Chapter 10
I was halfway home, cycling through the shadowy wedge between spruce and pine and fir, when I finally processed the fact that I only had one shoe on.
It wasn’t comfortable. And it didn’t improve my mood.
As Keme had once pointed out to me, I lived a lot of my life in words. And right then, I had a lot of words running through my head. Words about my parents. Words you didn’t typically see printed on Mother’s and Father’s Day cards.
The synopsis.
The money.
The question.
I didn’t need Bobby to take care of me any more than I needed my parents, or Hugo, or—or anyone. (Except maybe Indira, because she figured out this way to cook carrots with maple syrup, and my vegetable intake had skyrocketed.) I was a self-sufficient adult. I was reasonably intelligent. (Although the last few days had called that into question.) I was personable. Ish. I mean, I could definitely be…I wanted to say a barista. But not at a busy coffee shop. Maybe one of those artisan places that only got one customer per hour. And it was mostly self-serve.
When I got back to Hemlock House, I put the bike in the coach house and went inside. I crossed the hall and headed for the stairs. I had a vague plan for moving all of my parents’, uh, shiz back into their RV. I did recall, though, that Bobby had lifted and carried a lot of heavy things, so maybe I needed to adjust my plan—I’d throw all their shiz out the window.
Then I stopped. Something registered in my peripheral vision, and I glanced over.
Movement in the living room.
The pocket doors were only partially open, which wasn’t normal. We always kept them open. Even when Keme said it was gross and child abuse that he had to see Bobby kiss me. Movement came again, visible through the gap between the doors. I had an impression of black. Someone dressed all in black.
An intruder. Or a mortician. Or Helena Bonham Carter.
Whoever it was, they’d picked the wrong day.
“Hey!” I shouted and stormed toward the living room. “Who’s in there?”
From the living room came a thump. Then the shatter of breaking glass. And then the patter of fleeing footsteps.
Oh no you don’t, I thought—with more rage than judgment.
I sprinted after them. I only caught a glimpse of the living room as I raced through it—books pulled from shelves, taxidermy animals everywhere, the shattered remains of a cloche catching the afternoon light and glowing gold. Then I was through the living room, racing into the butler’s pantry, then the kitchen, then the servants’ dining room. The side door stood open, allowing in the fresh, stinging smell of the sea, and when I stumbled outside, the wind caught me and gave me a shove. I barely managed to save my glasses.
The figure in black was already disappearing into the old-growth forest that surrounded Hemlock House. I could go after them. But that would require running. And being hot. And sweaty. Or I could face the fact that, with the lead they had, and the fact that I was only wearing one shoe, by the time I reached the trees, I’d have lost them.
I went back inside.
The living room was even worse than my first impression had suggested. Whoever had been here, they’d ransacked the place. A few hours ago, it had been a beautifully preserved slice of Victoriana, with its massive fireplace, the thick rugs (okay, one needed to be cleaned after the cupcake incident), the dramatic chandeliers, and, of course, the bookcases. Now it looked like a war zone. Books had been hurled to the floor without any apparent regard for their age. Pages that had separated from their binding snowed across the floorboard. A trinket box ornamented with lapis lazuli had broken when it hit the floor, and a bronze urn had lost its lid and rolled halfway under a tufted sofa. A taxidermy crow lay beak down, tail feathers stiff with outrage (and with, um, taxidermy).
I stood there for a while, taking it in. And then I made my way to the kitchen. Indira had left a huckleberry icebox cake in the fridge. I grabbed the whole thing, found a fork, and went into the servants’ dining room. Then I started to eat.
It was good. Don’t get me wrong. Every once in a while, it tasted kind of salty. That was when I realized I was crying. I dropped my fork and put my face in my hands and tried to take a deep breath.
“Dash—” Bobby called from the side door—which, I now remembered, I’d left open because I’d been in a fugue state. He must have seen me, because his voice changed. “Are you okay? What happened?”
