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  “I was talking to Ben Preston, the investigator on the case in Bergen County,” I told her. “We were talking about this Duffy guy and whether he’s legit.”

  “There’s some question about that?” Paula asked.

  I shrugged. “From Preston’s end, anyway. Next thing I know, he asks me to continue discussing Duffy over dinner tonight.”

  Paula’s eyes widened a little, and she let a tiny grin show on her face. “And?”

  “And the question becomes, is this a date?”

  She snorted a little. “Yeah! It’s a date, Rachel! If he’d just wanted to compare notes, he could have kept doing that on the phone. You’re going on a date. That’s okay with you, isn’t it?”

  It was okay with me. It had been a while since I’d broken it off with the last guy I was seeing, whose name was Phillip. Not Phil, Phillip. I should have known right away. I am a serial monogamist but hadn’t been monogamizing with anyone for about six months. Phillip had left a scar. Mostly one about how stupid I was to date him to begin with.

  “Yeah, it’s okay. But what—?”

  “We’ll talk about what you’ll wear when you’re getting ready to go. What time?” I told her. “Fine. Before then, we’ll discuss possibilities. I’ll get some organized. Don’t worry at all about that.” She rubbed her hands together like a comic book villain and turned her attention back to her computer screen.

  “Have you found out anything about Duffy yet?” I asked.

  “Too soon.” She was engrossed.

  I tiptoed back to my office to avoid disturbing her. There are days when it’s hard to tell which one of us is the other’s assistant.

  Rather than ponder that, I decided to turn my attention to Sunny Maugham. There had to be something I could do; Duffy himself had said I had a unique insider’s perspective on the case. Well, he’d said something like that.

  I pulled up a file listing members of the Mystery Authors Association. The MAA is not a trade union; it’s more like a social club for writers who like to get together and complain about their publishers, worry about electronic books, and try to figure out how to get their novels to the front table at Barnes & Noble.

  Sunny and I had really only talked that one time. I couldn’t be counted as a close friend of hers or even someone who knew her habits. I was a little bit in awe when we met at the hotel bar and thanked her profusely for her help. However, given the six-ton brick of guilt Duffy and Preston had dumped on my shoulders, I wanted to at least do what I could in her most dire hour.

  They say that kidnapping cases grow cold after forty-eight hours. According to Duffy, Sunny had been missing four days at least. That wasn’t good.

  All I could think to do was call some of my acquaintances at the MAA and do the research. I started with Emily Estebrook, whose real name was Bess Adelstein.

  “Bess,” I said after the usual catching up, “have you heard about Sunny Maugham?”

  “I did.” Bess sounded worried. Bess, like most good authors, is a touch dramatic. “An awful thing.”

  “Have you heard from her lately?” I asked. I knew Bess and Sunny were at least better acquainted than Sunny and I were.

  “Not for a month or so,” she answered. “We weren’t in close touch all the time; we usually called when one of us had a book that needed a blurb on the cover.”

  “How did she seem when you talked to her?” This wasn’t going much of anywhere.

  “Nothing special. She was working on a stand-alone. Something about a woman who solved crimes through playing the flute. I didn’t get it, but Sunny could make anything work.”

  “You’re talking about her in the past tense,” I noted.

  Bess’s voice caught. “My god, I am,” she said. “I’m an awful person.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  She didn’t react directly to that. “Hey, what’s this interest in Sunny? You thinking of writing something about it?” Crime fiction writers have a code: nothing is off-limits.

  “Not me,” I said. “I’m sticking with Duffy Madison.”

  If Bess read my books, she’d know that Duffy investigates missing persons cases and would point out that it would be right up my alley, but the sad fact is, most of us don’t read the others’ books. That’s out of a real concern about inadvertently “appropriating” ideas, a need to disengage from the genre when not actually writing something ourselves, and a deep and abiding envy that every writer feels for every more successful writer, even the ones we truly love. It’s not personal; we just think our books should be on best sellers lists. It’s okay if yours are too. So long as they’re not higher than mine.

