Book of Days: A Novel (9 page)

Ann Banister poked her trip counter on her dashboard on Tuesday evening at five thirty, cranked the volume up on her Maroon 5 CD, and pulled onto I-5 heading south. She should be in Three Peaks in three hours.

Cameron flashed into her mind and she sighed.

Three days wouldn't be enough time to figure out what she would say to him when she saw him. Why did he have to ask her to come? Wasn't it enough to talk on the phone?

"Why am I doing this, God?" She smacked her steering wheel. "I could have said no. I should have said no."

But it was about more than Cameron. Why should she be burdened with only one unpleasant task when she could be weighed down by her mysterious past as well?

Ann glanced at the photo on her passenger seat. "Did you love me, Mom, in the short time we had together? Do I have any aunts or uncles out there thinking about me? Wondering about me? Do I finally get to find out?"

She sighed and stomped on the gas.
Fine. Let's go.
It was time to uncover the past, face Cameron, see if any of Jessie's story of the Book of Days held any truth, and determine what all three things would tell her about the future. But she didn't have to like any of it.

Ann passed through Marion Forks at seven thirty and flicked on her headlights against the growing dusk. Another forty-five minutes and she'd be there.

The highway was nearly empty. She rubbed the back of her neck. It would be okay. What was the worst that could happen? She'd see Cameron, get over it, confirm that Jessie's tale was another instance of her imagination spinning out of control, find out she had no living relatives, and be done with it. Then head back to Portland to move on with life.

Simple.

Ann closed her eyes for a second. She was tired. Emotionally, physically . . .

What was that—?

No!

A deer stood in the middle of the highway, fifteen yards ahead, eyes wide.

Ann swerved into the oncoming lane of traffic, a horn wailed at her, and she yanked the wheel back to the right. The car on her left passed her by inches at the same time her right bumper clipped the deer's back leg.

She screeched to the side of the road and grabbed her legs in an attempt to keep them from shaking. It didn't work. Ann rubbed her face. "Oh, no, no . . . deep breath now. Get out, see if it's okay. Come on."

It was one of her worst nightmares. Her passion for animals overrode most other things in life.

She fumbled with the release on her seat belt, flipped it back, and stumbled out of her car.

"Please don't be dead."

When she reached the spot where she'd hit the deer, there was no sign of it. No blood, no fur, nothing.

Was the deer all right? She glanced off the road on both sides. "Please let it be okay."

Ann returned to her car and eased back onto the highway. Was this a sign of how much pain she'd have to go through before she was done with Three Peaks, or Three Peaks was done with her?

CHAPTER 7

Cameron looked at the address on Gillum's piece of paper and then gazed at the numbers on the two-story house in front of him. This should be the home of Susan Hillman.

Thirty seconds after the chime of the doorbell faded, Susan opened her door. Her short, tossed brown hair made her look like she'd just come in from a windstorm.

She offered iced tea—must be the official Three Peaks' drink—which Cameron declined explaining he'd had a glass during his last visit. But he did accept two cookies and a glass of milk, making him feel six years old again. They sat outside on her covered redwood front porch and made small talk for a few minutes about the heat of a Three Peaks summer and how long she'd lived in town.

"Fifty-seven winters." A smile played at the corners of her eyes. "But my age and how warm it gets here isn't what you want to know, is it?"

The small-town gossip grapevine must be on overdrive. "No. I'd like to talk about my dad. About his childhood."

Susan nodded.

"His name was Boscoe Vaux and he lived here till he was nine."

Susan laughed. "Well, fancy that." She leaned back in her chair till it bumped into the planter behind her filled with blue Larkspur. "I remember him."

"You what?" Cameron jerked his head and squinted. "You remember my dad?"

"Isn't that funny? I haven't mulled over the memory of Little Boss for ages. And you're his son. He was one of my closest friends in those days. Fascinating." Susan ran her hands through her hair. "God has a sense of humor, yes? Little Boss and I shared the same paint set in first and second grade."

"Little Boss?"

"That's what we called him, due to his being named after your grandfather, who of course was Big Boss." She smiled again. "Boscoe wasn't the best name for a little boy to have. I think he appreciated being called something different." She shook her head. "That takes me back a few years. If Little Boss went two minutes without laughing that was a long time. And what a great smile. Everyone loved him. So tell me, how is your father?"

"He passed away eight years ago." The familiar ache settled in his stomach as an image of his dad and him standing on West Seattle's Alki Beach filled his mind. Cameron missed that grin and the hearty laughter that always accompanied it.

