Jim Rubart Trilogy

by James L. Rubart

  "Why is it so important for you to search for this book?" Tricia asked.

  Was it the town edict that everyone asked that question? Cameron let his head fall back and he stared at the thin layer of clouds above, growing pink. Why search? A moment later, Cameron found himself spilling his heart out to the two strangers beside him.

  "Before my dad died, he said finding the book would answer my questions. My wife said the same thing before she died in a small plane crash. Maybe they were deluded, but I promised I'd search."

  This time the emotion across Taylor's face lasted a full second, and Cameron didn't have to guess what the man felt: surprise and then conflict.

  Tricia glanced at Taylor, then slid her hand on top of Cameron's and squeezed.

  Taylor turned to him, a curious look on his face. "I'm sorry about your wife and the plane crash. Dying in an accident is . . . for the person who stays behind . . . It's not . . . I'm sorry for your pain."

  Cameron nodded. Where had that bucket of compassion come from? Not exactly the Taylor Stone he'd met so far. It was Cameron's turn to study the band.

  After the next set ended, Tricia and Taylor gathered their things and got up to leave.

  "Best of success, Cameron, hang in there." Taylor bent down to shake Cameron's hand.

  "Thanks, maybe we'll talk again."

  "Maybe."

  The park shadows grew till Cameron was the only one left in the park. The band had packed up and the last stragglers had ambled back toward their homes or hotels.

  Wait. He wasn't the only one left. A figure in shadow leaned against a tree on the opposite side of the park. It was too small to be Jason. Was it a man? A woman? He couldn't tell, but he knew the person was staring at him.

  Cameron stood and called out, "Hello."

  No response. No movement.

  "Can I help you?"

  The figure shifted his weight and pulled his hood further down on his face.

  As Cameron started walking toward the figure, the person walked backward a few paces, then turned and sprinted away.

  Cameron raced toward the fleeing figure, but he had too much of a jump on Cameron. By the time he reached the spot where the person had stood, he had vanished.

  The temperature had dropped at least twenty degrees since Cameron first arrived, or maybe the appearance of someone watching him made it seem that way.

  Threatening notes. Someone stealing his research. Stalkers trailing him. Great. It added a nice flavor of fear to his quest.

  But it also added validity. He was getting closer.

  And Jason was right. Taylor Stone was far more tied into the Book of Days than he was willing to admit. Cameron would stay close to Taylor and somehow find a way to get the man to confess.

  As he crawled under the sheets that night, hope fluttered up from his heart.

  "I'm making progress, Jessie." He clicked off the lamp next to his bed. "I know you're with me. I'll see you in my dreams."

  Three Years Earlier

  Intermittent breezes had buffeted Cameron and Jessie as they hiked the two miles up Mount Erie in northern Washington. They could have driven, but they were considering entering their first triathlon, and the exercise would be a good addition to the mountain-bike ride they'd taken earlier in the day.

  He grabbed her hand and gave a quick squeeze. She smiled, let go of his hand, and sprinted up the path. "Think you can catch me?"

  Maybe not, but she'd caught him. All of him. Forever.

  They crested the top of the trail and gazed down on the farmland a quarter-mile below.

  It looked like a postcard, pencil-thin dirt roads separating bright green fields as far as they could see, with inlets of Puget Sound reaching out like fingers into the rich green-and-gold ground.

  The sun would set in two hours, so they couldn't linger long before heading back down. They'd had one of their first dates here, and he'd taken her back once a year ever since. He would keep bringing her here till they had to drive to the top and get to the viewpoints using walkers.

  They found their traditional seat, an outcropping of rocks with just enough room for both of them to sit, and dangled their legs with four hundred feet of open space below them.

  "Perfect day?" Cameron asked.

  "Only one thing would make it better."

  "That is?"

  "When we get home we find out a major studio wants to buy one of your short films, make it feature length, and have you direct."

  The wind continued to swirl erratically, pushing Jessie's hair back in bursts, then dying so it fell on her shoulders like wayward feathers seconds later.

  Perfection in human form.

  She turned toward him. "What if I told you something you'd never believe?"

  "I'd believe it."

  "No. This is something I know you could never accept."

  "I would accept it, because it's you."

  "You wouldn't. It's the unanswerable argument. If I know you won't . . . it's like saying God, who nothing is impossible for, can make a stone too heavy for Himself to lift."

  "Easy answer." Cameron laughed. "Since there probably is no God, he wouldn't be able to lift it."

  Jessie ran her fingers over the top of his hands, then intertwined their fingers. "You promise to believe me?"

  "Yes, tell me."

  Jessie closed her eyes and smiled.

  "What? You're pregnant? You were abducted by aliens? What?"

  "Later."

  He laughed and pulled her in tight, nuzzling her neck with his lips. "Now."

  She tickled right under his arm where he was most sensitive, and he leaped back as if he'd stuck his finger in a light socket.

  "I've seen proof. God is real."

  "Really."

  Jessie nodded.

  "If you say so."

  "He is."

  "If you say—"

  "No, Cameron, look at me. I know He's real."

