Twisted

by Steve Cavanagh

  The silence sounded like an alarm bell.

  ‘I’ve been thinking things over, Paul. That was no ordinary burglar in the house last night. What did he really want?’ said Maria.

  Swinging the knife in his hands, absently, Paul ignored the question at first.

  ‘I’m scared, and I want you to tell me the truth,’ she said, firmly. Even with the power of those words, Maria struggled to get them out straight through her fluttering chest.

  He put down the knife, came toward her and placed his fingers, lightly, on her shoulders. Maria shrugged them off, folded her arms, set her lips together and bored her gaze into his like she was drilling through steel.

  ‘I don’t know who it was, or what they were after. I promise you, I don’t. It was just a burglar, and you scared him off before he could take anything. That’s all.’

  ‘You’re hiding something,’ she said, softly.

  ‘I would never hide anything from you,’ he said, and kissed her.

  She could taste the lie on his lips – bitter and salty. She pulled away, went upstairs. Every nerve ending screamed at her to confront him.

  Just tell him you know!

  She opened their bedroom door, went to the nightstand on her side of the bed and opened the top drawer. If Daryl hadn’t told her about Paul packing a case, she probably wouldn’t have come home at all. But she had to. She had to check. The plastic strip of contraceptive pills lay on top of her passport. She picked up the strip of pills, and her passport, and saw the bottom of the drawer beneath it where Paul’s passport normally lay. It was there yesterday. She’d seen it when she lifted her pills. It had gone.

  This confirmed it. He was leaving her. The suitcase in his car, his passport. He was running away and leaving her behind. The money, the blonde who’d stroked his face. That touch wasn’t a goodbye – it was a touch that meant she would see him again soon. That their parting was only temporary. He would go back to his house, pack up and leave the wife behind. He had another life to lead.

  Son of a bitch.

  She bit her lip, too hard, and drew blood.

  For a woman as strong as Maria – it hadn’t taken much effort for Paul to control her. All of her.

  Her finances.

  Her house.

  Her feelings.

  Her body.

  She stripped and went into the shower. For a long time she let the hot water sting her skin, willing that heat to empty her mind. It didn’t. She got out of the shower, dried her hair with a towel which she then wrapped around her body. Maria returned to the bedroom, threw up the duvet and climbed into bed, covering her head with the pillow. For a long time she cried, and moaned with anger into the soft mattress. She wanted to go downstairs and hit him. Scream at him. Tell him that she knew who he was. She’d seen through all of his bullshit.

  He called up the stairs once or twice, asking if she was okay. If she wanted dinner. If she wanted water. Then he told her he was going away in the morning. Only for a few days.

  The calls went without answer. And he stopped calling. He didn’t come up to see her and Maria was at first hurt by that, and then felt differently. In her mind, Maria began the process of untangling her feelings from Paul. She had given him love. And he had given nothing of himself to her. She had to take that back. Gather those last threads of affection lodged in memories, in time and objects.

  She took off her wedding ring and engagement ring. The gold band felt light and cheap in her hand. The engagement ring cost a few thousand dollars – a pittance when seen in contrast to Paul’s real wealth. She squeezed the rings in the palm of her hand, as if she was trying to remove the last sentiments of happiness from them.

  The night closed in.

  Maria waited. In that time, she used her phone to read every article she could find on J. T. LeBeau. She wanted to know everything. Understand who this man was – this man that she had married, this stranger in her life.

  At four a.m. she got out of bed, and padded downstairs in her bare feet.

  Paul slept on the couch, just as before. A half-eaten plate of food on the floor beside him. Maria stepped lightly into the hallway, gently picked up Paul’s car keys from a bowl on the hall table. The table housed stacks of mail, all opened and neatly arranged by Paul. Silently, she approached the front door.

  The lock gave only the faintest of clicks as it opened. She slid out of the house, and felt the hard stones on the soles of her feet as she slowly made her way to Paul’s car. A flash of light and the metallic thud of the locking system disengaging. She pressed the fob button for the trunk, and watched as it silently rose. Quickly, Maria opened the side pocket of Paul’s case, removed his passport. She zipped up the pocket, closed the trunk and locked the car.

  She skipped over the stones to the front door, held her breath for a moment. There was no sound other than the sea. Curling her body around the front door, she went back inside and held her breath again while she pushed the door closed. For what seemed like a minute, she lowered Paul’s car keys into the basket on the hall table – careful that they made no sound. As she passed the open door to the living room, she heard him snore loudly. He hadn’t moved.

  Back in bed, Maria lit up her phone and typed out a text message to Daryl.

  Once she’d written it, she stared at it for a long time, willing herself to believe it, to let it sink in that this was now reality – this was really happening.

  She didn’t know her husband. He’d taken her and consumed her and now he was throwing her away. Maria was not going to allow it, and yet it took her a full half-hour before she had the nerve to hit send.

  My marriage is over. I’m going to need your help.

  The reply came in after five minutes. A low vibration on the mattress.

  Whatever it is, I’ll do it. I’d do anything for you.

  Guardian

  Who is J. T. LeBeau?

