Passion (38 page)

He wondered if the sheriff had told her how much the land and the house had cost, if he’d given her some idea of just how
much cash had been involved. A hundred acres of mountaintop land with some of the best views in the state, a location so isolated
that he’d had to pay premium prices just to get a construction crew up there, a twenty-five-hundred-square-foot house with
no expense spared, getting the power lines extended miles from the nearest terminal point—none of it had come cheap. Most
people would never see that much money at one time in their entire lives. But a best-selling, overnight-success, first book
wonder using the name of Simon Tremont had.

Deliberately he argued with her. “He told you that John Smith had bought the land, that John Smith’s house had been destroyed.
How do you know he meant me?”

“He described you, down to the truck you’re driving and the shoes you’re wearing right now. He said the house burned a week
and a half ago. The official cause is arson, the means three incendiary devices.” She stumbled over those last two words,
unfamiliar, a complicated way of saying bombs. “He said the fire burned so hot and the house went up so quickly that everything
was lost. He said you were incredibly
lucky to escape with nothing more than the laceration on your arm.”

John felt tension he hadn’t even been aware of draining from his body, felt the muscles in his jaw loosen and his fingers
relax. He had been afraid that Cassidy wouldn’t support his story, he realized, stifling the bitter urge to laugh. In the
last ten days he had come to doubt himself enough, just enough, to secretly wonder if it
was
all in his head—the books, the money, the fire, the impostor. Someplace deep inside he had wondered if he was, indeed, crazy.
Now he knew he wasn’t.

He would sell his soul if Teryl could be even half as sure.

“The state arson investigators were able to identify the type of bomb used,” she went on, her voice flat and unemotional.
“They were glass jars, like canning or mayonnaise jars, quart size. They were filled halfway with gasoline, and some sort
of filament was suspended over the gas. The jars were sealed and set with timers. When the timers went off, the filaments
got hot and the heat ignited the vapors trapped in the jar. That caused the explosions.” Pausing again, she gripped the chair
even harder. “He said you had told him that, just before the explosions, you had smelled something inside the house that was
familiar and didn’t belong, but you couldn’t place it. He thinks it was the seal. The jars were sealed with modeling clay.”

Her last words brought him a chuckle. “They say smell is one of our most powerful senses. Just a whiff of a particular scent
can take you back years. Play-Doh dinosaurs were my only creations of any note in kindergarten art class. I never got to keep
them, though. My mother didn’t allow the stuff in her house because Tom and Janie made messes with it.” He gave a shake of
his head. “It’s hard to believe I’ve grown up so much that I didn’t recognize it when I smelled it.” After considering that
for a moment longer, he moved on to a more important issue. “You have to believe my house burned down, and you have to believe
I told the truth about the bombs because the sheriff told you so. What else do you believe, Teryl? What’s your verdict? Am
I
responsible for the fire? Did
I
set the bombs? Or did someone else?”

Finally she looked at him. Her expression was grave, her eyes shadowed and more than a little concerned. For him? Or herself?
“Sheriff Cassidy doesn’t have any doubts.”

He didn’t give a damn what Cassidy believed… but obviously she did. Because Cassidy was a sheriff, because he was a lawman
with years of experience and the authority of the Grant County Sheriff’s Department behind him, she was willing at this point
to believe whatever
he
believed. John hoped before asking that the sheriff’s opinion was good news for him. “And what does he say?”

Her gaze locked with his as she quietly, somberly replied, “He thinks someone’s trying to kill you.”

B
ack in her office, Teryl settled in at her desk to work, but her conversation with the sheriff made concentration impossible.
Someone wanted John dead, and the most likely suspect was the man claiming to be Simon. The man who’d done the interview in
New Orleans. The man who had given her the willies from the moment they’d met.

Okay, so the man was self-absorbed. He was the center of his own world and saw no reason why he shouldn’t be the center of
everyone else’s, too. He seemed to feel an extremely strong sense of entitlement, as if all the fame, fortune, and adulation
were no less than he deserved. There was his intensity, not quite reasonable, not quite normal, and the way he looked at people,
measuring them, judging them, exposing them layer by layer with his less than pleasant gaze. Taken one by one, there was nothing
wrong with those traits. Even combined, they didn’t automatically add up to murderer potential.

In Simon, though, maybe they could. Especially if he wasn’t really Simon. If he had become so obsessed with the real Simon
Tremont’s work that he had learned to write like him, if he had come up with this outrageous scheme to take over his idol’s
life, if he had managed to steal the outline for
Resurrection
from the real Simon and had somehow written the book…
If
he was capable of doing all those things, then,
yes, he was capable of killing. What was it John had said that day in the storm in South Carolina?
The son of a bitch can’t claim to be Simon Tremont if the real Simon Tremont is around to prove him a fraud. In order to continue
being Simon, he needed—needs—to get rid of me
.

According to the sheriff, only a week and a half ago, someone had tried to do just that.

Only a week and a half ago, when Simon had made his changes—the move, the visits, the phone calls—four months ago. Why the
delay? Once he’d devised his scheme and put it in motion, why had he given the real Simon Tremont four months to possibly
destroy everything? How had he known that John wouldn’t contact Rebecca or Candace during that time? How had he known that
John wouldn’t turn in his own
Resurrection?
Why had he put his great elaborate hoax at such risk?

