Читать книгу Anything's Possible! - Judith McWilliams - Страница 6

Dan unlocked the door to Room Fourteen and pushed his bag through with his foot, wincing when his leg protested the jerky movement.

He absently rubbed the healing flesh of his abused thigh as he looked around for the phone. He located it on the maple nightstand beside the king-size, white iron bedstead.

Gingerly, he sank down on the antique blue-and-white Irish-chain quilt, sighing when the pain in his leg eased. He wiggled slightly, finding the most comfortable position on the firm mattress and then reached for the phone. The sooner he let Harry know he’d arrived, the sooner he could find out exactly what his assignment in this godforsaken corner of the New Hampshire coast was.

To his surprise, Harry himself answered, and on the first ring. It was almost as if he’d been sitting at his desk waiting for the call.

“You all right, Travis?” Harry demanded.

Dan smiled at the impatient tone. He could almost see the man’s bushy mustache quivering.

“Careful, you’re starting to sound more like a mother hen than a hard-boiled newspaper editor,” Dan said.

“I asked you if you were all right?” The volume of Harry’s voice went up considerably. Dan shifted the phone to his other ear.

“Of course I’m all right. New York to New Hampshire is hardly a suicide run.”

“I know, but...”

“But what?” Dan asked curiously. “Suppose you tell me exactly what this earth-shattering news story that only I could cover is?”

“Well...actually, I sent you to New Hampshire to avoid a story.”

Dan frowned at the delicate floral prints hanging on the wall above the bed. “Harry, have you been drinking?”

“No, dammit! I’ve been thinking.”

“Which might turn out to be every bit as dangerous in the long run,” Dan said dryly.

“This is serious,” Harry replied slowly. “You remember those articles you wrote on Buczek last month while you were still in the hospital?”

“Termite Buczek is not the kind of vermin one is likely to forget.”

“Yeah, well, he’s about to become even more memorable. The district attorney has decided to ask a federal grand jury for an indictment against him on racketeering charges. Directly as a result of your articles.”

“Score one for our side.”

Harry’s sigh sounded across the phone line. “As long as that score doesn’t come with a body count.”

Dan’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Meaning exactly what?”

“Meaning that Buczek has aspirations. Aspirations that you have just put a nasty crimp in, and he is not a forgiving man. The word on the street is that he’s put out a contract on you.” Harry finally got to the point.

Dan sagged back against the mound of pillows at the head of the bed as a feeling of utter exhaustion washed over him. Ten years ago, even five, he’d have found the news that his articles had upset a crook to that extent exhilarating. He’d have relished the challenge of pitting his wits against a hired assassin. But now...

He shifted restlessly, wincing as a sharp pain shot up his thigh.

“Hell!” Harry exploded in frustration. “You haven’t even healed from the last attempt on your life.”

Dan’s lips lifted in a grim caricature of a smile. “Ah, but there was nothing personal in that attack. They were simply firing at the UN convoy, and I just happened to be in the truck that took a direct hit.” He snorted. “Nothing personal at all. I was just caught up in the generalized hatred that mankind spreads around.”

“Careful, my friend. You’re beginning to sound like a cynic.”

He was beginning to feel like one, too, Dan thought uneasily. Somehow he was finding it increasingly difficult to care very much about the corruption and graft that he was continually uncovering. Exposing it didn’t seem to help. It simply went on and on. Only the names and nationalities of the victims changed.

“Thanks for the warning, Harry,” he finally said. “But as for hiding out up here, I have never run from a two-bit thug before, and I don’t intend to start now.”

“Think, man. The stories you normally write are about international upheavals. The people you expose can’t get to you because by the time your stories appear in print you’re out of their country. This is one of the few times you’ve done a story about corruption in the States.”

“Yes, but—”

“No, dammit!” Harry interrupted harshly. “Last year I let Addison talk me out of his going into hiding until we could find out who was behind those death threats he was receiving. He swore he could take care of himself. They fished his body out of the East River two days later. I had to sit there at his funeral and listen while his wife and kids sobbed hysterically. Not again!” He was yelling. “Not ever again.”

