Burning Books Read online

  Her mouth flooded with an unmistakable metallic flavor. She dropped the phone and spilled out her door, hurling up bile and the remains of the pub nachos she’d shared with Lynda after the funeral, drawing the stares of the people pumping gas a few yards away. A woman started to approach her as she hunkered down on hands and knees, panting and swallowing frantically to ward off another round of heaving, but Molly shook her head frantically. The woman backed off reluctantly and went into the station to pay for her gas.

  Her stomach slowly settled enough that Molly felt well enough to stand. She rose on shaky legs and looked up to find the woman a few feet away, holding out a bottle of lemon-flavored Propel.

  “It will help settle your stomach and replace your electrolytes.” At Molly’s raised brow, she elaborated, “I’m a personal trainer. Hardly a nurse, but trained enough to know if you keep puking like that, you’re going to need some electrolytes. Is it the flu? Food poisoning?”

  Molly replied without thinking, “Boyfriend.”

  The woman nodded knowingly. “Then I suggest you follow this up with a few glasses of wine when you feel better.” With one last sympathetic smile, she retreated to her car.

  Molly leaned against the car, uncapped the bottle, rinsed her mouth and spit it out, and took a healthy swig. Then remembered she’d left Cary on an open line on her cell. Hopefully, he hadn’t heard any of that. When she climbed back into the car and picked up the phone, she found he’d hung up. A few more sips of the water steadied her enough that she could call him back.

  “Sorry about that. I was on my way to get some Pepto. Guess I don’t need it after all.”

  “Are you all right? Do you need me to come get you?”

  She closed her eyes, shivering despite the heat in the car. “No, I’m fine. I’m only a couple miles away from home. I can make it.”

  “I was going to see if you wanted to have dinner with us tonight—us being my children, myself, and my in-laws. It sounds like you’d be better off resting in bed, though.”

  “I’m heading there,” she assured him. “And I’m sorry to miss out. Next time?”

  “Soon,” he promised. “My children like you—they won’t stop pestering me until it happens.”

  “I like them, too.” Her stomach rolled again. “I’ve got to go, Cary—I’d like to make it home before I embarrass myself in public again.”

  “Take care, Molly. Go right to bed,” he added sternly and severed the connection.

  She drew in a shaky breath of relief, took another few sips, and pulled back onto the road, barely making it home and into her private bathroom—racing past a startled Annis—before succumbing once more to the traitorous tide in her belly.

  It was only when Annis knelt beside her, pressing a warm washcloth to her face with one hand and stroking her hair with the other, that Molly realized she was huddled on the floor of her bathroom, arms folded on the toilet seat, weeping into the open bowl.

  “There now, Molly. Let’s get you up and tucked up in bed, shall we?”

  Annis hoisted her to her feet with the strength of an army general and guided her to the bed. A tea tray perched on the corner of the night table with a steaming cup of tea, soda crackers, and a glass of fizzy liquid, which she pressed upon Molly once Molly was divested of shoes and secured under the blankets.

  “Lemon-lime soda. It will help.” She perched on the edge of the bed, smoothing an invisible wrinkle from the covers, and asked brusquely, “Are you pregnant, then?”

  Stunned, Molly started laughing. Almost immediately, her laughter melted into sobbing. Didn’t Annis know? The twisted metal of the wrecked car had pierced deep enough to puncture her uterus, necessitating its removal. Molly would never have children. Unable to speak, she simply shook her head in the negative. Annis silently held out the washcloth to her. She wiped away the salty tears and somehow managed to stanch their flow.

  “No,” she said at last, her voice thick and hoarse from sobbing.

  “Ah.” Annis gave a sudden, knowing nod. “A breakup.”

  No, not yet, but it was coming. She didn’t see any way that all of these coincidences didn’t add up to Cary Welch being a killer. Her heart hadn’t wanted to believe it, but her mind had been quietly collecting evidence and making connections and forming conclusions since she’d found the niche in his study.

