By the Book (The Last Picks #7)

Chapter 4

All things considered, Hemlock House was probably the perfect place for a charity auction—even with the power off. For one thing, the place was massive, capable of holding lots of people. That was a good thing, since it looked like most of the town had turned out. For another, the floor plan was perfect. The main floor consisted of a long hall, and branching off from it were the den (currently being used as my unofficial workspace), a reception room, a living room, a dining room, and a sun parlor—all connected in a way that let guests flow from one room to the next, giving them an excellent opportunity to check out all the brass globes and taxidermy hedgehogs that someone, at some point, had decided belonged in a place where people lived. At the other end of the house, the billiard room would be the location for the auction itself—the doors were locked to keep anybody from seeing all the goods that were going to be offered, which I guess was supposed to build suspense? I mean, if you could feel suspense about having the chance to bid on coupons for a free round of laser tag.

I’d never quite gotten used to the fact that I owned Hemlock House. It still caught me by surprise sometimes—in part, because it was so beautiful, and in part, because it fulfilled my childhood dream of a haunted mansion full of secret passages. With its polished hardwood floors, thick rugs, damask wallpaper, and crystal-strewn chandeliers (not to mention all the period furniture), it set the right tone for tonight’s event: elegant, suitably serious, and of course, with an emphasis on money, money, money, which was always important when you were trying to get people to open their wallets. (The joke was on them, though, since I was currently—and for the foreseeable future—as poor as a church mouse.) Because the house predated electricity, it hadn’t been hard to dig up some old lamps, kindle some fires in the enormous fireplaces, and set the mood with warm, flickering light.

Oh, one other thing I loved about having a charity auction at Hemlock House? It had the added bonus of being my house, which meant I could—if I wanted to—wander downstairs in nothing but sweats and my vintage Nintendo Power hoodie. I was serious when I told people don’t leave my house was always at the top of my list of weekend plans. (Bobby, by the way, wouldn’t let me wear sweats, so I ended up in a sweater polo that I didn’t remember buying, chinos, and boat shoes I was sure I’d never seen before. I was starting to suspect Bobby had begun a home improvement project of his own.)

Plus, tonight was the first time Bobby and I had hosted an event as a couple.

Even my parents unexpectedly being there couldn’t ruin it. They were doing their usual thing: ignoring me, circulating through the crowd, shaking hands, making small talk, somehow managing to generate that special gravity that made them the center of attention. Everyone seemed to know who they were, which wasn’t exactly a surprise—Hastings Rock was a town that loved its mystery writers, and my parents had very successful careers. More…bothersome, I guess, was how charmed everyone seemed to be. Cyd Wofford had given my mom not one, not two, but three different Marxist pamphlets, and he’d practically glowed when my mom dug out one of her own from her handbag and pushed it into his hands. Dr. Xu laughed at something my parents said, and I swear to God, I’d never heard her laugh before—not even when I showed her that GIF of the drunk camel. I even heard Princess McAdams, who wasn’t a real princess, offering to take my dad chukar hunting (cue a new personal nightmare).

The only—slight—consolation was that Pippi was following my parents everywhere, and it was clearly driving them crazy. (That’s Pippi Parker, author of Dryer Vent Danger and the rest of the Aunt Lulu’s Laundromat series, not to mention her recent smash hit, Murder in Manuscript: My Life as a Falsely Accused New York Times-Bestselling Writer: I Didn’t Do It: The Pippi Parker Story , which was also available as a podcast written, narrated, and produced by Pippi Parker, of Pippi Parker Productions.) As I watched, my mom tried to put a settee between herself and Pippi. Pippi slipped around it, still pitching what she was calling a co-written, shared-universe, cross-world project (I had no idea what that meant), and my mom not so subtly tried to wheel a drinks cart into Pippi’s path.

“Should I do something about that?” Bobby asked as he joined me.

He looked like a total snack, in case you’re wondering: some fancy sneakers (all I knew was that they were Adidas), chinos, and a denim shirt that was such a light blue that in the lamplight, it looked almost white. He had the sleeves cuffed to his elbows. I wondered if I could drag him into a convenient, uh—where did Victorian damsels drag their snacks? The scullery?

