Misery Loves Company (6 page)

Chris sat back in his chair, mumbling through thoughts, wondering if there was a connection in the fact that Patrick Reagan was at the grocery store at the same time.

“Ridiculous, Downey.” He got up from the desk as his mind nagged at him to reconsider the possibility. It was clear that Jules had an affectionate admiration for the author. But most of this town did.

Chris, like everyone, knew where the author lived. It was a sprawling estate a mile from the coast. The house was impressive. Built in 1842, it had belonged to a host of famous personalities through the ages. He thought Reagan had lived there about three decades. Whatever the case, it kept the department busy whenever a book released
 
—always a traffic problem as tourists drove by, attempting to get a glimpse of the king of suspense. But Seth was right
 
—as far as he knew, Reagan spent the winters elsewhere.

Later that evening, Chris was still pondering it all at his kitchen table when Addy arrived home following dinner out with the girlfriends she liked to visit when she came into town.

Addy eyed him coming in, got a carton of ice cream out of the freezer, and grabbed two spoons, joining him at the table. “Whatever this is, it requires ice cream,” she said, sliding a spoon toward him.

“Wish I had an appetite,” he said.

“No one needs an appetite when it comes to ice cream. Come on, eat up. Sugar helps you think.”

Chris obeyed. “By the way, please don’t give Maecoat the time of day.”

“Greg?”

“Call him Maecoat, please.
Greg
sounds like you’re friends, and I really don’t want you to be friends with him.”

“I thought you liked him.”

“He’s fine. I do. But he’s really girl crazy.”

Addy smiled. “Thanks, but I can handle myself.”

“The problem is that he can’t. You see what I’m saying?”

“Thanks for the heads-up.”

“Also, I told him you’d fix him your famous clam chowder.”

“He owes you for something.”

Chris sighed. “Yeah.”

She twirled the spoon in her mouth. “I guess Jules hasn’t shown up?”

“No. Last seen at the grocery store as far as I can tell.”

“Still nothing unusual coming up?”

“No, not really.” Chris set his spoon down after only a couple of bites. “Tell me what you know about Patrick Reagan.”

“The author?”

“Yeah.”

Addy shrugged. “I’m not a fan. Too commercial for my taste. I mean, I know he lives here
 
—I know which house. But that’s about it.”

“He’s supposedly a recluse, right?”

“That’s what I hear.”

“Tell me I’m crazy, okay? But Jules wrote an unfavorable review of his book on her blog the morning she disappeared. Then this kid at the grocery store tells me that Patrick Reagan was there at the same time Jules was.”

Addy considered it for a moment. “Well, okay. Could be a coincidence.”

“Kid also said he doesn’t spend the winters here. He’s always at some cabin in the woods.”

“Sounds mysterious.”

“Yeah. But is it wacked out to think there could be a connection?”

“So you’re saying that Reagan takes Jules because she wrote a bad review of his book?”

“Crazy, right?”

“Yeah. A little bit.” She scooped more ice cream. “I mean, first of all, how would he know her? And how would he know she would be at the grocery store at that exact time?”

Chris nodded. “Exactly. Except . . .”

“Except?”

“I got on her Facebook page and her blog. If someone was following her posts, they could pretty easily figure out a pattern. And she is definitely a pattern girl.”

“So she always goes to the store at the same time, on that same day?”

“Yes, according to her father.”

Addy nodded. “Well, then I guess it’s not that far-fetched, is it?”

“Isn’t it, though?” Chris put his head in his hands. “It’s ludicrous. Authors don’t kidnap fans because of bad reviews. The dude has written a ton of books. Surely this is not the first bad review he’s received. Aren’t they supposed to have thick skins and all that?”

“I knew many writers in college. One was a close friend. He was a sensitive dude. Wrote romance. But I figured you have to be in touch with a lot of feelings to be able to write well.”

“Yes, well, this guy writes about murder and mayhem. What kind of feelings is he in touch with?”

Addy put the lid back on the ice cream. “You’re not going to let this go, I’m assuming?”

“How can I? She’s Jason’s wife. Widow . . .”

“Then I think you better go find Patrick Reagan.”

ALL SHE HEARD WAS
a room full of people laughing. Then a single voice. Then more laughter, like they all were in the presence of the funniest person alive. Patrick Reagan didn’t strike her as even the tiniest bit humorous.

Unsure what to do, Jules stood for a moment at the bedroom door, trying to process yet another bizarre moment in her day.

As she listened more carefully, she realized she was hearing a TV. Along with being humorless, he didn’t strike her as being a TV watcher either. For some reason she pictured him sitting near a fire in a dark turtleneck, smoking a pipe with Spanish tobacco in it, reading James Joyce for pleasure.
The man had graduated with honors from Yale, though he’d been outspoken about his dislike for the school ever since. His mother had been a seamstress, his father a coal miner who’d died tragically in a car accident in New York when Patrick was just fifteen.

