Book of Days: A Novel (45 page)

"Who'd you meet?"

"I can't . . ." Heat filled his body. "You have to help me." He looked up. "It's important for me to remember this." He kneaded the back of his neck.
Remember!

"Was it a man? A woman? A kid?"

"I talked to this person about the Book of Days, I know it." Cameron stood and immediately sat back down. "Help me."

For the next few minutes Cameron tried to recreate the event of the previous day, but nothing more than a vague recollection of talking to someone at some point during or after or before the climb was all he could grasp.

"It'll come back. Give it time."

He didn't have time. And it wouldn't come back. "We need me to remember it now. I have to."

"Let it go."

"I can't." Cameron turned and stared out the window of the coffee shop.

"It seems like whatever it was, it's let go of you." Ann took his hands and rubbed the top of them. "It'll be okay, Cam-Ram."

He fell back in his chair as another wave of heat washed over him. "What did you call me?"

"Cam-Ram. Has nobody ever called you that before?"

He gripped his chair. "Jessie called me that."

"Hey, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to call you something she—"

"No problem." Ann calling him that? As strange as it was, it felt right.

She squeezed his hands. "Can we talk about Taylor's basement? I think I've found something that might help us in this crazy quest."

"What quest? It's over."

"Probably, but maybe not."

"Give me a minute to clear my head."

Ann stood. "No problem. Those éclairs have been tempting me for three days. So I'm going to get rid of the temptation by eating one."

Ann seemed to move in slow motion as she weaved through the knot of people waiting to order their java jolt. When she reached the pastry shelves at the back of the coffee shop, she reached in and pulled out two chocolate éclairs and pretended they were dancing with each other.

When she got back, she said, "This éclair will do wondrous things for your mind and to your taste buds."

"Wouldn't that be nice?"

Ann took her first bite and wiped her mouth with a napkin. "I think Taylor wanted us to find the book."

"What do you mean?" Cameron took his first bite of the éclair. Wow. Tasty.

"Didn't you think it strange he wasn't upset that we broke into his building?" Ann took another bite. "He didn't even mention it. And did you see the look of satisfaction on his face as we left?"

"No."

"Trust me. It's a girl thing. Any other woman would have seen it too."

"And?"

"It was as if he'd accomplished something he wanted to see finished."

"Which was?" Cameron clicked his pen and pulled out his notepad.

"I think he wanted to keep us from finding anything else in that basement."

"Like what?"

"Something we missed."

"And that is?"

"Another room we should have seen, that should have been there but wasn't, but had to be but we didn't see it."

Cameron rubbed his forehead. "English please."

"According to the blueprints, there is one more room in that basement we didn't see. My photographic memory, remember?"

No, he didn't. "And you remember what?"

"When we dropped down to the second level of the basement, we could only go left. But there should have been a room just to the right. There wasn't."

"How big?"

"At least ten by ten, maybe bigger."

Cameron ran his fingers through his hair. Was it possible? He couldn't stop hope from stirring in his heart. "Hidden from sight just like the book room."

"That's what I'm thinking."

"You think he's stashed something in the extra room? A real Book of Days?"

"You won't be able to push me that far, Cam, but I think we're going to discover some fascinating things about Taylor Stone."

"I'm going back. Soon."

Ann dug her hands into her hips. "You mean
we're
going back."

"Really, even after that run-in with Jason?"

"Yes."

"I think I like you." Cameron smiled.

"It's mutual."

Finding the additional hidden room proved easier than finding the first. Behind the tapestry to their right was a small door with three ancient-looking padlocks. Time for Ann to apply her special skill again. She winked at him and two minutes later tossed the locks to the concrete floor.

"Ready?" Ann asked.

"More than."

The door scraped open and they stepped into a room the size of a small den. Cobwebs hung like layered curtains from the ceiling covered by a fine coating of dust.

"Ugh." Ann brushed them aside with her flashlight. "Someone forgot to call the cleaning crew."

"Amazing." Cameron took a slow spin, shining his light on the room's contents. "I have a whole new set of questions for Mr. Stone."

A large stack of newspapers were piled on a large oak desk directly in front of them. Hundreds of photos were tacked to the wall above the desk. On the left-hand wall was a map of Deschutes County. On the right wall hung a world map with a familiar set of dots and next to it a map of the night sky with the Vela and Pyxis constellations lined out with a white pencil.

Cameron rapped the map with his fingers. "We have just found—"

"Game headquarters."

"Take a look at this." Cameron pointed to a framed picture on the desk. It was a copy of the photo of Ann's mom flying through the air on the tire swing.

