“You called the library?”

“Yeah. Talked to a librarian. He said he’d keep the library open for a little bit after eight and let us look through what they have.”

“You know, it’s a hundred miles back to Portland,” Trevor says.

“So?”

“So, driving 20 miles over the limit for that distance will only save about 20 minutes.” He catches his breath as I signal quickly and swerve into the center lane to get around a slow-moving station wagon.

“That should be enough.”

“Why can’t we just find some dinner, a place to spend the night, and go to the library in the morning? Have the full day to search.”

“Because this guy lied to me – to us. To the whole world.” My fingers clench around the steering wheel. I stare straight ahead. “He’s been telling everyone he lives in this remote part of Maine, alone in his light house, and it’s all been a lie. Is everything about this guy a lie? No one actually knows anything about him, other than what he’s allowed them to know. He’s made out to be Maine’s version of Salinger, withdrawn from society, but still working, hunched over his typewriter at all hours of the day or night, while the ocean surges around his light house.” I can feel my brother staring at me, but I don’t look at him. “In the Author’s Notes of his book “The Gift of Memory” he claimed that he wrote the bulk of it in one night, as a blizzard raged outside, knocking out his power, cutting him off so entirely from the outside world that he was afraid he’d not live through the storm. Was that all a lie? Just another carefully crafted story to sell more books? I’m going to find out. Tonight.”

Trevor is still staring at me. I glance at him from the corner of my eye. His eyebrow is cocked, and his mouth hangs open slightly.

“It’s ok, Starbuck,” I say, patting the steering reassuringly and smiling at my brother. “I’m not going to let anything happen to your Pequod here.”

We hit the Portland city limits just after 8 o’clock. I follow the directions the librarian gave me, and pull up in front of a large, rectangular brick building twenty minutes later. I park the car across the street, and start getting my bag out of the back.