Clive Cussler - Thriller 2 - Stories You Just Can’t Put Down

“Well, she’s very upset that he left her flat and wasn’t there for the birth, not even moral support. Her parents are disgusted with her, but forbid her to have an abortion. Of course, her own plans for college are dashed.

“So she has the child. But a few days later, she dies from complications of childbirth. The daughter is raised by her grandparents. Meanwhile, the boy finishes college, never making contact with the girl’s family, never learning what happened to the girl or his child. We jump ahead twentysomething years-the boy’s a man, successful in his profession and happy with his life.”

“And?”

“And the ghost of his dead girlfriend suddenly appears to take vengeance on him-a revenant.”

“A what?”

“Revenant. A vengeful ghost.”

His mouth was dry, and he swallowed some coffee.

“So what do you think?”

“Interesting, but execution is everything.”

“Yes, it is.”

“What will he be doing in the present? Is he married? Does he have a family? How does he spend his days? I’ve got to know what to have him do from chapter to chapter.”

She nodded. “He’s divorced with no kids,” she said. Then like a half-glimpsed premonition she said, “He’s a writer.”

“A writer,” he repeated, as if taking an oath.

“Yes, I like the irony of him being the supposed artistic sensitive type. Yet he’s bad-if you pardon my French, a son of a bitch.”

Geoff simply nodded.

“I’ve got some of their back stories in notes, which I can share with you-stuff that you can use to flesh things out. But it’s the ending that I can’t come up with. How the ghost shows up and gets back at him. That’s where I’m stuck. And I want the best possible retribution.”

“Uh-huh.” He drained his cup and a prickly silence filled the moment.

“But I’m sure you can come up with the perfect justice.”

“I take it you believe in ghosts.”

“No, but I’m afraid of them.” She smiled at the old joke. “What about you?”

“Nope.”

“Well, I know you’re supposed to write from what you know, but I’m sure your fertile imagination can flesh this out. So, what do you think?”

“Well, it’s not really my kind of story. I write thrillers, not horror tales.”

“But I’ve read your novels, and I think it is your kind of story. Just that the antagonist is a ghost, not the standard villain.”

Maybe that was his problem: all his villains were standard.

He nodded and glanced around the food hall. Students were scattered at different tables, some of them reading, some working at their laptops. He didn’t mind them, but he was tired of teaching kids how to write. Most had never written fiction before. And most made their first forays with dumb horror tales, hoping to be the next Stephen King. And most had zero talent. Like this woman. But she had money. Enough to buy his way out of here for a couple of years. And he was certain that if he didn’t sign, she’d find someone else who would.

“I also think you’d enjoy working on it.” She nudged the contract toward him.

Doubtful, he thought. And for a long moment he stared at it. Then he picked up the pen and signed.

And a small rat uncurled in his gut.

By six that evening, he was back home, thinking that this might turn out to be the toughest twenty thousand dollars he’d ever make. No, it wasn’t the fact that he didn’t write ghost stories. Nor was her story line too much of a challenge. As he sipped his second Scotch, he told himself: Coincidence. Dumb, blind coincidence.

Twenty-four years ago, while doing grad work in L.A., he had gotten a young undergraduate pregnant. They had dated less than a year while he finished his M.F.A. They had talked about marriage, but when a teaching post presented itself, he broke off the relationship and moved back to the East Coast. He gave Jessica some money to get an abortion, but she had refused. He left no forwarding address and never heard from her again, uncertain what had happened to her or her baby. Yes, he felt guilty. But he was also young, selfish and scared. And he couldn’t turn down the job because it paid well and would allow him the time to write his first novel, which became an instant bestseller.

As he lay in bed staring into the black, it all came back to him. But did he really want to be shacked up for the next ten or twelve months slogging through that old muck?

But one hundred thousand dollars?

Two hours later he was still rolling around his mattress.

Maybe it was his inherent paranoia crossed with his writer’s imagination, but suddenly he wondered if this Lauren Grant was really an innocent little rich kid who just wanted her name on a book.

He got out of bed and went to his laptop where he Googled Lauren J. Grant. A common enough name, but not a single hit came up. He tried other search engines and databases, and nothing. She had no Web site. No entry in Facebook, MySpace or any blog site. She had never registered a book or movie review anywhere under her name. Nothing. In the vast digital universe where most people had left evidence of their existence, she did not exist. It was as if she were a ghost.

The next day, feeling like roadkill from the lack of sleep, he went to the registrar’s office and got a clerk to give him copies of Lauren J. Grant’s application. While grades were confidential, their application forms were not. She was from Philadelphia. Her parents were Susan and John Grant-she was a real estate agent, he the owner of a trucking firm. Lauren was an only child. She had graduated from Prescott High School. All looked legitimate.

But that evening, back home at his laptop, anxiety was setting bats loose in his chest. The more he tried to work on the synopsis, the more distracted he became. What if she were some kind of writer stalker-a delusional nutcake, like the assistant who murdered that singer, Selena?

Or worse, the crazed groupie who shot John Lennon dead after getting his autograph?

Or worse still, his own Annie Wilkes, like in that story Misery?

It’s your ol’fertile imagination getting the best of you, he told himself. Nonetheless, he went back online and found a Web site for Prescott High School. But probably because of the fear of pedophiles, students were not identified by name. However, using different search engines he located a site for the publisher of the school’s yearbooks and ordered one for the year she had graduated. He then checked the online Yellow Pages and, with relief, he found an address for her parents that matched what she had written on the application. Your imagination was always much richer than your real life, he told himself and went to bed.

Over the next several days he threw himself into the synopsis. By the end of the next week, he had the story line filled out and an ending that satisfied him. So, he e-mailed Lauren a copy, humming for that twenty-grand advance.

Within the hour she called him. “Geoffrey, it’s good but the ending is not there yet. You’re letting him off too easily.”

He didn’t mind the presumptuous use of his first name as much as her sudden authority: this little twit wasn’t satisfied with his synopsis. He resented that almost as much as he resented his need for her money. “Twentysomething years have passed,” he said. “Do ghosts hold grudges that long?”

“In this story they do.”

“Well, frankly, I think the ghost bit is silly. I told you I don’t write ghost stories. I don’t even read them. And I don’t believe in them. They’re cheesy gimmicks.”

There was a long, uncomfortable silence filled only with the hush of the open phone line. “So what do you recommend?” she finally said.

“That it’s the grown daughter who seeks him out.”