But that wouldn’t be the case again. The unpalatable truth hit Dan with the force of a blow. There wasn’t anyone Harry would have to comfort if Buczek killed him. There wasn’t anyone who would weep hysterically over his coffin. A hard knot twisted painfully in his chest. There was not one single person in the whole world who would feel that his life had been shattered because he was dead. A numbing sensation began to spread through him. He had friends. Lots of friends who would be sad to think that he was no longer alive. But they would continue their own lives with barely an interruption and he would disappear into a void. As if he’d never lived. He felt stiff and chilled at the thought.

“This time we’ll do what I think is right,” Harry ordered. “China View is a perfect place for you to lie low while we try to find out whether Buczek is serious about hiring a hit man or merely bluffing to try to save face. Thank God you use your first name in your byline instead of the one everyone knows you by.”

“God had nothing to do with it. It was my youthful sense of self-importance. Leland sounded so much more worthy of a Pulitzer Prize than just plain Dan.” Dan grimaced at the memory. Seventeen years separated him from the young, idealistic college graduate he’d been then. Seventeen years filled with covering man’s inhumanities to man. A lifetime of seeing things that no one should ever have to know even existed, let alone deal with. He swallowed at the metallic taste of hopelessness that coated his mouth.

Maybe it was time for a long vacation away from it all. And this place did have its compensations. An image of Cassie’s bright face popped into his mind.

“You did remember to use cash, didn’t you?” Harry demanded.

“Yes, Harry,” Dan said soothingly. “I know all about tracing people through their credit-card purchases. And your contact was waiting at the airport in Portsmouth with the rental car just like you said he’d be.”

“You be careful, you hear?” Harry thundered. “Get yourself killed and, by God, you’re fired!”

Dan unexpectedly laughed. “I think firing me under those circumstances would come under the heading of the absolute, final straw. Call the minute you hear anything. Goodbye, Harry,” he said and then hung up.

“Goodbye, Harry,” Dan repeated as he got to his feet and walked over to the window. “Goodbye, New York. Goodbye, murder and mayhem.” He took a deep breath of the salt-laden air drifting through the sheer white curtains. “And hello possibilities.”

A smile unconsciously lifted his lips. The most intriguing possibility he’d seen so far was meeting him downstairs in—he glanced at his watch—right about now. He hurried toward the door, his movements awkward in his haste. She might think he’d changed his mind and not wait for him if he were late.

He found her sitting in a gorgeous vintage car in front of the inn.

“Where did you get a Packard in mint condition?” Dan asked reverently as he slowly circled the car, admiring it from every angle.

“My aunt bought it back in 1939.”

“And she still has it?”

Cassie grinned at him. “It still works.”

“I’m looking forward to meeting your aunt,” he said as he got into the passenger seat.

Cassie shifted gears and accelerated down the steep driveway with the casualness of long practice. “Forget it,” she said, having no trouble interpreting the covetous gleam in his eye. “My father has been trying to get his hands on this car for as long as I can remember, with absolutely no success. Although she did threaten to sell it to a collector in Portsmouth last year when they raised her collision rates again. What does your insurance company charge for vintage cars?”

Dan blinked. “What?”

“You said you were in insurance. What do you charge?”

“Um, we don’t handle car insurance. We mostly do large commercial buildings and the like,” he answered, improvising hastily. He should have claimed to be an author, he realized with the wisdom of hindsight. Something that didn’t have a body of knowledge that he should know.

“I see,” Cassie murmured, wondering whether to believe him or not. He could be telling the truth. Large commercial buildings did have insurance, so someone had to sell it to them. And it was possible that he wouldn’t know much about the rest of the industry. So why did she have the nagging feeling that she was being lied to? And what would be his purpose? He didn’t even know her. Maybe he was just an inept insurance man, she decided, glancing at him sideways as she turned onto the rugged coast road.

He was surreptitiously rubbing his palm over his right thigh, as if trying to massage a pain that was bone deep. A pain that he refused to give in to. Instead, he’d come with her. She would have expected a man with that kind of dogged determination to be a very knowledgeable insurance agent who knew all the ins and outs of the business.

But then, she didn’t really know him, she reminded herself. Despite the inexplicable sense of recognition she’d felt when she’d first seen him, she didn’t really know him. But perhaps she would by the time her vacation was over. The possibility lent a happy sense of anticipation to her thoughts.

The ride into Levington took only twenty minutes, despite the abysmal condition of the road.

“My God, don’t they ever fix the potholes?” Dan gasped as she swerved perilously near the side of the road to avoid a particularly bad one. He peered out the window, his eyes widening as he calculated the sheer drop off the cliff to the shore below. “You were right to be concerned about insurance,” he muttered. “Sooner or later you’re going to need it. Or your survivors will.”