  And, most idiotic of all, Molly had led Cary right to the wife who was hiding from him, in fear of her life. She would have to contact Cecily tonight, if she wasn’t already too late. Even if Cary were innocent, his wife at least deserved to know he’d found her.

  A few days ago, she’d moved the last book from the garage and secreted it with the other in her closet, tucked in the inside pocket of an old rain jacket she rarely wore. After Annis left, Molly retrieved the volume marked 5 on the spine and carried it back to her bed.

  It took more courage to open the spine of this book than it had to erase the evidence of her invasion from Cecily’s bedroom after finding the photographs. Her mind recoiled from this task as vehemently as it cringed from believing Cary was a murderer. But the fortitude sprang up from somewhere deep inside, and she found herself staring down at the first page, the spine of the book cracked open as wide as the leather binding would allow.

  I put tracking devices in both their cars. I know it’s not legal—you don’t have to tell me that. What else could I do? Funny how you stop caring about things like legalities when you start caring about things like staying alive. No, they didn’t threaten me. Neither one of them. But you don’t have to be threatened to feel threatened, do you? And when you’re sharing oxygen and more with someone you suspect is a killer, I think that’s threat enough.

  So I tracked their movements. Nothing for weeks. Meanwhile, you kept questioning them, thinking you’re going to trip up one of them with a Columbo tactic—just one more thing—and you kept coming up with nothing, the same as me.

  Until Tuesday. He went somewhere odd on Tuesday. I tracked him to where he parked and followed a deer trail deep into the woods. To a shack. I don’t know! You keep asking me, but I don’t know how to tell you to find it. I’m not sure where I was or how I got out.

  I don’t remember everything. The doctors said I wouldn’t—too much happened. Too much horror. Too much pain. But I have dreams, you know? Dreams of the knife. Of . . . oh God, of how cold I was and how much a relief the blood was at first when he cut me, because it was warm. With pain came relief, and with relief came pain, and it’s all jumbled together in my head. You say I was missing for three days, but I can’t even believe that, because I was in that shack for a lifetime.

  I want to hate them, but I can’t. I loved them both, and I can’t believe either of them would hurt me this way, would do to anyone what was done to me. To . . . to her. I followed his car, but could he really have . . . I can’t even start to believe he would . . . that he would rape me. Not him. So I don’t know which of them to hate, because I don’t know which one of them did this.

  She’s the lucky one; she’s dead. I don’t want to remember any more. I can’t stand it. You want to find her, why don’t you get out your sniffing dogs and follow my blood? Follow my blood, and you’ll find her body. You know as much as I do—the general vicinity where I was found: Seventy-Six Gulch. Now leave me alone. Please, just leave me alone. I wish I’d died out there, too.

  The vomiting resumed, laced with chamomile tea and lemon-lime soda. This time, Annis wasn’t there with a handy warm washcloth and practical manner, so Molly simply huddled on the floor, cheek resting against the toilet seat, and waited for the turmoil in her stomach to subside.

  How was she to tell Harvey Cohen she suspected that the son-in-law he loved had likely tortured Harvey’s daughter? She couldn’t expect him to believe her about the books—other than Magnus, Cary was the only one to have seen one burn, and she could hardly ask him to corroborate their magic when she was accusing him of atrocities.

  And Magnus didn’t know the story; she had
never shared with him the contents of the book. He’d only seen the first one burn; for all he knew, it could be a chemical reaction triggered by any number of things. A parlor trick, she herself had called it. With how disgusted he seemed with her lately, she couldn’t even rely on him to confirm his suspicions that the books were magic. Couldn’t rely on him to share Cecily’s theory of magical glyphs, because then he had to explain how he knew Cecily and why he’d never come forward with information of her whereabouts.

  She raised her head from the toilet seat. There was a way to convince Harvey Cohen. Well, at least to convince him of the magical nature of the books. She’d read Book Five, but she hadn’t yet burned it. Harvey had given her a business card when he’d come to check her house for intruders that she’d tucked it into her address book in her desk, thinking she would never need it. She would call him to come over and read the rest of the book, burning it in front of him. Maybe then he would listen with an open mind. He’d either believe her, or he wouldn’t.