At that moment, my mom darted through a group of spectators who were currently bedazzled by Mr. Cheek (of Fog Belt Ladies Wear) and his top-to-tail sequin suit. She managed to lose Pippi, but several of Mr. Cheek’s audience looked none too happy at the interruption.

“Are you kidding?” I said. “They’re having a great time.”

“Dash.”

“They love this kind of thing. Psych ops. Asymmetric warfare. My dad is probably setting up a tripwire.”

Bobby heaved a sigh, kissed me on the side of the head, and went to “rescue” (notice the air quotes?) my parents.

Better him than me, I thought.

Of course, that was when Mrs. Shufflebottom drifted over to me, calling out, “Dash!” like she’d just spotted me and my snack trying to sneak into the, er, scullery.

“You naughty boy,” she said as she reached me. “I’ve been looking all over for you. I want you to meet somebody.”

Mrs. Shufflebottom was practically the definition of a battleship. She had white hair, impeccable cardigans, and what a writer like me would call a penetrating gaze . She and I hadn’t gotten off to a great start. Hastings Rock’s head librarian had also been a massive fan of Vivienne Carver, the former owner of Hemlock House (and, for about twenty-four hours, my boss). I’d been the chief suspect in Vivienne’s murder, which meant I’d started off on Mrs. Shufflebottom’s bad side, and things had only gotten worse when I’d proven that Vivienne was actually alive, a fraudster, and a cold-blooded killer, rather than a literary martyr.

In the last few months, though, we’d patched things up—or maybe Mrs. Shufflebottom had simply decided to forgive me—and now our relationship floated somewhere between “elderly aunt and favorite nephew” and “gingerbread house lady and sugar-addict child.”

“This is Colleen Worman,” Mrs. Shufflebottom said, drawing a woman forward. “And this is George Chin. Colleen is the one who’s making all of this possible, and George has been such a help.”

I pegged Colleen at somewhere in her sixties—a very well-maintained sixties. She was White, short, and with her hair in sensible curls dyed a cherry red that was anything but sensible. She carried herself so that her, uh, decolletage was leading the charge (so to speak). The man, George, stayed at her side, a step back, almost like a servant. He was potbellied, with thinning hair and stooped shoulders, and his face had a detached blankness that suggested someone either bored to tears or on the brink of catatonia. He held himself gingerly, and when he shifted his weight, the movement looked stiff, maybe even painful. A recent car accident, I wondered. Maybe a bad fall.

My first thought in response to Mrs. Shufflebottom’s words was that I was the one making all of this possible, since I was the one who was currently hosting the charity auction, but before I could ask what she meant, the woman—Colleen—spoke.

“Agatha’s being too kind, really. I’m glad I could help. And it will certainly do more good this way than sitting in that fusty old study.”

“Ah,” I said. “You donated something to the auction?”

“A book from my late husband’s collection.” She glanced around the hall and said, “He would have loved this place.”

“Not just any book,” Mrs. Shufflebottom said, her voice dropping to a stagey whisper. (Honestly, if we’d been in her library, she wouldn’t have put up with it for a second.) “Nathaniel Blackwood’s personal diary!”

A beat passed. They were all looking at me.

“Oh,” I said, a little too late. “Wow.”

“It’s funny how things work out, isn’t it?” Colleen asked. “My husband had a particular fascination with Nathaniel Blackwood. That’s why I said he would have loved to visit Hemlock House. I’m afraid he was a bit of a treasure hunter—he was sure the diary held clues to the fortune Mr. Blackwood hid here.”

“I didn’t know Nathaniel Blackwood kept a diary,” I said. “What’s in it?”

“You’ll have to buy it to find out,” Colleen said with a laugh, and—as a bonus—she swatted my wrist playfully. “When I heard the library was closing, I knew I had to help. We all have to do our part. And since you own Hemlock House, I’m expecting you to start the bidding high .”

I was about to tell her that I’d be happy to bid whatever loose change I could find under the chesterfield (although, to be fair, Keme usually scrounged it before I did), but then the rest of her sentence hit me: “What do you mean the library’s closing?”

Mrs. Shufflebottom’s pained expression suggested that information hadn’t been public knowledge.

“You told me this was a fundraiser,” I said.

“It is a fundraiser, dear,” Mrs. Shufflebottom said.

“You’re closing?”