"Oh, Cameron, my heart hurts for you." Susan blinked and covered her mouth. "So young."

"Thanks." They sat in silence for a minute, and it seemed to fill a dark corner of his heart with light, if only slightly. "My dad said when he was a kid, he saw a book that showed him the past and the future. Do you know anything about that?"

Susan stared into Cameron's eyes, then looked down and smoothed her forest green shorts. "I haven't thought about that for years, but I do remember a few things. Wow. Funny how it's stayed with me." She tilted her head back and scanned the ceiling, as if she would find what to say etched on its surface.

"Boscoe and Big Boss were involved in this group called Indian Guides, and they'd go on all these hikes and adventures together. Every Monday morning at lunchtime in the school's orange cafeteria, Little Boss would report what they'd done and where they'd gone.

"Well, after one of their weekend hikes, he started acting all closed up and wouldn't talk to me or anyone else. After a few weeks of that I finally asked him, 'Why are you being so quiet all of a sudden?' or something like that. He poked his straw up and down in his chocolate milk and said, 'I know when I'm going to die.'

"It was a strange thing to say coming from a nine-year-old kid, and I didn't know how to respond. Then he said, 'When I grow up I'm going to have a son and I know things about him too.' I laughed but Little Boss just kept staring at his milk carton.

"I asked him where he saw these things, but all he would say is, 'I don't know if I could find it again. Maybe I dreamed it all up.'"

"We never talked about it after that. Back then I thought he was making up stories, but over the years I've often wondered what he saw. Looking back with an adult's perspective, he certainly believed he saw this book you're looking for."

Cameron shuddered. His dad had seen something. Maybe he was just a kid, but what he saw had changed him. "I have to find that book."

"Why is this book so important to you, Cameron?"

"My dad said I needed to find it to understand."

"Understand what?"

"What would happen to me. Or what is happening to me. What he thinks he saw."

"And what is that?"

Cameron stared at Susan Hillman. Wisps of her brown hair hung over her eyes. This was a woman it would be easy to slide into friendship with, a woman he'd be tempted to spill his guts to. "I'm not sure."

"I see." And by the way she looked at him, it seemed Susan truly did see.

"Are you hoping that if you find this book Little Boss spoke of, it will give your life meaning?"

"No." Cameron held his breath and looked away, as if turning could deflect the question. How could he tell her he had to find the book because he was scared he was losing his mind and he was hoping his dad was right and the book would cure him?

How could he describe losing his memories of Jessie and tell how he would try anything to get them back? How he was terrified of ending up like his dad, talking about nothing and everything mixed up into a mess the best linguists in the world couldn't decipher? How he'd promised his father he'd search for a book that probably only existed in his dad's mind and Jessie's imagination?

Susan looked at him with compassion. "I had a son about your age. Are you thirty-four? Thirty-five?"

"Thirty-three." Cameron shifted in his seat. "Had?"

Susan nodded as she brushed back her hair. "I'd like to offer you a stone."

Interesting. Susan understood loss but didn't want to talk about it. Part of him didn't want to talk about Dad and Jessie, but she had a choice. He didn't. "Offer a what?"

She reached over and opened an old dark mahogany cabinet sitting next to the front door and brought out a bowl made of stained glass. It was full of rocks, all polished to a brilliant shine.

"This one is pretty." Susan picked a piece of jade. "I found it myself. I let it scuttle around in the polisher with all that fine sand working on it, rubbing off the rough spots, for three straight weeks." She handed him the bowl and he set it on his knees.

"You know more about the book, don't you? Will you tell me what it is?"

"Pick a stone, Cameron. To keep." Susan grabbed the edge of the dish and rattled the stones inside it.

He settled on a flat stone the color of crème brûlée streaked with black lines. Peppered along the lines were tiny red specks, connecting them, making it look like constellations of another world.

It made him think of Jessie's stone. His hand pressed against his chest and felt it under his shirt. For a moment he thought about telling Susan about the stone. Not yet. It wasn't time.

"That stone is a good choice." A pleased, almost joyful look passed over Susan's face. "A very, very good choice. Do you know where I found it?" She spoke as if talking directly to the stone. "Right here. In Three Peaks. I've never seen another like it."

She nodded twice and stood. Cameron took his cue and walked toward her porch steps. "So will you tell more about the book?"

Susan smiled and patted his arm. "You're a good man, Cameron. Keep hope, always hold on to hope."