Jon sighed and rubbed his forehead as he came out of the office. Two more days. Just two more days and they’d have ten uninterrupted days off. Ten days of not having to wade through every crackpot, half-baked ghost story in the United Kingdom, of not having to fight with an archive determined to thwart his efforts to bring it into the twenty-first century, of not having to put up with Elias coming down to poke or prod or be condescending. It was something to look forward to, at any rate.
They just had to survive that long.
He paused in the doorway to survey his assistants. Sasha, her expression intent, leaned close enough to her laptop that the screen was reflected in her glasses; Tim, looking frustrated, rocked his chair back on its hind legs and ran his fingers through his hair, dislodging the garish green Christmas hat and making the tiny bells sewn around the rim jingle faintly; Martin, his face impossible to read, darted his eyes back and forth between his laptop and the notebook he was scribbling on. Jon’s gaze lingered on Martin, something he’d found it doing a lot in the last two months. Ever since Martin had finally pushed back against what Jon had to admit had been overly harsh treatment, Jon had tried to be a little more understanding with him—the way he was with Tim and Sasha. Martin, in turn, seemed to have improved his efforts. In the privacy of his own mind, Jon could admit that his perception of Martin had been colored by the double whammy of finding out Elias had appointed an assistant with more experience and better credentials than the rest of them put together and that said assistant had accidentally let a dog follow him into the Archives. Once he stepped back and assessed Martin on his own merits…well, his research methods might be a bit unorthodox, but his knowledge of Leitners was unparalleled. His academic connections were surprisingly lacking, but he seemed to know the paranormal community inside and out, and he had more than once unearthed a name or a location that even Sasha with her internet deep-diving or Tim with his charm couldn’t come up with.
Jon rather suspected Martin was about to need to use that, because Tim looked done.
“It’s not that I don’t think he’s dead,” he said to no one in particular. “It’s just that there’s nothing. No family, no grave, no hint except that someone started using the premises again earlier this year and it’s not him.”
“Well, he didn’t go back to Saint Thomas to die,” Sasha commented. “The only hospital records I’m able to find for him there are from the night of the statement. I mean, there aren’t any other NHS records for him.”
Ah. They were talking about Gerard Keay. Jon was about to step in when Tim said, “She said he had a ‘well-used passport,’ right? Maybe he died out of the country somewhere.”
“Pittsburgh,” Martin said absently. He muttered something under his breath and crossed something out on his notebook before rewriting it.
The rare-book world was small, Jon thought to himself, and the circle of people who knew anything about Leitners had to be smaller; besides, with Martin working in the library, who was to say that Pinhole Books and the Keays hadn’t been instrumental in some of the Institute’s acquisitions? It would make sense that he would know that. Tim threw up his hands dramatically, thumping his chair back down on all fours. “Great! I suppose I’ll just call up every hospital in the city then. Can’t be more than, what, three, four dozen? Ask them if they remember a patient from a year ago? That won’t take long at all.”
Before Jon could remind Tim there were other options, Martin shoved aside his notebook and reached for his phone. “Hang on,” he mumbled.
He tapped at his laptop for a second, then dialed a number into his phone and waited, head in his free hand, staring down at his laptop. After a moment, he closed his eyes. “Hello, yes, I certainly hope so. My brother passed away last year while he was visiting Pittsburgh, and…well, I thought I had taken care of everything, but it turns out he’s still listed as my next of kin on my work records? They won’t take him off without a copy of the death certificate, and I’m afraid I used all the ones I ordered initially. I need to order another one, please.”
Sasha’s eyebrows shot up, and she exchanged a look with Tim that Martin clearly didn’t see. Jon came fully into the room, frowning, as Martin said, “Gerard Keay, K-E-A-Y….Mine? Martin Blackwood….Something like that, yes.” He gave a small, self-deprecating laugh. “No, I agree….Uh, twenty-seventh November, 2014.” There was a pause, and then Martin said quietly, “Eighteenth April, 1986.”
