Passion (16 page)

He looked at her then, his gaze unflinchingly steady. “Dead,” he said quietly, bleakly. “Tom is dead.”

Teryl looked away, and her hands tightened around her coffee cup. At least that explained the pain. Wishing she hadn’t asked
the first question, she cleared her throat and murmured, “I’m sorry.” Then, almost immediately, she asked another regrettable
question. “Were you very close?”

He took a deep breath, then noisily blew it out. “He was the kind of son every parent dreams about. He was unbelievably smart.
He lettered in football, basketball, and track. He was captain of the football team, senior class president, the most likely
to succeed. He went to college on both academic and athletic scholarships. He had a knack for foreign languages, for musical
instruments, for machines of any kind.
He was also the nicest guy you’d ever want to meet.” He was quiet for a moment; then he finished, “He was incredible.”

“Sounds like a tough act to follow.”

For a moment he looked as if he wanted to argue, to protest on his brother’s behalf, but then he simply conceded. “He was.”

“When did he die?”

“Seventeen years ago.”

“That’s when you left home.”

He didn’t say anything to that. He had said enough earlier.
My mother wishes I were dead. My father wishes I’d never been born.
Did his parents blame him? she wondered. Did they feel he was responsible for Tom’s death? That would explain a lot. The
emptiness of the life he’d chosen for himself. The delusions. The need to be someone else.

“Is that when you moved to Colorado?”

“No. I traveled around for a while. I lived in Maine. The Florida Keys. Mexico. Georgia. Louisiana.”

She recognized each of those places as the setting for a Tremont book, but she didn’t comment on it. She didn’t want to bring
Simon into their conversation. “Doing what?”

“Running away. I worked when I could find a job. I drank when I wasn’t working… and for a time, I drank when I was. Then,
while I was working on a Liberian freighter, I started writing.”

So much for not bringing Simon in,
she thought grimly.

Making two trips with their meal, the waitress saved Teryl from having to respond to his last words. The reprieve didn’t last
long, though. John finished his breakfast before she’d made more than a dent in her own meal. The waitress brought him more
coffee, then took away his empty plate. He watched her for a moment before blowing out his breath in a reluctant sigh and
flatly stating, “I wrote those books, Teryl.”

Her mouth full of pancakes drenched with butter and maple syrup, she looked at him while she chewed, but she didn’t say anything.
She tried not to reveal her skepticism in her expression, but his growing frustration suggested that she’d failed, and his
barely controlled anger proved it.

“I started the first book while I was on the freighter. When I finished it, I picked Rebecca Robertson’s agency out of a book
in the library. She was still in New York City at the time. I didn’t know about querying her first to see if she was interested
in seeing the book. I didn’t know anything about the way the business worked. I just sent her the completed manuscript. I
didn’t even know to send return postage. I figured that if she wasn’t interested in it, then it wasn’t any good. She could
throw her copy in the trash, and I would dump mine and forget about it.”

She still said nothing.

“I’d given her a post office box for my return address. I was in Colorado by then; I went there to finish the book. I was
about out of cash, so I got a job doing road work and was starting the second book when I heard back from her.”

“That was awfully optimistic for someone who was ready to give up writing at the first rejection,” she said mildly.

“I wasn’t willing to give up the writing—just the attempt at selling it. The writing was for me. It always has been. It’s
a healing process. It’s kept me sane.” He smiled cynically. “Although I’m sure you have other opinions about that.”

She ignored his last comment. “Rebecca wrote back and said what?”

“That she wanted to represent me. That she loved the book. That she thought it was powerful. She included a copy of the agency
agreement. I signed and returned it, and, in the meantime, she sold the book to Morgan-Wilkes.”

“So Morgan-Wilkes went from an obscure little publishing house to success beyond their greediest dreams. Rebecca Robertson
went from being a small-time player to one of the biggest names in the business. And you went into seclusion, hiding behind
layer upon layer of mystery, which enabled the man we saw interviewed in New Orleans to convince Rebecca, Morgan-Wilkes, me,
and the rest of the world that
he
is
you
.”

