Chapter Fourteen Rory

When I locate our chairs after my mindful beachside walk, the Italian family from the train is ensconced in them. At first I think I’m in the wrong place.

Eventually I orient myself, determine that these are indeed our chairs. I clear my throat. “Excuse me, I think… these are ours.”

The woman slides her ginormous black sunglasses down the bridge of her nose. For the first time, I assess her up close—midforties, with an angular black bob, curtain bangs, and dark eyes rimmed in black kohl. “Quale?”

“Hi, ehrm, you’re on the train with us, right? I’m—”

“Oh, yes. It’s you.” She has a melodic voice that doesn’t jibe with her angular frame and oozing irritation at having been interrupted from her sun nap. “The girl who fell on the trail.”

“I didn’t fall. I was almost hit by… oh. Whatever. Doesn’t matter. But these are our chairs. Sorry, my Italian’s not great. And have you seen—I mean… where are our books?”

“Che problema c’è?” The husband joins in, his chest so orange and slick with oil that I feel like I’m staring blindly at the sun.

“What?” I drop to my knees, moving aside the woman’s straw tote to see… nothing under her chair.

“He said, What is your problem?” The woman still hasn’t budged, is sprawled out on our chairs without a seeming care.

“The problem is… these are our chairs. And my book is missing!”

“Your book? What do you mean, book? I didn’t see any book. And these are our chairs. My husband has paid for them.”

Suddenly, Max is at my side, and then Nate and Caro stagger back, all three confirming that I have not misremembered the location of our chairs. And we argue with the Italians, or spiritedly discuss—which one I’m not sure because we don’t exactly understand one another—the Italians with increasingly vigorous hand motions that I can’t decode. At some point in our discord, it emerges that Max and I are staying in the Istanbul and Roma suites, respectively. Suddenly there is an about-face—“Ma non mi dire, we are in the Paris suite!” They appraise us with newfound interest, their indignation abating.

“Once we meet the people in the Venice Suite, the circle will be complete,” the husband says.

“There is a Do Not Disturb sign on the door.” The wife winks. “They are having too much sex to come out!”

“Ah.” I force a laugh. “But the books? You don’t know anything about the books?”

“Books? Again, the books? Buy new books, how about.” And with that the wife slips her sunglasses back on and reclines, dismissing us.

So Max flags the beach boys, and there ensues a flurry of activity that involves us all, minus the sunbathing Italians, scavenging beneath and around the chairs, knees in scorching sand. Searching for the elusive books. Our tenuous bond with the Italians by virtue of being wealthy suite goers has dissolved, and now they are mincing no words, eyes full of disdain: They want us gone. Their kids return from the sea, lithe golden bodies dripping in seawater, equally disinterested in our plight, confirming with flicks of wet hair in my face, that no, niente libri.

And so, finalmente, it is crystal clear—the books are gone. All four copies of The Cabin on the Lake vanished without a trace.

After the hubbub, we are ensconced in a different four chairs, recently vacated nearer the shore. The beach boys are triumphant—sedie migliore! Best chairs! When I mention that, yes, best chairs but no books, they return triumphantly proffering scuffed paperbacks, apparently from their lost and found.

A pink-covered Susan Mallery and a thick tome with an Italian title.

“Grazie.” I muster a smile, accepting the books, whose pages cough up dust.

For a while, we all lay not speaking, staring out at the water nearly as still as a swimming pool, nary a wave, just occasional tiny blurps from the sea that flatten into shell-smattered sand.

“I don’t get it—why would anyone take the books?” Max asks. “Especially all four of them.”

“Maybe it was an accident,” Nate says.

Silence as we all ponder the fitting accident that would result in four identical books being deposited inadvertently in someone else’s beach bag. My chest feels knotted tight. The whole hike, I was envisioning the moment I’d lie on the beach and flip the book open again. I still can’t shake it, this nagging sensation that I missed a crucial detail on the first read. I just know if I still had the book, I’d find it—it would all click into place.

“She’s popular, the author. So probably a fan just took them,” Nate says, his tone decisive and curt, like he wants to end this conversation. Why would he want to end this conversation?

