Page 38 of The Librarians
Elise glances back at Sophie. “You know she won’t. She’ll pick such an expensive place, work every spare minute, and then eat nothing but ramen for ten years after she graduates just to service her student loans.”
Ana Maria sticks her head out over the banister. “I heard that!”
Elise grins and bounces upstairs. “Miss Estevez, hi. I’m Elise Claremont, your burnout prevention counselor. How are we doing tonight?”
Sophie wants the girls to have fun and de-stress. But now that they are doing so, yakking it up in Elise’s room, she grows deathly afraid that everything Elise loves will be taken away from her.
She wants desperately to do something. To reconnoiter Twin Courtyards Apartments, at least. But the burner phone, the feverish browsing at random coffee shops from a reformatted old Chromebook, Jeannette Obermann’s address that she bought from an online background-check service with a prepaid debit card—will everything Sophie’s doing simply make cops laugh harder when she is caught breaking into Jeannette Obermann’s apartment?
She shivers.
Elise storms down the stairs—she is strong and compact, like Simone Biles if Simone Biles were seven inches taller—and sticks her head in the fridge.
“What are you looking for?” Sophie demands.
“Buttermilk. Nope, we don’t have any. No worries, Mom, Ana Maria and I will get some in the morning and then we can make Grandma’s buttermilk pancakes.”
Is this the excuse Sophie has been waiting for to leave the house? Moments later, she stands outside her garage, car key in hand, and vacillates.Overhead, light spills out of Elise’s room—light and muffled laughter. Somewhere in this tight cluster of town houses, someone is baking an apple pie, the aroma of butter and cinnamon warm and delicious in the air. Were this any other Friday, Sophie would have wrapped up her hair and been snugly ensconced in bed, a biography open on her lap.
The beauty of her ordinary life burns a hole in her heart. Will she ever have that again, that safety, that normalcy, that belief in the possibility of building a small haven for herself and Elise in the midst of a big, scary world?
A small, bright red car parks not far from her house. A tall, slim woman emerges, the surface of her wafer-thin puffer jacket gleaming under the glow of a streetlight. Hazel. What is she doing here? Surely she should know that it is inappropriate for her to show up uninvited at Sophie’s house.
Or is it a coincidence? Is Hazel meeting a Tinder date nearby?
Hazel sees Sophie and comes forward. She smiles easily, as if there is nothing odd about her presence. “Hi, Sophie. Sorry to bother you on a Friday night, but I have a question and the library may not be the best place for it.”
“Oh?” Sophie is wary, but Hazel’s demeanor is completely unthreatening. Disarming, even. “How can I help you?”
Perhaps Sophie’s reassurance to Ayesha Khan wasn’t enough for Hazel. Perhaps she’s worried about the library and therefore her job?
Hazel tucks her hands into her pockets. The two of them must appear like neighbors who happened upon each other, chatting a bit about kids and weekend plans.
“I’ve been thinking about Detective Hagerty’s visit to the library,” says Hazel, her tone soothing, her voice dulcet. “I can’t help but think we haven’t seen the last of him. And I was hoping you could tell me, if he comes back, whether there’s anything I should keep in mind. Anything I should not remember, if I’m questioned again.”
She gazes at Sophie expectantly, as if Sophie should know what she’s talking about.
Sophie’s stomach lurches. “Do you mean to tell me that you saw something that you kept from the detective?”
“Yes,” says Hazel. Almost six feet tall in her thick-soled sneakers, she steps closer until she looms over Sophie. Then she lowers her head and murmurs, “I went home after Game Night, realized I forgot to get groceries, and went out again. I drove past the library around nine forty-five, stopped at the red light just outside, and saw you there, talking to Jeannette Obermann.”
Chapter Thirteen
Sixteen years ago
Sophie’s phone rings. It’s Jo-Ann.Again.
What is wrong with that woman?
Sophie sets the phone on silent. But the device buzzes like a frustrated bee.
She gets in her car and starts the engine—don’t want to let the good people of Newark Public Library see her lose her temper right there in their parking lot, not when she’s just answered every interview question with the calm, helpful demeanor befitting a future public librarian.
But dear God, Jo-Ann makes her want to take a drill to the phone.
A year ago, things were going so well between them, when Jo-Ann suddenly got it in her head that they should have a baby. She brought it up on a Saturday evening, after first serving Sophie a Jamaican chicken curry on the balcony of their Hoboken apartment. There were candles and a vase of flaming amaryllises on the table, with Manhattan in the distance, draped in sunset.
Sophie was feeling a rare bout of effervescence—it was summer, her first year in grad school had gone well, and she was with someone who managed to make an uptight girl like herself laugh every single day.