“I certainly hope not.” She beamed at Colleen. “And I think, thanks to this generous donation, we have a fighting chance of keeping the doors open. But when the mayor and city council decide to defund the library, there’s only so much one can do.”

“What do you mean they defunded the library?” But I didn’t wait for her to answer since, well, it was pretty obvious. “How did that happen? When?”

“Hold on, I see Mrs. Knight, and she has no idea where to put those cupcakes. George, tell him about the book, why don’t you?”

As Mrs. Shufflebottom steamed off to take charge of the cupcakes, I was distracted for a moment by a man—thin, pale, with floppy hair in a classic side part. He wore Coke-bottle glasses, which was kind of amazing since I didn’t think anyone sold (let alone made) glasses like that anymore. And he was bobbing and weaving, clearly caught between approaching our little group or shrinking back into the crowd. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him.

“It’s what you’d expect from a personal diary at the time,” George said in a dusty voice, drawing me back to the conversation. “A high-quality rag paper, iron-gall ink. The discoloration is consistent with its age. And, of course, the handwriting matches other known samples of Nathaniel Blackwood’s writing.”

It took me a moment to catch up. “You authenticated it?”

“You have to authenticate these days,” Colleen said with a little laugh. “People just aren’t satisfied with a clean provenance anymore.”

Passing me a card, George said, “I’d love to take a look at your collection. I’m sure there are some wonderful titles I could help you put in the hands of interested enthusiasts.”

“Uh, right.”

“Colleen,” Mrs. Shufflebottom called. “George, I want you to meet Pippi.”

With murmured goodbyes, Colleen and George moved away. I got up on tiptoe to scan the crowd for Bobby—he was talking to our friend Chester. As I dropped back down, someone stepped in front of me. Like, right in front of me. So close I took a step back and almost said a few choice words that Nathaniel Blackwood never would have written in his diary.

It was the floppy-haired guy with the Coke-bottle glasses. “Hi, hello.” He stuck out his hand. “Stewart Graham. It’s such a pleasure to meet you.”

Let me tell you: all those How to Win Friends and Influence People types could learn a lot from Stewart’s handshake method. I was surprised, at the end, that my arm was still attached to my body.

“This is so amazing, what you’re doing. This is incredible. It’s so generous. It’s such a gift.”

“Thanks, I guess? I mean, I love libraries, and now I get why Mrs. Shufflebottom needed somewhere to hold the fundraiser. But it’s not a big deal; I was happy to do it.”

“Me too. Me too. I love the library so much. I work there, you know.” He nodded along with his own words, and his head looked so loose on his neck it was like someone was yanking it up on a string. “But I meant this—Hemlock House.” He breathed the words like they were sacred. “I can’t believe you let us inside . Do you think it’s true that Nathaniel Blackwood buried his dogs in the cellar? Have you ever found the secret chapel where Nathaniel Blackwood’s bride celebrated the black Mass? Which ghosts have you seen?”

I picked something out of the barrage of questions. “Ghosts?”

“Kidding!” He gave a nervous, frenetic laugh. “Oh my God, I’m so glad I get to talk to you.” His voice dropped into something darker and more urgent, and he grabbed my wrist. “You’re not going to let them auction that book, are you? Because you know it’s a fake.”

“Is it?”

Nodding ferociously, he said, “His widow burned all his papers after his mysterious accident. You can’t let them auction it. Can you imagine the damage it would do to Nathaniel Blackwood’s legacy? Not to mention the legal liability.”

I opened my mouth to say something to that, but I stopped when I caught sight of Mrs. Shufflebottom. She was staring at us from where she stood with Colleen and George as they talked to Pippi, and her face was white.

“I’d love to get in there and inspect it—” Stewart was saying, still clutching my wrist.

“Uh, right,” I said and broke his hold. “It’s nice to meet you, but my boyfriend texted me and needs some help.”

“I can help! I’d love to see the bedrooms—”

“I think we’re keeping everyone downstairs today,” I said. And then, because sometimes my mouth has a mind of its own, I added, “Maybe another time.”

“That would be wonderful. I’ll call you! You know what you should do? You should do tours! I could help you!”

I slipped around him, nodding and mumbling something I hoped passed for agreement-slash-maybe-slash-goodbye. Working my way through the crowd, I nodded and exchanged hellos and zoomed as quickly as I could toward Bobby and Chester.