“You think it was a fan? I mean… doubtful,” Caro says. I’m doubtful of that myself, but something in her tone, and the set of her jaw, seems tense.

She lifts her gauzy white cover-up over her head, revealing a neon yellow one-piece in crinkled spandex. Then she stands, showing off her pert round butt, with her birthmark shaped like a crescent moon at the tip-top of her thigh. She digs through her bag, fishes out a canvas bucket hat, plops it on, and eases back onto the lounger, her leg flexing in a pose that could leap out of the pages of an Assouline coffee table book. Predictably, Max is watching her. I smile, and then he blushes and looks away when he sees that I notice.

Things may change, but one thing will always stay the same: Max loves Caro.

I stiffen when I remember that Caro may be embezzling from him. Is probably embezzling from him. Ginevra provided evidence. Bank statements. And what motive would the author have for forging them?

“I guess I agree with Caro on the fan theory,” I eventually say. “What are the chances a fan took all four?”

Max slides on a pair of stylish sunglasses—blond plastic frames with brown lenses. What happened to his Oakleys? “You never know. People are weird. Maybe an enterprising person is going to throw them all up on eBay.”

“If that’s the case, Ginevra will be pissed,” I say. “She’ll want to control the narrative and obviously the release. It doesn’t make any sense.” Quiet lingers for a bit, just the dive and squawk of gulls now converging on the chairs to our right, beelining to a three-year-old who is gleefully dispersing a loaf of bread.

“Or maybe…” I say, a thought circling my brain.

“The Italians?” Max asks. “Like Caro said earlier. Ginevra could have minions around. Doing this stuff for nefarious—”

“I think you guys are bonkers,” Nate says. “You’re being paranoid. There’s no way this author orchestrated the theft of her own books. Why would she give them to us in the first place? It’s not like this theft is going to make front-page news, or any page news, at that. And they’re basically worthless—they’re early editions, not even hardcovers!”

We all absorb the sense Nate is making. Right. So Ginevra wouldn’t have had her own books stolen, but the boulder? Caro’s accusation earlier, that there was something sinister behind that boulder rolling at me, still has me off-kilter. And now the books. It’s all so bizarre, and I can’t help feeling like someone—someone close to me—is burying, or concealing, the lede.

“Hey, new sunglasses?” I ask Max.

“Oh.” Max slides them down the bridge of his nose and smiles. “Yeah, whaddya think? I just picked them up.”

“You bought yourself sunglasses?” Caro asks incredulously.

My thoughts exactly. Max never shops for himself. Could really care less what he wears, how old his shirts are. If they lose buttons, he takes them to the cheap tailor around the corner from where we grew up. Even with his newfound wealth and success, it doesn’t occur to him to splurge for new ones.

“Oh yeah. I called the office quickly and then had a little time. Tried to find Nate and Caro, but couldn’t. And no one responded to my texts. I’m in Italy, thought I’d try some Italian sunglasses.” Max grins, feigning our waiter at lunch. “The town is pretty cool. Did you find your belt, Nate?”

“What?” Nate is staring out at the sea, lost in thought.

“Your belt,” I say.

“Oh.” He rubs his eyes and blinks. “No, didn’t find one. Did see the church, though. With the black and white stripes.”

The church. Right. I saw it described in the glossy magazine on my banquette table. It’s one of the landmarks in town, but is Nate bringing it up with some kind of hidden agenda? To prove he was in town—not here, stealing books?

No. I’m being irrational.

Still, I say, “What about you, C? Get anything in town?” I make my voice light, but suddenly I am curious. Curious because of the embezzlement stuff, but also because… oh God. I can’t stop thinking down this route. Thinking that… well, a stranger, or someone from the train—the Italians, for instance—could have taken the books, accidentally or intentionally, for a variety of reasons. But also, one of us could have taken them. One of us who pretended to mosey around Monterosso but then scrambled back to the chairs when everyone left…

“I didn’t get anything.” Caro shrugs. “I didn’t find anything I liked.”

Caro could find something she likes in places as far ranging and unlikely as a Chico’s and Colonial Williamsburg. So the fact that she didn’t find anything in Italy is… bizarre.

“Trying to trim the fat, you know?” Caro adds.

