Page 36 of Dauntless

Poor Eddie.He was winning friends and influencing people all over Dauntless, wasn’t he?

“So I told him John Coldwell had some tourist maps at the museum,” Mavis said.“And he looked like he’d sucked on a lemon when I said that, and he didn’t even buy anything when he left!”

That was a not-so-subtle reminder if I’d ever heard one, so I selected a packet of beef jerky from the stand near the register.I dug through my pockets for my wallet.

“Don’t forget to let everyone know,” I said.“Village meeting, noon tomorrow.”

“I’ll make sure the word goes out,” Mavis said.

The bells jingled again as I left the store and headed for the museum.Maybe John Coldwell would be a little more receptive today, and maybe I could find a way to ask him—without outright accusing him—if he’d taken Henry Jessup’s diary.

I walked to the museum, Hiccup meandering alongside me.

The museum was closed but unlocked, just like always.I lifted the latch and pushed the door open.

“John?”I called.“It’s Red Joe.Are you in?”

It took me a moment to realise that the stand of postcards and brochures by the counter had been knocked over, its contents scattered all along the floor.

Hiccup bounced forward, sniffing excitedly, and I caught her by the collar.

That’s when I saw the blood spatter on the floor.

Chapter 10

EDDIE

I’d thought that Mavis Coldwell and I had reached an understanding last night, but when I stepped inside her shop after barrelling all the way down the hill from the lighthouse, she folded her arms over her chest and stared at me with an adversarial gleam in her eye.

“Mr.Hawthorne,” she said.

“Hi, Mavis,” I said.“I need to get off this miserable fucking hellscape of an island.How do I do that?”

Okay, so maybe I was feeling a little adversarial myself.

On the way down into the village I’d run the gamut of emotions from shock to heartbreak to anger.It was a pretty short gamut; it only had those three things on it.

The diary was gone, and Joe was the only person who had a key to the chest it had been locked in.Joe, who coincidentally—ha!—was also a direct descendant of the man whose reputation as a hero would be destroyed by the contents of that diary.Not that anyone would care, excepthere.Joe himself had tried to tell me how shit like that mattered to the people of Dauntless.How it wasn’t just history, it was their entire identity.

It fitted.It fitted so well that I hated it.

But the part that fitted best, as smoothly as a key turning soundlessly in a fucking lock, was that yet again I’d put my trust in some guy I barely knew, and the universe had just jumped on the chance to show me how much of an idiot I was.Hey, at least Kyle had only fucked a theology student, and not my career.

I needed to get off this fucking island right now, get back to Sydney, and hope that Theresa wouldn’t tear my balls off for losing thekey primary fucking sourcethat my entire thesis hinged on.The book that was going to be the centrepiece of the museum exhibit I’d lovingly built over and over in my imagination.Nobody was going tooohandaahover a reproduction.

Jesus.My career as a historian was ruined before it had even begun.

I glared at Mavis and she glared at me.

“There’s no passage off the island until Wednesdays,” she said, “when Young Harry Barnes goes over to the mainland.”

“There must be other boats.”

“Of course there are.”She arched her eyebrows.“But none that do charters for tourists.”

I jabbed a finger in the direction of the harbour.“What about the fishing boats?”

“Those are forfishing.The clue is in the name, Mr.Hawthorne.If we used those for taxis, none of us would eat, would we?”

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