Page 76 of The Librarians
Thrusting a child on a woman with no maternal instincts does not instantly turn her into supermom. It just makes her a frazzled mess with a bawling baby, desperately trying to regain a semblance of control.
This is not an admission that Sophie makes lightly—Mommy Judgment is real and fearsome. But that solid baseline of approval from Astrid makes it easier to speak the truth. “Children are such vectors of chaos and uncertainty and I’ve never been a fan of either. I’m pretty sure that if, when Elise was one, Jo-Ann’s mom had turned up and said, ‘I won’t report you to the police, I’ll just quietly take the baby off your hands,’ I would have handed Elise over and told Jo-Ann’s ghost that I tried.
“But by the time she turned three I would have spent my last penny to hold on to her. I’m an okay communicator at work, but not so much in my personal life. I think Elise learned to say ‘I love you’ from Barney, frankly. She loved to say ‘I love you’ and she taught me to say it back.”
Sophie’s voice thickens. “She made us a reality. She made us into a family. How do you ever give up the person who taught you everything about love?”
Astrid hugs Sophie, a warm, comfortable hug, like when Elise made Sophie embrace her favorite teddy bear. “You’ll stay a family, always.”
“I hope so,” Sophie murmurs. She again looks in the direction of her house, her reality. “I really hope so.”
Chapter Twenty-one
In the navy, Jonathan was trained in insertion and extraction. But tonight, his role is eye candy: He is to keep Ryan otherwise engaged while Hazel slips into the house and searches Conrad’s office and bedroom.
They went over their plan several times—or what passes for a plan.
“In movies people usually have an impressive plan at the beginning,” Hazel said at one point, “but as contingencies arise they must improvise. We’ve saved ourselves time by committing to improvisation right away.”
Jonathan wasn’t completely sure whether Hazel was joking. But she was right. They had very little to go on. The house is huge and he failed to pay adequate attention to Conrad’s side when Ryan gave them the tour.
He barely focused on Ryan’s side either, come to think of it, only on Ryan himself, never imagining that he’d need to infiltrate the place the next evening.
Without a good understanding of the terrain, everything is a crapshoot. But Hazel assured him that she remembers the layout of the house very well, especially the approach to Conrad’s private quarters.
She also reassured him that she’s had plenty of training in hand-to-hand combat, but that only makes Jonathan more nervous. Not that he doesn’t believe her, but if she needs to use those close-quarter fighting skills then they will have failed resoundingly in their goal of stealth information gathering.
He pulls into a cul-de-sac not far from Conrad’s house. After the timechange, night comes early and swift. Which is fortunate, as the cul-de-sac seems the kind where residents do not look kindly upon strangers coming into their little cove of exclusivity.
Somewhere nearby someone is grilling—the air is redolent with the aroma of mesquite smoke and searing protein. But tonight these otherwise appetizing smells make Jonathan’s stomach twist into a hard knot.
Hazel gets out of her car and slips into the rather cramped rear seat of his truck. They’d considered putting on the tonneau cover and smuggling her onto Conrad’s property in the bed of the pickup, but decided in the end not to bother because if there are exterior cameras on the house, she would be caught on film either way—they only need to make sure that she isn’t seen at the beginning, in case Ryan meets them out in front again.
I’m almost there, he texts Ryan.
Ryan replies right away.I’ll open the gate. The front door is unlocked. Just come in.
Jonathan reads Ryan’s text aloud to Hazel, then guides the truck away from the curb. “You okay back there?”
“I’m fine. Thanks.”
He exhales. “I don’t know how you’re fine, Hazel. I’m sweating bullets for you.”
His hands are not clammy yet, but his antiperspirant will be in for the battle of its life tonight. And he wonders whether her apparent calm is as much a facade as his own.
“But we should be okay,” he says, as much to himself as to her. “Even if Ryan kicks me out after a few minutes, he’d still have no reason to check Conrad’s rooms.”
They are out of the cul-de-sac now. In the rearview mirror, Hazel lies down on the back seat.
“My opinion on this hasn’t changed,” she says. “In case you aren’t invited to stay, you should leave and head home. I can pass for an ex-girlfriend. An ex pawing Conrad’s things is bad, but I might get away with it, even if the cops show up. The two of us in this together would look like we’re casing the joint.”
That is the reason she insisted on bringing her own car. Jonathanunderstands her rationale, but he won’t be able to leave her behind, not until he knows that she is also safely out of the house, driving away.
They fall silent. He doesn’t need to persuade her. He only needs to do the right thing when the time comes.
His palms do perspire as he parks the truck by the front door of Conrad’s house.
“I’ll let you know when the window is open,” he murmurs, and steps out.
