Envy(5)

“Envy,” he said gruffly. “That’s what this is all about. Envy.”

P.M.E.

St. Anne Island, Georgia

February 2002





Chapter 1


“But there’s got to be.” Maris Matherly-Reed impatiently tapped her pencil against the notepad upon which she had doodled a series of triangles and a chain of loops. Below those she’d rough-sketched an idea for a book jacket.

“P.M.E., correct?”

“Correct.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, there’s no such listing. I double-checked.”

The idea for the book jacket—an autobiographical account of the author’s murky relationship with her stepsibling—had come to Maris while she was waiting for the directory assistance operator to locate the telephone number. A call that should have taken no more than a few seconds had stretched into several minutes.

“You don’t have a listing for P.M.E. in this area code?”

“In any area code,” the operator replied. “I’ve accessed the entire U.S.”

“Maybe it’s a business listing, not a residential.”

“I checked both.”

“Could it be an unlisted number?”

“It would appear with that designation. I don’t have anything under those initials, period. If you had a last name—”

“But I don’t.”

“Then I’m sorry.”

“Thank you for trying.”

Frustrated, Maris reconsidered her sketch, then scribbled over it. She wasn’t going to like that book no matter what the jacket looked like. The incestuous overtones made her uncomfortable, and she was afraid a large number of readers would share her uneasiness.

But the editor to whom the manuscript had been submitted felt strongly about buying it. The subject matter guaranteed author appearances on TV and radio talk shows, write-ups in magazines, probably a movie-of-the-week option. Even if the reviews were poor, the book’s subject matter was titillating enough to generate sales in large numbers. The other decision makers in the hardcover division of Matherly Press had agreed with the editor when she pled her case, so Maris had deferred to the majority. They owed her one.

Which brought her back to the prologue of Envy she had read that afternoon. She had discovered it among a stack of unsolicited manuscripts. They had been occupying a shelf in her office for months, collecting dust until that unspecified day when her schedule permitted her to scan them before sending the anxious authors the standard rejection letter. Imagining their crushing disappointment when they read that impersonal and transparent kiss-off, she felt that each writer deserved at least a few minutes of her time.

And there was always that outside, one-in-a-million, once-in-a-blue-moon chance that the next Steinbeck or Faulkner or Hemingway would be mined from the slush pile. That, of course, was every book editor’s pipe dream.

Maris would settle for finding a bestseller. These twelve pages of prologue had definite promise. They had excited Maris more than anything she had read recently, even material from her portfolio of published authors, and certainly more than anything she’d read from fledgling novelists.

It had piqued her curiosity, as a prologue or first chapter should. She was hooked, eager to know more, anxious to read the rest of the story. Had the rest of the story been written? she wondered. Or at least outlined? Was this the author’s first attempt at fiction writing? Had he or she written in another genre? What were his/her credentials? Did he/she have any credentials?

There was nothing to indicate the writer’s gender, although her gut feeling said male. Hatch Walker’s internal dialogue rang true to his salty character and read like the language in which a man would think. The narrative was in keeping with the old sailor’s poetic, though warped, soul.

But the pages had been sent by someone totally inexperienced and untutored on how to submit a manuscript to a prospective publisher. All the standard rules had been broken. An SASE for return mailing hadn’t been enclosed. It lacked a cover letter of introduction. There was no phone number, street address, post office box, or e-mail address. Only those three initials and the name of an island that Maris had never heard of. How did the writer hope to sell his manuscript if he couldn’t be contacted?

She noticed that the postmark on the mailing envelope was four months old. If the author had submitted the prologue to several publishers simultaneously, it might have already been bought. All the more reason to locate the writer as soon as possible. She was either wasting her time or she was on to something with potential. Whichever, she needed to know sooner rather than later.

“You’re not ready?”

Noah appeared in her open office door wearing his Armani tuxedo. Maris said, “My, don’t you look handsome.” Glancing at her desk clock, she realized she had lost all track of time and that she was, indeed, running late. Raking her fingers through her hair, she gave a short, self-deprecating laugh. “I, on the other hand, am going to require some major renovation.”

Her husband of twenty-two months closed the door behind him and advanced into her corner office. He tossed a trade magazine onto her desk, then moved behind her chair and began massaging her neck and shoulders, which he knew were the gathering spots for her tension and fatigue. “Tough day?”

“Not all that bad, actually. Only one meeting this afternoon. Mostly I’ve used today to clear some space in here.” She gestured toward the pile of rejected manuscripts awaiting removal.