He’d implied over the years, in the few interviews he gave, that his mother never accepted his career in literature and that she felt he had a mind meant more for science. Whatever the case, Jules thought he was suited perfectly for what he did. From what she’d read, he was always a bit embarrassed by the widespread success of his novels and their commercial appeal. But to her, it didn’t in any way diminish his talent. He had such a command of the English language and used words in a way that made her want to read and reread everything he wrote.

Blinking her way back to the fact that she was still standing by the door, she heard the voices again and realized it was, indeed, the canned laughter of a sitcom.

Jules opened the door and stepped lightly into the hall. As she rounded the corner, she saw a warm, comfortable-looking living room with leather chairs and couches and bookshelves on every wall, each running as high as the ceiling.

Patrick sat with his back to her, leaning forward, engaged in what he was watching. The TV was small, but a modern flat-screen. She held her breath, taking in as much as she could. The room had a fireplace, but no fire. Off to the right looked to be a kitchen, painted dark red, with a dinner table in a very small dining area off the kitchen. Another hallway
was just opposite where she stood, but she couldn’t tell where it led. There were two doors on either side of the cabin. Both looked like front doors.

Patrick chuckled suddenly, right along with the laugh track. Jules didn’t know which show he was watching; she didn’t watch TV very much herself. But it looked like maybe
Mary Tyler Moore
.

Her hand slowly made it to her mouth as she began to realize where she might be. The cabin? The famous cabin? Nobody knew where the rumor came from that there was a hidden mountain cabin somewhere in Maine or one of the New England states. Some even speculated it was in Canada. But it was legendary among his fans as the place Patrick Reagan retreated to every winter to write his books.

Was she really here? Could it be?

Outside, it was almost completely dark. But it all made sense. She’d peeked out the window earlier and seen trees, like she was in the middle of the forest.

“You’re early.”

She gasped, not realizing he’d even turned to notice her. “I’m . . . I’m sorry.”

“You’ve interrupted my show,” he grumbled, picking up the remote and shutting the TV off.

“I’m sorry. Please, don’t mind me. . . .” The words sounded ridiculous as they spilled out. But she always sounded ridiculous when she spoke. “I just didn’t want to be late.”

“Hm.” He eyed her, then went to the table, pulling out a chair for her.

Jules sat and he gently scooted her forward. On the table were shiny brown ceramic bowls, with a silver spoon to the right of each one, a napkin neatly folded over the bowl, and water glasses already filled with ice.

He took her bowl, went to the stove, and dipped something into it from a large, cast-iron pot. When he returned, the bowl was steaming and smelled amazing. It looked to be stew. Maybe lamb stew. He brought to the table a loaf of Italian bread, already sliced, on a cutting board.

She waited patiently, her hands trembling underneath the table.

Patrick joined her shortly, his own bowl filled. He sat down and stared at her for a long moment. She was hungry again, though her stomach churned with uneasiness that hid the hunger from time to time.

“I am going to give you this warning one more time,” he said. He looked toward the door to her left, where a rack held several coats and two pairs of boots sat underneath. “Do not try to escape. It is too treacherous out there. More snow is expected tonight, and we are in a very remote place. You’ll die on this mountain if you try to get away.”

“Are you going to harm me?”

“Why would you ask such a thing?”

Jules glared.
Why would I ask such a thing? I don’t know
 
—I’m locked away in a room, with words scrawled across the ceiling
 
—

“Did you intend to harm
me
?” he asked.

“What?”

“When you wrote those words? Those are your words on the ceiling.”

She sighed and stared at the steam rising from her bowl. “So this is what it’s all about. I hurt your feelings.” She looked up to gauge his reaction. He seemed calm enough, but there was something raging in those eyes.

“I’m only doing what you asked,” he said. “You asked me to terrify you, so here we are. Boo.”

A lump formed in her throat and she picked up her spoon. “I’m hungry. If you don’t mind, I’d like to bless the food and eat.”

“Do what you must.” He picked up his own spoon and began to eat.

Jules closed her eyes, too scared to really pray, but it was a habit that Jason had introduced her to when they met, and she couldn’t recall a single meal she’d eaten since that was not blessed in this way.

Help me, Jason.

She opened her eyes to find Patrick watching her from across the table. Jules took a bite of the stew
 
—delicious. She gobbled down more. The bread was soft on the inside, chewy on the outside. She tried to focus on it for a little while.

“So your complaint,” he said between bites, “is that I didn’t scare you enough in the book.”

Jules looked up, trying to decide if he really wanted an answer. As she engaged his eyes, it seemed to her he was a man acquainted with deep sorrow.

She stirred her spoon around in her bowl. “How did I get here?”

“A question for a question.”

“My husband asked a lot of questions, and he was good at his job, so I guess it rubbed off on me.” She tried to think about the last thing she remembered. “I was at the store, buying things to make dinner, and as I walked to the parking lot . . .” That’s where things got fuzzy for her. Had she bumped into him there? She remembered a conversation but couldn’t pull any of the details.

