“In 1949, while Jack Shepard was working the case of a murdered army buddy, he vanished without a trace. Not even his body was found. For over fifty years now, I’ve wondered just what happened. Did the bad guys finally catch up with him? Did the corrupt authorities finally do Jack in? Or did someone set Jack up as a fall guy?”
Yeah, Tim-bo, ya smug-ass, tell them. I’d like to know myself.
“Shut up!” I rasped quietly to the voice in my mind, alarmed that I was losing my grip on reality. “Shut up! Shut up!”
Both Linda and Fiona again eyed me with concern. A few nearby guests even turned in their seats to deliver annoyed looks.
I felt the heat on my cheeks for the second time that night.
“Pen, are you okay?” Linda whispered. “Do you want to sit down?”
I shook my head.
“These questions will be answered in my next book,” Brennan said. “And my first nonfiction book. Ironic for an old reporter, eh? But the truth is”—Brennan paused to clear his throat—“for several years now I have been quietly investigating Jack’s final case and his mysterious disappearance, and the solution to the fifty-plus-years mystery is close to being solved.”
The audience clapped wildly. Brennan waved them down.
“Though Salient House and my fans have been clamoring for more Jack Shield mysteries, I am here to announce that Shield of Justice will be the very last novel of the series.”
Disappointed murmurs sounded. Brennan’s handsome son-in-law Kenneth rose from his seat in the front row and left the room. In the next seat, his well-dressed wife, Deirdre, watched him go with a clear look of distress on her plain face.
“It’s finally time to find out . . .”
As Brennan cleared his throat again, he pulled the throat spray Josh had bought and spritzed it into his mouth.
“It’s finally time to find out . . .”
Again he cleared his throat, and I realized with a start that what he really needed was some water. I reached behind me and let my fingers close on a plastic bottle resting on the refreshment table. With a quick twist, I unscrewed the cap, then stepped forward and set the bottle on the podium.
“About time,” Brennan griped low before I returned to my spot.
“As I was saying, it’s time to find out what happened to Jack Shepard and why, and to share that information with the world. My preliminary investigation shows that Jack Shepard’s movements in the final days before his disappearance led him to a rare-book shop right here in Quindicott. Yes. The last place Jack Shepard visited in 1949 was this very store!”
As outcries of delighted surprise rippled through the audience, I decided I was probably the most shocked person in the entire room. My eyes found Aunt Sadie, who was standing just inside the archway that led to the other side of the bookstore. She simply shrugged, as if she had no idea what all this was about.
Timothy Brennan seemed pleased with the reaction and took a long pause to chug the entire contents of the Sutter Spring water bottle. Then he opened his mouth to speak again. Suddenly his eyes bulged and his face grew very flushed. His lips moved, but only a hoarse croak emerged. The water bottle dropped from his stubby fingers, and Brennan reached up to clutch his throat.
I watched, horrified, as his jowly face turned scarlet, then paled.
“Mr. Brennan? What’s wrong?” cried someone seated close to him.
He pointed to his throat, then reached out to grasp the podium, as if to steady himself. But a moment later, both man and podium tumbled to the floor.
“Call a doctor!” someone shouted.
I pushed through the throng of panicked people, looked down, and saw Timothy Brennan, his face chalk, his mouth opening and closing as rapidly as it had all evening, but this time without sound, just a terrible rhythmic sucking noise like a plunger desperately trying to pull something out of a blocked drain.
“Get back, please!” I cried. “Give him room!”
The sea of gray suits and battered fedoras backed away to give the flailing author room. All except Shelby Cabot of Salient House and his daughter Deirdre in her burgundy suit. They both knelt over the gasping man, their expressions grim. Josh stood back, behind Shelby, watching with equally grim concern. Deirdre took Brennan’s hand.
The man’s features relaxed, and his chest rose as he took a deep breath. His color began to come back. Then his eyes fluttered open.
“I think he’s coming around,” said Deirdre.
Brennan’s eyes seemed to focus on the person standing right next to me—Milner Logan. With a terrified gasp, Brennan raised his hand, frantically waving it as if warding away some evil spirit.
“Jack!” rasped Brennan, staring right up at Milner, who was now clutching his fedora in a white-knuckled grip. “J-J-Jack Shepard. It c-c-can’t be. You’re dead. You’re dead!”
That’s when Brennan’s eyes closed. His face turned as gray as the fieldstone walls, and his rib cage collapsed with his last living breath.
CHAPTER 5
Hard-Boiled Bogey Man
The guy was dead as hell.
—Mike Hammer in Vengeance Is Mine! by Mickey Spillane, 1950
“PEN? PENELOPE? CAN you hear me?”
“She just drank too much, Sadie. Let her sleep it off down here.”
“Okay, Milner. I’ll walk you and Linda out.”
I heard the voices, tried to open my eyelids, but for some reason they seemed to weigh more than a pair of unedited Stephen King manuscripts. “We gave him the heart attack,” I murmured. “Half the audience . . . costumed like Jack Shepard . . . Oh, god . . . we killed him.”
“Oh, no, she’s starting that up again.”
“It’s too bad what happened, Sadie.”
“Forget it,” said Sadie. “Fate’s fate. When your number’s up, it’s up. But thanks again for those baked goods. The crowd certainly devoured them.”
“More of a wake than a party.”
“So it was. But Brennan didn’t go anywhere we’re all not headed.”
“True, Sadie. Good night.”
“ ’Night, Milner. ’Night, Linda . . .”
MY POUNDING HEAD lolled from side to side as I wrestled with dreamland. When consciousness finally won, I rose from the rocking chair and moved shakily through the dimly lit store.
“Anyone here?”
My mouth was cotton. I checked my watch. Big hand on twelve, little on four.
Well, the party’s certainly over, I thought, looking at our beautifully renovated store, all the new inventory, the antiques, the fixtures. All our hopes and efforts . . .
More than the party was over, and I knew it.
Timothy Brennan had been Buy the Book’s very first author appearance, and he’d ended up dead. Talk about cursed. Now authors would avoid our store in droves—right along with the customers. Not that they hadn’t before. This incident just gave them a new reason.
I sighed. Who in the world would patronize us now?
Maybe Brennan’s ghost, I thought. If I believed in ghosts.
Brainert once said that ghosts in stories meant unfinished business. But he’d been talking about literary devices.
As my shaky legs moved beneath the archway that led to the community events space, I tried to recall the last time I’d considered actual spirits. It had been years. Back when I’d watched them lower my mother into the muddy earth of the Quindicott Village Cemetery.
At the ripe old age of thirteen, I had been certain that death was not the end. Every night I’d whisper into the dark from beneath my blanket. I’d tell my mother about my day at school, a boy I liked, a grade I got. I was certain my mom could hear, just couldn’t answer. Not in a normal way but in signs.