“It’s not that bad. No one’s ever tumbled off that drop yet. At least, not sober they haven’t,” she amended. “One can’t eliminate all of the dangers in life.”

“No.” The curtly spoken word held a bitterness out of all proportion to her casual comment. “And that, I take it, is the town of Levington?” Dan gestured toward the buildings that had came into view.

“Uh-huh. We’ll stop by the newspaper office first.” Cassie decided to start her rumors of ghost sightings there.

“Newspaper?” Dan frowned as she parked in front of a small, redbrick building, trying to decide what the chances of his being recognized by the staff were. Slim, he finally concluded. He had never used a picture with his stories and they’d be highly unlikely to connect Dan Travis who walked in off the street with Leland Travis, Pulitzer Prize winner. Besides, for him to suddenly refuse to go into the newspaper office would be bound to make Cassie suspicious of him. Something he didn’t want to do.

“It’s a pretty good little paper, even if it is only a weekly.” Cassie climbed out of the car. “Ed Veach has run it for as long as I can remember.”

“It must be nice to publish a weekly.” Dan looked around curiously as he followed her into the building. “Just local news, with a minimum of carnage.”

Cassie shot him a curious glance, wondering at the wistful tone in his voice, but before she could think of a way to phrase a question, she caught sight of Ed coming out of the storeroom in the back and hurried over to him.

“Ed, I have something I want to talk to you about,” she said.

He eyed her suspiciously. “Whatever good cause you’re selling raffle tickets for, I don’t want any.”

“I’m not selling anything,” she told him.

Ed opened his eyes in mock surprise. “Will wonders never cease! You’ve actually come to buy some advertising?”

“No, not that either. Ed, this is Dan Travis, who’s a guest at the inn. Dan, this cynic is Ed Veach.”

Ed automatically shook the hand Dan held out. He stared intently into Dan’s face for a long, puzzled moment, and then his mouth fell open. “Say, aren’t you—”

“I’m Dan Travis, an insurance agent from New York City.”

Cassie blinked, taken aback at the tone of Dan’s voice. It had gone from casual pleasantness to... She peered uncertainly at him. For a moment he had sounded capable of... Of what? She scoffed at her imagination.

“Certainly, certainly. My mistake. Insurance, you say?” Ed continued with a knowing smile that made Cassie feel as if she’d missed something. “I’ll bet you use lots of computers in the insurance business, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Dan said cautiously. “I would imagine most businesses these days are heavily into computers one way or another.”

“You may not know this, Cassie—” Ed turned to her “—but we have a school bond issue coming up next month to raise money to buy computers for the kids.”

“That’s nice,” Cassie murmured, having no interest whatsoever in it. She had more than enough to worry about with her aunt’s vacancy problem.

“It occurs to me, Dan, that you might be willing to write a guest editorial for me,” Ed said blandly. “Something along the lines of a businessman telling the voters why it would be a good idea to educate their children to compete in the twenty-first-century job market.”

Cassie blinked, surprised at Ed’s request. Her surprise grew at Dan’s response. Instead of politely declining, as she would have expected, he gave Ed a rueful grin and muttered, “I’d love to.”

“Good. Good.” Ed rubbed his hands together in gleeful enthusiasm. “Now then—” he turned again to Cassie “—if you aren’t selling and you aren’t buying, why are you here?”

“I want your opinion.” She tried to inject an uncertain note into her voice. “Being a newspaperman for as long as you have, I imagine you’ve seen it all, and the most extraordinary thing happened yesterday. I saw something on the back stairs, and then again in the attic.” She shuddered and paused, giving the tension time to build.

“Spit it out, woman,” Ed ordered.

“If I believed in ghosts,” Cassie said hoarsely, “I’d say I saw the ghost of Jonas Middlebury.”

“The ghost of—” Ed sputtered to a halt. “How do you know it was him?”

“Whatever I saw looked exactly like Jonas Middlebury was supposed to have looked, and since he died a hundred and fifty years ago...” Cassie allowed her voice to trail away suggestively.

“Sounds like a ghost to me,” Dan stated calmly.

Ed gave him a scathing look and turned to Cassie. “And if the old geezer died a hundred and fifty years ago, then how do you know what he looked like?”