I shook my head, fighting against the tears, trying to get control of my voice.
“Are you hurt?” Bobby crouched next to me. His hand was warm and solid on my leg. “What’s going on?”
“I’m okay,” I said. “I’m okay.”
And then I started crying harder.
Bobby drew a chair next to me, sat, and pulled me against him. He let me cry. He ran his fingers through my hair, and he rubbed my back, and was quiet and real and there . Sometimes, if I was being a hundred percent honest, I would have liked a tiny bit more communication from Bobby. In, you know, words. But if you’ve ever needed a really cathartic crying jag, then you know silence is golden.
When I calmed down, Bobby gave me a napkin, and I wiped my face. My cheeks were hot. My eyes stung. But I felt better. Or at least stable.
Then I said, “Is that my shoe?”
The Mexico 66 was on the floor next to Bobby. He said, “By the time I got to the library, you’d already left.”
“Oh.”
“The sheriff called me when she got Stewart’s email. I think she thought it was a joke.”
I nodded.
And then, in the tone of someone walking barefoot on broken glass and trying to pretend like it wasn’t total agony, Bobby asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”
I burst out laughing.
Bobby stared at me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “That was very sweet. You just sounded so—” I caught the look on his face and changed what I’d been about to say. “—um, like you genuinely wanted to talk about it?”
Bobby snorted.
“I got in this awful fight with my parents. With my mom, of course. And then, when I got home, someone was here—”
Voice sharp, Bobby asked, “Someone was in the house?”
I nodded. “They tore the living room apart—”
“Stay here,” Bobby said.
I had to wait until he did a full sweep of the house, which, honestly, takes longer than you might think. I mean, it’s a big house.
When he returned, his face was dark.
“How bad is the billiard room?” I asked.
“Pretty bad. The den too.” He shook his head. “I’m going to call this in. The sheriff needs to open a case, and we need to make a statement and document all this so we can file an insurance claim.” Bobby reached for his phone, but after another, considering look, he took his seat next to me. He caught my hand and laced his fingers with mine. He looked into my eyes, and a heartbeat passed, and then another.
“I’m okay,” I told him. “Really. I’ll be okay.”
He nodded. And he kept looking at me.
And because Bobby is a very good listener, I told him the rest of it. Everything my parents had said. Everything I’d said. Everything I’d wanted to say.
When I finished, he said, “I’m so sorry, Dash.”
“It’s fine. I mean, being burgled isn’t fine. But the stuff with my parents is—it’s whatever. It’s not going to change. I don’t know why I let them get under my skin like that. Any time my writing comes up, this is what happens. And they only ever want to talk about my writing. And that’s why we basically never talk about, well, anything.” I blew out a breath. “Do they have a thing like a reverse adoption? Can I reverse-adopt my parents?”
Bobby rubbed my leg.
“I think I’m just extra sensitive,” I said, “because they’ve been out of my hair for so long. I mean, I had to send my dad that story, but that was almost a year ago. See, that’s the beautiful thing about my parents: they’re so self-involved most of the time that I can pretend they’re polite, normal, emotionally unavailable authority figures—like some minor nineteenth-century aristocracy who shipped me off to boarding school. The kind of parents every child dreams of.”
“So much to unpack there,” Bobby murmured.
“But then they come roaring back into my life—literally, in this case, with that stupid RV—and it’s like I’m sixteen all over again, and we argue about everything, and everything is writing, and I feel like I’m going insane.” I took a deep breath and tried for calm. “I spent so much of my life wanting them to notice me. To remember I existed. And eventually, I realized that wasn’t going to happen. Not in the way I wanted, I mean. And for the most part, that’s fine. I’m okay. I’m reasonably well-adjusted. I have people who love me. I have you. I’m happy. Which is why it drives me insane that the instant they show up, I find myself—I find myself wanting again. Wanting them to—to be my parents, I guess. And instead, all we do is fight.”
