October skies

CHAPTER 54

Thursday

Palo Cedro, California

‘Can I top your coffee up?’

‘Yes, please,’ she answered, eyes still locked on the laptop’s screen and the lengthy email she was tapping out.

‘Real good brew,’ the waiter added. ‘Ground the beans myself, just for you.’

Irritated at her train of thought being broken, she looked up.. and caught her breath.

‘Here you go.’ He poured a rich dark blend into the dregs of her cup.

She figured he was three or four years younger; at a guess, still at college. Gorgeous didn’t do justice to his sculpted cheeks and warm Travolta eyes beneath a floppy fringe of dark brown hair.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

His eyes narrowed curiously. ‘You British?’

‘Yeah, well… uh… English, actually.’

He grinned. ‘God, I love that.’

Rose’s cheeks burned, caught off guard by such intimacy. ‘What? What do you…?’

‘The way you guys say that: act-u-all-y. That’s just s-o-o-o British.’

‘Oh, God, that’s embarrassing,’ she muttered self-consciously. ‘I’ll remember not to use that word again.’

‘No way, I love it,’ he said. ‘You staying in town?’

She shook her head. ‘No, I’m just passing, really.’

‘Where you going?’

‘Where I’m going you probably haven’t heard of, but I’ve just been up to Portland.’

‘Cool,’ he said, ‘that’s where I go to college. Linguistics and media.’

Rose smiled and nodded, wondering what to say to that.

‘So… are you, like, on holiday?’

‘Um, no, not really, it’s work. I’m doing some research.’

‘Yeah? Cool,’ he said. He glanced over his shoulder quickly. ‘Look, uh, my shift manager would kick my ass if he heard me, but are you, like, in town tonight?’

She felt the colour drain from her face as she looked up at him — a lean young man with the chiselled contours of a Calvin Kline model.

What? Is he actually hitting on me?

‘Umm, I’m…’ She looked out at the mid-afternoon sky. It was still several hours’ drive back to Blue Valley, and whether she grabbed a motel room here, or booked back into the room she had been occupying for the last fortnight, it was still thirty-nine bucks out of the dwindling slush fund.

‘Only, I know a nice bar nearby,’ the waiter continued. ‘Nice food, nice place. Just a drink and a burger. I’m buying.’

‘I, uh, I really, I’m… I wasn’t…’ she stammered awkwardly.

Dammit, Rose, get a grip. You sound like a retard.

The young man shrugged apologetically, realising he’d caught her on the hop. ‘Sorry, there’s me diving in like that,’ he said quietly. ‘I just fell in love with that accent when you asked for a table earlier,’ he added, taking a step back with the coffee pot in his hand. ‘I finish up here at six, if you wanna go get something?’

Rose managed a composed smile. ‘I’ll think about it.’

She watched him head back to the counter, irritated with herself for being caught off balance and coming across as a gibbering idiot.

She slurped a mouthful of her coffee and sneaked a discreet glance at him.

Gorgeous though, isn’t he?

He was. But she reminded herself that she was just a frumpy plain Jane, and that after he got over the novelty accent and got his cookies, he’d be off just like every other bloke.

Back to work, girl.

There was an email that needed writing and sending ASAP. What she’d uncovered this morning was rich pickings, very rich pickings indeed. Julian, I’ve just driven back from Portland, Oregon. I got a hit on Benjamin Lambert. You won’t believe what I found. Okay, let me do this in order so it makes sense. My thinking was that if it was Lambert who survived, he’d turn up at some point in their press. He’s English, a posh guy, an aspiring writer — let’s not forget, a writer with one hell of a story. At the back of my mind, I was thinking that maybe, at some point, he might have taken his story to the penny press. Now, you said you researched UK records up to the point he set sail for the Americas, right? And then that’s it. According to you he vanished. I’m guessing you let the trail go there because you’ve been too busy to take it any further, what with shmoozing with the suits for money, but here’s the thing, Jules… Lambert’s story continues. Oh boy does it continue. Let me give it to you as best I can make it out from the paper archives I’ve been rummaging through. It most definitely was Lambert who got out alive. There may have been others, but I’m almost certain that Lambert was the ‘Rag Man’. Apparently, he made it all the way to Portland, and stayed there for a long while. A very long while. It seems like he managed to recover from his traumatic experience in the mountains. He settled there and made a life in Portland. He found God, by the way, which is interesting given how much of an atheist he sounds in the journal. Mind you, perhaps it’s also understandable, given what he went through? Anyway, local archives show he became a lay preacher. He also became something of a successful local businessman, making money from property. He also wrote articles from time to time in the papers, some preachy stuff, and become a local civic leader, a councillor. He married, had kids, and made more money. The Lambert family exists today as a very wealthy family. They own a lot of property around Portland, and have a lot of money in various big companies — but it’s all very discreet, like the Barclay brothers — there just isn’t much out there on the family. You might do better than me. Point is, Ben survived. And if we approach it right, we might get a chance to interview some reclusive billionaire and hand over the journal to him, filming his reaction, of course.

Rose nodded, happy with that, checked her laptop was still getting a decent wi-fi link and then hit ‘send’. She knew Julian would be jumping up and down with excitement over this.

She smiled, pleased with her legwork up in Portland. It would be satisfying to show Jules she could do just as well as him at trawling for facts. Maybe he might start thinking of her as more than the technology geek in their partnership.

She looked up and caught sight of the waiter, gracefully weaving his way between some tables to deliver an order to a table of truckers. He handed out several plates of food and tossed the men some false small talk before heading back to the counter. He caught her sneaking a glance and offered her a snatched, coy smile as he rounded the counter and headed into the kitchen through swing doors.

Rose felt an uninvited tingle of excitement and a momentary stab of guilt.

Just a burger and a beer, then I’m heading off…