Maybe it had been arrogance. Maybe he had believed that his plan was so perfect that no one could ever discover the truth.
Or maybe it had been the book.
Resurrection
. He had begun the process of claiming Simon Tremont’s life four months before the manuscript had been completed. Without
Resurrection
, he could have sustained the lies for a time—long enough to cash a few of Tremont’s checks, maybe long enough to bask in
a little of Tremont’s glory—but eventually he would have been compelled to produce something. Without
Resurrection
, though, his plan eventually would have failed and there would have been little reason to destroy the real Tremont.

And so he had waited, had worked and written, and only when the book was completed, only when he had proven to himself that
he could, indeed, write Tremont’s book, had he turned his attention to Tremont himself. Two weeks ago the manuscript had been
turned in to both Rebecca and Morgan-Wilkes. A few days later someone had tried to kill John. Was the timing coincidence?
Or part of Simon’s plan?

Her gaze settled on the space occupied for a few months by her autographed copy of
Masters of Ceremony
. It was gone, her treasured possession ruined, destroyed in a fit of rage. Sunday, watching John, she had been stunned, unable
to fully comprehend what he’d done. This afternoon she couldn’t find it in herself to care much. Even if Simon really was
Simon, he wasn’t the man she had idolized all these years, and if he wasn’t really Simon, she certainly wouldn’t want his
forgery. She would never want a book signed by a madman who had tried to kill another man all for the sake of his career.

She sighed wearily. All she’d had for the last week was suspicions and doubts, and they were growing every day. But the focus
of those suspicions had changed, the target of the doubts shifted. In the space of a few days, she had gone from labeling
John’s claims outrageous and unbelievable to very nearly accepting them. Deep inside there was still a small doubt—there was
still the matter of
Resurrection
, after all—but even that wasn’t hard and fast proof. It was possible—not likely, but remotely possible—that one extremely
talented author could thoroughly mimic the style of another extremely talented author. If the first author were dedicated
enough. Brilliant enough. Obsessed enough.

All three descriptions certainly could apply to Simon.

Maybe it was time to talk to Rebecca, to get everything out in the open. After all, she had a lot at stake here—her reputation
and the reputation of the agency, the money that might have been paid to the wrong man, the future of her biggest client,
which would, of course, affect the agency and everyone who worked there. She had a right to know what was going on… even if,
most likely, she wouldn’t believe a word of it.

So how should Teryl approach her? Straightforward? Go in and say, “Rebecca, this man who’s staying with me says that
he’s
Simon Tremont, and he knows enough about Tremont and about
Resurrection
that he’s made me wonder”? Rebecca would probably wonder, too—not only about John’s sanity but also about Teryl’s.

Perhaps it would be better if she spoke in hypotheticals.
What if
’s. She could feel out her boss, see if she was at all open to such possibilities. She could get a better idea of how to handle
it when the time came for specifics.

Her gaze settled on one of the manuscripts sitting on the
corner of her desk. Her favorite books were mysteries and romances; this one, a romantic suspense, combined the best of both
genres. The author was unpublished, but, if the remainder of the book lived up to the promise of the chapters Teryl had already
read, she wouldn’t remain that way long. Her story involved a classic case of mistaken identity, her romance writer heroine
stalked by killers because she had the same name as and fitted the general description of the woman who was their real target.
The writing was stylish and polished, the story twisted enough to hold a reader’s interest.

It would be a perfect icebreaker.

Leaving her desk, she went to the kitchen, pouring a cup of almond-flavored coffee for Rebecca and a mug of the regular brew
for herself. Coming to a stop in Rebecca’s open doorway, she interrupted her boss at work. “I thought you might like a fresh
cup,” she suggested, lifting the delicate china in offering.

Looking up, Rebecca smiled and removed her reading glasses. “Your timing is perfect. I just finished the last one. Come on
in and sit down.”

Teryl delivered the coffee to her, then took a seat as instructed. After taking a sip from her own coffee, she wrapped her
hands around the pottery mug. She wasn’t really thirsty; she simply needed a prop to keep her hands occupied.

“What have you been doing this afternoon?”

“Reading,” she lied. It sounded so much better than “Sitting at my desk, gazing off into space, and brooding over whether
the man we know as Simon Tremont is, indeed, one of the most talented authors in the country or a devious, warped lunatic
who’s fooled us all.”

“Anything interesting?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. A romantic suspense.”

“Promising?”

“So far, but I’ve only read the first three chapters.”

“Which often outshine the rest of the book.”

Teryl nodded in acknowledgment. Unpublished writers in the habit of entering contests or submitting partials—three chapters
and an outline—to editors or agents had a tendency
to write and rewrite those first three chapters, polishing them until they gleamed. Without the same attention and work, the
remainder of the manuscript often suffered in comparison. “I don’t think that will be the case with this one. She’s very good.
Her story is about mistaken identity, and her heroine’s a writer.” Wetting her lips, she took a shallow breath, then continued.
“It’s interesting. With all the millions of people in the country, so many people have exactly the same names. Even with Social
Security numbers, it can be so easy for one person to get mistaken for another. Like Simon.”

Rebecca’s laughter was soft and amused. “I doubt there are too many Simon Tremonts running around out there.”

“But you’re forgetting: his real name is John Smith. There must be thousands of John Smiths.”

“Yes, but how many of them can write like a dream—or a nightmare, depending on your outlook?”

Maybe one more than she expected, Teryl thought. She hadn’t seen any proof yet that John could write, but she wouldn’t be
surprised if he could. He was bright. He had a strong vocabulary and a nice way with words. Sometimes on the trip from New
Orleans to Richmond, when he’d talked about his brother and sister or his home in Colorado or other things important to him,
his language had been purely lyrical—not just words, but imagery, emotion, sensation. She wouldn’t be at all surprised if
he could translate that power from the spoken word to paper.