The Ghost Manuscript Read online

  When the cab pulled up at the spot near the woods in Wellesley, she paid the driver an extra thirty dollars to wait for her. “It’s really important that you’re here when I get back,” she said as she hopped out of the cab.

  “I’ll be here,” said the cabbie. “I don’t wanna know anything else.”

  “If it looks like someone is watching you, call this number,” she told him, and handed him a slip of paper. “Okay, my friend?”

  “Okay, sweetheart,” he said, and tossed the number onto his dashboard along with a dozen other scraps of paper, gum wrappers, and dust.

  She walked into the woods, duffel slung over her shoulder. It was a sunny, cool day—the woods were starting to smell alive, and the tree pollen tickled her nose. Any other day, these woods would give her peace. Today, the hair on her arms stood up.

  After ten minutes of walking, she began to doubt her direction. Then she heard cars passing—she was close to the street that ran by Adeona’s driveway. She broke out in a nervous sweat, convinced she’d missed the vault. She crouched low and scanned the forest for a tall, solitary pine tree.

  Finally, she spotted it, slightly off to her left—she could see its dark green peak above the canopy of newly green leaves. She walked to its thick trunk and began kicking at the undergrowth at its base.

  After several moments, she uncovered an unnaturally flat area. Using her fingers, she identified the boundaries of it, then ran her hand across it looking for the device that ran the hatch. She found what felt like a bubble. She tried to pull it up with her fingers, but they kept slipping off, so she used her keys to pry one edge up. The bubble lifted up, like a coffin top. Below it was a keypad. She blew some leaves and grass away from the numbers on the keypad, retrieved the code from her pocket, took a deep breath, and typed in the code slowly and carefully—there was no telling what would happen if she typed it wrong. She heard a slight thunk, then one end of the hatch began to rise as if it were on a hydraulic lift.

  Once the hatch was fully open, she peered down into the hole below. A metal staircase went straight into blackness. She pulled out the flashlight and took the first few steps, her heart thumping so loudly that she couldn’t tell if there was any sound inside the tunnel. She started to hum the melody to “Happy Birthday”—it always calmed her down. This time, it didn’t work.

  At the bottom of the staircase, she shined the flashlight around. There was another keypad on the tunnel’s cement wall. She re-entered the code, and the hatch closed down again. She turned around to survey the tunnel.

  The passageway had clean, smooth cement walls, ceiling and floor, and it was more than head high. It smelled musty. She’d been expecting a dirt tunnel and was relieved to see vents, lights, and a light switch, which she flipped on. Fluorescent lights, one after the other, each farther away, flickered on to reveal a long, seemingly endless hallway. It dipped down slightly on its way toward the mansion. She turned off the flashlight to conserve the batteries, stuffed the code back in her pocket, and started to walk.

  After just a minute in the dank space, her breath began to catch in her throat. Sweat beaded on her forehead and neck, and her head began to swim. She stopped walking and put her hand against the wall to steady herself. The feeling of cold cement didn’t help. Her chest felt tight.

  She couldn’t do it—she didn’t even know she was claustrophobic until that moment. She decided to go back outside, compose herself, and try again. She turned around and looked back where she’d come from.

  Lestinus stood between her and the stairs. She startled at the sight, and her heart set off racing.

  “Timor solus est,” he said calmly, his voice like a warm blanket. “Ambula te statim.” It’s just fear. Keep walking.

  Oddly, the sound of his voice made her heart slow down a little, and she began to feel steadier on her feet. Alright, she thought. He comes out when I’m panicked. Or just waking up. Is that a good sign or a bad one?

  “When you get in, you must be very quiet,” he said.

  Carys continued to lean against the wall, breathing heavily, trying to keep the fear at bay.

  “What are you?” she asked.

  “I’m here to help you,” he said. Then he smiled. A genuine, loving smile. Her breathing steadied, and she stood up straight. She turned down the long corridor and began to walk.