I roll my eyes to myself. Does she realize how everything she says now is peppered with corporate speak? And does buying a Cartier panther ring really qualify as your trimming-the-fat phase? Besides, I saw her eyeing the shops right outside the station where our train is docked. No doubt, she’s planning to barrage them when we return this afternoon. She can’t fool me; we’ve been best friends far too long.

“I did go to the pharmacy, though.” She brightens. “Why are European pharmacies so much cuter than ours?”

“Totally. I love all the creams over here. What did you get? Lemme see!”

Maybe I’m being a bit overkill, but I do love skin care, Caro knows that. And more so, I want to see if she actually did go to a pharmacy… or if she was doing something else in that time.…

“Ror, I didn’t take the books. Can you turn off journalist mode, please?” She’s peeved, but is it my imagination that she clutches tighter to her purse strap?

“I’m not saying you took the books,” I say carefully. “And I’m not in journalist mode. Really, I just want to see the cute Italian lotions. C’mon, show me!”

“Later. I don’t want to hunt through my bag right now.” She stares at the sea, still gripping her bag like she’s liable to be pickpocketed.

Now I am really doubtful. Starting to feel certain she wasn’t even in a pharmacy.

I wonder if I should vocalize what’s looping through my mind. Maybe not lay the blame on Caro alone, but suggest we all open up our bags? See if anyone has the books? Although whoever took the books could have easily tossed them. But why?

Again I run my brain over what in the book struck me as odd. What? I can’t summon it, but is there a connection to them all going missing? I shouldn’t have skimmed, should have read more carefully, or started over again, no matter if it meant not sleeping a wink.

I watch a few kids squealing into the shallows and then splashing back to shore, digging through all the shells and coral fragments for treasures.

“What if…?” I probe around for the words but ultimately can’t bring myself to voice my suspicions. “Hey, anyway, who had a chance to read the book?”

Nate nods slowly. “I got a few chapters in before we left this morning. Interesting, that Eddie character…” He makes a face.

“?‘Knows he’s handsome, and yet, it doesn’t alter the fact of it. Some people, like Eddie, cruise through the world, life made ever easier when you are genetically blessed,’?” Caro says, quoting. “Let’s just say, she didn’t eviscerate you like she did me.”

“Felt pretty eviscerating to me,” Nate says. “I didn’t have it easy.”

“She goes into it, though. Eddie’s complex,” I say. “I mean, she humanizes you. You just didn’t read far enough to see it.”

“Great,” Nate says, not sounding thrilled, which I guess I get. Who wants to be both eviscerated and humanized in a book that’s likely to sit on the bestseller lists for months or years on end?

“You read some of it too, huh, C?” I ask. “Enough to be able to quote the Nate lines and get past the rock-through-the-window scene?”

“Some.” She doesn’t elaborate.

“Maxie?” I say.

Max nods. “A couple of chapters. You know, I’m not the biggest fiction person, probably haven’t read a novel since high school, I guess. Lord of the Flies? But it was tense. Juicy, too—how we were all sort of in there.”

“Sort of?” Caro says dryly. “How about very, very, completely in there.”

“How far did you get, C?” I try again. “What scene?”

She eyes me oddly. “Why?”

“Well…” My brain keeps sifting, sifting for that little thread that I might use to unravel things. I strain, reaching for it, but as anything does if you grasp for it too hard, it drifts obstinately away.

“Something was off in the book,” I finally admit. “Something weird.”

Max smiles. “Don’t you think the whole thing is foundationally weird? Like the meta-est meta. Reading about yourself in Michigan with people who are basically us—and a murder.”

“Yeah.” I try to gather the words to explain it more, to reveal my exact fears, but I don’t want them to interpret anything as accusations.

I try to push my thoughts away for now, dissolve them in the sea. “I guess it’s just a fluke then, the books disappearing.”

“Must be,” says Nate cheerfully.

“Maybe Gabriele has extras,” Max says.

“I don’t think so,” I say. “I saw inside his briefcase—only four.”

“Well,” Max says briskly, “this trip will be over soon enough. I’m sure Ginevra can get you another.”

I shift on my chaise so the sun isn’t beating on my chest.

“I’m sure,” I eventually reply, feeling anything but.