-pitched voice declared, “We don’t drink wine. I do beer and Leigh prefers rum, and the cabinet’s stocked full so you don’t have to bring your own bottle. Welcome to the island. This is Myra.”
Mercer was almost chuckling. “A pleasure, Myra. I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.”
“Well, we’re bored and always looking for somebody new. Can you hold off till six this afternoon? We never start drinking before six.”
“I’ll try. See you then.”
“And you know where we are?”
“On Ash Street.”
“See you.”
Mercer put the phone down and tried to place the accent. Definitely southern, maybe East Texas. She selected one of the paperbacks, one supposedly written by a Runyon O’Shaughnessy, and began reading. The “savagely handsome” hero was loose in a castle where he was not welcome, and by page 4 he had bedded two chambermaids and was stalking a third. By the end of the first chapter, everyone was exhausted, including Mercer. She stopped when she realized her pulse was up a notch. She did not have the stamina to blitz through five hundred pages.