The Book Club

Chapter 8 — Research

By Sunday, Megan had fallen fully down the rabbit hole, and she knew it, and she couldn’t stop.

C. R. Black had no website. No social media. No author photo — the book jacket showed only a black square, which the reviews had called “a bold statement” and “a marketing gimmick” in roughly equal measure. The publisher’s page listed no biography, just the line: “C. R. Black writes in the American Midwest.” Interviews: none. Book tour: none. Podcast appearances: none. It was the most complete authorial vanishing act Megan had ever seen, and she’d been running a book club for twelve years — she’d seen authors do everything for attention.

She emailed the publisher’s publicity address, inventing a book-club inquiry about a virtual visit. The reply came in four hours — a form letter so polished it squeaked: *C. R. Black values their privacy. We have no additional biographical information to share. Thank you for your interest.*

She searched newspaper archives for the dedication’s hint — “the ones who know what really happened in Columbus.” Nothing. She searched for debut thrillers based on Ohio cold cases, for anonymous authors in the Midwest, for anything that connected. Nothing useful — just fan theories on forums, each wilder than the last.

Then she did the thing she’d been avoiding: she looked into Claire Sutton.

It wasn’t hard, at first. Claire had been open about the basics — moved in August, remote editing job, rental on Sycamore. Megan found the property records online: the Sycamore house was rented in August, all right, to a C. Sutton, twelve-month lease. The editing job checked out too — Claire had mentioned the company name once, a small independent press, and it was real.

The deeper Megan dug, the more the absence bothered her. A real person left traces — old tweets, a college newspaper mention, a wedding announcement, something. Claire Sutton had nothing before August except the lease and a three-month-old social media account with book photos and no face. Megan found herself feeling guilty about the snooping, even as she couldn’t stop. This was what the pages had done to them — turned friends into investigators, turned a book club into a surveillance operation. She thought about her own page, about the degree lie, and wondered if this was how it felt to be the watcher instead of the watched: the same sick thrill, the same shame. She was becoming the thing she feared. Or maybe — the thought came unbidden — maybe she’d always been a watcher. Twelve years of observing a circle. Taking notes. Filing things away. Maybe Deborah wasn’t the only one who’d been listening.

What haunted Megan most about the research wasn’t what she found — it was how easy it had been. An afternoon, a laptop, a few clever searches, and she’d reconstructed a stranger’s life. It made her think about the pages differently. Whoever was writing the second set hadn’t needed the internet. They’d needed proximity. Twelve years of Thursday nights, of wine loosened tongues, of women confessing things in the safe dark of the circle. Megan thought about all the things she’d said in that circle over the years — small complaints about Paul, worries about the twins, the thousand tiny truths of a life. Had Deborah been cataloguing them too? The thought made her feel physically ill. She closed the laptop and sat in the dark living room, listening to the house settle, and wondered how many of her own secrets were sitting in someone else’s memory, filed away, waiting.

But when Megan searched for Claire Sutton’s history — previous addresses, previous jobs, anything before August — she found nothing. No social media footprint older than three months. No professional listings, no bylines, no conference panels. The editing company had a staff page with no Claire Sutton on it. It was as if Claire Sutton had been born in August, fully formed, in a rental on Sycamore Street with a cat named Semicolon.

Megan sat back from her laptop, her heart thudding. Either Claire was the most private person alive — possible, in theory — or Claire Sutton wasn’t entirely real. And a woman who wasn’t entirely real, who’d suggested this exact book to this exact group, was either the author testing her audience or something worse.

Her phone buzzed. A text from Claire: *Coffee tomorrow? I feel like we got off on a weird foot Thursday. My treat.*

Megan stared at the message for a long time. The timing felt pointed — as if Claire had sensed the investigation. Or as if it were exactly what it looked like: a new member trying to smooth things over.

She typed back: *Sure. The place on High Street, 10 a.m.*

She set the phone down and looked at the folder on her desk — the five pages, in their plastic sleeves, in the order they’d arrived. Susan. Denise. Janelle. Megan. Five women. Five secrets, each one the thing its owner would burn her life down to protect.

And Deborah, with no page at all.

Megan opened her notebook — the same notebook she’d used for twelve years of meeting minutes — and wrote, in her careful handwriting: *Two possibilities. One: Claire is the author, and this is all a game — research, marketing, cruelty disguised as art. Two: someone else is writing now, and the game is over.*

She underlined the second sentence twice. Then she added a third line, and stared at it for a long time:

*Deborah never got a page. Why?*