Here’s the thing about Chester: he is unreasonably handsome. Like, Bobby is perfect. Don’t get me wrong. But Chester looks like someone put him together piece by piece with the sole purpose of modeling sweaters and glasses and, let’s face it, tighty-whities, all with perfectly tousled hair and eyes like an Arctic morning. He’s also painfully shy, which was one of the reasons I was surprised to see him tonight.

“Everything okay?” Bobby asked, glancing over my shoulder.

I followed his gaze back to see Stewart staring at me from across the room. He gave an excited wave, and I offered a limp one back.

“You know, it’s more fun when you’re not caught in the middle of it,” Chester said. “How does he keep getting himself in these situations?”

I assumed he was referring—rudely—to the fact that, until recently, Chester’s dad had been convinced that Chester and I were perfect for each other, and we’d eventually see it if he kept forcing us together.

I gave Chester a dirty look.

“It’s like watching a train wreck,” Chester said, grinning as I ratcheted up the glare. “You could sell tickets.”

“I don’t do anything,” I said. “Bobby, tell him it’s not my fault.”

“It’s not his fault,” Bobby said.

“Thank you.”

“You do talk to a lot of people, though, sweetheart.”

Chester snickered.

This betrayal made my jaw drop. “ They talk to me .”

“I know.”

“I don’t want to talk to people.”

“Did that guy try to hold your hand?” Chester asked.

I ignored that. “I don’t want to talk to anyone .”

“I know,” Bobby said again.

“He’s still staring at you,” Chester said, “just as an FYI.”

I kept my focus on Bobby. “I’m the victim!”

He made a consoling noise and smoothed my hair back. But he ruined it by saying, “Did he make a pass at you? Because I can tell him you’re in a relationship.”

“No,” I said. “He wants to politely murder me and take over Hemlock House and marry Nathaniel Blackwood.”

“Nathaniel Blackwood’s dead,” Chester pointed out.

“And Bobby, if someone makes a pass at me, I don’t want you to talk to them. I want you to fight them.”

“Okay, babe.”

“What is wrong with everyone tonight?”

Fox’s laughter surged up over the hub of the party. The sound sent a chill down my spine; I recognized that particular laugh.

I spun around. And then I spotted them.

My friends—who were supposed to be loyal to me—were clustered around my parents. And my mom was showing Fox something on her phone.

“You know what—” Bobby tried.

But I didn’t wait to hear whatever he was going to try to say. I stalked through the press of bodies toward my so-called friends.

“—perfection,” Fox was saying. Tonight, they’d decided to wear something that I coded as Egyptologist meets Captain Jack Sparrow—there was a pith helmet, smoked-glass goggles, a billowy blouse, and gratuitous eyeliner. It actually seemed kind of appropriate in the soft, warm glow of the old lamps. “But I was hoping for something from the teenage era. An awkward phase, perhaps. I don’t suppose he was ever Goth?”

“Not Goth, no,” my mom was saying as she swiped on her phone. “But there were several years where he was very into Dungeons and Dragons. Do you know how hard it is to find a wizard costume for a sixteen-year-old—ah! There it is!”

Fox laughed. And laughed. And laughed. It turned into choking, and I refused to help.

“Mom,” I said.

But Millie was there, which meant I didn’t have a chance. “One time Dash said Bobby was a wizard. That was because Bobby fixed Dash’s bike. And then Dash tried to show Bobby he knew how to pop a wheelie, only he didn’t. HE FELL!”

The volume—and the gale-force winds behind the words—almost bowled my mom over. To be fair, nobody would look at Millie and expect that much, uh, vocal fortitude. Millie was petite, blond, and looked more like a cheerleader than like the human equivalent of a loudspeaker. Although I guess cheerleaders actually are pretty loud, so maybe people should expect it.

“And that was the THIRD time we thought they were going to KISS!”

My mom’s eyes were wide and, I thought, a little glassy.

