The Crossroads of Trust
I’ve got to get my hands on that book!
Charlie followed Lilah down the narrow hallway back to their hotel room. He was in trouble. Big trouble. The kind only divine intervention—or some kind of magical book of spells—could get him out of.
He and Lilah were both tired, and still terribly jetlagged. They’d spent the day answering questions from law enforcement and emergency personnel on Howth. Fortunately, the jogger in the yellow T-shirt was a well-known local who had witnessed the entire thing, so there was no question of foul play. Everyone had agreed it was suicide, although officially it would be reported as a famous old man losing his footing too close to the edge, out of respect for his family and global reputation. He was one of their own.
Their passports had been checked, but as always with Dr. St. Augustine’s work, the fake documents were perfect. Their cover stories were even better. Just a couple of Americans on holiday, trekking up the hiking trails on Howth to Muck Rock where he had planned to propose to her and beg her to give his life as much as of a love story as had happened on the Isle of Lambeth, in easy view below the rocky ledge. No one had checked the brown satchel, not even Lilah or him.
He and Lilah had been questioned separately. In the sole moment when he had changed the cover story, he’d pulled a small box out of his pants pocket and popped it open to reveal a respectable-sized diamond. Dr. St. Augustine’s plausible tale had him proposing to his beloved on the Isle of Howth, but there’d been no ring in that version. The ring was his, and it wasn’t Muck Rock where he planned to go down on one knee, but at the Cliffs of Moher, a site that had always been special to Lilah ever since she’d heard stories of it as a child from her long-gone mother. The man interviewing him had taken the ring, held it up to the bleak light outside a curtainless window, then turned and slapped Charlie in the back with a laugh and his best wishes.
Following Lilah down the narrow hallway, Charlie patted the small box that bulged in his pocket to make sure it was still there. He had five more days before he could present it to Lilah. How would he ever keep it a secret for that long? She’d already accused him of hiding something from her, empath that she was. That much was true, but for more reasons than the ring.
Lilah shoved the hotel key card into its slot in the door and pushed her way into the room as she tugged off her boots. She flopped down on the king-sized bed in the small room with oddly-angled ceilings and corners. Her feet were still on the floor, her back across the mattress, the satchel falling to her side.
“Oh, my God,” she whimpered. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this exhausted.”
“Hmm. Well, save some of that energy for me.” Charlie tossed their jackets onto a nearby chair. Toeing off his shoes, he flopped down beside her, careful not to bang his head on the slant of ceiling, and stared up at the lamp sconces on the wall. Without looking, he found her hand and wove his fingers through hers.
The hotel itself was beautiful with lots of purple and pink velvets, the remnants of the original thirteenth-century castle still visible as well as the eighteenth-century renovations that had turned it into a more modern and livable tourist attraction. Ancient battles had taken place here over a thousand years ago, battles that had settled the affairs of Northern Europe. Dr. St. Augustine had chosen this castle for their lodging, rather than a noisier, more modern room in the heart of Dublin; she knew his plans with Lilah for later in the week and had done her best to give them both what she considered to be a treat. He wasn’t the dauntless warrior and scholar that Lilah was, but the Special Collections Library at Florida University couldn’t run without him, and he was proud of his contributions.
He wanted to sneak a peek—needed to sneak a peek—at that book in the satchel. He’d lied. He could read Latin, some at least. He’d taken four years of it in high school and another two in college, and then one last elective for his Master of Library Science degree. He was in trouble, and he could think of no other way to—
“Whatcha thinkin’?” Lilah whispered.
He hated it when she asked him that kind of thing. It usually meant she was reading his emotions and sensed that something was amiss. Thank God, empaths could read vibes but not thoughts.
“Oh, just thinking about you,” he responded quickly.
Lilah planted a kiss on his forehead and scrambled off the bed, the satchel still draped across her chest. “I need a shower. Care to join me?”
“I, uh….” Damn it. The shower was a perfect chance for him to sneak a peek at the forbidden book. “I, um, I’ll wait.”
“Oh?” She looked disappointed, obviously sensing yet again that something was off kilter.
“It’s been a long day,” he said. “I’ll give you your privacy. You deserve a really long, hot shower without any distractions from me.” When she looked at him quizzically, he added, “I’ll distract you enough after you’re out of the shower.”
She smiled. “Suit yourself.”
“Wait. You’re taking the satchel with you?”
“Of course. I promised the senator I wouldn’t let it out of my sight.”
“I’ll watch it for you,” he blurted, trying not to seem too eager.
Lilah shrugged. “I’ve got it under control.”