  Bess clearly had no new information on Sunny, but she did suggest I call Mary Alice Monroe, whose real name is Connie Bailey. Before I could call Connie, Paula walked into my office with a puzzled look on her face.

  “There’s no such person as Duffy Madison,” she said.

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “No, you don’t understand. This is the age of no privacy at all. The Internet has everything that ever happened to anybody ever. You want to know what Napoleon ate for lunch the day he got back from Elba? I can find that. But so far, I can’t tell you anything about this guy who thinks he’s Duffy.”

  If Paula couldn’t find anything, there was nothing to find. That sent an unintentional chill up my spine. I gawked at her for a moment. “You’re scaring me.”

  That just made Paula look more determined. “I said ‘so far.’ Just give me some more time.” And she marched back to her office with a look I wouldn’t want pointed at me. Whoever Duffy really was, he’d have to contend with Paula now. I almost felt sorry for him.

  I gave Connie Bailey a call and got just about the same story as I had from Bess Adelstein, but she directed me to Margaret Teasdale (Susan Oswego), who had seen Sunny just two days before she had been reported missing.

  “She was in a really good mood,” Susan said. “She’d started seeing some new guy, and she thought it was going to be something for real.”

  Klieg lights went off in my head. Sirens sounded in my ears. For a mystery writer, this was the equivalent of saying that someone had been standing behind Sunny with a six-inch kitchen knife, a .38 revolver, a bottle with a skull and crossbones, and a large noose in his hands.

  I tried not to sound breathless. “Did she mention the guy’s name?” I asked.

  Susan didn’t respond right away; I got the impression she was thinking. “Bart, maybe? Bill? No. Brad. She said the guy’s name was Brad.”

  “Did you tell this to the police?” I said.

  “The police? I never got a call from the police,” Susan answered. “Do you think it’s important?” The woman writes about a sleuth who gets clues from a talking horse—and outsells the Duffy books by a very wide margin.

  Susan went on about Brad, how she didn’t know his last name but was pretty sure Sunny had met him at her gym, if I thought he had something to do with Sunny being missing now, and if she (Susan) had been wrong not to think it was an important piece of information.

  Two Edgar Award nominations. I ask you.

  The second I disconnected with Susan, I texted Duffy and asked where he was. Turned out he was driving through Mendham, not far from where I was, so we arranged to meet at Caffeinated. Even though I’d be seeing Ben Preston tonight on what Paula had now officially decreed a date, I thought this kind of information couldn’t wait. And I did feel the tiniest bit guilty about going behind Duffy’s back to Preston. I wasn’t sorry I’d done it, but it did feel a trifle devious.

  * * *

  Duffy does not drink coffee in the books, and he was not drinking coffee now. He had a Diet Coke from the cooler Ruthie keeps next to the counter and ate nothing. I was going to get a chocolate chip muffin, but with Duffy eating nothing and a date later in the day, I decided to abstain, cursing both myself and Duffy mentally.

  I told him what Susan had said, and when I mentioned the name “Brad,” I hoped that h
e’d immediately scream, “Aha!” and hop into his car to go rescue Sunny. That’s not what happened.

  “This is the first time I’m hearing about Ms. Bledsoe having a suitor,” Duffy said thoughtfully. A suitor. That’s the way the guy talks, even when I’m not writing his dialogue for him. “This is very interesting.”

  “Interesting? I’d think it would be enormous.”

  “It’s significant, certainly,” Duffy said. “But it will take some research to find out who Brad might be.”

  “How many Brads can there be in Upper Saddle River?” I asked. I was getting a little disappointed that I hadn’t solved the case all by myself with a few phone calls to the other writers.

  “First, we don’t know that his name really is Brad or Bradley,” Duffy said, taking on a professorial tone. He sipped his drink and didn’t even burp, which was not at all fair of him. “Second, just because Ms. Bledsoe lives in Upper Saddle River, there is no reason to think that the man is a resident of the same town. And third, even if there is such a man, it is by no means certain that he is the perpetrator of this crime.”