If Sasha’s eyebrows got any higher, they were going to fly off her head, but what caught Jon’s attention was the way Tim turned sharply away from Martin, his face pinched in a look of pain. Worried, Jon reached out to touch Tim’s arm; Tim looked up and forced a grin, but the pain was still there in his eyes and Jon didn’t know why. He could hear Martin rattling off a few more statistics, then a brief pause. “Yeah…look, I really need to get this taken care of quick. Is there any way you could email me a scan, o-or fax it to me or something? They’ll accept a copy until I can get a certified copy in the mail, but my boss is breathing down my neck and I really don’t want this hanging over my head during the holidays.”
Another pause, and then he heaved a huge sigh of relief. Jon wasn’t sure if it was fake or not. “No, that’s…that’s perfect, thank you so much. Let me give you my email address.” He listed off his work email address, then an address Jon presumed to be his home address while reaching for his pocket, then the details on his credit card. “No, that’s everything, thank you so much….Um, yeah. You, too.”
He hung up the phone and set it down with a sigh, taking off his glasses and rubbing at his forehead in much the same way Jon had earlier. “She’s sending me a copy. I’ll have the email in a few minutes.”
“You bought a certified copy, too?” Sasha asked, sounding somewhere between horrified and amused. “Martin, you didn’t have to go that far.”
“Yeah, well, Pennsylvania doesn’t give you any other options. You have to pay per copy and they only give out certified copies.” Martin looked up and started when he saw Jon, then recovered. “Um, sorry, Jon, I didn’t—I’ll have a copy of Gerard Keay’s death certificate for you in a few.”
“I heard,” Jon said, trying to keep his tone even. “Don’t forget to add that to your expense report for the month.”
Martin shook his head, to Jon’s surprise, and pushed back from his desk, grabbing his mug as he did so. “It’s fine. I probably needed another copy anyway.” With another of those small, almost bitter laughs, he added, “Always one more bill, right?”
Now it was Jon’s turn to raise his eyebrows. Tim’s head shot up, and he looked shocked. “Was he actually your brother?” he blurted.
Martin stilled for a moment, then sighed, his shoulders slumping, and shook his head. “Not really. Not legally or anything. Just a good friend, but he was the closest thing I had to a brother, you know? And I-I was pretty much…he didn’t have any other family, like you said, Tim. He had me listed as his next of kin.” He looked up at Jon, and his expression was haunted. “Sorry I didn’t tell you when he came up before. It’s just—”
“Raw,” Jon completed. “I understand, Martin. It’s all right.” He cleared his throat, a little perturbed. “How, uh, how long had you known him? Before…?”
“Long time. My mum was…I don’t know if you’d call them friends. Don’t know if either of them understood the concept, to be honest. But she and Mary Keay used to meet up for tea and gossip and such when she was in town—Aunt Mary, I mean.” Martin sat back down slowly, with a resigned look in his eyes. Jon realized he’d been about to refill his tea and been stopped in his tracks, and he felt a small stab of probably unwarranted guilt. “I-I think I met him on his…it had to have been his tenth birthday. It was before Mum and—never mind. So I guess I’d known him about…eighteen, almost nineteen years when he died.”
Something twisted in Jon’s chest. The pain in Tim’s eyes was mirrored in Martin’s, and Jon realized that Tim knew what Martin was going through better than he did. That Tim was a brother. He’d never given thought to his assistants’ lives outside the Institute, not in so many words, but Tim was listening to Martin and probably imagining what it would have felt like if he’d lost his own brother. It was a pain Jon, a desperately lonely only child, couldn’t even begin to fathom.
Moved by an impulse he couldn’t explain, Jon grabbed both Martin and Tim’s mugs off the desk, murmured something about being right back, and headed off to the break room to make them each a cup of tea. It was the only thing he could think of to do that might help.
It worked for Martin. Why wouldn’t it work for him?