Siren (17 page)

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Pier the day Coast Guard officials found him floating faceup, reportedly still smiling from whatever he'd seen on his last trip below the surface.'" I looked at Simon to find him already looking at me.

"All of these victims were found smiling."

"Just like Tom Connelly," I said, recalling the name of the man we'd found. I hadn't read the article in the
Herald
but couldn't miss his name blown up on the front page.

Simon pulled another binder from a stack on the floor. "This one just happened last year, and probably bothers me the most."

I recognized the three hoops through the bottom lip immediately.

"'Max Hawkins, twenty-three, loved music, movies, and mountain biking. He was found on the docks near Betty's Chowder House, smiling as though he'd just finished a bowl of the restaurant's famous namesake.'" He looked at me. "Caleb and I met him when we were fishing on the pier and ended up talking to him quite a bit. He wasn't a particularly happy guy, and he
never
smiled. Ever."

"Simon ..." My heart hammered in my ears as I stared at the same photo I'd seen for the first time only two days before. "The other day, when you said it was hard to not know Zara Marchand ... what did you mean?"

He sat back, apparently surprised by the question. "I guess I meant that she doesn't really let you forget her."

"How?" I asked. "How doesn't she let you forget her?"

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He frowned at me, clearly wondering why I wanted to know, especially now. "Well, she's gorgeous, for one thing."

Grateful for the basement's dim light so he couldn't see my face burn, I lowered my eyes back to Max's picture.

"But she's the kind of gorgeous that throws you off, makes you uncomfortable. Like when you go to an art museum and feel guilty for even looking because the security guards are watching your every move. And she knows it and isn't shy about using it to get what she wants."

"What does she want?"

"Attention, mainly."

I looked down, and my eyes landed on Max's death date.

September thirteenth. The day after Zara broke up with him.

"Do you know a guy named Xavier Cooper?" I asked hesitantly. "Or Trevor Klemp? Or Eric Parks?"

"The names don't ring any bells." He leaned forward. "What is it, Vanessa?"

"Nothing. I'm sure it's nothing."

"You're talking to me." His eyes locked on mine. "Mr. Science Guy. Everything is something worth considering--even if it's eventually ruled out."

Was that true? Or would he think the connection was completely ridiculous? A case of jealousy gone very bad? "Zara keeps a scrapbook," I said before I could change my mind. "Of her dating conquests. She records start and end dates of every relationship she has and keeps small mementos of every date--

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blades of grass, napkins, breath-mint boxes, whatever."

"I wouldn't have thought her the sentimental type."

"She's not," I said. "She stays with each guy long enough to get him to say he loves her, and then breaks up with him."

"A never-ending game of catch and release?"

"Sort of."

"Okay, well ... this is new insight, but not entirely surprising. What does it have to do with them?" He nodded to the newspapers.

"Xavier Cooper was her first boyfriend. They started hanging out in May and stopped in August. On day eighty-three of their relationship, he gave her a card that said he loved her. On day eighty-four, she stopped talking to him."

"He stopped showing up at the pier sometime in the middle of August," Simon said thoughtfully.

"Trevor Klemp and Eric Parks followed." I paused. "So did Max Hawkins."

His eyes fell to Max's faded picture in the
Herald
.

"They dated for nineteen days. On September twelfth he told her he loved her."

He followed my gaze to the dates by Max's picture. "And on September thirteenth his body was found by Betty's Chowder House."

"I'm not saying that she drove them to their deaths, to take their own lives ..." I shook my head. "Or maybe I am. I don't know. But Max is gone. Xavier's gone. Trevor and Eric may or may not be gone. And Max was found smiling ..."

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"Just like Tom Connelly."

"And maybe the others, too?"

"But what about Orin Wilkinson?" he said. "Vincent Crew? All the people who died in the seventies and early eighties, before Zara was even born?"

"I'm not sure."

He reached across the table with one hand. He raised his just above mine, then lowered it so that it rested an inch away. "What about Justine?" he asked, his voice soft. "She was the first one found."

I focused on his hand, his neat nails, the way his fingers widened slightly at the knuckles.

"You were there, weren't you? You saw her?"

"She wasn't smiling." I answered his next question before he could ask it.

He sat back in the chair. "I'm not saying Zara doesn't have something to do with it. The scrapbook is an interesting piece of evidence, and I don't doubt her ability to do whatever she sets her mind to. But there's also all the storms, the tides, the crazy atmospheric activity--"

"Caleb was in it."

He paused. "What?"

"Caleb was in the scrapbook. He was her last entry, and the only one without an end date."

"But Caleb can't stand Zara. Not to mention he was out-of-his-mind crazy about Justine."

I didn't want to say it because I really didn't want there to

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be any truth to a relationship between Caleb and Zara, but it did no good denying that we didn't know everything about our siblings that we once thought we did. "Justine didn't apply to Dartmouth," I finally reminded him.

He stared at me, his eyes flicking back and forth as his brain tried to process the latest bit of illogical information. The room was so quiet I could hear the single bare lightbulb buzzing overhead.

We both jumped when his cell phone rang and vibrated at the same time, sending the phone skipping across the metal table.

"Hey," he said, answering the phone. He got up and stood under the narrow window at the top of the far wall. "Caleb?"

I looked up from Max's obituary.