  But first, she had to warn Cecily.

  Her stomach swooped the first few moments she was upright and finally settled enough that she could wash her face and clean her mouth of the foul taste of bile. She changed into clothes that made her look a little less like a cat burglar, grabbed her purse, and headed downstairs, mentally preparing herself to battle Annis, who would surely want to hustle her right back upstairs and into bed.

  Instead, she found the kitchen empty and a note from Annis on the center island. Molly, I’ve gone to get some soup and more crackers. From the sounds of it, you’re going to need them. As if on cue, an engine revved outside. Molly looked out into the driveway in time to see Annis backing out. She ducked away from the window so the housekeeper wouldn’t see her. This would be infinitely easier without having to argue her way out of the house.

  When Annis’s headlights disappeared down the road, Molly slipped into the garage and locked herself in her car, pressing the button to activate the garage-door opener. In every thriller movie she’d ever seen or suspense book she’d ever read, this was where the killer appeared on the other side of the garage door, invisible until it was too late to run, somehow magically knowing when she was leaving the house.

  The door rattled, shuddering its way up inch by inch and . . .

  The driveway was clear.

  Molly released a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding and backed out, aiming the car toward Bryn Mawr-Skyway. She parked in front of the cottage this time; subterfuge was no longer necessary. Magnus’s car was nowhere to be seen, but the kitchen light was on and the blinds were closed against the night, so Cecily had returned home from wherever she’d been.

  Shoulders squared, Molly knocked. As she waited for her summons to be answered, she rehearsed her introduction in her head. Hi, Cecily. I’m Magnus’s sister, Molly. I need to speak with—

  The door opened. Molly’s mind went blank. Looking wholly resigned and not a little formidable, Magnus took two steps backward, opening the door wider, and said courteously, “Come in, Molly.”

  ∞4∞

  The closing door behind her seemed to echo thunderously, when in fact Magnus closed it quietly, without force. She waited, hovering in the kitchen doorway, until he motioned her to take a seat in the tiny sitting-room area. The shabby-chic coffee table between the overstuffed sofas held an array of photographs that he had clearly been sorting through. As she sat, Molly glanced over them, recognizing a few from earlier.

  Magnus sat opposite her, looked at the photos, glanced speculatively over his shoulder at the bedroom, and pinned her with challenging look.

  “Was this you?” He motioned to the mess on the coffee table.

  She didn’t need to ask what he meant. “Yes. I needed to know who Cecily is. I came here to warn her. Where is she?”

  The first trace of anger bloomed in his cheeks. “Why? More meddling?”

  That stung, but it was no less than she deserved. “No.” She stared down at her hands, clasped between her knees. “I have reason to believe the books I found—the burning books—are diaries kept by Cecily.”

  He leaned forward, bracing his hands on the edge of the coffee table. “What? Are you insane?”

  “Let me explain,” she asked, keeping her tone quiet and conciliatory to dampen his annoyance. He waved a mocking hand, inviting her to continue.

  As briefly as possible, for Magnus’s attention span and reserves of patience were not infinite, she explained the story contained in the burning books. Each connection she drew between the story and Cecily—the jar of sea glass, the shells, the Cinnamon Dolce lattes, the red silk ties fixed to her bedframe, the photo albums on the coffee-table shelf, the photo of Detective Cohen’s missing daughter on his computer—evaporated more of his skepticism. When she mentioned the hidden niche and the box of necklaces the books’ narrator had found in her husband’s den, his expression turned troubled.

  “I can see where the coincidences could cause you to draw the conclusions you have, but you still haven’t explained why you broke in here and went through her photographs.”