"All the secrets of Taylor Stone on display."

He continued to search the right side of the room as Ann explored the left. A few minutes later she walked back carrying something. "I think you're going to want to sit down for this, Cam. Maybe lie down. Stone created more than a game." She shone her light on an old notebook in her hand.

As Ann flipped the pages of the notebook, Cameron felt like a dentist had shot his body full of Novocain. Page after page was filled with scrawled notes on how to make leather look and feel hundreds of years old, how to hand-make parchment paper to look hundreds of years old, and notes of the fonts used in the early eighteenth century.

The realization flooded over him. "He made the book."

"Yes."

"The whole thing."

"The question is why," Ann said.

Cameron rummaged through the rest of the notes on the desk. "Native American legends of the Northwest, Native American languages, burning letters into leather . . . unbelievable. He could publish
Creating a Book of Days for Dummies.
"

Ann didn't speak till they'd left the building, clomped the quarter-mile to Cameron's car, and slumped into their seats.

"Any ideas why Taylor would go to all the effort to manufacture that book and set up the clues? This is more than a game to him," Ann said.

Cameron stared out the window. A sick game.

"I'm guessing you'll be keeping your date with Taylor tomorrow morning."

That's right! Taylor was going to teach him to fly-fish.

"Absolutely. He'd better be ready to catch much more than fish."

CHAPTER 42

Cameron got up Thursday morning with fishing on his mind. He was the hook. Taylor Stone was the trout.

They reached the trailhead to Whychus Creek at five o'clock, meaning Cameron had lurched out of bed at a horrendous time, but Taylor said they had to get to the river early if they wanted to catch any rainbows. This didn't jell with Taylor's penchant for dropping his flies on the river at all hours of the day, but Cameron didn't argue the point. It was the perfect place to confront him about his creation of a Book of Days, and if getting up before God was awake was the price, so be it.

Here there would be no distractions. Nowhere for Taylor to walk away to. And Cameron had written down the details of what they'd found under The Sail & Compass the night before, so if he needed to be reminded of anything, he could access it in an instant.

By six o'clock they'd tied their first flies and Taylor had coached him on the fluid back and forth motion needed to cast correctly. The hole Taylor had chosen was no bigger than a large inner tube. Cameron only hit the spot two times in ten casts, and bites from the brown trout under the translucent water eluded him, but he loved it.

The only sound was the rush of the river as it meandered its way through the stones, and the smooth swish of their rods through the air.

"Slow down," Taylor said, "you're not going to whip the fish into submission by casting like that. Let the fly settle on the water and then take it back up after a two count."

Cameron slowed down.

"Much better."

After he caught and released his first trout, Taylor said, "How many years were you and Jessie married before her accident?"

"Too few." Cameron drew back his rod and made a perfect cast into the hole. "Five."

"You were with her when she died?"

"Yeah." Cameron slogged through the water back to the rocky beach and set his rod down. "All the clichés you hear on the radio and see in the movies were bottled up in her like love-lightning. Being with Jessie was like opening that bottle in every moment."

"I know that love."

"You and Tricia?"

Taylor shook his head. "I love Tricia and don't deserve all the things she's done or tried to do for me." He cast five more times before he continued. "I'm talking about Annie."

Finally he would get the story on Annie.

"Ann was named for her as you know." He stopped casting and drilled Cameron with his eyes. "I'm not sure how I feel about you falling for my niece."

"I'm not falling for her."

Taylor adjusted his U of O hat. "Uh-huh."

Cameron rammed his hands into his back pockets and didn't answer.

"Annie was all grace and toughness. Pretty as all get-out but could run faster than half the boys growing up. Vanishing from my life almost thirty-three years ago, you'd think my memories would have faded, but Annie was the type you never forget."

Taylor finished releasing the fish he'd just caught and set it back in the river. It spurted away, disappearing downstream. "Of course not being able to let go of her makes for a pretty heavy burden to carry, you know?"

Cameron knew. "How did Annie die?"

"In a car accident." This time Taylor cast eight times. "Like you, I loved the old muscle cars. And I found a favorite. When I looked at the horses under the hood of that beat-up Mustang, I knew I was the one to tame her." Taylor turned and stared at him. "You understand, don't you?"

He nodded.

Taylor yanked back on his rod, a rainbow trout dangling on his line, and pulled it in. "I bought that beauty two summers before the accident happened. That car was my passion." Taylor trudged back to shore and set his rod down. "It took me the full two years to restore it. Ran as smooth as a maple seedling twirling to the ground when I was finished."