  After what seemed like an hour, she saw the end of the tunnel up ahead. There was a steel door with a similar number pad next to it. She carefully typed the code again.

  The door opened directly into the book vault. She’d never even noticed the door when she’d been in the vault before. But that wasn’t all that surprising. Her mind had been totally immersed in the monk’s tale.

  Carys walked into the vault, leaving the door behind her open. She didn’t intend to be in here long. She swept her flashlight around the dark room, and the light bounced off the smooth white walls, the machinery, the filing cabinets. Everything seemed to be in its place. No one had made it in. She felt her shoulders relax a little. Nicola had stopped them outside. God, she was so brave.

  Lestinus moved across the vault and waited for her by the glass-topped display case. She walked to it and aimed the flashlight in.

  It was empty.

  Carys’s mind went blank.

  It had to be there.

  She pointed the flashlight into all the corners of the case. Nothing.

  She spun around and aimed the beam of light on the counter where Nicola always kept the hardcover black notebook containing the translation. It wasn’t there either. She moved the light to the bookshelf above the counter. She scanned each row, growing closer to a full panic with every sweep of the light across the spines of the books, none of which were the transcription notebook. She started pulling the books down from the shelf to see if maybe the transcription or manuscript was behind them. Nothing.

  “Oh my god,” she said, turning to Lestinus. “It’s not here.” Tiny stars began to form at the periphery of her vision. “She said they didn’t get it. Where is it?”

  Lestinus stood calmly next to the staircase up to the library.

  “Saccus,” he said in Latin.

  Carys just looked at him, perplexed.

  “Saccus,” he repeated.

  She stared at the vision. What the hell was he talking about?

  Saccus. She went through her translations in her mind. Sack cloth. Rough fabric. Sack. Then it hit her. Saccus. It could mean bag. That’s what Nicola had been trying to say in the hospital. Bag. But that made no sense either.

  “What bag?” she asked him.

  Lestinus smiled.

  “She was leaving,” said Lestinus. “She was saving them.”

  She’d called Nicola last night and told her to get out of the mansion. She must have put the manuscript and the translation in her bag.

  “It’s in the house,” said Lestinus.

  “Maybe it’s in the hospital room.”

  “It wasn’t there,” he said. “It’s still here.”

  She grabbed her phone out of her purse and called the floor nurse at the ICU, who confirmed that no personal effects had been transported to the hospital with Nicola.

  The reality of what she had to do next struck her like a punch to the chest. Nicola usually kept her bag hanging from the back of one of the tall chairs at the breakfast bar. She had to go out there.

  What if someone was there? Maybe JJ or the cops had come back?

  She climbed the stairs out of the vault and took a deep breath. The vault door slid open when she hit the button, revealing the thin wooden panels of the back of the movable bookshelf. Two thin strips of light shone through the narrow gaps on either side of it.

  When she hit the final code number, the sound of the bookshelf moving forward would alert anyone who was in the room. She held her breath, staring through the tiny slit on the right
, looking for any movement, and listening as hard as she could.

  She could hear nothing. No one was in the library.

  The room’s door––always locked––would provide cover for her to get out of the vault without anyone seeing her. Getting to the kitchen would be another matter.

  She exhaled and typed in the final digit. The bookshelf thunked quietly and began to slide forward. She pushed the button that stopped it. She stuck her head into the crack formed between the moving bookshelf and the fixed one to the right.

  Just then, she heard a noise, a cracking sound. There was someone in the house.

  She was about to touch the button again to slide the bookshelf back into place, but Lestinus moved up close to her.

  “We have no choice—we have to get it,” he said.

  “You mean I have to get it,” she said.

  Somewhere in the house, a set of heavy, quick feet stomped back and forth. It definitely wasn’t JJ. He wasn’t that big. Maybe the cops?

  She pushed the button again, easing the bookshelf only far enough forward so she could slip through the space. She stuck her head around the side and surveyed the library.