  “It’s not the first time I broke in,” she confessed, swallowing hard as his face darkened. “I knew you took one of the burning books, even though you denied it, so I followed you here from group and waited until you left. I came in through the sliding doors in the bedroom and stole back the book. That’s when I saw the shells and the sea glass and the latte cup and started thinking that the story in the books was Cecily’s. Magnus, I really need to talk to her. Where is she?”

  “Why? To confess you invaded her privacy not once, but twice?”

  “When I was here the first time, the photo albums were on the shelf under the coffee table. This coffee table. They were gone when I came here earlier today. Where are they, Magnus?”

  He scrubbed a hand over his face, his skin rasping over his five o’clock shadow. “I don’t know. They went missing a couple of weeks ago. The whole house had been rifled. All I have left are the photos I’d found in a box in the closet a while back. I’d . . . I’d spread them out on the box spring and put the mattress on top of them. Apparently, whoever took the albums didn’t think of looking for more photos between the mattresses. Lucky me.” He tried a smile, failed dismally.

  Molly reached across the table, drew back when he leaned away from her. “Why did you put them between the mattresses, Magnus? Just to hide them?”

  “No.” He shook his head, swallowed hard, and said again, his voice rasping, “No. I felt almost like she were here.”

  She recoiled. “What do you mean? Magnus, where is Cecily?”

  “What are you here to warn her about, Molly?” he asked instead of answering.

  “I broke in today because I needed to see what Cecily looked like. Some . . . some things led me to believe that she’s Cary’s missing wife.”

  He stood abruptly. She expected him to deny the possibility, but he only paced back-and-forth in front of his sofa. She looked down at coffee table, her eyes homing in on a shot of Cecily and Cary together, both facing the lens and clearly recognizable.

  “You knew, didn’t you? The day we met him at the Oyster Bar and Grill, you were so antagonistic because you knew who he was because of these pictures.”

  He stopped pacing, following her line of vision to the photograph. “Yes. It was kind of hard to miss.”

  “You should have said something.”

  “Why? So you met her husband. She’s been gone for thirteen months; why should she care?”

  “You still should have told me. If the woman from the books is Cecily, then she believed that those necklaces were trophies from her husband’s kills. Cary’s kills. He followed me and stopped me from coming in two weeks ago, and right after that, the photo albums went missing. She thought he was a killer, and I led him right to her.”

  “But you don’t know that she’s the one who wrote those books.” He rubbed a hand over his face again, then raked his fingers though his hair, sitting back d
own, staring at the scatter of images across the coffee table, his hand over his mouth as though to prevent himself from speaking. Or screaming.

  “No one believed her, even her father, not even after she gave him the box of trophies she found. But there are too many coincidences, so I have to believe her now. Magnus, I have to talk to her. How can I reach her?”

  He closed his eyes, lowered his hand. Drew a deep breath. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen Cecily since the solar storm. She just . . . vanished.”

  Molly’s mind scrambled to make sense of his admission. “But . . . but you go to the theater, and to dinner, and . . . and you come over here and watch movies, and . . .”

  He broke in, speaking so softly she could barely hear him. “I talk to her, in here.” He tapped his temple. “All the time. And I come here to—I don’t know. Figure out who she was to me, I guess. I remember meeting her at group. I remember coming here. I just don’t remember why.”

  He ran a hand over the photos, sweeping aside the top layer to show new images beneath. Cecily and Cary with their children. Cary with his wife. Cecily as a young girl, perched on a wooden plank that hung by chains from the stout limb of a tree—exactly as Idiot Woman had described in one of the burning books.

  “How do you get in here? I can’t imagine she would have given you a key if you didn’t really know her.”

  “Some aunt or cousin or some such owns the cottage, but they never come here anymore—too old now to travel. They had a property-management company for a while, watching over the place since Cess went missing, but they weren’t doing their job, so I offered to step in and watch the place. Gave me a legal reason to be here.”

  Molly fell back against the sofa cushions, aghast. “What am I going to do?” About Cary. About her crazy brother, living in the house of a woman missing for more than a year, talking to her as though she were present.