The Ghost Manuscript Read online

  “A man just tried to buy the manuscript from me.”

  His jaw dropped.

  “How did he know about it?” he whispered loudly.

  “I don’t know. He was a big guy. He had a gun and was pretty clear that he would take it by force if I didn’t agree to sell it. I saw him in the forest behind the mansion, then he followed me to my house and offered me three hundred thousand dollars.”

  “Three hundred?” snorted Harper. He looked confused, and his eyes darted back and forth to the door.

  “I told him I didn’t know what manuscript he was talking about and that he should call Sothington’s if he wanted to purchase such a thing,” she said.

  “How the hell did this happen?!” he said, his voice rising. She put her finger to her lips.

  “I called Nicola and let her know. She said she would meet me here at ten.”

  “He knows where I live,” he said. “Nicola could be—”

  “She’ll be fine.” She wanted so much to believe it. “I called her last night to warn her. What do I do?”

  Harper stood up and began pacing.

  “I need to get out of here.”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “I know, but I can’t help if I’m in here.”

  “You’re safer in here than you would be if you were out,” she said. “You’d just be another person this guy could come after.”

  “You need to take the manuscript away,” said Harper. “Nicola will have to go somewhere safe. JJ, too. I don’t know how I’ll explain this to him, but I’ll figure it out. You need to take the manuscript to Wales and follow the clues right away. If you leave today, they won’t even know you’ve gone.”

  Carys was stunned.

  “Why don’t we just take the manuscript out of town and lie low for a while?”

  “If this guy knows the manuscript exists and he has already tried to bribe you for it, he probably knows what’s in it,” said Harper. “He’ll know what it leads to. It’s not the manuscript he’s after—it’s the tomb. The tomb and its contents.”

  “But he can’t find the tomb without the manuscript,” said Carys. “If we just hide it—”

  “We can hide it, but as long as you, Nicola, and I are still alive and know where the manuscript is, none of us will be safe. Not us nor our families.”

  Carys thought of Annie outside in her car. Then a fleeting thought fell to her father, in Aberystwyth—but surely they knew nothing of him. She barely did.

  “The only way to stop him is to find the tomb and make public whatever is inside. That is the only way to protect ourselves,” said Harper.

  “Doesn’t it make more sense to report this to the police and—”

  “The police can’t help us,” said Harper. “We can’t make this public until we find the tomb, or we’ll set off the biggest treasure hunt and antiquities lawsuit in history. That manuscript is war loot. An ancient British relic. Only we can help ourselves.”

  “But I haven’t even finished authenticating—”

  “Goddammit, Carys!” said Harper. “Don’t you believe this yet? Don’t you see what this is? Has a single thing in that book failed to check out? What more do you need? What?!”

  He turned sharply to his right.

  “Be quiet!” he yelled to nothing.

  Carys sat rigid, her mouth slightly agape. Harper caught himself and sat down on the bed again and put his head in his hands.

  “I’m sorry,” said Harper. “It’s just…I can’t do anything here.” He looked up at her, his eyes beginning to fill. “I’m sorry I brought you into this, Carys. This wasn’t supposed to go this way. We were supposed to be able to work at our own pace, give this search its proper due. But that can’t happen now. You need to leave

  right away.”

  “How am I supposed to get the manuscript without them seeing me? What’s to prevent them from just jumping me once I have it? They already know what I look like and where I live,” she said.

  Harper leaned toward her and whispered, “There’s a secondary entrance into the vault. You’ll have to go in that way. There’s a hatch in the forest directly across the street from the entrance to my driveway. There’s a very large pine tree, about a hundred yards back from the edge of the road. It’s the only tree like it in that area. There’s a hatch in the ground directly behind it. It opens with a code. It leads right to the vault.”

  He scribbled numbers on a pad of paper on the desk, ripped off the sheet, and handed it to her.

  “You can grab the manuscript and anything else you need out of the library without anyone seeing you go in.”

  He handed her the codes, and she shoved them into her pants pocket.

  “Book a flight, round trip so it doesn’t send up any flags. Fly into Heathrow, not Cardiff. Get a car and head to Wales. Get a hotel room and stay there until you can figure out the clues and get started. Do not leave messages here. Don’t leave any voicemail messages for anyone, least of all Nicola. Get a new SIM card when you—”

  Carys’s phone rang. The caller ID said “JJ Harper.”

  “I should take this,” she said.

  She answered the phone.

  “Carys. It’s JJ Harper.”

  “Hello,” she said. “What can I—”

  “I know you’re with my father right now. The hospital called and said you were visiting. I…I have some bad news, but I don’t want you to say anything to my father.”

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “There’s been an accident,” he said, his voice catching and wavering. “At the mansion. It’s Nicola. I…I know it’s Saturday, but I…if you were planning to come work at Adeona today…you shouldn’t.”

  The blood drained from her face.

  “Hang on one moment,” she said to JJ. She turned to Harper.

  “I’ve got to take this,” she said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  She left the room calmly, then ran back down the hallway and out the front door, where she stood on the front steps and got the second-worst news of her life.

  ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

  Annie pushed her car to the limit down the Mass Pike toward St. Augustus Hospital, where Nicola was in intensive care. JJ was at the house. He said the investigators were finishing up and he was about to leave for Waggoner to speak with his father.

  Carys didn’t go back inside to see Harper. She just grabbed her bag out of her car and hopped into Annie’s—she knew she wouldn’t be able to drive.

  “What are you going to do?” asked Annie.

  “I have to get the manuscript and go to Wales,” she said. Even she couldn’t believe she was saying it.

  “How will you get it without them knowing?”

  “There’s a passage into the vault.”

  “Maybe someone else should get it?”

  “No,” she said. “It has to be me. I won’t endanger anyone else.”

  They drove in silence until the car pulled up in front of the emergency entrance at the hospital. Carys jumped out, then stopped and leaned in through the window.

  “Can you get me a fake passport?”

  Annie thought for a moment. “Yeah. I’ll figure it out. When do you want it?”

  “I’m going to try to get a flight out of here tonight.”

  “I’ll call you later this afternoon,” said Annie.

  “Don’t text or leave me a message. In case they can hack my phone,” she said.

  “Jesus,” said Annie.

  “I hate to put you in the middle of this, but I’m going to need you to talk to the cops. Go through back channels, whatever you need to do. They need to get whoever did this to Nicola, and they need to protect Mr. Harper,” she said. “But they can’t know anything about the manuscript. It’s a British antiquity and war loot—Mr. Harper could los
e everything if they find out about it.”

  “I understand. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Love you.”

  “Love you back.”

  She ran through the front doors and to the information desk. She lied and said Nicola was her sister, and they directed her to sixth-floor intensive care. She checked in at the nurse’s desk and was led to a glass-walled room. There was a police officer posted outside. He checked her ID. She held her breath as she pushed open the door, and the officer followed her into the room.

  Nicola’s face was paper white. There was an oxygen tube under her nose, tubes came out of her arms, and beeping machines surrounded her. Her upper body was wrapped in bandages, and a quarter-size patch of blood was seeping through them near Nicola’s armpit. It made Carys’s head swoon.

  “She’s heavily sedated right now,” said the nurse who was tending to Nicola’s IV. “She lost a lot of blood and shouldn’t move. You can’t stay long.”

  She nodded. She took hold of Nicola’s hand. It was cold.

  “Nicola, it’s Carys. I’m here. Can you hear me?” she whispered into the woman’s ear.

  Nicola squeezed her hand.

  “Did you see who did this to you?”

  She squeezed again.

  “Nic, this is important. Did they get the manuscript?”

  Nicola shook her head very slightly no.

  “Did you tell them where it was?”

  Nicola squeezed her hand tighter than she had so far, and shook no again.

  “That’s good. That’s good. I didn’t think you’d tell them. I’m so sorry. I’m going to take the manuscript and go to Wales. Harper gave me the codes to the passage. I can get in and out without them seeing me.”

  Nicola’s forehead creased, and she tried to speak.

  “Shh. Just try to relax. You and John are safe now. Once they realize I’m gone, they’ll come after me. You’ll both be safe. You’ll get better and this will all be over soon. And you and John can get back to all that fooling around.”

  Nicola continued to struggle to speak, her brow furrowed. She squeezed Carys’s hand again, and tugged her closer. The sounds came out of her like a long gag.

  “Baachhhh,” said Nicola.

  “I don’t understand. Try again, Nic.”

  Nicola’s heart rate monitor began to beep more quickly.

  “Baaaaahch,” she said.

  The door swung open, and an anxious nurse stepped in and moved briskly to the monitors.

  “You’ll have to leave now,” said the nurse.

  “But I—”

  “Now,” said the nurse firmly. “I’m sorry.”

  Carys backed away from the bed as the nurse took charge of the area with her bulky presence.

  “You get better. I’ll check in as often as I can. I’ll have my friend Annie look in on you,” she said as she moved toward the door.

  She could see Nicola struggling to open her eyes.

  “Just rest. Save your strength. I’ll make sure they find who did this to you. I promise.”

  The sound of the frantic monitor lingered in her ears as she stepped back into the hallway.

  ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

  Walking through the endless corridors of St. Augustus, Carys closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, then exhaled, then inhaled again, willing herself to process the situation in a linear fashion. She opened her eyes and looked up.

  The monk, the one who’d said he was Lestinus, was standing across the hall, staring at her.

  She gasped.

  She was wide awake. This wasn’t a dream. She was hallucinating. Or something.

  She closed her eyes again.

  “Debes nunc abire,” intoned the monk. You have to leave.

  Carys opened her eyes and scanned the hallway. Maybe he’d go away if she ignored him. He had to go away. She couldn’t be crazy. Not now. She had too many things to do. She looked up at the robed man again. He was as real as the pregnant woman in a wheelchair being pushed past her.

  The man pushing the wheelchair gave Carys a wide berth and glanced at her suspiciously.