“No, I mean, it’s a hot shower. Humidity and stuff. You don’t want to risk doing damage to the artifact by having it in a moist room.” She frowned at him, but said nothing, so he pulled out the trump card that always worked with women. “Don’t you trust me?”
Her defenses fell. He might as well have kicked her in the stomach. She looked for a moment as if she might cry.
“I trust you!” Something in her voice wasn’t so sure. She tugged her bottom lip between her teeth, then nodded to herself. She lifted the satchel strap over her head and then placed the satchel on the bed beside him.
“You know I love you.” He meant it. He smiled as she headed for her shower. Lilah was funny that way, always mixing up love and trust as though they were synonyms. That mistake had gotten her in trouble before, and that bastard Jakin had broken her heart. Rumor back at the library was that Jakin Crutchfield wasn’t the first, and that’s why Lilah was so guarded about giving her heart again. Charlie hoped he would never let her down that way. That’s why he needed help from The Lost Teachings of Dead Monks.
He waited until he heard a blast of water in the bathroom through the closed door and then counted to ten. At nine, the door popped open and Lilah, clad only in a towel, stepped back into the room.
As expected.
“Yes?” He blinked at her.
She shook her head. “Sorry. I thought you might be looking at the book. I… I’m so sorry. It’s not anything you’ve done. It’s what people before you have done. My trust issues don’t have anything to do with you.” With a guilty look, she shook her head again, shrugged, and closed the bathroom door behind her.
Great. Now I feel like a jerk. But a jerk with no choice.
The blast of water continued on the other side of the wall. He could tell from the sound now that the warm water was striking her body as the flow of it changed with each movement. He let out a long sigh. He knew Lilah well enough to know she didn’t entirely trust anyone, no matter how badly she wanted to. He turned the satchel on the mattress toward him. Gingerly, training his ear for movements in the next room, he unlatched the clasp on the satchel and opened the top.
Gently, gently, gently, he tugged at the thick plastic wrapper, moving the surprisingly thin package out onto the mattress. The wrapper had been sealed on all sides. He paused to listen for the cadence of water splashing off Lilah’s shoulders. He hadn’t brought a knife with him, but he supposed a corkscrew from the minibar would suffice. Since Lilah had no idea how the book was wrapped, he felt safe.
He grabbed one edge of the plastic envelope and ripped into it. All he could see underneath the clear plastic wrapper was a cloth covering. He removed the plastic as carefully as he could and then stuffed it between the mattress and the box spring so Lilah wouldn’t find it in the garbage and figure out what it was.
In the bathroom, the water still ran. Charlie unfolded the corners of the cloth wrapping. He had no gloves, and his hands weren’t clean, but he had to see that book. If this was, as the senator had said, the secret to having everything he wanted, then it was the only thing that could save him now.
As he unfolded the third layer of thick cloth, it became clear to him that the satchel had been handmade for this book—the odd dimensions, its age, and a reflection of what was likely within. He hadn’t noticed before, but the satchel had been painted, though it had long since faded to brown because it had spent fifty years outside of the museum where it belonged. Companion pieces such as this were not unheard of and were often considered as much an artifact as the book itself.
He pulled back the last fold of cloth and forgot about the splash of water in Lilah’s shower. He forgot to breathe. All he could do was stare at the cover.
He knew better, but still, he had to trail his fingers over the delicate impressions. He’d expected vellum and a covering of leather. Instead, this was parchment, bound in bejeweled metal. He snared a pillow from under the duvet and wiped his hands briskly on the white linen. Carefully, he lifted the metal cover. The corner was worn and tarnished as if the oil of the senator’s hands had touched that same spot at least several times a month, if not daily, for the entire time it had been in his possession. The words on each page were scant, in small and ornate Latin. He could read it but intentionally did not. He wouldn’t have time. Each page was decorated with colorful drawings, not too different from The Book of Kells, which he’d promised to take Lilah to see in Dublin during their downtime.
The illustrations seemed to represent each verse—not in representations of Christ or kings or bishops, but in ornate spirals that drew him in.
He shook himself, forcing himself to back away from it mentally. He flipped back to the first page and read the inscription, Cogito Ergo Id Est, which roughly translated to I think; therefore, it is.
Was the water off in the bathroom? His heart pounded so loudly now that he could barely tell.
Charlie held his breath. The water was still running. Leaning in closely to inspect the book, he changed positions on the bed. The ring box dug into his groin. Forgetting his need to finish before Lilah returned, he fished the box out of his pocket, the top cracking open in his fingers, exposing the diamond. The ring would make her happy, he was sure of it. Lilah had been lost in darkness when he’d found her, but she had clawed her way to sunlight. She was happier now than he’d ever known her. If he couldn’t give her everything, he could still give her what she needed most—a partner, a lover, a protector, someone to share the journey with. Someone who could and would earn her trust.