  “If he’s not, how come you never heard about him before this?” I said. Challenge the man. If a guy isn’t going to act the way you want him to act, what’s the point of creating him? I started to rethink the chocolate chip muffin.

  “Suppose he’s a married man and doesn’t want his wife to know about the relationship with Ms. Bledsoe,” Duffy suggested. “It wouldn’t do much for a man like that to present himself to investigators and make that relationship a matter of public record.”

  Well, if he was going to insist on being logical about it . . .

  “Well, what else is going on in the investigation?” I asked. “Did Sunny’s cell phone tell you anything helpful?”

  “There are no calls to a man named Brad,” Duffy said. Okay, so get off the “Brad” thing; I feel stupid enough already. “Beyond that, all we know for a fact is that the phone was used right up to a few hours before you and I entered that bungalow in Ocean Grove.”

  “So that means Sunny was alive at least as late as yesterday,” I said.

  Duffy let a little air out through his lips and looked uncomfortable. “Not necessarily,” he answered. “Just because the phone was used, there is no evidence that Ms. Bledsoe was the one who was using it.”

  Way to bring down the room, Duffy.

  “So where does that leave . . . you?” I’d almost said “us” and then reminded myself that I was a writer of fiction and not an actual investigator. I wasn’t part of this process. I should, in fact, shut up and leave the real cops to handle it.

  Except there had been a threatening e-mail on my screen that was not addressed to Duffy Madison or Ben Preston. I had, as they say, flesh in the game.

  And I was not crazy for that expression as soon as it suggested itself to me.

  “How terrified should I be about being next on this maniac’s agenda?” I asked Duffy.

  He made a show of taking a long drink from the soda bottle and responded after a moment’s thought. “I don’t think there’s any immediate cause for alarm. Keep in mind that the previous . . . incidents happened months apart. This is a person who likes to plan his moves meticulously. And we are still holding out hope that Ms. Bledsoe will be found alive and well, which would mean you are not yet the top priority for our kidnapper.”

  Why wasn’t that more reassuring? “Thanks a heap, Duffy. I’ll sleep so much more soundly tonight,” I said.

  “You’re quite welcome,” he answered with no hint of irony. “Would it be possible for you to take a trip to Ms. Bledsoe’s home with me? I’d still very much like to get your perspective on her writing office, especially. There might be something there that could help.”

  “I can’t tonight,” I told him. “The fact is, I have a date.”

  “Oh.” I couldn’t tell whether that was disappointment about my not being available to him when he had summoned me or he was displeased with the idea of me having a date with someone. I chose not to ponder that for long. “Perhaps tomorrow, then.”

  On a Saturday? Well, Sunny did need rescuing. “I’ll be glad to go tomorrow,” I told Duffy. Maybe glad was overstating it.

  “All right, then,” he said, so I thought the conversation was at an end. But Duffy apparently hadn’t caught the sign he’d actually sent himself. We’d both driven here; a five-minute conversation didn’t seem sufficient, somehow. “You haven’t really reacted to what I told you, now that you’ve gotten to talk to me.”

  What was he talking about? “I don’t understand,” I said. “What do you mean, ‘what you told me’?”

  “About my being your fictional character,” he said, his voice suddenly much lower in volume. “About you creating me.”

  “I don’t see how that’s possible,” I said, because I’ve never had much experience dealing with seriously crazy people. I mean, my mother is a little off, but . . .

  “And yet, here I am,” Duffy answered.

  I’m sure I stared at him. “Don’t you think it’s more likely,” I said, voice in what I hoped was a soothing mode, “that you took on the personality in the books a few years ago?”

  “I’ve never read your books,” he insisted. “I didn’t know they existed until early this week.”