  The scene stopped her breath. There was a huge dark stain on the floor by the desk. The desk chair had been knocked over. The glass faces of almost all the bookshelves were smashed, and books had been pulled down and were strewn across the floor.

  The library door was wide open, nearly flush with the library wall.

  Fuck, she thought.

  She ducked back behind the bookshelf. JJ must have forgotten to lock it when he left. He was probably in shock. All that blood. Carys swallowed hard but her throat was too tight to let the spit go down.

  She could wait until the person left the house. She should wait. But who knew how long he’d be there. And there wasn’t time. She needed the book and translation. She needed to get to the Athenaeum. Then, she needed to get out of town.

  Whoever was in the house wasn’t expecting her to be there. She could avoid him or her. She had to.

  Carys slipped out from behind the bookshelf and walked along the wall of books to her right. She moved silently behind the opened library door so she could hear what was happening in the rest of the house.

  Someone was in the kitchen opening cabinets and drawers, pulling things out, throwing them to the ground, swearing in frustration—with a British accent.

  The goon.

  She began to tremble. She hadn’t given Nicola enough warning. He’d come back here and somehow got into the house and shot Nicola. And now he was back, looking for what he came for last night.

  The smashing and slamming meant he hadn’t found it yet.

  This was the only good news.

  If he found the manuscript now, in the handbag probably hanging off the back of the chair in the kitchen, then Nicola’s suffering, and all the years she and Harper spent on this search, would be for nothing.

  Carys couldn’t let that happen. She scanned the library for a weapon. She knew there were scissors in the desk. She would kill this man herself. Except he had a gun.

  She slowly closed the library door, but only enough so she could see out into the hallway through the crack between the hinged edge of the door and the doorjamb.

  Lestinus walked slowly into the center of the library near the desk. She almost told him to stop and hide, then remembered he wasn’t really there. He raised his arm and pointed out the partially closed door.

  “It’s there,” he said.

  Carys looked back through the crack. Just then, the goon stormed into the foyer. Carys pressed her back against the wall. Within seconds the smashing continued in the living room on the other side of the entranceway—it sounded like he was ripping the pictures off the walls and turning over the furniture.

  “There,” said Lestinus, continuing to point out the door. She scanned the foyer through her narrow vantage point but could see nothing. She looked back at Lestinus.

  “Where?” she whispered.

  Lestinus stood there, pointing.

  She looked into the foyer once more, and that’s when she saw it.

  A section of a thin black leather strap was peeking out from underneath the massive wooden table in the center of the room. Nicola’s bag.

  The commotion continued in the living room. Carys could not try to grab the bag until he had moved on to another room. It looked like he’d already scoured the library, so he probably wouldn’t come back. Probably.

  The wait was interminable. With each new crash, adrenaline jagged through her veins and sweat soaked through her shirt. After what seemed like a lifetime, the man reappeared and mounted the steps to the second-floor balcony. The moment she heard his footsteps above her, she edged around the door and stepped silently into the foyer.

  It wasn’t far—maybe fifteen feet—but it was a mile. She could hear the man slamming around above her. It sounded like he was dumping the contents of a bureau on the floor. Like they’d hide a priceless manuscript in a bureau. Idiot.

  Carys took a deep breath, crouched low, and moved as swiftly and silently as she could toward the strap under the table. She grabbed it and yanked, and Nicola’s purse came sliding out. She clutched it under her arm and quickly scanned the floor. Only a lipstick and an eyeglass case remained behind. She spun and crab-walked on all fours back to the library.

  Once inside, she ran back to the extended bookshelf. As she turned her body to slide behind it, something on the floor caught her eye. A business card. She grabbed it and scanned it quickly. A man’s name, a U.K. address, and a bloody fingerprint.

  Above her, she could hear the brute thumping back down the stairs. She put the card into Nicola’s purse, slid behind the bookshelf, and hit the button to close it. She shut the vault door behind her before the shelf was fully retracted. Only when she was at the foot of the stairs in the vault room did she allow herself to look in Nicola’s bag.