Charlie was at a crossroads. There were other decisions he had to make. He didn’t have a choice. At least, none with good consequences. Either way, he was likely to lose Lilah—to turn her against him forever, to throw her back into the darkness she’d come out of. He stuffed the ring box under the bed, under the side he always claimed for himself. He couldn’t risk Lilah finding it, not yet.
He turned back to the book, carefully lifting each page and pausing on the fifth one, colorful with Celtic knots and spirals. The page looked as if it were from one of those kids’ puzzle books, a maze you had to trace from the outside all the way to the treasure at the center. He found himself following these squiggly spirals with his eyes, losing all track of time, like falling through dimensions.
He was going to lose Lilah. That was his biggest fear. Maybe he’d gone too far already. If Lilah found out what he’d done, there was no way she’d forgive him. Maybe if he came clean now….
He had a choice. He could still back out. He could ignore the insane, self-inflicted drama he’d gotten himself into, take Lilah to the Cliffs of Moher and ask her to be his wife there, overlooking the seven-hundred-foot cliffs and a misty sea below.
It was more of a crossroads than a fork in the path. A fork meant Lilah or one other choice. There were other things he could do, but all of them meant hurting Lilah enough that he would lose her.
Maybe he could confess what had happened. Give her a little bit of time, then wait for her to take him back. At least he’d have his integrity. If she found out any other way than from him, she’d hate him forever.
Only Dr. St. Augustine knew of his plans to ask Lilah to marry him. No one had to know if he backed out, and Lilah wouldn’t be publicly embarrassed. He could come up with some excuse for Dr. St. Augustine, and Lilah would never have to know what his plans had been.
If all else failed, he could resign from the job he loved, move to some far-off city, and then no one would be hurt.
Except that he needed the job, almost as much as he needed to be close to Lilah. Something about her grounded him, made him feel stable. Like he was helping. Maybe even saving her. He loved that feeling of being needed by a woman.
If he betrayed her, if he broke her heart, she’d never trust him again. She’d never trust anyone again. That was his worst fear—that he would do something, anything at all, that would hurt her and cause him to lose her as a partner, a lover, and a friend.
He turned another delicate page. More exquisite illustrations, colorful and ornate, and less text. Only a word or two. It seemed more to be a book of maps and mazes than anything useful.
“I can’t understand this,” he muttered.
The water in the bathroom was off, he realized. How long had he been staring at the book, lost in his fears instead of trying to discover its secrets? There was nothing there for him. Nothing that could magically save him from the situation he’d gotten himself into.
Quickly, he closed the cover and rewrapped the artifact in the layers of cloth. He’d always been a lousy Christmas present wrapper, and his attempt now seemed clumsy. The cloth wasn’t as tight, the corners weren’t as perfect. The package was bulkier now than before. Nervous, he opened the satchel and forced the book and bulky cloth back into the space. He latched the clasp, then flung himself facedown onto the bed, sprawling out and pretending to sleep.
Charlie calmed his ragged breaths, determined to hear Lilah when she came back into the room. He squeezed his eyes shut and waited. Dread twisted in his stomach. If she found out what he’d been forced to do, tonight would be the last night he would ever make love to Lilah.
The bathroom door clicked open, and he heard her padding softly out on bare feet. “I was thinking about you in the shower and— Charlie? You fell asleep?”
He didn’t move. Best if she thought he was asleep and had been this whole time.
“Oh, Charlie. Did you need a nap to regain your strength?” Soft lips nuzzled his exposed ear, warm breath on his neck. Then he felt kisses at his hairline and on the back of his neck. The weight of her body settled in on the mattress beside him.
He shoved aside the dread in his gut and let the stirrings of want take over. He opened his eyes in time to see her move the satchel from its place on the bed to the nightstand next to it. She caught him watching, and he grinned.
She was still half wrapped in a towel, but her long hair was wet and dripped across his cheek. She threw one leg over his hips as she rolled him onto his back, bending over him to find his mouth with hers.
Still grinning, he tugged away the white hotel towel from her skin and tossed the plush cloth on the floor beside the bed. He busied himself caressing her breasts, squeezing her nipples, tugging her down toward him.
She tried to plant a trail of kisses on his jawline and, at the same time, find the hem of his cable-knit sweater with her fingers. Instead, she tickled in both places, and he squirmed out of the sweater without her help.