“They did have writing back then,” Cassie said, hastily improvising. “And old Jonas wrote to his fiancée.”

“You’re saying the inn is haunted?” Ed demanded.

“Nope.” Cassie was very careful not to make any false claims. “I’m merely saying that I saw something very strange that promptly disappeared. Since I don’t believe in ghosts, I’m hoping that you have another explanation.”

Dan studied Cassie’s earnest expression, wondering what this was all about. She didn’t seem to be the kind of nut who believed in the supernatural. His first impression of her—other than the fact that she was one very sexy lady—was that she was intelligent. But claiming to have seen ghosts was not exactly the hallmark of intelligence.

“Could you do a story on it and see if any of your readers have any ideas?” Cassie suggested with a hopeful look at Ed.

“You bring me a picture of your ghost, and I’ll run it on the front page,” Ed countered.

“If I can manage to get a photo, Ed Veach, I’ll sell it to the highest bidder,” Cassie shot back.

The editor chuckled. “That’ll teach me, huh?” He turned to Dan. “You won’t forget that editorial, will you?”

“No, I won’t forget,” Dan threw over his shoulder as he followed Cassie out of the newspaper office. “Is there really a ghost at China View?” he asked as he fell into step beside her.

“I saw something on the stairs.” Cassie stopped in front of the bank. Pulling the deposit envelope out of her purse, she carefully stuffed it into the automatic deposit slot, cautiously checked to make sure it had gone down and then headed across the street to the café, intent on spreading the rumor further.

“And you think it was a ghost?” Dan persisted as he held the door for her.

“I have never believed in ghosts,” she said honestly. “And I see no reason to change my mind simply because I saw something or someone who seemed to be able to disappear at will.”

“Who disappeared?” Annie, the waitress, looked up from the cherry pie she was cutting. “Don’t tell me we got us a little excitement in this place?”

“I don’t think so.” Cassie slipped onto one of the stools at the counter, figuring it would be easier to spread rumors from there than from one of the more-isolated booths in the back. “I’m sure it must have been my imagination.”

“You?” Annie scoffed. “You’re disgustingly levelheaded.”

“Her whole family is,” Bill, seated farther down the counter, offered. “When I was in school with your father, Cassie, he had no more imagination than a garden slug.”

“And your aunt Hannah has an explanation for everything,” Jim, his elderly coffee-drinking crony added.

“Ain’t that the truth,” Annie muttered. “I still remember being in her kindergarten class.”

“You and most of the town,” Jim said. “What does Hannah have to say about what you saw?”

“Aunt Hannah doesn’t believe in ghosts, either,” Cassie said truthfully.

“What makes you think it was a ghost?” Annie demanded.

“I didn’t say it was a ghost,” Cassie said. “Just because I saw something on the stairs...”

“Something?” Jim peered at her. “This ain’t no joke you’re playing on us, is it, Cassie?”

“Absolutely not!” The conviction in Cassie’s voice was unmistakable. It was certainly no game, she told herself, quieting her conscience. Her aunt’s livelihood depended on this charade.

“What about you?” Bill asked Dan. “Have you seen this ghost she’s talking about?”

Dan looked into Cassie’s hopeful eyes and felt a curious twisting sensation in his chest. Despite his horror of manufacturing news, he couldn’t quite divorce himself from whatever fantasy she was so carefully creating. And it wasn’t as if it were really news, he decided, appeasing his conscience.

“Well, I’m not sure I actually saw anything. Not exactly,” Dan said slowly.

“Well, what exactly?” Annie leaned over the counter.

“I heard something outside my room, but when I opened the door...” Dan paused.

“Yeah?” Jim demanded.

“I caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye, and when I turned, it had disappeared. And there was this smell.”

“What kind of smell?” Annie’s faded blue eyes widened in delighted horror. “Like something out of the grave?”

Cassie blinked. This was getting out of hand. She certainly didn’t want anyone associating China View with corpses.

Dan lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Of ambergris.”

“Ambergris is what those whalers were after, isn’t it?” Jim turned to Cassie in excitement. “And wasn’t the man who built China View a whaling captain?”

“Yes, Jonas Middlebury was his name,” she admitted. “But I’m sure there’s a perfectly normal explanation for it. Like...” She purposefully looked uncertain.

“Cleaning supplies?” Dan offered.