“And the FOURTH time we thought they were going to kiss was when Dash TRIPPED. And Bobby CAUGHT HIM!” Millie sounded like she was wrapped up in the drama of it all over again—not that there had been much drama. Keme had left his sneakers on the stairs, and I’d only been half-awake (it had been eleven o’clock in the morning—sue me), and Bobby had been, well, in the perfect position. In that particular instant, for the record, I hadn’t been thinking about kissing Bobby. I’d been thinking about the fact that I was wearing a ratty old SEGA tank I like to sleep in, and a pair of boxer shorts printed with monkeys and the words Let’s monkey around . It had been number seven on my list of most embarrassing moments of my life, but having Millie tell it at a party was nudging it up toward number six.

As I opened my mouth to intervene—hopefully before Millie could talk about the fifth time they’d all thought we were going to kiss, which was when Bobby wiped frosting off my lip, and it was Indira’s homemade chocolate buttercream, and at that exact moment, a rainbow appeared in the sky—I caught the tail end of what my dad was saying.

“—right size for your hand. You look like a natural—we need to get you out on the range.”

The natural in question turned out to be Keme. Who was holding my dad’s gun. He said something I couldn’t hear.

Whatever it was, my dad nodded approvingly. “You’re eighteen, aren’t you? And you’re a citizen of the United States. I’ll talk to Dashiell, and we’ll get it all sorted out.”

“Mr. Dane,” Indira said, “I don’t feel comfortable—”

“Ma’am,” my dad said, “I have to tell you what a pleasure it is to meet you. Dash has only ever had the highest praise for you. We need more people like you—people with the good sense to know that what matters most in life is protecting the people you love. My son is lucky to have someone like you.” And then, without missing a beat, he added, “I sleep better knowing there’s a responsible citizen taking advantage of her Second Amendment right who’s willing to protect my son.”

Indira. Actually. Preened.

I forgot about the wizard costume pictures. I forgot about Millie’s list (the sixth time we had almost kissed had been when Bobby and I had gotten home from a run in the rain, and there’d been a really loud thunderclap, and all the hair on my arms had stood up, and Bobby had PUT HIS HAND ON MY SHOULDER—Millie voice).

I marched over to my dad, looked at Keme, and said, “Absolutely not.”

He glared back at me.

“Is that loaded?” I asked my dad.

“He’s just holding it—”

“Give it to me.” I took the gun and held it out to my dad. “Lock it up.”

“He’s an adult, Dashiell.”

“No guns.”

“We were having a conversation, that’s all.”

“My house, my rules. No guns.”

My dad made a face, but he took the pistol and nodded.

“Indira carries her gun in her purse,” I informed him. “How’s that for responsible? And what about Bobby? Bobby is a deputy . Bobby’s whole job is to carry a gun and protect me.”

My dad nodded, but it looked like he was trying to keep a straight face, and his voice held a note of suppressed laughter as he asked, “What does he carry? A nine-millimeter?”

For some reason, that made all three of them burst out laughing. Even Indira, although she had the decency to look slightly ashamed of herself.

“Okay,” I said. “We’re done. Stop talking to these traitors—who are supposed to be my friends—and go play your harp or your fife or whatever you’re supposed to be playing.”

“Dashiell,” my mom said, “don’t be rude.”

“I hate to be a pest,” Fox said in the tone of someone afraid the conversation was wandering off-topic, “but you did mention a faux hawk phase—”

“Stage. Medieval folk music. Now.”

My mom sighed to let everyone know how unreasonable I was being. My dad rolled his eyes. They did, however, start toward the temporary stage we’d erected at the far end of the room. Fox looked bereft. Millie looked like she had more to say. Keme looked like an eighteen-year-old who had just realized he could legally acquire a firearm.

I gave my friends an imperious, sweeping glance—a kind of nonverbal You all should be ashamed of yourselves . And then I stalked off to find Bobby.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Fine,” I snapped. “You need to talk to Keme about guns.”

“Okay.”

“And tell him why we don’t want him to buy one.”

“Okay.

“And about how to be safe.”

Bobby nodded.

“And tell him why a nine-millimeter is—is butch.”

“Uh, what?”

Fortunately—or not—at that moment, the medieval folk music picked up. It was mostly tabor and lute, it turned out, and my parents were only moderately bad at it. Think “Greensleeves,” but with a lot more wailing. Everyone seemed to love it.

I was about to suggest to Bobby that we go somewhere a little quieter—like a little cabin in the Canadian Rockies—but a ripple ran through the crowd. Men and women pulled back, murmuring to each other, to clear a path as a woman made her way through the room.