Lilah grabbed the bottom of the T-shirt underneath. Layer, Dr. St. Augustine had warned, for that Irish weather. He wriggled out of that layer, too.
Still kissing him, she fumbled with his jeans, tugging at the metal button and the bulging zipper until they both came free at once.
This is how Lilah always was, more passionate than any woman he’d ever known. Almost desperate in her lovemaking, as if it somehow kept her tied to the planet to keep from floating away and losing herself. She reached inside his jeans and found him erect and waiting. He pulled her hand away, grabbed her by the back of the thighs, and pulled her down on top of him. He slid in easily, balls deep, but she still cried out in surprise. She flung her head back, eyes closed, riding him hard, her fingers interlaced with his, gasping, lost in her own ecstasy.
He wanted to ask her why she was in such a hurry, but she was almost at her end, as if she felt she might die before orgasm. He lost himself in the sight of her, naked on top of him, and came too quickly. He cursed himself, but Lilah kept going, grinding against him until she cried out again and fell against his chest. She lay there for several minutes, heaving, his arms draped loosely around her back as he played with her shoulder blade with one finger and contemplated sleep.
Ping!
Lilah lifted her head. “What was that?”
“Just my phone,” he whispered, smoothing the back of her wet head and kissing her forehead.
“I thought we were phone free on this excursion,” she whispered.
“We are, except for emergencies or if you and I get separated. Which means I should answer this.”
“Emergencies? From whom? Dru is contacting me directly through my phone. Why would she contact you?”
He shrugged. “Maybe it’s not her.” She frowned at him, and he answered quickly, “I do have family, you know. My grandmother’s been ill.”
“Oh, you didn’t say anything.”
“I didn’t want to bother you.”
“It’s not a bother to me.” She pushed off with her elbows into a sitting position, adjusting her body upward so that his own limp flesh slipped out of her. “I want to be supportive, Charlie, but you’ve got to let me know what’s going on in your life.” She caressed his cheek. “So that’s what’s been bothering you?”
He shook his head but said yes.
“You should’ve said something. I want to be there for you, like you’ve been there for me.” She sat all the way up and looked out the window into the night sky. “You’ve been so distant lately. I thought you were changing your mind about me. About us.”
He chuckled and pulled her down into an embrace. “No, it’s not you. It’s compli—”
Ping!
He’d left the volume turned up on his phone, completely by accident. He hadn’t really expected to get any messages, but if he had, they would’ve been silent and discreet. Lilah would never have known anything about them.
“I’d better get that.” Charlie stood up, tucking his briefs back into his jeans and zipping them. He snagged his T-shirt from the floor but left the sweater where it had landed. Ignoring Lilah’s watchful gaze, he pulled the shirt over his head and reached for the phone on the credenza.
“I hope Grandma’s okay,” he mumbled for Lilah’s benefit but didn’t look her in the eye. No wonder she’d accused him of being distant. The more he hid his secret, the more closed off he was to her.
He’d told everyone who mattered back home that he’d be gone for a week and offline—no email, no social media messaging, no text messaging, no phone. None of them needed to reach him that badly, he’d said. The only way anyone could reach him was through Dr. St. Augustine via Lilah. Except for one other possibility: a messaging app for Fourth World, an online simulation that included every possible character, every possible avatar, simulated cities, simulated professions, and a simulated St. Augustine Special Collection Library that included simulations of real books that rare book enthusiasts could read in the simulated halls of the simulated library. His experiment with Fourth World had won him several awards as well as Dr. St. Augustine’s ire for being a little too proactive—which meant scanning and uploading possibly dangerous books to a public site without his boss’s permission.
The phone pinged a third time. He almost dropped it as the messages stacked up across the screen. His heart sank.
“What’s wrong?” Lilah asked from behind him. She was already off the bed and making her way, completely naked, toward him.
He turned his back to her. “It’s, uh, a little worse than I expected.” He thumbed his phone off and plunged it into his pocket.
Lilah wrapped her arms around him and pressed her cheek between his shoulder blades. “What’s wrong? You can tell me. I knew it was bad. I could feel your pain when you read the message.”
Damned empath. Never any privacy. It was his biggest complaint about Lilah, that she could always tell when something was amiss with him, but she almost always blamed herself.
He could keep his thoughts to himself, but not his feelings. Not unless he had a shield up around him at all times to keep her from sensing every emotion he was feeling. At least she couldn’t tell what caused the pain. He’d let her think whatever she wanted to think, to draw her own conclusions, even if she took it to a dark place as usual. That way he wouldn’t be lying to her, but he wasn’t sure which was worse.