“Yes, cleaning supplies.” Cassie gave him a beaming smile that seemed to wrap around his chest and constrict his breathing.

“You were right.” Dan nodded decisively. “There was a rational explanation.”

“Ha!” Annie gave him a pitying look. “I’ve been cleaning more years than you been alive, and I tell you, there ain’t no cleaning supply that smells like ambergris.”

“Well, I, for one, prefer his explanation to ghosts,” Cassie said.

Annie shivered happily. “Was he handsome?”

Cassie instinctively looked at Dan, and then realized Annie was referring to the supposed ghost. “Well, I didn’t get a clear look at him, but he seemed to have a bushy black beard.”

“Sailing captains all had bushy beards,” Bill offered.

Jim nodded in agreement. “Every picture I ever saw, they did. Cassie, you got yourself a ghost.” He tossed some money down beside his empty plate and headed toward the door, with Bill hot on his heels. No doubt to spread the story, Cassie thought in satisfaction.

“Annie, I’ll have a cup of coffee and a piece of that pie you’re cutting, please,” she said.

“Same for me, plus a hamburger,” Dan ordered, rather surprised to realize he was hungry. It seemed so long since he’d thought about such mundane things as food.

“How can you be thinking about eating with a ghost haunting the inn?” Annie demanded.

“Nonsense,” Cassie said. “Dan just gave us a perfectly adequate explanation for what he smelled, and I probably just saw...” She waved her hand vaguely.

“Ha!” Annie muttered as she poured the coffee, shoved a piece of pie in front of each of them and then hurried back to the kitchen to get the hamburger.

Cassie surreptitiously studied Dan out of the corner of her eye as she added cream and sugar to her coffee. He was meticulously eating the cherries out of his pie. Why had he backed up her story about a ghost? she wondered. He couldn’t have really heard anything. She’d only just hired Jonas. The actor wouldn’t have had time to get upstairs and be seen. Although adding the smell of ambergris was certainly a nice touch, she conceded.

“What does ambergris smell like?” she asked him curiously.

Dan gave her a wide grin. “Cleaning supplies?”

Annie bustled through the swinging doors from the kitchen, plopped a steaming hamburger and a gargantuan pile of fries in front of Dan and then turned to Cassie. “Eppie says she don’t believe in ghosts, and she wants to know if this is something to do with your job.”

“I don’t believe in ghosts, either, and I swear on a stack of Bibles that this has absolutely nothing to do with my job.” Cassie put her hand over her heart. “I’m on vacation for the next month while I recharge my mental batteries.”

“Ha! If you got a ghost out there at China View, it’s more than likely he’ll suck out all your mental energies.”

“I think it’s vampires who suck things out,” Cassie said. “And I would definitely recognize a vampire. They smell like basements and dress in black and have long fangs.”

Dan nodded in agreement. “That’s why they absolutely never smile. Their teeth are a dead giveaway.”

“You two can laugh now, but we’ll see who has the last laugh,” Annie said with ghoulish relish. “You let me know if anything else happens, promise?”

“Promise,” Cassie agreed promptly, well pleased with the results of her afternoon’s work. Unless she very much missed her guess, Jim and Bill were now over at the library spreading the story around the reading room, and Annie would tell everyone who came into the café. Probably with a few embellishments of her own.

“What job?” Dan asked curiously when Annie went to clean away Jim’s and Bill’s dirty dishes.

“What?” Cassie blinked in confusion.

“She wanted to know if the ghost sightings had something to do with your job. What job?”

“I’m in advertising,” Cassie said.

“Advertising?” Dan repeated. His eyes wandered over her impossibly innocent looking features, lingering on the suppressed laughter in the back of her eyes and the upward tilt of her soft lips. She looked like a mischievous sprite. His glance dropped to her small breasts, outlined against her silk shirt. No, she looked like a very sexy, mischievous sprite, he amended. One whose secrets he couldn’t wait to delve into.

“I’m at Welton and Mitchell in New York City. I’m a vice president,” she couldn’t resist adding at his skeptical expression.

He blinked in surprise at her disclosure. People, especially women, didn’t get to be vice presidents of old established firms at her age unless they were very competent as well as very sharp. And very competent, very sharp people didn’t spend their time spreading rumors about ghosts without a very good reason. So what was it? Finding out could be the most fun he’d had in years, he thought, feeling a stab of excitement ripple through him.