  Her mother had never hallucinated, or at least she’d never told Carys she had. She probably would have been too embarrassed to admit it. She wouldn’t have wanted to worry her. There had been enough to worry about in their home.

  “Walk through this place, find a side door, take the carriage away from here,” the vision said in Latin.

  She put her hands on her ears and closed her eyes. She wanted his voice out of her head. Not now. This can’t be happening to me now. I’m not insane. I know I’m not. Go away.

  She opened her eyes. He was still there looking at her.

  “Go,” he said.

  “You’re not real,” she said aloud. “I am not…”

  Then a moment of clear thought cut through the panic.

  The carriage. He was talking about the subway. It was just across the street.

  It was a good idea. It was the fastest way out of Boston, and she wouldn’t have to linger outside waiting for a cab. She could take it all the way to Cambridge and get a cab from there.

  She looked at the vision’s face. Then she glanced down the hallway to find a red exit sign. She looked back for the monk.

  He was gone.

  For a split second, Carys was disappointed, then a wave of relief covered it. Her hands were shaking badly.

  She turned and walked down the hall to the small hospital convenience store. She stepped in and bought a dark-blue hoodie and a Red Sox cap. She bought a duffel bag, into which she put her purse. She also bought a disposable cell phone and a mini-flashlight and set of batteries in case the tunnel wasn’t lit. She turned off the GPS and all locator programs on her phone, yanked out the SIM card and dialed Annie on the disposable.

  “I’m going to go get the manuscript,” she said. “Are you okay?”

  “Hi, Roger,” Annie said. “I can’t really talk right now. I’m with the police. Some nasty business with a client. Can I call you back later?”

  “Yup,” said Carys. “Any luck on the passport?”

  “Absolutely,” she said. “I’ll have it by two-thirty. I’ll give you a call later and we can arrange a meeting.”

  “Annie, we need to assume they’re following you also. Perhaps you could leave the passport somewhere and I’ll come by and pick it up.”

  “Okay, I’ll talk to you later.”

  Carys pulled on the sweatshirt and the hat, and followed the signs to the ambulatory care center on the western side of the hospital. Just as she stepped outside, her phone rang. Annie’s phone number popped up. She stepped to the side of the hospital’s courtyard, in a shadow beneath a tree.

  “Where are you?” asked Carys without greeting.

  “Outside the police station. I don’t think I was followed. About this passport,” said Annie. “I can drop it wherever you want after two-thirty.”

  “Okay. I’ll also need a flight out of Boston to Heathrow,” she said.

  “I can book the flight and put it on my credit card as soon as I know the name on the passport. I’ll get you some cash,” said Annie.

  “Can you drop the passport at the Boston Athenaeum on Beacon?” she said. “I’m practically family over there.”

  “You and your moldy-book friends,” said Annie.

  “It’s better than having ex-con friends,” she said, managing a smile.

  “Not when you want a fake passport it isn’t, and don’t you forget it.”

  “Annie, I can’t tell you how much—”

  “Then don’t.”

  She closed the phone and walked to the edge of the curb, waited for the walk signal, then jogged across the street and into the MBTA station. As the station’s glass doors swung shut, she glanced back.

  The British goon
walked out of the hospital into the courtyard where she had just been standing.

  She gasped and turtled into her hoodie. At that instant, the goon stopped and scanned the area. Their eyes met. He stopped walking, his eyes widened, and then he sprang into a sprint toward her.

  Carys ran farther into the station, jumped the turnstile, and ran up the stairs leading to the platform. She could hear the rumble of a train but couldn’t tell if it was going east or west. She hit the westbound platform just as the boxy silver train pulled up.

  She ran down the platform to the lead car and jumped on just as the doors were closing. She sat with her back to the platform and put the duffel bag under the bench.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” a voice intoned over the train’s loudspeaker. “Due to traffic ahead, we are being temporarily held here by the conductor. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

  “No no no no no,” she whispered to herself. She picked up a discarded Metro newspaper from the seat next to her to shield her face. She peeked over the top of it to watch the reflection of the platform in the windows on the opposite side of the train.

  The goon ran up alongside the train right next to her car. He pressed his face to the windows, looking in at the passengers. In the reflection, she saw him see her. He began pounding on the windows, then he ran to the door. She held her breath.

  “Open the bloody doors—it’s an emergency!!!” he yelled in his deep British brogue.

  Just then, the train jolted and began to ease slowly out of the station. The goon ran alongside it, banging. And banging. He reached the end of the platform, and the banging stopped.

  Carys realized as the train rattled down into the tunnel on the Cambridge side of the Charles River that she was still holding her breath. She looked up at her fellow passengers, who seemed unfazed by the strange man’s outburst. As the seconds ticked by, she felt the tension slowly draining out of her.

  When the train made its final stop, she grabbed the duffel and bolted through the doors, up the stairs, and into the first in a line of cabs under a covered waiting area. She gave the cabbie directions to the stretch of dirt road near where the hatch was supposed to be hidden. She figured she’d bushwhack to the hatch rather than risk being spotted getting out of the taxi on the road in front of the mansion. She had no idea how many people were involved in this, out there looking for her.