  And why should you care?

  by Jeremy Frumpton

  The first J. T. LeBeau novel didn’t stand a chance, all things considered. It had a bad title – Twist. Generic, even for a thriller. The title was one which the publisher wasn’t fond of at all, according to anonymous sources from the publishing house that released his first book. They had bought the book for chump change, put zero dollars into marketing or promoting it, the cover looked appalling, and the original editor who had acquired the book, Bob Crenshaw, passed away not long after its initial release, but long enough to see the beginnings of what was to come.

  Despite its lack of pedigree, the book started to sell. This was unexpected, as the book came out to no fanfare with an initial print run of only a thousand copies.

  What happened was something unpredictable. A few people bought it. And they loved it. And they told people about it. So more people bought it. And very soon the magic thing, which happens to so few books, started to take hold.

  Word of mouth.

  Nothing sells a book like it. There are certain books which get people talking. That doesn’t mean it’s a book the reader falls in love with, it’s a book which once finished, the reader presses into the hands of their friends and colleagues so that they can talk about it at the water-cooler or over coffee. When that happens, the book spreads like a virus.

  Initially, very few bookstores took Twist. But the ones that did sold out. And they ordered more. Their customers talked about the book. Discussed it at book clubs, recommended it online and slowly but surely a tiny fanbase began to grow. More bookstores ordered it when they saw the sales numbers increase. And over time the book began to have a life. On its fourth printing of thirty thousand copies, eight months after initial release, the editor who had been saddled with the book after Bob Crenshaw died, finally read it.

  They tried contacting the author to see if they would partake in some promotional work – maybe a small tour or a couple of interviews with online publications. The author refused, point blank, and stated that they wanted to maintain their privacy. According to an interview with th
at editor, they decided the author was a prize asshole who would never make it in the business and they wanted nothing more to do with him.

  Word of mouth about the book continued to spread. Readers were careful not to give anything away, but they seemed compelled to press the book into the hands of their friends once they’d finished. There was nothing to talk about when it came to the author, as they had never revealed themselves to the public.

  On the tenth time of printing, at one hundred thousand copies, the editor was informed by the publishing director that it didn’t matter if the author was an asshole – the house had a hit on its hands and they needed another book.

  The editor emailed J. T. LeBeau.

  Three months later another book arrived with another killer twist.

  The initial print run of LeBeau’s second book was two hundred and fifty thousand copies. This one sold better than the first. Same reason.

  An article in The New Yorker tried to proclaim that the real author of the J. T. LeBeau novels was Ken Follett. Mr. Follett regretfully denied the moniker, but this was just the start. Over the next ten years the novels kept coming, the contracts kept being signed, the author remained a ghost, the sales kept increasing and the press ramped up the conspiracy theories and detective work in an effort to track down the elusive J. T. LeBeau.

  The various suspects who were alleged to be J. T. LeBeau included Stephen King, John Grisham, Jodi Picoult, J. K. Rowling, who was eventually revealed to be Robert Galbraith, and even James Patterson.

  The speculation continued. The books kept coming. One a year. Each one just as good if not better than the last.

  Publishing gold.

  Then the lawsuits started coming in – another marker for success.

  Half a dozen authors claimed J. T. LeBeau had stolen their books, outlines, ideas and/or characters. None of the lawsuits got anywhere. The publishers were able to produce the time- and date-stamped emails and without fail they were always earlier than the works which claimed to have been copied.

  One lawsuit got pretty far, backed by a newspaper. The newspaper knew the lawsuit was bogus, but they fed it long enough to get it to the first day of a hearing because what they really wanted was to see J. T. LeBeau being called to the stand. Didn’t happen of course, the lawyers managed to get the case dismissed on the evidence of the editors at the house and the emails alone.

  After that expensive mistake, the lawsuits died out.

  The interest in the real identity of J. T. LeBeau only increased.

  The National Book Award, the Edgar Award, the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year award, the Anthony award, the Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger, not even a Pulitzer was enough to tempt J. T. LeBeau out of hiding and onto a stage to make an acceptance speech.

  He never showed.

  So who cares about this mysterious, hermetic writer, anyway? Isn’t it enough that we have the books?

  Yes.

  And no.

  You see, the only person in publishing that we know of who met J. T. LeBeau was the late Bob Crenshaw. By all accounts, a man who had a drink and drug problem and was estranged from his family and friends. The sad tale of Bob Crenshaw, who died before he could see his greatest success spring fully to life, was perhaps a salutary warning to the then inexperienced LeBeau. Perhaps he saw the disintegration of his editor, and knew then that he should keep his personal life separate from his writing life.

  We can only guess, but untimely demise of Bob Crenshaw must have had an impact on LeBeau.

  He wrote about it, in a subsequent novel called The Burning Man. Of course, the facts were changed, but the death of the character in that novel bore striking similarities to the death of his editor.

  Bob Crenshaw didn’t overdose, but it is believed by the NYPD that his death surrounded a drug deal gone wrong.

  Bob Crenshaw burned alive, locked in the trunk of his car.