“I know it sounds crazy—”

She interrupted him. “It sounds like one of Simon Tremont’s books.”

“But it’s not. It’s my life.”

With a sigh, Teryl gazed down at her breakfast. One biscuit, half a piece of toast, and two blueberry pancakes still remained
on the plates. Not knowing when or if he would stop for lunch, she wished she could take them with her and keep them warm
and fresh. Failing that, she wished she could finish them off now without making herself sick, but that was out of the question.
She felt the way the family’s puppy surely must feel—fat, satisfied, and his belly all rounded—after he’d gorged himself on
his favorite meal. If she ate another bite, she would pop.

No matter how she might regret it later, she stacked the plates and pushed them aside. “If you’re really Simon, then you can
prove it. You have contracts, correspondence, copies of checks. You should know that the business of writing produces a ton
of paper. Where is your copy of the agency agreement? Where are your contracts with Morgan-Wilkes? You get royalty statements
every spring and fall; where are they?”

He looked as if he didn’t want to answer, but finally, his mouth set in a thin line, he did. “Gone.”

“Gone where?”

“Destroyed. My house… My house burned down last Saturday. All of my records were destroyed in the fire.”

A little quiver of unease shivered down her spine. She had expected some excuse, some reason why he didn’t have access to
all the pertinent documents that would prove he was who he claimed to be, but she didn’t like the one he gave. Was he being
truthful? Had there really been a fire, or was it merely an excuse to explain away the nonexistence of papers that never had,
in fact, existed—at least, not in
his
possession?

And if there
had
been a fire? Was he an arsonist as well as a liar? Were his delusions so powerful that he would destroy his own home simply
to explain why he couldn’t provide proof of his identity? Without proof, he could claim to be anyone he chose. Without proof,
he could easily claim to be Simon Tremont.

Or John Smith.

Clearing her throat, she hesitantly asked, “Can I see your
driver’s license?” If it said John Smith, it wouldn’t prove anything. It could really be his name—it was common enough, after
all—or it could simply mean that he’d gone to great lengths to make his charade believable, at least for himself. But if it
had any other name on it or if it was issued by any state other than Colorado, it could prove that he had lied about those
two details.

He hesitated only a moment, then maneuvered his wallet out of his hip pocket without sliding out from the bench. He tossed
it onto the table in front of her.

Teryl wavered. Something about going through his personal things felt wrong, even though he could have easily told her no.
Even though he had handed them over without a word. It was a violation of privacy, and she felt funny about it.

Even so, she needed to know.

The wallet was brown leather, bifold, worn and bent and about a million years old. When she opened it, she caught a glimpse
of a stash of cash in the back section. It didn’t look like a lot, and it made her wonder if that was all he had. Could that
be why he hadn’t stopped for meals yesterday? Because he was traveling on a tighter budget than even she normally stuck to?

She turned her attention from the money to the vinyl windows. A single window on the right held his driver’s license, issued
by the state of Colorado to John Henry Smith. The address listed a rural route, a box number, and a town she’d never heard
of.

That could fit. Even though Simon Tremont’s John Smith had given them a Denver post office box, she knew that, until a few
months ago, he had actually lived somewhere in the mountains outside the city. This little town—Rapid River—could be the place.

If
she was willing to consider the possibility that he was telling the truth.

She had to admit that this John Smith certainly better fit her image of the man behind the Tremont novels. He was, at times,
sweet, gentle, and sensitive. He was interested in things other than himself. He was attentive to the world
around him, to people and places. He was an observer of the sort that she imagined a good writer to be. And she couldn’t forget
that the man she’d met in New Orleans had been such a total surprise. He had been an absolute stranger, someone with whom
she, with her affinity for the Tremont novels and her long-standing respect and admiration for their creator, couldn’t connect.

She had certainly connected with this John. Right from the very beginning.

