The Bookshop on Autumn Lane by Cynthia Tennent

Author:Cynthia Tennent [Tennent, Cynthia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2016-07-25T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

The setting sun tinted the end of a bad day to puce. I sat on the roof outside the second-story window and let the mist dampen my old jeans. The cold, hard aluminum siding cut into my back. The discomfort was nothing compared to my shame.

How could I have missed all the signs?

I played the clues like a rerun, over and over in my mind.

The first day Kit had visited, he seemed nervous. I thought it was because I was wrapped in a towel. But there was more. He said he was looking for books on the region for his research. He lied for weeks. The humiliation made me burn inside.

But I felt more than shame. I was mad. Really, really mad. Madder than any word in Kit’s huge vocabulary.

The last time I felt even close to this kind of anger was when I saw Moby chained to a stake just a few months ago. But that was because I loved animals. I believed they were all sacred creatures on our earth.

But now, I was furious for my own sake. I hadn’t sat on this roof shaking with anger since I had lived with Aunt Gertrude. In those days, I would seethe with fury for hours.

And here I was again. Looking out over Truhart and feeling like the dumbest person on earth. I guess my life had come full circle.

I hoped Kit had bruises from my book missiles. I hoped he realized he had lost all possibility of ever finding that damn manuscript.

Thank God for Kirtland’s warbler. If that little bird hadn’t popped up, I never would have figured out the scam. No professor with an interest in whatever-ology would have visited Truhart without caring about a rare native species that was found nowhere else in the world.

Richie had uncovered several articles about Kit’s theory. Kit believed that Robin Hartchick had written a novel before his famous literary masterpiece, Spring Solstice. While he originally thought that the manuscript might be somewhere in Paris, where Hartchick drank his life away, he hit a dead end in France. Did Kit sleep with some dim-witted Parisian girl before coming to that conclusion? Was that what led him to Hartchick’s earlier haunts? The town where one of Hartchick’s earlier ex-lovers lived? To Aunt Gertrude’s store?

Other professors had called his theory bunk. Even Robin Hartchick’s aging friends denied that the manuscript existed. Evidently, Kit had even defended his views in a BBC documentary. The kicker was when the Lord of Knightsbridge, Kit’s own father, a renowned British literary historian, was interviewed. Deluded and imaginary were two words Kit’s father used to describe his own son’s theory. Nice guy. Evidently, Kit took after his father in the sensitivity department.

It was ridiculous, of course. If Aunt Gertrude knew anything about the existence of a Hartchick manuscript, my inheritance might have included a mansion and a large trust. Kit’s opinion was pure rubbish.

From the roof I could see the bench across the street. Kit had been watching me from there that first day.

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