"What was that about?" Shelley asked.
"I have a fax at the front desk. Mel must have found the page Zac was hanging on to," Jane explained. "I'll be right back."
When she returned to the suite and opened the
envelope, she was disappointed. She knew Mel said it was an old page with yellow edges. Unfortunately, the yellow turned into gray when faxed. The words on the outside edge were virtually unreadable. She sat down with a pencil at the dining table and tried to puzzle out what the missing words were.
Shelley was pointedly ignoring her. She was buzzing around picking things up and putting them away. She finally broke down after twenty minutes when there was no longer anything to move or clean up. "Is it interesting?"
"Not especially. It's grammatically correct is the best I can say for it. It's a guy named Malachi thinking over why it seems to be so important to him to find a woman he's only seen in a dream that he's had several times. I'd wonder the same thing if I were he, but wouldn't fret myself about it."
"So it's not worthwhile," Shelley said in a voice of triumph.
"Who knows?" Jane said. "Maybe the rest of it was really good." The phone rang again. This time Shelley picked it up. "Let me write that down. Jane, where's a notepad and pencil?"
"You put everything that wasn't nailed down away somewhere," Jane said. She handed Shelley a paperback book and a pen from her purse and said, "Write it down on the first page."
"No. I'd ruin the book."
"Suit yourself," Jane said, not wishing for another round of how-a-book-must-be-treated.
With great reluctance, Shelley wrote something on the reverse side of the back cover.
"That was Felicity," she said. "The title of Ver netta's e-pubbed book is Martin's Quest or The Quest of a Martian, she said. Two different people called it by different names."
"I doubt the Martian one," Jane said with smile. "I can't imagine Sophie Smith paying a for tune for a science fiction book."
Seventeen
"It's odd about this page Zac was holding," jan said.
"What's odd?"
"Many books these days have a heading on each page. You know, the author's name at th top of one page and the title of the book on th opposite page."
Shelley checked some of the books she'd pux chased. "You're right. I never noticed that. Bu this page doesn't," she said, looking over Jane' shoulder.
"If we can't hunt down Zac or if he doesn't re member what the book was, we'll never know."
"Will we care?" Shelley asked. ·
"I think so. I don't think that Sophie Smith's ill ness was natural, nor was the attack on Zac. Ei ther one could have died."
"You amaze me. You don't think they were jus pranks? And Sophie could have just eaten a bad egg with her breakfast."
Jane said, "If you were eating a bad egg, you'd know it right away."
"I just meant it as an example," Shelley said grumpily.
"I think these two 'unfortunate' events are connected. Remember that Zac handed Sophie a book at the reservation desk. It must be the connection."
"Did she then give it back to him and he was looking it over when he was attacked?"
"Maybe," Jane claimed. "Or it was another copy."
Jane suddenly slapped her head. "I know who might be able to identify it!"
"Identify what?"
"The page from the book Zac was reading. Or at least holding." She went on to explain about the contest Chester Griffith had conducted, and the woman who won the prize. "She's a teacher at a local college and teaches about the mystery and science fiction genres. Her name is…"
Jane screwed up her eyes and tried to bring the woman's name up. "Mr. Griffith will remember," she finally said. "I'm going down to the desk and have copies of the page made. Maybe if they lighten it up a bit, the words at the end will be easier to decipher."
"I'll come with you," Shelley said, somewhat to Jane's surprise. It was the first hint that Shelley was accepting Jane's wobbly theory that the page meant something."Make me a copy," Shelley said when they ar-
rived at the front desk.
"why?”
"I'm not telling," Shelley replied.
Jane went to find Chester Griffith. He was still at his book booth and was engaged with a collector who was arguing over the price of a rare book. Jane had to wait impatiently for the conversation to end, which it did with the customer accepting Griffith's choice of cost.
"I'm sorry to bother you…"
"You're not a bother. You're a good customer," Chester said with a smile.
"I'm trying to remember the name of the young woman who won the contest, and I know your memory is better than mine," Jane said with a smile
"She's LaLane Jones."
"Of course," Jane said. "All I could recall was that the first name had two 'L' sounds. Do you think she's still in the hotel somewhere?"
"I should think so. She's on the list of attendees on the back of the program."
"I've lost my program," Jane admitted.
Chester leaned down and pulled an extra program from a hidden shelf. "I always receive a cou- ple of extra ones."
"Thank you so much," she said. She headed foi the closest house phone and asked to be connected to guest LaLane Jones.
The phone rang twice and a woman's voice said, "Hello?"
"Is this Ms. LaLane Jones?"
"Yes, it is."