  “Maybe you did and you’ve forgotten,” I said. I’d decided that Duffy, in whatever former existence he’d had, must have suffered some awful trauma that had caused amnesia, and he’d picked up this persona as a way of coping. If I’d been around during their heyday, I might have had a nice career writing for soap operas.

  “I don’t think I’m the one in denial here,” he said.

  * * *

  That pretty much ended the meeting. I bought a chocolate chip muffin to go. (I swore I’d eat it the next day and then devoured the whole thing in the car on the way home, a six-minute drive.) Once I got back there was no respite: Paula walked into the office, and her expression indicated not much more joy in Mudville than when we’d spoken last.

  “What I have to tell you isn’t going to make the situation a whole lot clearer,” she said. Paula sat on the lumpy sofa. This whole room needed a makeover. Adam had better sell Little Boy Lost to television. TV is where the money is.

  “You’ve been looking into Mr. Madison’s past?” I asked.

  Paula nodded. “And I have a little more. There is actually a picture of him in the Poughkeepsie, New York, high school yearbook from 1998. I printed out a copy.”

  She handed me the picture, which wasn’t especially clear, but was definitely a younger a version of the man who’d been claiming he had come full blown from my brain. Under the picture, which I noticed included some blemishes the airbrush had not been able to hide (and somehow made him look more endearing) was the name “Duffy Madison,” followed by the quote, “When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” That’s what he would choose.

  “So he was using the name in 1998, but he doesn’t remember it?” I thought aloud.

  Paula took the picture back and answered, “It gets stranger.”

  “How is that possible?”

  She fixed me with a look. “I tracked down three people also listed in his class. Said I was writing an article about a notable classmate of theirs and wanted to get their memories of him.”

  Paula was clearly playing up the drama. She could have been in a soap opera. “What did they say?” I asked.

  “That they don’t have any memories of him. Nobody remembers anything about a guy named Duffy Madison in that class.”

  Okay, that could be explained. “How many people graduated from that school in 1998?” I asked.

  “I don’t have an exact count, but it’s probably less than two hundred,” Paula said. “Of course, it’s possible that these three people didn’t know Duffy, but one of them said she was a member of the Classics Society. Said she thought at the time that it would help get her into an Ivy League college.”
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  “So?”

  “So look again.” Paula handed the picture back. “Under his name.”

  “There’s an oddly irritating quote from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,” I said.

  “And under that?” The teacher was easing me through the difficult part of the lesson.

  “Okay, fine. Duffy is listed as being in the Classics Society. So how many people were in that?”

  “Six.”

  That wasn’t good. “You’d think she’d remember him, wouldn’t you?” I wheezed.

  “I’ll make some more phone calls, but that’s what I’ve found out so far.” Paula stood up. “This guy is a mystery wrapped in an enigma.”

  I let out a long breath. “That doesn’t make me feel better.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault. You’re a gem. Don’t ever think I don’t know that.”

  Paula smiled as she turned back toward the door. I started to swivel toward my screen, then stopped and looked back at her.

  “Hey.” Paula stopped, ready in case I had something else to ask her. And I did. “Where’d that woman end up going to college?”

  “She got an associate’s degree at a local community college and now works as a hostess at an Outback Steakhouse.”

  So much for the Classics Society.

  Chapter 12

  “Have you heard from our friend yet?” Ben Preston sat across the table from me and looked concerned. The air was scented with garlic and tomato, and his serious tone seemed somehow incongruous.

  “Which friend?” I asked.

  “The one with the interesting ‘handwriting’ in e-mails,” he noted with a wry expression.

  “Nope, haven’t heard from him,” I answered.

  “Good. I never much cared for that plan.” Ben took a sip of wine and did not do that thing that the oenophiles think make them look superior where they swirl it around in the glass and then stick their noses in. That’s just silly. Do I carefully examine the label of a Snickers, hold it up to my nostrils, inhale its deep fragrance, and then take a tiny taste before letting the cashier at the Rite Aid know if I’m willing to buy it? I do not.