Bobby nodded. He rubbed my leg some more. After a while, he said, “I don’t want to say I understand, but some of this sounds familiar. I mean, my parents are over-involved, you know.”
I did know. I knew personally, as a matter of fact, because Bobby’s mom had followed me on every social media platform where I had an account. She had also slid into my DMs (am I using that right?) to send me two typos she’d found in “Murder on the Emerald Express.”
“But,” Bobby continued, “I do have some firsthand experience with, well, feeling like I’m disappointing them, and wishing things were different. I’m definitely an expert on the whole ‘we don’t communicate’ thing. Oh, and the ‘we don’t have feelings’ thing—that one too.” He brought my hand to his mouth and kissed my knuckles absently, not even seeming to think about it. (Ladies and gentlemen, that’s real romance.) “I’m sorry, Dash. I know nothing I say will make it better.” He thought some more and said, “Do you want me to ask them to leave?”
“Are you insane?”
“You’re an adult—as you insist on telling me when I catch you eating cereal out of the box instead of using a bowl.”
“Bobby, they wouldn’t make those liner bags milk-proof if they didn’t want you to put milk in them! Keme gets it!”
He didn’t take the bait. “If you need some time and space from your parents, you have every right to ask them to leave.”
“I know you’re trying to help, but if you were me, would you ask your parents to leave?”
“God, no,” he said with that big, beautiful, goofy grin. “My mom would murder me.”
I surprised myself by grinning back. I touched his cheek, kissed him, and said, “Thank you. It’s all going to be fine; I just have to survive a few more days.”
“Uh huh.” He furrowed his brow—it was a bit dramatic, if you ask me, even for a ham like Bobby—and held up my shoe. “Want to explain this?”
So, I told him about Mrs. Shufflebottom’s office—
“I’m sorry,” he interrupted. “Are you saying you broke into her office?”
“Uh, Keme broke in? For both of us? That makes it better, right?”
“That makes it worse.”
I decided not to ask why, and instead, I told him about the paper trail I’d followed, and then catching Stewart listening at the door, and then my parents following him into the stacks, and getting trapped in the genealogy room.
“Millie said someone had put a bookend between the handle and the jamb,” Bobby said. “That’s why you couldn’t open it.” He frowned. “So, someone wanted to keep you out of the way while they—”
“While they went through my house like a Vandal horde?”
“But why?” Bobby asked. “I mean, they’re looking for the diary—or I assume they’re looking for the diary. But why would they think it was here?”
“Because it’s Nathaniel Blackwood’s house?”
“It’s not like he still lives here.”
“I don’t know, Bobby. I’m not a lunatic who’s obsessed with a weird old diary.”
Frowning, Bobby said, “But the diary is a fake.”
“Probably.”
“But nobody knows it’s a fake.”
“Well, George and Colleen know. And Stewart.”
“So, they wouldn’t be looking for it.”
“Right.”
“And whoever killed the mayor must have taken the diary, since we didn’t find the diary there.”
I nodded. “Maybe. But what if the mayor didn’t steal it? I heard two people, remember? Or what if the mayor had already hidden the diary? Or thrown it away? I think we have three facts: someone killed the mayor; someone stole the diary; and someone is trying to get it back. What I can’t figure out is why. I mean, who would want the diary?”
“Mrs. Shufflebottom,” Bobby said.
“Uh, Mrs. Shufflebottom is a librarian, Bobby. She’s not a killer.”
“Anyone can be a killer under the right circumstances. Think about it: she’s desperate, her world is collapsing, her big plan to save the library just blew up in her face.”
“Wait, you seriously think she killed the mayor?”
“I don’t know. But even if she didn’t, she still needs to get the diary back.”
“Why?” Then it hit me. “Oh shiz! The insurance check.”
Bobby did not appreciate the language, by the way. He said, “Yeah, I don’t know the library by-laws, but I’m guessing there’s some sort of spending limit—above that, and you need approval by the board of trustees, that kind of thing. There’s no way they authorized Mrs. Shufflebottom to spend ten thousand dollars on rare book insurance right after they learned they were being defunded.”