But his tale was so fantastic. It sounded like some melodramatic TV movie of the week. It was unbelievable, and if she considered
for a moment believing it, she would have to question
her
sanity, as well as his.

The photograph on the license wasn’t a great one, but it was definitely recognizable. It was definitely John, serious and
grim-looking as people tended to be in official photos. His hair was shorter, not as shaggy, and with the bad lighting it
was hard to see that his eyes were blue. He wore a white dress shirt—like yesterday—and, she would bet, jeans and running
shoes, like today. Or maybe hiking boots would have been more appropriate up there in Rapid River. He certainly looked as
if he’d done something physical to stay in shape.

He was a handsome man, she acknowledged with a twinge of regret. Handsome, interesting, good in bed… and deranged.

He was more D.J.’s kind of guy than Teryl’s. D.J. liked them a little bit out there, a little on the edge, a little bit dangerous.
Teryl liked them normal. Predictable. Right now boring sounded awfully good.

When he didn’t seem impatient for the return of his property, she took the chance to examine the cards in the windows that
fanned out on the opposite side. There were his long-distance calling card, two gasoline cards and a Mastercard and a VISA,
both gold cards, both in the name of John H. Smith. One was due for renewal soon, she noticed, and the other had recently
been renewed. It was valid for two years, the imprint read, from March of this year, and he had
been a cardmember, according to the date stamped on it, since 1986.

So if John Smith wasn’t really his name, he’d adopted it long ago. Which proved what? That it probably
was
his name? Or that he’d been delusional for a long time?

Flipping the gold card over, she reached the last window. It held a snapshot that had been crookedly trimmed to fit. The color
was bad, a symptom of age, maybe, or of too much exposure to the sun or too much handling. It had been taken in the mountains
and showed two young men—boys, really—with their arms around a girl. John was easy to recognize, although some hard years
had passed since the shot was taken.

In the picture, he was sixteen, maybe seventeen—a big, tall kid, broad-shouldered, darkly tanned, his hair sun bleached. He
wore cutoff jeans and nothing else, and he appeared lean and muscled but somehow fragile, vulnerable in the way young kids
often were. He was smiling in the picture, but he didn’t seem exactly happy. There was a look in his eyes, one that the camera
picked up and magnified, a look that she’d seen all too often on her brothers and sisters back home. It was filled with sorrow,
with unhappiness, uncertainty, fear, and about a million other emotions. With some of the kids at home, it took only a few
months of her parents’ unswerving love, support, and reassurance to make the look go away. With others, it never completely
left.

She always wondered what traumas such young, innocent kids had undergone to put that expression there, but she didn’t ask
for specific details. She had learned at a young age that it was usually best not to know.

Now, though, she found herself wondering again. At an age when the biggest worry in his life should have been whether his
girlfriend was pregnant or simply late, he looked instead as if he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders but was
doing his damnedest to hide it. He looked twenty years older than he was.

He looked wounded.

And the Weavers—her mom, her dad, and Teryl herself—were suckers for the world’s wounded.

“Is this Tom?” she asked, directing her gaze to the young
man on the right. He looked like John, though not quite as tall, not quite as husky. He was older, and his hair was a few
shades darker, his eyes brown. He looked, with his wide grin and clear, dark eyes, as healthy and well adjusted as any kid
could be. He looked happy. He looked exactly as John had described him.
The nicest guy you’d ever want to meet.

And exactly as she had described him.
A tough act to follow.

“Yes.”

“When did he die?”

“Two years after that picture was taken. He was twenty-two. He had just graduated from college with honors.”

“How did it happen?”

“A wreck. The car went off the side of a mountain.”

She looked again at Tom, full of life and vitality even in a twenty-some-year-old one-dimensional photograph, and felt a moment’s
regret that this stranger should have died so many years before his time. He should have been allowed to grow old, to live
out his lifetime, to use his talents, to bless his family with his presence, to fall in love, to become a husband and a father,
to experience life to the fullest. If only half of what John had said about him was true, he would have been too good a person
to lose so young.