  It is perhaps this violent death that pushed the shy LeBeau to become a recluse. We may never know the real story behind the elusive, anonymous writer whose work is beloved by millions of adoring fans the world over.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Six-thirty on a Sunday morning seemed as good a time as any for Paul to leave his wife. He’d thought about it over and over. There was no good time to do it. He just had to grit his teeth and rip off the Band-Aid.

  No choice.

  If he stayed, more people would die. And Paul didn’t want to kill anyone.

  Not anymore. Still, he would take the Smith and Wesson with him. Better to have it close, just in case.

  He got up off the couch, stretched and went immediately to the kitchen where he found a pen and paper. All last night he’d debated whether to go up to the bedroom and talk to her. She deserved more. She deserved better. Paul had vacillated over what to put in a note, and even if there should be a note at all.

  Eventually he decided he couldn’t leave without saying goodbye. He would leave a note. And he would be honest, to an extent, in what he said.

  It took a few minutes to write. He left it there on the kitchen counter with the pen resting on the page and closed the front door behind him before the ink was dry. He got into his car, reversed onto the road and drove toward town and the marina. The thought of being away from it all was intoxicating. Simply being on the ocean, in his boat, gave him immediate emotional distance, as well as physical distance. Something happened to his brain on the water – it was as if he was free of the social constructs that would restrain him on land. On the ocean there were few rules, and responsibilities were an island he’d left behind.

  Yet he knew that in the weeks and months to come he would feel the weight of what he’d done. She didn’t know he had another life. A writer’s life. Solitary, insular, shut off from the world completely. She didn’t know about the money. She couldn’t know.

  That was the deal. Tell no one. Keep the secret and everything will be alright.

  No one else needed to die. He just had to leave it all behind.

  He pulled into the marina car park and got out of the sports car. Retrieving his case, he set it down on the asphalt and pulled the extendable handle while the hydraulics closed the trunk lid. One click from the fob locked the car. The gate to the marina bore a heavy chain around it, secured in place with a fat padlock. Paul had a key, and he relocked the gate behind him, double-looping the chain in place to make it more secure.

  He found his boat just where he left it and climbed aboard. He had to leave with his boat. Plane tickets left records. If he could avoid that, so much the better. Plus, Paul loved his boat. He loved the car too, although he would have to leave it behind now. He could always buy another when he got settled someplace else. For now, he wanted to keep moving. The boat was the perfect way to disappear.

  Despite the time he spent on the boat in the last number of years, Paul was by no means a competent seaman. He’d completed a survival course and a boat safety and maintenance course but he’d long since forgotten them, and now couldn’t even remember which way was starboard.

  He figured he probably didn’t need to know these things – after all, he wasn’t really sailing. The boat had a motor, and Paul had money for fuel. Not much else to it, apart from making sure his tiny kitchen was stocked with the essentials like good cheese, baguettes and plenty of roast ham, bacon and beans. Cooking for himself on the small stove in the galley had proved to be one of the more difficult and unexpected chores to master. He could render half a dozen recipes, but not on a one-ring stove. Things got pretty basic real quick. He didn’t mind, as long as he remembered to keep the wine rack full.

  Paul completed his checks on the boat. These were done more out of habit than any real effort to discern the seaworthiness of the vessel. Over time, he’d cut down the number of checks because he’d more or less forgotten what he was looking for and why. He made sure his navigation system and radio were working, and that there was plenty of fuel. That was it. Once the engine fired up, and sounded li
ke it should, he kicked off from the jetty and moved out at a slow speed. Maneuvering between boats he soon left the marina and then gradually let out the throttle. The waves remained tall, and he made sure to keep the boat angled toward them, letting the bow break them so the boat would glide over the wall of water. Not the biggest waves he’d seen when out at sea, but large and threatening nonetheless. The cabin cruiser bounced over the largest waves, and once or twice he heard crashing sounds. Like the boat was rising and landing on something hard.

  It was dangerous work, and he battled through it most of the day without food and only two bottles of water. He dared not leave the helm for a second. In late afternoon, the waters calmed. The weather conditions precluded speed, and he found that he had not traveled that far from the marina despite his efforts. The tide had been beating him back all day.

  He cut the engine, went below and ate a can of beans that he’d heated on the stove, along with some bread. Two glasses of wine and a soda set him up for a few hours at the laptop. The voyage had focused his mind – requiring total concentration. He had not given Maria, or the burglar, a second thought.

  Distance.

  The fatigue in his back and his shoulders wouldn’t stop him writing. Some writers had routines which they’d built up to help them write but Paul’s only requirement was solitude. He didn’t mind the gentle roll of the waves, the sounds of the ocean lapping against the hull, or the cries of sea birds overhead. As long as he was alone and there was no music other than the sentences in his head.

  And the twist, of course. There are many different types of twist. This book would be a snare. Paul knew it. And now he had to lay his rope. He’d had a twist brewing in his mind for the last one hundred pages. Subconsciously he’d been leaving clues – little traces of the trap peeking through the foliage.

  Now it came to him fully formed. He could see it all in his mind’s eye. The characters and plot laid bare like the inside of a Swiss watch. Ticking along perfectly until it came to the moment to drop the hammer.