She wore a trench coat that accentuated her full figure, and beneath the coat she wore a black dress with a white collar. The outfit was clearly stylish. It also looked too young for her. Her blond hair had been expensively colored and styled, and I had a morbid curiosity about how many curling irons she owned (and the state of her electric bill). After a quick scan of the room, she headed toward where Mrs. Shufflebottom was introducing Colleen and George to Aric Akhtar, one of the library’s frequent patrons. I caught a whiff of perfume—it smelled like cotton candy, and I imagined it was incredibly popular in the local middle schools.

“Agatha,” the woman said, and her voice cut through the, uh, “music.” “I want to talk to you.”

Mrs. Shufflebottom didn’t look happy about it, but she detached herself from Colleen and George, and she and the newcomer moved to a patch of a shadow beyond the reach of the lamps.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“That,” Bobby said, “is the mayor, Teri Berner.”

I tried to make her out through the gloom, but I couldn’t. I’d never seen Hastings Rock’s mayor. In fact, I hadn’t even been sure we really had one—I thought maybe it was more of a nominal role, kind of like being Chef Boyardee or Ronald McDonald.

Bobby must have known what I was thinking because he said, “She lives here six months out of the year—barely enough to count it as her primary residence—and even when she’s here, she’s usually not very involved with the town.”

That was about as close as Bobby would ever come to talking smack about someone, so I said, “She doesn’t sound like a very good mayor.”

Bobby didn’t say anything, but the shadows made his frown look deep and severe.

“Why do people keep electing her if she doesn’t do a good job?” I asked.

“That’s the problem. I think she does do a good job—in some ways. She’s the one who came up with the plan to make Hastings Rock a tourist destination, and it saved the town from ending up as just one more coastal village struggling to make ends meet. She’s a good spokesperson for the town, too. She brings in a lot of business.”

“But she’s not interested in the day-to-day stuff,” I guessed.

“Not so much.”

I was about to ask how that impacted law enforcement when the mayor emerged from the shadows on the far side of the room. Her face was set in a furious mask as she stormed past me and Bobby toward the doors. She stopped abruptly, staring. For a moment, her anger appeared to be forgotten, and she looked curious more than anything. When I tracked her gaze, I was surprised to see she was staring at Colleen, the woman who had donated the diary. Colleen didn’t appear to have noticed; her head was bent as she said something to George. Some internal process of decision happened—you could see it on the mayor’s face—and then she continued toward the exit. The silence moved with her—people quieted as she drew near and then burst into excited murmurs when she was safely out of range again.

The only person who didn’t seem caught up in the energy of the crowd was a solidly built woman near the pocket doors. She was White, at the hard edge of thirty (maybe early forties), with a sloppy bob of graying hair. In a Portland State pullover and mud-spattered jeans, she didn’t exactly fit in with the auction crowd. As though she’d sensed me looking at her, she snapped her head in my direction and locked gazes with me. I flushed and looked away.

Fortunately, at that moment Mrs. Shufflebottom moved into view. Her face was set in a strange expression that it took me a moment to decipher as grim satisfaction—there was even a little smile. She made her way across the room toward me and Bobby.

“Dashiell,” she said, “I think we should get started with the auction.”

“Uh, sure. Is everything okay?”

“Everything is fine. I’m here as a private citizen, along with other like-minded private citizens. That’s perfectly within my rights. The same way it’s perfectly within the mayor’s rights to shrink the library’s budget year after year after year, and to defund the library, and to do everything in her power to make sure the library closes for good.” Mrs. Shufflebottom gathered herself, smiled, and in a brighter voice said, “If you’d ask your parents to take a short break, I’ll make the announcement.”

I managed—with some frantic signaling—to quell the lute and still the tabor. (Or whatever the medieval expression was.) Then I took up position with Bobby along one side of the room. The snack side. Next to the cupcake tower, in case anyone needed to know.

“Friends,” Mrs. Shufflebottom said. “Friends.”

People continued to talk over her.

“Everybody be quiet!”

That came from Princess McAdams.

Everyone got quiet. Fast.

“Friends,” Mrs. Shufflebottom said. “Thank you all for coming tonight. I can’t tell you how much it means to me.” She paused, overcome by emotion, and I was a little surprised to see tears gleam in the lamplight before she wiped them away. “We’re excited to begin the auction portion of our charity event. If you’ll come with me, we’ll see if we can do some good tonight.”