“Not just any dinner.”

“Excuse me?”

“You weren’t buying groceries for just any dinner, were you?”

“How do you know that?”

“As you look out of that little window every day, do you wonder where all your words go?”

“I didn’t say anything about Jason or our . . .” Her words trailed off as she tried to hold back tears.

He gestured toward her bowl with his spoon. “Eat up.”

She did, silently, for the rest of the meal. She hated how much he thought he knew about her from her blog or whatever else he was reading. He wasn’t on her Facebook page. She would’ve remembered friending Patrick Reagan.

“Do you feel a lot of guilt?” he asked suddenly, as he finished his own bowl.

“About what?”

“About Jason’s death remaining unavenged.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“They never caught the men who shot him, did they?” He wiped his mouth. “It was in the newspapers for a while. Then it went away. Everyone sort of forgot, didn’t they? Life goes on all around you, but you can’t seem to go on.”

“You don’t know anything about me.” She threw her napkin on the table and scooted her chair back.

“I know more than you think.”

“Good for you.” Tears dripped down her face. “So if you’ve set out to freak me out of my everlasting mind, you . . . well, congratulations.” His face filled with an expression that seemed to indicate not surprise at her tirade, but something else. “What do you want from me?”

“You’ve got it all wrong, Juliet. It’s what you want from me.” His voice would have been soothing and calming in any other circumstance.

“What I want is home. To go there. Now.”

He nodded. “Of course you do. That’s where you believe your life is. Don’t you think I understand that?”

She noticed the fingers of his right hand twisting the wedding band he wore. His wife had died three years ago, according to the papers.

“You don’t think people will be looking for me?”

“People? Who would that be? With whom do you still associate?”

“My father.” She sniffled away the rest of her emotion. “He will look for me.”

“Is he the one who drinks so heavily?” He paused, smiled mildly. “I’m good at reading between the lines.”

Jules sighed a loud exasperation. “So you have me. Now what are you going to do with me?”

“That is the trouble with this younger generation. No patience.”

“No. The trouble here is that you’ve kidnapped me. Against my will.”

“This is what you want. Trust me.”

“Did you read that between the lines too? Somewhere in the middle of my post about the history of our lighthouses?”

He regarded her a moment, then stood and carried his bowl to the sink. Normally she would do the same, even as a guest, but she refused and let her bowl just sit there. He rinsed his and washed it thoroughly by hand. As he dried it, he turned to face her. “You can’t be that ignorant, to believe that there are not layers to what you write, what we all write. I remember you wrote on your blog about all the meanings one single scene had for you in . . .
Die Gently
, I believe.”

Jules threw her hands up. “Awesome. Maybe later we can gather the two of us and have a book club.”

“You’re not as well-spoken as I’d imagined.”

Now more angry than scared, she glared at him. “The fact that you’ve been imagining me at all is creepy.”

Suddenly he looked wounded. Or confused. Something flickered across his face but she couldn’t capture it fast enough. “I see.”

She bit her lip. If she was going to get out of here, she needed to think
 
—and speak
 
—more wisely.

“Sorry,” she offered. “I guess I’m just kind of wound up at the sheer . . . weirdness of it all. I mean, not everyone can say they’ve been kidnapped by their favorite author.”

“You don’t have to placate me.”

“I’m not. I’ve read everything you’ve ever written, even your short stories from your early years. I wait all year long for your next book. You’re a terrific writer. One of the best. But you already know how I feel.”

“Hmm.”

“I just don’t know what I’m doing here.” Tears stung her eyes again. As normal as she wanted to sound, none of this was normal.

He blinked slowly, as if he were sleepy or bored or following distant thoughts.

“Why don’t you pick a book.” He pointed to his collection.

Jules gazed at the walls. There had to be thousands of books there.

She didn’t really feel like picking a book, but his mood had shifted and she was starting to feel less bold and more scared again. She pretended to gaze at the selection, though her mind was reeling about how she might alert someone she was here. She had yet to see a phone or a computer. Just a TV.

She scanned the shelf in front of her. A lot of classics: Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Faulkner, Hemingway. The list went on. She pulled
If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler
by Italo Calvino from the shelf.

Patrick smirked as he noticed and gave her a small “how clever” smile. He then busied himself with cleaning her bowl and didn’t seem to care or notice much more. With his back still turned, he finally said, “Off to your room.”

“I don’t really want to stay in there. It’s cold and . . . and I’m alone.”

He set the bowl down and turned to her. “You are right that you are alone.” He paused. “I have never brought a visitor here, so respect the privilege.”

Clutching the book, Jules walked back to her room and closed the door. After a few moments, she heard the door lock.

Crawling onto the bed, she pulled the quilt that was neatly folded at the end over her legs. She curled up into a ball and cried. Then she prayed to Jason, that he would hear her and rescue her like he had so many years before.

Outside her room, she heard the canned, carnivalish laughter of another sitcom.