The Library After Dark: A Novel(39)
“All right,” Cal finally says. “All right. I’ll take your word for it. Off we go, now.”
His large hand folds over mine and he tugs me after him, guiding us down one aisle. I’m grateful for the dark, if only because he can’t see the heat warming my face, stinging my eyes. I don’t deserve him, and he doesn’t deserve what my secret would do to him.
He’s seen so many incarnations of me these last fourteen years. I can’t quite pinpoint when he went from the charming academic who’d interviewed me for an article on the paranormal, then an enthusiastic resource on the folklore of selkies for my River Red series, to someone I ached to call when I received good news. He approached life as an explorer, and in the dark years when my world felt so very small, after I found the courage to leave Jake, I suppose he lent me the strength—and peace—to explore myself, too.
And now I am trapped, lying to my closest friend.
It serves me right, I know, for leaving such a huge thing to the last minute. And if a snowstorm hadn’t grounded my inbound flight from Michigan, we would’ve had time for dinner in the city last night. I would’ve given him the speech I’ve been working up the courage to say for the last two months. Instead, I arrived only this afternoon, and barely had time to drop my suitcase at the hotel before arriving here.
What a fool I’d been to think we could come here.
Chapter Twenty-five
Piper
“If it is true, this wouldn’t be the first time a serial killer had a strange affiliation with books,” Wes declares from behind me. “Ever heard of William Burke? He was hanged and turned into a pocket book himself.”
I wince, my sneakers battering against cement steps as I lead the way up. The blue light of my camera screen gives the faintest shape to the cement steps curling up into the dark above us. I wrinkle my nose at the smells like old milk or maybe fermented bodies. At least, that’s where my head keeps going, thanks to Callum Greene and the detective.
Jasper’s steady breathing is at my shoulder. God, what a twist. A detective. Here. Tonight. This changes things, but no idea how. Complicates them, definitely. We desperately need to compare notes, but I peek down the stairs; Callum and Saskia are on our heels.
“Jerk move, by the way,” I finally say, quietly. “Being outed for conning a date into coming on an investigation.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Tell that to her.” Then, “Actually, maybe don’t. You’ve done more than enough.”
As soon as I say it, I am all regret. I need to cool it. There’s no way in hell she didn’t know her boyfriend was a freaking cop, right?
But what if?
“Look,” I try again, sawing off the edges to my tone. “You’re still a cop. I’m a journalist. We can help each other. Are you plainclothes, undercover? Why come on the tour? What are you hoping to find?”
His face tilts in my direction, as expressive as a brick wall. The camera light shrinks his pupils into pinpricks, like a vampire in one of those TV shows with a million seasons.
I force out a steady sigh. “We’re beyond being on or off the record. Someone just died, and I’m kind of worried possession is on the table for all of us. If you’ve got anything concrete to go off, I’d really love to be convinced otherwise.”
“The best thing we can do is leave now, sort it out after.”
“I’m not asking because it’s a story. I’m asking because we’re trapped here. Ruth is dead. Seems like ‘the best thing’ is to share intel.”
It’s another turn of the corkscrew before he speaks again. “I take your point. Cards on the table, all of us.” Then more softly, “But when we leave, you forget Aria’s name. By all rights, she shouldn’t even be here. Leave her out of this.”
Oh, no way. Is he actually developing feelings for her?
It’s a crying shame I don’t have time to unpack that. This is my chance. I can’t screw it up. I move closer, barely breathing with a quarter of my lungs, and he dips his head, canting his ear to me. “Look,” I whisper, “I’m actually here to—”
“If you two are still jabbering on about Evangeline’s supposed murder spree,” Callum interrupts, and a sharp sigh hisses out of me, “please reconsider before you smear her good name. That would be like saying the—the—the chancellor of Cambridge is a serial killer in his spare time.”
Jasper drags his gaze from me. “Remove the paranormal factor, and you’re left with a disproportionately high number of fatal accidents for one location. Murder is the only explanation.”
“Do you really think a respected member of society with a life as public as Evangeline’s could secretly be offing people in between her galas and auctions and overseeing an entire army of architects and sculptors and librarians?”
“There’s no formal record of her before her marriage,” Saskia says, in between heavy breaths. “Not under the name she claimed.”
“She was an immigrant in the seventies! Paperwork goes missing, it happens.”
“Guys,” Wes says with a whine. “I don’t think we should be talking about this here, not until we get out.”
Saskia ignores him. “Most people don’t marry one of the wealthiest bachelors. By all accounts, Thomas Riordan was a good man—perhaps an easy target. He died abruptly a few years into their marriage, leaving her his fortune. Facts are facts. Death has always followed in Evangeline’s wake.”