"Caleb, if this is you--don't hang up. I'm finding better reception." He motioned for me to follow before disappearing upstairs.

Never more anxious to get out of a dark basement, I closed the binders, grabbed Simon's backpack, and ran upstairs. I was halfway across the main floor when I noticed the librarian sitting at the circulation desk and slowed from sprint to speed walk.

"I'm sorry," she said to the man before her, "but you've already borrowed five books from the library. As soon as you bring one back, you may borrow another."

"But ... you don't understand ... I need these books. I need these books
and
the five I already have."

"Again, I'm sorry. But you know library policy, Oliver."

I stopped short. I hadn't recognized the voice because I'd

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never heard it--Oliver never spoke at Betty's. Everyone attributed his silence to crankiness and the kind of hearing difficulty that can accompany aging--but now he seemed to hear himself and the librarian perfectly.

Through the front door I could see Simon in the parking lot, still on the phone. Thinking it wouldn't hurt to give him a few minutes to talk to his brother alone, I darted behind a tall shelf and hurried down the aisle. When I stopped at the other end, Oliver stood only a few feet away. Peering through spaces between books, I could see he wasn't wearing his hearing aid.

"Of course I know library policy," he said. "It hasn't changed in the seventy years I've lived here. But I'm asking you to make an exception."

"I made an exception for you once before, and you lost three of the original books and brought back the rest six months late. Plus, if I keep breaking the rules for you, I'll have to break them for everyone."

I ducked slightly when Oliver glanced over both shoulders. "No offense, Miss Mary," he said, turning back to the librarian, "but just like most days, it seems I'm the only one here. I don't think anyone else would have to know."

"Oliver, please. There are rules--"

"Have you noticed what's been happening?" he asked sharply.

My eyes widened as Mary's mouth snapped shut.

"The heavens are attacking." Oliver rested both hands on the counter and leaned toward her. "People are dying. Those

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who are still here are panicking. No one knows what's going on--not the police, not the reporters, and certainly not the weathermen. And
no
one is looking in the right places."

Mary's expression went from annoyed to nervous to sorry as Oliver placed one shaky hand on top of the small stack of books between them.

"History repeats itself," he said. "And in order to find out what's going on now, someone has to find out what happened in the past. When was the last time you saw the chief of police in the library?"

"Oliver," Mary said gently, "the authorities are doing everything they can. It's very nice of you to want to help--"

"Not nice," he snapped. "Necessary. And you're not helping."

I shook my head. Mary was patient, but he'd just pushed her too far.

"Bring back the other books, Oliver," she said, turning her attention to the computer before her. "And I'll be happy to sign these out for you."

He stared at her. When she continued to type without another word, he hobbled away from the front desk as fast as his cane would carry him.

I squatted down and shuffled backward, out of sight. I didn't want him to see me and know I'd heard any of the exchange. But his bizarre outburst had me curious, so I peered over the top of a row of books to watch him leave.

He stopped by the entrance. He looked up, toward the ceiling, and slowly tilted his head from one side to the other, like

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he was listening to something ... but the library was silent.

"Be careful," he finally said. His voice was so low, I almost didn't hear him. "Be very careful."

I held my breath until the door closed behind him and waited for his car to pass in front of the building before hurrying from the aisle.

"Welcome to the Winter Harbor Library!" Mary beamed as I approached the circulation desk. "Is there anything I can help you with? Are you in the market for new releases? Literary classics?"

"Actually," I said, trying to smile. "I kind of know that guy who was just here."

"Oliver?" Mary's megawatt smile dimmed. "I swear, the man writes a few local history books and thinks he's forever entitled to every book in the library."

"Oliver published books about Winter Harbor?" I pictured the illegible scrawls in his notebook at Betty's. Apparently, his writing wasn't simply a hobby.

She opened a drawer, took out four fat volumes, and handed them to me. "I started keeping them up here so he'd stop asking why no one borrowed them."

I ran my fingers over the worn brown cover of
The Complete History of Winter Harbor
... by Oliver Savage. I looked at the stack of books on the counter, wondering why they were so important to Oliver, and whether I really wanted to get involved. "I know you have a five-book policy, but since I don't have any books out, I thought maybe I could borrow these and share them with him."

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She blinked. "Why would you want to do that?"

"I don't know. He seems kind of lonely, and books appear to make him happy."

"Well, letting one person borrow for someone else isn't exactly library policy either ... but it would be nice to have a break from him for a few days." She looked at me. "You do realize you'll be completely responsible for these books. If anything should happen to them, you will incur all related fees."

"I do. And nothing will happen to them. I promise."

"Vanessa Sands," she read from my card when I found it in the back of my wallet and gave it to her. "Why is that familiar? You're not a full-timer, are you?"

"No." I hoped she wouldn't try to place me.

Thankfully, she scanned my card and the books without further question and slid them across the counter. "You can hang on to those for as long as you want," she said, nodding to
The Complete History
set I still held.

I thanked her, took the bag, and dashed out of the library.

"He's in Springfield." Simon was sitting in the front seat of the Subaru with the door open, inspecting a map. "At the Bad Moose Café."

"What's he doing there?"

He folded the map and slid it between the dashboard and windshield. "I don't know. It was the same weird call--breathing, then a girl saying Caleb's name and laughing, then nothing. I called the number back as soon as he hung up. He was already gone, but maybe we can catch up with him."