Page 23 of Bookworm
I had to make sure he wouldn’t go back into that room without me. Even though I was pretty sure we could trust him, I didn’t want to take my chances.
He looked down at his hand on the doorknob. “Oh, no. Just a force of habit holding the door. Making sure all my students are out first and that no one’s taken anything.”
Oh God. He knows. He’s onto me. “Do they… um… take things a lot?”
He shrugged. “Rarely, but it happens. Usually it’s an accident.”
His sentence was punctuated with the slamming of the door shut causing me to jump.
“You must have sensors?” I asked. “Something that sets off an alarm if they do happen to leave with one?”
Dr. O’Macklin snorted. “You’d think, wouldn’t you? Truthfully, though, there’s only five people with codes to this room… six, now including you. So if something goes missing, there’s a very short list of suspects. Shorter now that it’s just you and Adam allowed in there for a couple weeks. And when webring students in here for mini-field trips, we make them leave their bags outside.”
He paused, assessing me with one hand sliding into his pocket. “I thought you had to use the restroom?”
With a wobbled smile, I swallowed my whimper and said. “I’ll walk out with you. Stagefright in public bathrooms, you know?”
I breathed a little easier when his hand slipped from the doorknob and he joined me on our slow—far too slow for my filled bladder—stroll out the front door of the library. “You sound so much like my daughter,” he said wistfully. “She’s plucky and funny, just like you.”
“Plucky and funny, huh?” I’d been called a lot of things… but plucky was a new one. “Is she a librarian, too?”
He shook his head. “Far from it… an actress. She’s in school at NYU.”
“Oh, a Tish Bitch!” I said without thinking.
Dr. O’Macklin stopped walking briefly. “Tish Bitch?” he repeated.
Horrified, I clapped my hand over my mouth. “Oh my God. I can’t believe I said that to you. I’m so sorry. I promise it’s an affectionate term we have for people in that program?—”
He let loose another booming laugh, this time, his head flung back and his shoulder shook with the sound. “Tish bitch,” he said once more. “That’s rich. Oh, she’s going to love that when we talk next.”
Not for the first time in the past five minutes, I sighed in relief. “I guarantee you she’s heard it before.”
He smirked and resumed walking. “Yes, but not from her collegiate dear ol’ Dad. I’m pretty sure she thinks I’ve never told a joke in my life.”
“She’s in undergrad?”
“Just a sophomore.”
“She’ll come around,” I said, smiling.
Despite my sweat addled brow, damp palms, and pounding heart, I liked spending time with Dr. O’Macklin. I looked forward to when I could do it without the fear of a felony being hung over my head.
I held my breath as we exited the library, half convinced that an alarm was going to blare and several campus security guards would tackle me to the ground. But no such thing happened.
I walked right out of that library with a book worth well over five hundred dollars tucked securely in my bag.
And no one even batted an eye.
Chapter Seven
Ipaced the hallway from my front door to outside of Adam’s front door for over an hour, unsure of what to do. I was paralyzed with fear and uncertainty. How much would Dr. O’Macklin scrutinize the use of my code in that room?
On one hand, I was one of only two people allowed to go in there. But he also knew that there was nothing for me to do in there until my supplies arrived.
And if he saw that I came back, would he pop in to check on my progress as well?
So I was stuck here in limbo, waiting for one of two things… either the supplies to arrive so I had a legitimate excuse to go back into the rare books room. Or Adam to arrive so that I could spill the beans and have someone to share the panic with.