  There was the translation notebook. Inserted between each notebook page, right where Carys had put them, were the photocopied x-ray images of each page of the journal––Lestinus’s tiny writing peaking through the newer psalms. At the bottom of the purse, underneath Nicola’s wallet and a small package of tissues, was a Ziploc bag. She pulled it out and unzipped it. Inside was an object wrapped in a silk cloth. She slowly unwrapped it.

  The manuscript smiled up at her from her hand. She looked at Lestinus, standing next to the tunnel door. She opened the book and gazed at its pages, so small and ancient. She felt as happy to see these pages as anything or anyone she’d ever seen in her life. She lifted the book to her nose and deeply inhaled the scent, as familiar now as that of a friend or a lover. Her head swerved but cleared again in an instant.

  Carys wrapped the silk around the book, put it back in the bag, and placed it, the notebook, and the bloody business card into her duffel. She left Nicola’s purse on the counter.

  She had been gone for more than forty minutes, but the driver had waited. She gave him another twenty. “Did you see anyone?”

  “Nope. Barely any cars passed the whole time you were gone,” he said, glancing at her in the rear-view. “You okay, miss?”

  Carys nodded.

  “I need to go to the Boston Athenaeum. On Beacon Street and Park,” she said, then dialed Annie.

  “Are we all set?” she whispered.

  “Yup, the package has been delivered. The flights have been booked out of Logan. Your name is Jane Roberts. You’re from Waltham.”

  “I’m flying first class, of course,” Carys said.

  “As a matter of fact, you are,” said Annie. “I left your luggage at the Athenaeum. I repacked it into a big legal briefcase.”

  “Listen, there’s something else. The goon was at the house when I was there. If you tell the police to head back there right now, they might be able to catch him. Maybe they can g
et some prints. He’s ransacking the place. Also, I found a business card on the floor in the library. It’s for a guy with a British address. There’s blood on it. I don’t know whose blood, or if the guy in the house is the guy on the card, but can you check it out? I’ll leave it at the desk at the Athenaeum.”

  “Sounds good,” said Annie. “I’ll call the Wellesley cops as soon as we hang up.”

  “I’ll call you when I get to London,” she said. “Please check in on Nicola while I’m gone. And tell Harper I’ve left.”

  “Will do,” said Annie.

  “I’m afraid.”

  “Be careful,” said Annie.

  There was a soft click as Annie hung up. It felt final.

  ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

  Frank pressed the doorbell for the first-floor unit of the apartment building in Newton where the Jones bird lived. After a few minutes, the front door opened a crack and an older gentleman peeked through. He turned his eyes up to Frank and recoiled. People sure were skittish in America.

  “Hello, sir. I’m Matthew Williams and I’m looking for Carys Jones,” said Frank, using his very best posh British accent. “I’ve come from London for a meeting with her about an auction at Sothington’s, and we were supposed to meet this afternoon here, but she’s not at home. Do you happen to know when she’ll be back?”

  The man eyed him coldly.

  “She’s away,” he said. “She left last night to visit a sick relative. We’re watching her cat. I don’t know when she’s due back. Excuse me. I’ve got food on the stove.” He didn’t wait for a reply before he closed the door. Frank was going to knock again and then thought better of it.

  So, she’d made plans to leave town right after he’d tried to bribe her last night.

  He walked back to his car, got in, and dialed Gyles.

  Gyles answered and he could hear what sounded like a party in the background.

  “Hang on a moment, please,” said Gyles, his Manchester accent gone, replaced by a thick, landed-gentry articulation. He addressed someone nearby. “Your excellency, I’m afraid there’s a bit of a situation at the Guggenheim. May I beg your indulgence for a few moments while I get it sorted?” He could hear Gyles walking away from the voices, then down an echoing hall, and finally into a small room without an echo.