The Mystery Guest

She stands and walks over to a simple desk at one side of the room. There’s a rose-gold Mac laptop on it, closed, and a printer to one side, nothing else.

Then I see it. In an arched niche behind the desk sits an old typewriter. On the wall above it is a single photo in a simple gilded frame. I approach for a closer look.

What I see is an utter surprise, but in some ways it all makes sense. There she is, the woman in the blue kerchief and gloves, standing with her arm around a young girl who looks her spitting image. “That’s her,” I say. “The lady in blue, his previous personal secretary. When I was a child, she came here every day through the side entrance. I could never figure out where her office was, but I heard her typing away.”

Stark approaches and leans into the photo. “But who’s that child beside her?” she asks.

Yet again, I know something before Detective Stark does. I put two and two together and come up with a sum that is more than I thought it could ever be. “You don’t recognize her? Look closely.”

Stark squints. “Jesus,” she says. “Is that her?”

“Yes,” I reply. “The resemblance is uncanny, isn’t it? That little girl,” I say, “is Ms. Serena Sharpe.”

Chapter 24

“How very nice of you to trespass. Please make yourselves at home while you snoop around my office.”

Detective Stark and I both jump and turn around. Standing in the doorway is Ms. Serena Sharpe, car keys clinking in one hand.

“The man downstairs let us in,” Stark explains.

“So I hear. May I ask what the hell you’re doing in my office?”

“I knew your mother,” I blurt out. “Or rather, I didn’t know her. But I saw her here when I was a child working alongside my gran. She was Mr. Grimthorpe’s personal secretary. This photo—you’re her daughter,” I say as I point to the picture on the wall.

Ms. Sharpe sighs. “Yes. That’s my mother. So what?”

“You never mentioned that before,” Detective Stark says.

“And you also failed to mention that your mother is the real author of Mr. Grimthorpe’s books,” I add.

Ms. Sharpe affixes me with her sphinxlike gaze. Then she strides across the room to stand in front of the niche containing her mother’s typewriter. She puts one finger on the letter I. “How did you figure that out?” she asks.

“The Moleskines,” I say. “They’re filled with nothing but doodles, and yet rat-a-tat-tat-tat. Your mother was always typing something. Every single day.”

She nods slowly. “Mrs. Grimthorpe picked her for her discretion, amongst other things. My mother was good at keeping a low profile, brilliant at keeping secrets, too.” Ms. Sharpe ponders the photo on the wall. “Grimthorpe was never a writer, not really. In the old days, before he got writer’s block, he’d come up with outrageous plots and intrigues, which he’d deliver to my mother in long verbal rants. She’d coax his madness into something sane and novelistic, something that intrigued on the page. She was so good at it she turned him into a bestselling writer. But she was always the real magic behind his books.”

“He kept her a secret,” I say.

“Yes,” Ms. Sharpe confirms. “Mrs. Grimthorpe knew the truth, but no one else.”

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?” Stark asks. “When you met me at the station, you said nothing about your mother and you refused to say a word about what Mr. Grimthorpe was announcing.”

Ms. Sharpe crosses behind her desk and takes a seat in her pristine desk chair. “I couldn’t tell you because I signed a contract,” she says. She gestures to the two white chairs in front of her. “Please,” she says. “Sit.”

Detective Stark complies. I take a seat beside her.

Ms. Sharpe interlaces her hands and places them on her desk. “I’ve known for many years that my mother was his ghostwriter. I begged her to ask for proper compensation and a share of J.D.’s royalties, but she was a single mother terrified of her boss and of losing a stable job. She knew she deserved more, but she could never bring herself to confront him or his wife. She didn’t want to face their wrath.” Ms. Sharpe goes quiet as she stares through the open door into Mr. Grimthorpe’s chaotic study. “Such a literate man, and yet he could never write a decent book. So damaged.”

“Damaged and powerful,” I say. “He had a way of making you feel special and yet small at the very same time.”

Ms. Sharpe’s eyes go wide. “That’s exactly right. When my mother died last year without ever receiving proper compensation for her writing, my anger seethed. She’d scrimped all her life. She’d been paid a secretary’s salary for decades. Fear kept her quiet, but that didn’t work on me. I devised a plan.”

Detective Stark and I exchange a look. “Go on,” she says.

“I quit my MBA and took over as Mr. Grimthorpe’s personal secretary. He was thrilled. He had continuity and secrecy, all in a younger, prettier model. He was foolish enough to think that I, too, could write, but I’ve never had my mother’s gift for storytelling. When he figured that out and threatened to fire me, I threatened him right back.”