Book of Days_ A Novel - James L. Rubart [31]
"You've never liked talking about Jason's Book of Days religion. Why?"
Taylor raised an eyebrow. "Anything written about the Book of Days should be on the Weekly World News' Web site, not the Post's. I can't believe what's happened to that paper since I retired." Taylor took off his wire-rimmed glasses and cleaned them on his 501 Levis. "I should have stayed on till I hit sixty-five."
"Maybe they truly are tapping into some mystical knowledge, some spiritual plane we don't know about that shows the past and the future. A lot of Jason's followers believe in the idea, and they're not bad people."
"A lot of nice people believe in Bigfoot too, and they can show you a great deal more evidence than anyone can show for a book with the past, present, and future recorded between its covers." Taylor put his glasses back on. "It doesn't make Bigfoot real or a book that exists only in the spiritual realm real either."
Tricia got up from her chair, padded across their hardwood floor to Taylor, and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. He patted her forearm and picked up his magazine, blocking his face from view.
Later that night, toward eleven o'clock, just before sleep took her, Tricia felt Taylor slide out from under their goose-down comforter. A floorboard squealed and he stopped. A few moments later their bedroom door opened and closed.
She eased out of bed, put on her lavender robe, and opened the door a crack. Taylor sat in front of their kitchen computer, his face bathed in the stark light from the monitor.
She eased across the floor till she saw what he was reading. The online version of the Post. She squinted. No surprise. Taylor was reading Jason's post about the Book of Days.
Taylor rubbed his face three times, then pressed his knuckles into his lips.
He'd carried whatever it was for so long. If only he'd tell her.
The man stared at himself in the mirror, at the lines under his eyes, at the softness of his flesh. Where had the years gone? The late fifties weren't middle age. If they were, he'd live to 120. Life was running out.
He strode out of the bathroom and onto his deck overlooking Three Peaks. A breeze kissed his hair and he allowed himself a grim smile.
So close, he was so close to finding the book. He felt it. With it he would set things right. Expose the lies. And then protect it for the rest of his days. And he wouldn't let some punk kid from Seattle sweep in and find the tome while he stood screaming on the sidelines.
He would watch Cameron. Where he went. Who he talked to. What people would or wouldn't tell him. He would use whatever Cameron discovered to find the Book of Days.
And then do whatever was necessary.
CHAPTER 12
Cameron sat in his hotel room Thursday night chewing on espresso beans, studying his notes of Jessie's words from when she lay dying in the plane.
"The book is real. I know it is. I saw it."
But did she mean physically or with what she always called her spiritual eye?
That was the hard place between the rock. He had no way now of knowing what she meant.
Peasley, Susan Hillman, the mayor—what was his name?—none of them had said anything that would indicate the book was real, had they?
But his dad said the book was physical: "I saw it once . . . I even touched it, when I was a kid. Did you know that?"
Think. Come on. Of course his dad wasn't lucid. His brain was gone. Spinning make-believe. Cameron had no way of knowing if his dad's words were fact or fiction. So his story happened to match up with Jessie's dying visions. So what?
Cameron walked back to the oak veneer desk and slammed his laptop shut. Then he went down the hall to get a Mountain Dew. "Will this Stone guy give me the answer, Jessie?"
Cold drink in hand, Cameron trudged back into his room and slumped into the chair next to his window.
Was his dad thinking straight when he talked about some book he'd seen as a kid? That was the hard place between the rock. He had no way of knowing if his dad's words were fact or fiction. So his story happened