Page 59 of The Librarians
Ryan walks them out. Jonathan, possibly in an attempt to prolong the goodbyes, points to a car in the parking pad behind theirs and asks Ryan, “Is that yours?”
“Yup. Want to have a look?”
Hazel didn’t pay attention to the car earlier—upon their arrival her eyes had been riveted to the house. But now the car begins to look familiar.
There are two large stickers on the rear bumper of the black Audi.It’s okay to decay. The dead know how to speak, if you know how to listen.
Hazel stares. Has she been caught in a time vortex and transported back to Game Night? She walked by this car on the way to her own and even stopped for a minute to reread the rather creepy declarations.
At the time she considered them Halloween-themed, but they are in fact—
“A bit of occupational humor,” says Ryan.
A gong goes off inside Hazel’s head, a loud clang followed by maddening reverberations. She glances at Jonathan, who seems to find nothing amiss. The two men launch into a conversation about the car’s specs.
“Excuse me, gentlemen, I don’t mean to interrupt,” she hears herself say. “Ryan, I just realized that I left my dessert container in your fridge. You’re welcome to have all the rest of the trifle, but my grandmother is a bit paranoid about losing her favorite containers.”
Ryan, ever the gracious host, says immediately, “Oh, I know what you mean—except more in a work context. Well, come on.”
“I’ll be right back,” she says to Jonathan, to prevent him from returning inside with them.
“I feel like I’ve seen your car before,” she says. Did their footsteps echo so loudly across the entry hall earlier? “Those stickers are distinctive.”
Ryan laughs. “Have you been visiting the medical examiner’s office?”
Mirthful, this man. Does that make it easier for him to laugh off uncomfortable inquiries?
“I have no idea where that’s even located,” she answers.
Ryan makes a turn toward the dining room and holds open one of its double doors for her to pass. “You must like gay bars, then.”
“I’ve been to a couple in Singapore, but never in the United States.”
They are now in the kitchen. He opens the fridge, takes out hercontainer, and spoons the few remaining mouthfuls of Italian trifle inside into a Pyrex dish of his own. “Come to think of it, it’s been a busy couple of weeks at work. The only time I drove somewhere else was after Halloween, when I met with Jonathan.”
Hazel grits her teeth and gets more specific. “I feel like I saw this car before Halloween.”
Ryan frowns, then snaps his fingers. “Now I remember. The day before Halloween I borrowed Conrad’s car to have dinner with my family—my dad wants to try a non-Tesla electric car and Conrad has a Taycan. I didn’t think anything of it because he was supposed to be away the entire week. But he came back that evening and took my car somewhere. I almost had a heart attack when I got home and my car wasn’t there—and only then did I see his message on my phone.”
A few days after she gave up Conrad’s number, Hazel misjudged the last step on a flight of stairs and took a hard spill. The impact was such that she couldn’t move for half a minute, convinced she’d broken everything inside.
She feels like that now, so jolted she can’t even react.
“Let me give your container a quick wash,” says Ryan, turning to the sink.
The sound of water splashing pulls her back into the fabric of space-time.
So…when she last saw the car, it had been driven byConrad? What in the world washedoing at the library, which is what, twelve, fifteen miles from his house? At that time of the night, in that part of the town, only grocery stores, fast-food restaurants, and bars are still open, and frankly he can find better selections of any of those much closer to home.
Come to think of it, what was he doing hanging out near the library today?
She feels a breath of ice at her nape.
Taking the now-spotless container from Ryan, she says, “Thank you again for dinner. When Conrad comes back, tell him I said hi.”
And then she flees.
Chapter Seventeen