Approving murmurs floated up from the crowd.

“Let’s save the library!” Princess McAdams shouted.

Cheers went up, and with Mrs. Shufflebottom in the lead, everyone began to file out of the living room.

Bobby and I started to follow, working our way into the press of bodies. It was tight, with everyone moving en masse. Bobby took the lead—have I mentioned he has these amazing shoulders? When you have shoulders like that, it’s a lot easier to work your way into a crowd.

I was stepping forward to follow Bobby into the crush of bodies when I heard a voice behind me. It sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it. “Excuse me.” It was a woman, and it sounded like she was right next to me. “Excuse me!” The voice was so insistent that I started to turn. Then there was an angry cry, and someone bumped into me from behind.

I had the brief, outraged thought that someone was trying to push past me—and the second, even more outraged thought that nobody would ever try to push their way past Bobby. But all of that happened in a flash. Then I realized the bump had sent me off-balance, and I was falling.

I crashed into the snack table. The cupcake tower wobbled. Time stretched out, and I had an infinitely long heartbeat to watch the tower teeter back and forth. In that frozen moment, I thought I smelled cotton candy. And then the tower toppled, and cupcakes went everywhere.

Screams. Shouts. So much frosting.

Somehow Bobby made his way through the chaos and steadied me by the arm. “Are you okay?”

I nodded. “I tripped.”

I glanced around, but the well-ordered line of adults making their way out of the living room had dissolved into a mob of milling bodies—many of them bespeckled with frosting and cupcake crumbs and glaring at me. My anxiety (normally buzzing along at a steady five out of ten) jumped up to a nine. It was like a checklist of the perfect storm: lots of angry people; being the center of attention; social humiliation.

Then it got worse.

“My hair!” Mrs. Knight wailed.

And Mr. Eggleston, who was bald as, well, an egg, put his hands to his head, touched frosting, and screamed .

“It was an accident,” Bobby said.

Something about that seemed wrong, but through my rising panic, I couldn’t think. I couldn’t do anything, actually—I was frozen.

“My suit is ruined!” That was a rail-thin hipster; it looked like the suit in question had been purchased from a thrift store (and not one of the hip ones).

“Everyone calm down,” Bobby said, and this time, it was his deputy voice. “If you’re okay, please move along to the billiard room. If you need to clean up, Millie and Indira will show you—”

Mrs. Shufflebottom’s scream rang through the house.

The commotion cut off until the only sound was the scream. We all turned to look. At the far end of the hall, barely visible in the gloom, the doors to the billiard room stood open. Ambient light outlined the faintest silhouette in the doorway.

“Stay here,” Bobby said.

As I hurried after him, a hub of frenzied voices erupted behind me.

Bobby glanced sidelong at me.

“I thought you meant everyone else,” I said.

“I didn’t.”

“Oops.”

Bobby seemed like he might want to correct my misunderstanding, so I decided to call ahead of us to Mrs. Shufflebottom. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “What happened?”

She didn’t answer at first. Couldn’t, maybe. But by the time we reached her, she had recovered enough to point one trembling hand.

We’d reorganized the billiard room and brought in folding chairs for the guests. A lectern from the library served as an improvised auction block. Offerings for the fundraiser were on display: homemade jams from Althea Wilson glimmered in the lamplight next to an oil landscape by Mr. Li and a framed gift certificate to Newsum Decorative Rock. Millie had donated some of her homemade jewelry, which was super cute, and Fox had provided “Mary Poppins’s first monocle,” nestled in a velvet-lined box. Mrs. Shufflebottom was pointing somewhere in the direction of the massive, three-tier cake Indira had donated (I hadn’t even known about it until that morning, which was probably—if I’m being real—the only reason I hadn’t managed to, um, requisition it).

And then I saw the pillow. Or what looked like a pillow. The world’s most super-modern and uncomfortable pillow, actually, since it was extremely angular, like two wedges shoved together. And then I realized it wasn’t a pillow. It was a book cradle—the kind of support you used with rare old books to protect their bindings. And even in the weak light, I could tell it was empty.

“It’s gone,” Mrs. Shufflebottom said. “Nathaniel Blackwood’s diary is gone.”