“And if the insurance is fake, then Mrs. Shufflebottom is in serious trouble,” I said. “The only way this doesn’t end with the library being closed—and Mrs. Shufflebottom arrested—is if she can find the diary and auction it off. God, do you think she knows it might be a fake?”
“I don’t think it matters,” Bobby said. “At this point, she’s in too deep. She doesn’t have any other options.”
I nodded, but I said, “What’s the deal with George and Colleen?”
“I thought you said they were running a con.”
“Yeah, exactly. But what’s the end game here? I mean, George has a business. If this gets out, it would ruin him—why take the risk?”
“Because he thought he could get away with it. Greedy people make mistakes like that all the time.”
“Okay, but why stick around?”
“What?”
“They’re still in town, aren’t they? They didn’t go back to Portland?”
Bobby frowned. “I don’t know.”
“They were still in Hastings Rock this morning. George called me to—” I didn’t actually thump myself on the forehead, but I felt like it. “—to ask if he could come look at Hemlock House’s collection of rare books.”
“Let me guess: you said no.”
“Well, I did the responsible thing and didn’t call him back. But a call like that, it would be way too obvious, though, right? He wouldn’t break into Hemlock House the same day he called to ask if he could browse through my books.”
“That depends on how desperate he is.”
What Bobby didn’t say—but I could read in his darkening expression—was the same thing I was thinking: if George—or whoever—was desperate enough, what else might they do?
“I guess we’ll find out,” I said. “I still need to talk to him and Colleen about the diary.”
“Tomorrow,” Bobby said. “I don’t want you going over there without me, and I’ve got to get ready for work.”
“Oh my God, you’ve got work.” I patted myself down, looking for my phone. “Did I make you late?”
“It’s fine. Dash, stop—I’m not late.” He slid out of his chair onto the floor, picked up my sneaker, and began working it onto my foot. Without looking at me, he said, “I could call in.”
“Oh. I mean—I guess it would be better to talk to them tonight, but I know you hate to miss work.”
“No, dummy, not so we can talk to them. If they haven’t left yet, they’re not going to leave now. Besides, George has a business, a home, assets we can track. If he runs, he won’t be hard to find.” He snugged the shoe up against my heel and set about tying the lace. (It will surprise nobody that he liked them to be the exact same length.) “I don’t like the idea of you being alone tonight.”
It took me a moment before I could say, “Bobby, I can take care—”
He looked up at me.
He’s got these eyes, see. They’re this ridiculously amazing color—earthy, rich, shining—and they are one of his more, er, expressive features.
Several seconds later, I said, “What was I saying?”
“I think you were about to say something about how it’s okay to accept help, especially from your boyfriend, who loves you and is emotionally invested in taking care of you.” He cinched the laces. “Which isn’t a commentary on your ability to, quote, ‘take care of yourself.’”
“See, it’s less convincing when you actually say ‘quote’ out loud.”
He stood. He took my hands. He looked me in the eye for several long seconds. Then he said, “Upsy-daisy,” and helped me to my feet.
“Go to work,” I said. “My parents will be here—whether I like it or not. And Keme will be here. I’ll be completely, totally, perfectly safe. Scout’s, uh, honor?”
One of the best parts of Bobby is he has this way of looking incredibly long-suffering. “I’m calling in.”
“No, don’t. We’ll be fine. It’ll be a nice, quiet night. I’ll get something to eat. I’ll clean up. I’ll get my parents’ power of attorney and institutionalize them. The way nice straight families spend their evenings.”
That long-suffering look had faded into another familiar one: a kind of bemused wonder. He hugged me. He has all these muscles, and they’re very distracting. Which was why I almost missed it when he murmured, “Is it all the sugar?”
“Rude!”
I tried to wriggle away. But he held me to him, laughing as I fought to break free.