  "Uh-huh." Cameron drew her back into his chest and stroked her hair. "You're going to tell about this proof I suppose."

  "Yes. I've seen something He made. Something amazing."

  "What? The stars? The ocean?"

  "Something even better."

  "Tell me."

  "I will, when it's time." She folded her arms across her chest, dropped her head, and leaned into him hard.

  "I love you, Cameron. Always and forever."

  CHAPTER 17

  The oak door into Taylor's workshop creaked as Tricia opened it just past eight o'clock Sunday morning with one goal pounding through her heart—get her husband to talk. He didn't turn from the crinkled instructions laid out in front of him, but that didn't mean he hadn't heard her come in.

  She watched him fiddle with an ancient-looking fly rod, probably from the midfifties, reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. He hated those glasses. They labeled him as middle-aged plus, which he refused to admit to.

  The walls were covered with maps and pictures of hidden rivers and fishing holes that took three days of backpacking through the wilderness to reach. Most of the time Taylor took his trips solo, "to escape" he'd tell her, but what he was escaping from was never clear.

  Even though they'd known each other since junior high, he'd never fully opened up to her. He held secrets that she'd learned to accept. But ever since Cameron Vaux had arrived in town, Taylor had been escaping from her emotionally as well. It wasn't like him.

  The secrets weren't about another woman or some hidden addiction. Something about Cameron had pushed him into his workshop—or as she liked to call it, his cave—more frequently these past seven days.

  "Hello, my wonderful Tricia," he said, his head still buried in the instructions, his hands holding two pieces of the rod toge
ther. "The glue should be dry here in another forty seconds or so."

  Tricia eased up next to Taylor's workbench and leaned on her elbow. "Let's talk." She waited a few seconds for him to look at her, but he didn't budge. "I know you're doing your caveman want-to-be-alone thing right now, but I need to ask you something."

  "I'm not caving; I have to get this done by the weekend."

  "Uh-huh." Tricia straightened, turned, and leaned back against the workbench. "Are you going to help this Cameron kid?"

  "Help him what?"

  She would smack him on the head if it would stop him from playing dumb. "I know you better than you think I do."

  "I'm sorry, hon. We've just registered ten pounds on the confusion fish scale. That's two pitches over my head, third strike, yer out."

  "You're mixing metaphors."

  "I know."

  "Look at me, Taylor Stone." She placed her forefinger under his chin and lifted till he looked into her eyes. "I think both pitches hit you right in the heart, sweetie." She let his chin go.

  Taylor harrumphed. "In other words you think I know something more about this book business than I'm telling him?" He sat up and pulled off his reading glasses.

  "Thank you for stating the obvious."

  "What gives you that idea? Yes, David says in the Psalms all his days were recorded in God's book before he was born. He didn't say everyone; he said for himself. And I highly doubt David was describing a physical book that just happened to be plopped down in the good ol' US of A and land in little ol' Three Peaks, Oregon. He was speaking metaphorically about God knowing the past, present, and future because God is omniscient. He wasn't talking about a book you can order on Amazon.com with the click of a button."

  "Forgive me. I didn't know the depth of your knowledge when it came to that particular passage of Scripture. I'm sure you can tell me with complete certainty that God would only do that for David and no one else, and that there's no way He created a literal book and placed it somewhere on earth where man might find it."

  Taylor shook his head and focused on his fly rod. "It would have to be a pretty big book."

  "Since you were the voice of this town for eighteen years, you know more of its secrets than anyone." Tricia folded her arms across her chest and leaned in. "So if there is even a shred of a chance this book is genuine, any real evidence to back up Jason, then you would know it. And you like helping people. So if you try and tell me all you know about the Book of Days is that it's a strange legend and nothing more—"

  Taylor spun toward her in his chair and locked his hands behind his head. "So I should just grab a three-cheese pizza with Cameron and hand over whatever knowledge I possess, whether it's garbage or not? Maybe spend a few days brainstorming with him, doing research, hiking in the woods with him looking for this thing since deep down he reminds me of myself and I'm always such a helpful guy?"

  Tricia patted his shoulder. "Well said."

  "Thank you."

  Taylor returned to his fly rod and scraped off a tiny bit of excess glue. Tricia knew he considered the conversation finished, but she didn't. And she could always outlast him in the icy stare-down contest.

  He slapped his modeling knife on top of the workbench. "If it's that critical to your happiness, I'll dig through my old notes and see if I can find anything. Okay?"

  Tricia whirled, marched out, and didn't look back. Taylor wouldn't be grabbing the trowel anytime soon. Again, it wasn't like him. Finding out why leaped to the top of her mental to-do list.

  On Sunday night Cameron drove into Bend to catch a movie and escape his crumbling world. He needed to wrap his mind around something more than the question of whether or not he'd be wrapping his mind around anything at all a few years into the future.

  Tomorrow he'd meet Ann, see if she found anything at the library, and decide what to do next.

  As he walked through the parking lot toward the theater, a familiar face moved toward him.

  Ann.

  "Cameron, what a nice surprise." She sashayed up to him and fell into step alongside him.