This guilt was going to drive him mad. Why couldn’t the book have held a quick and easy answer? The weird spirals had worked wonders for an old man with a fondness for public service.
Charlie shrugged out of her embrace but didn’t turn toward her. “I, uh, I think I’ll go for a walk,” he said.
“Do you want some company?” Lilah sounded hurt.
“No. No, I think I’ll run downstairs and get a couple of glasses of wine for us. Or maybe some dessert or something.”
“We could call room service.” Her voice still sounded wounded, but she tried to laugh it off. “Don’t think I’m done with you yet, you sexy beast.”
He chuckled but still refused to look at her. “Yeah. I’ll be gone for a little while. I just need to clear my head. Okay?” He tried to sound cheerful, but he knew there was nothing but dread in his voice.
“If you change your mind….”
“No. Really. I need a few minutes to myself. You stay and rest and guard the book.” To his surprise, she didn’t fight him harder. She was too busy staring at the satchel.
He sank his bare feet into his muddy athletic shoes and, without bothering to tie them, he strode out of the room. He had to put some distance between Lilah and himself. There was only so long he could hold it together with her in his presence.
He looked down the hall, almost sideswiping two older women carrying shopping bags. They both shot him a strange look, not because of his disheveled appearance or shoelaces flying out around his ankles but, no doubt, because he still smelled of Lilah and sex.
Charlie paused at the stairs, wide and shallow with banisters of carved, dark wood, and quickly tied his shoes. He fumbled in his pocket for his phone, pulled it out, hit the ON button with his thumbprint, and watched it unlock to reveal three messages:
The avatar in the circle beside the message was one he himself had created. The simulated Fourth World librarian with scarlet hair. Purely a creation of his own mind. Or so he had thought. He’d modeled her after a woman Lilah said she had seen in a dream and had jokingly named her Rune O’Maney, a play on the words Ruin of Many.
Charlie took the steps two at a time past faded tapestries and the stone wall remnants of the original thirteenth-century castle. He landed with a thud on the bottom step and strode through open doors toward the bar.
How his life had gone to hell in two months, Charlie wasn’t sure. Everything had been so simple until he’d received that first message on Fourth World from the very avatar he’d created himself. Someone had spoofed his account four months ago, claiming that she was the real Rune O’Maney and that he’d stolen her identity. She hadn’t been demanding; rather, she’d been flirtatious and had eventually sent him pictures of herself. She did look a bit like her avatar and she, supposedly, had proof that she had been born with the name he had only imagined.
“Good evening, sir.” A slim bartender with her long, gray hair in a bun waved at him as he approached her station. “Here for a bit of craic?”
He smiled at the Irish word for fun, thinking that he would never be greeted that way back home. “No, just dessert,” he said. He’d looked at the menu the previous night, when he and Lilah had been too jet-lagged for dessert. “Two hot chocolates, an apple torte, and whatever you have that is the most chocolatey. I’ll carry them back up to the room myself.” She nodded and set to work.
At least this way, he would have a peace offering to take back to Lilah, and a reason for being gone so long.
Charlie glanced around the bar. About half the wooden tables were filled, mainly with locals in their forties and older, mugs of Guinness and glasses of cider between them. The bar itself was ornate and full of old-world antiques, including a sword that hung on the wall behind the bartender. He did not, however, see anyone who resembled his pen pal of the last four months.
A line of people squeezed behind him. Two of them spoke loudly of rugby as he leaned closer to the bar to give them more room.
Then someone leaned into him, on tiptoes, and whispered in his ear, “Hello, lover.”
Charlie whirled around. A woman with long hair dyed an unnatural red stood in front of him, looking up with innocent eyes.
“I’m so glad you came,” she said, her voice barely audible above the din of the bar. She plowed her hand through his hair and pulled him down into a deep-throated kiss before he could pull away.
“You can’t be here,” he protested. “You just can’t.”
What if Lilah walked in? What if she was watching him right now? He scanned the room quickly. No, Lilah was still upstairs, probably stung that he wasn’t spending more time with her and wondering what she’d done wrong. Maybe even messaging Dr. St. Augustine to check in on his grandmother, who was alive and well in Seattle.
“Why are you in Ireland, Charlie? Are you here on another mission? Is it a very special book this time?” She ran her fingers over his cheeks in a way that Lilah never did. She pressed her thumb into his lips. “Hush now. You don’t have to tell me yet. You can always tell me later, back in Florida.”
“I’m not telling you anything. Stop asking. And please go away. Don’t message me. Don’t follow me. Don’t—”
“Aww, Charlie.” She pressed the back of her hand against his forehead as if to check for a fever. “Is that any way to talk to your future wife?”
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