  Was she kidding, or had the truce they'd established on the mountain kicked into effect? "I thought you were going to see that play in Bend."

  "I changed my mind."

  "I see." Cameron stuck his hands in his pockets and walked faster.

  Ann took a few quick strides, then she was next to him, matching his pace. "You're going to a movie?"

  Cameron nodded. "Yep."

  "By yourself?"

  "I think it's the best way to take it in. No distractions, no having to talk to anyone about it till you've had a chance to process it." He glanced at her. "And you're headed . . . ?"

  "The same."

  "To a movie?"

  "Yes."

  "By yourself?"

  She nodded and smiled.

  "And I thought all we had in common was rock climbing and—" Cameron stopped himself. No parents, brothers, or sisters for either of them. Both missing Jessie. Both looking for answers.

  She raised her eyebrows.

  "Rock climbing," he finished.

  The line to buy tickets was long, and Cameron didn't try to break the awkward silence till it had stretched past a minute. "Have you found anything more about your family?"

  "I'm getting almost nowhere."

  He could relate.

  Ann stepped out of line and folded her arms, probably to see why the line was moving so slow. She wore faded Levi's and a dark blue Nike sweatshirt, her hair cascading over it like water.

  Beautiful. He locked his hands behind his head and put his chin down. Stop it! The feelings were wrong. This is the way to honor Jessie? To remember her? By letting possible emotions for Ann dance around in his head like a tango? He had to get a handle on it.

  "Do you want to help me investigate?" She stepped back into line beside him. "The way I see it, we have similar skills. Find the interesting angle to a story whether it's with words or with the lens of a camera. We know how to draw the deeper parts out of a subject or a scene. It's always easier to find the answers with two minds focused on the story. I help you with the book; you help me with my family history. So?"

  Great. More time with her. That wouldn't help. But it was fair. "Fine. I'll help."

  "Thanks."

  Cameron gave Ann a thin-lipped smile and half a nod.

  She stepped in line in front of him and whispered over her shoulder, "When can you start helping me?"

  "You're up." He motioned toward the cashier window with his eyes.

  Ann bought her ticket and eased over to the right as Cameron stepped up to the window. He glanced at her face as he bought a ticket to a different movie. It was blank. If she felt something either way she didn't show it.

  He shoved his wallet into his coat and walked with her toward the ten-foot high glass doors leading into the theaters. "What have you uncovered so far?"

  "I think my mom was born in Three Peaks and lived here till she was at least a teenager."

  He raised both eyebrows, an invitation for her to elaborate.

  Ann glanced at her watch. "My movie's starting. Next time I'll give you the gory details." She winked at him, not a flirtatious wink, but certainly playful.

  All it took was a truce on the mountain for her to get a personality transfusion?

  He watched her till she disappeared into theater number seven, then tapped himself hard on the forehead when she turned back and gave a little wave, as if she knew he'd be watching. He spun on his heel and strode toward theater number two.

  Cameron left the theater two hours later. He glanced around the lobby looking for Ann. Why did he do that? Would he ask her to go for ice cream if he found her? Hardly. She was wrong for him, not even close to what he would want because no one could ever
take Jessie's place.

  He needed to get his mind back on the book. Tomorrow he would take another run at getting Taylor Stone to talk. A hard run.

  CHAPTER 18

  Ann chose the wrong movie. A romantic comedy was the worst salve possible for a heart aching over a guy she couldn't have. She tried to keep from putting herself onscreen, but it was impossible when the male lead reminded her of the Cameron she knew before Jessie died.

  When the lead started to throw away his collection of classic baseball cards to prove his love—with a smile on his face—Ann laughed and cried at the same time. That scene was Cameron personified.

  And she would have stopped him just like the scene played out onscreen.

  After the closing credits, Ann strode out the theater with her head down. "Get out of my heart, Cameron!"

  A couple walking out of the theater with her tried to hide their laughter.

  She turned her head toward them. "I'm thinking about the classic girl-loves-boy-but-there's-no-way-they-can-ever-be-together-but she wants-to-be-more-than-anything storyline."

  "And you're the girl?" the woman asked.

  She was the girl.

  He took one more glance at Cameron's notes, then let out a chuckle as he lifted them from under his reading lamp and filed them away inside his oak cabinet. It was such good news. Cameron's late wife had a stone she gave to him. And it was the key to finding the book?

  Fascinating.

  But where was the stone? Cameron must have it with him. It certainly wasn't in the hotel room.

  Didn't matter. The stone was another confirmation the book truly did exist in physical form. He would keep watching. And waiting. And learning. Young Cameron was doing his work for him.

  Thank you very much.

  He picked up his Glock and looked at it from all angles, the oil he'd used earlier allowing the gun to spin easily around his fingers.

  "We haven't played together in a long time, have we?" He laid it on his desk and spun it counterclockwise. "Have patience. We will dance together again soon. I can feel it. Can't you?"

  He leaned back, smiled, and gazed at a map of Three Peaks and the surrounding land. He picked up his knife by the point, let it settle into his callused fingers, then flung it at the map.