Chapter 11
"Call me back," I say into the phone, already dialing again as I drop into the driver’s seat and shut the car door. Pancake’s leash is looped over my wrist. She huffs once and settles against the console. I set my case file open on the middle console.
The phone buzzes moments later and I put it on speaker, wedging it into the cupholder. "Talk to me, Pham."
"Looping capitals. Same pressure on the downstrokes. Same habit of crowding the right margin."
I tap the page. "Six addresses. Ninety days. Same format as Stein’s acquisition schedule."
"This is the connective tissue we've been waiting on," she says, already moving.
I pick up a pen and circle the third address, harder than I need to. "Should we bring him in?"
"Not yet. We can't spook him. If Shane Booker moves before the warehouse case closes, the chain collapses and Stein's lawyers take a victory lap in front of a judge."
I set the pen down, pick it back up, and line it with the edge of the page. "He works with Avery every day."
"I know who he works with."
I drum my fingers on the steering wheel. "We need to do more to keep her safe."
"We need to keep the case alive," she says. "Have her put the document back where she found it. He keeps working his normal shifts. Nothing changes for forty eight hours."
I stop at the counter and press my hand flat to the paper. It crinkles under my palm. "Got it."
"And don't tell her about Booker. You blow this, you lose him and you lose Stein."
I look at the door, at the sliver of light under it, and keep my voice even. "Understood."
The line clicks dead. I stand there a second with my hand still on the page, then lift it, squaring the papers, and fold the piece of paper from Avery like it never left the floor.
The bell over the door chimes when I walk back into the store. Pancake trots in ahead of me, nails clicking on the floor, leash loose in my hand.
Avery scans a return into the system like she's deeply committed to pretending she didn't notice exactly how long I was gone. "You’re back. That was either a very long phone call or a very suspicious amount of interest in a patch of grass."
"She needed a break," I say, unclipping the leash.
"Also, she was getting emotionally attached to your customer service voice and I didn't want to lose her to the bookstore lifestyle.
" Pancake circles once, then heads straight for her usual spot like she owns the place.
"Took her around the block. She really seemed to need help getting things moving. "
Shane glances over from the espresso machine, already reaching for a towel. "If she’s, by chance, irregular, that has nothing to do with any illegal snacks administered."
I watch him wipe a perfectly clean surface. "Right. She’s been shadowing you all afternoon for your personality, not the bagel you’ve been sneaking behind the counter."
Shane pauses mid-wipe, looks at me, then at Avery, then back at me with a straight face that lasts exactly one second.
"I don’t know what you’re talking about," he says, too careful, like he practiced it. He lifts his hands, palms out. "I would never compromise a dog’s digestive integrity. I don’t even believe in snacks. "
Pancake lifts her head at the word snacks and looks directly at him.
"Traitor," he mutters to her, then smiles like nothing happened and goes back to the machine.
Avery finally looks up, quick, assessing, then back to the register. "We’re winding down. Last rush burned itself out about twenty minutes ago."
"Good," Shane says, walking behind the register and bending to pick up the restocking box. "Everyone left breathing and with a book in their hand. I’ll take the win." He straightens and shifts the weight against his hip. "I’ll start reshelving these before we close."
"Thank you," she says.
He nods and heads toward the back, angling for the Touch Grass section without breaking stride.
Avery finds a reason to be three feet to my left and facing away from me when she asks, very quietly, "What are you thinking about the piece of paper?"
I give her instructions in the same order Pham gave them to me.
"You want me to keep handing my keys to someone who may have set fires and could be why I lose my business." Not a question.
"I want to protect you and catch the people responsible for killing two firefighters and for threatening everything in this county." I wait one beat. "Those two things are the same ask right now."
She absorbs that. I can see it moving through her, the specific sequence of a person recalibrating from the foundation up, measuring each shift and easy exchange against what was underneath it the whole time.
Her jaw tightens once and releases. She reaches over and straightens a stack of bookmarks that doesn't need straightening. "Did you suspect him before this?"
I look at her, impressed that she'd put that together so quickly.
I want to say since the day I met him and the questions he asked about loading entrances and alarm panels.
I say, "I wasn't certain until the handwriting matched," which is true.
Certainty and suspicion are different things and I'm not going to lie to her about the distinction.
"So I act normal."
Most people would have asked whether they were safe. Avery skipped straight to what needed to be done.
I look at her for a second too long because there's nothing uncertain in the way she says it. No panic. No dramatics. Just Avery deciding to carry something heavy and already figuring out where to put her hands.
"You're disturbingly good at that," I say quietly.
Her mouth twitches. "Thank you. Years of customer service and unresolved psychological issues."
"Powerful combination."
"And let me do the rest."
She nods and looks up. Something has settled in her face, not peace, nothing as soft as that, but the particular quality of a decision made and held without flinching.
Shane comes back with a cart of Devon Hook books and a question about whether she wants the new display flush against the wall or angled, and she turns to answer him. Her voice is exactly her voice again.
I stay for the shift.
A woman in her early sixties with reading glasses on a beaded chain asks Shane if he can help her find something for a niece. Science fiction or fantasy, she thinks. The niece is eleven.
Shane puts down the box he's carrying and gives the woman his full attention even though the store closes in fifteen minutes. He's warm and specific, and walks her toward the Escape Reality, We Support It section.
I can hear him as I pretend to clean up around the front counter.
"Is she more aliens and spaceships, or more elves and wizards? Because there are really two different directions we can go."
The woman laughs. Shane laughs. He has the gift of making everyone he talks to feel like the room got slightly better when they walked in.
I watch him hand the woman a stack of three books with specific reasons for each one.
The woman hesitates, glancing down at the pile. "I should probably just pick one."
Shane shakes his head. "Take all three."
"Oh, I don't know if she'll read them."
"Then bring back whatever she doesn't like." He shrugs. "If your niece hates one of my recommendations, that's a personal failure and I’ll need the opportunity to recover."
The woman laughs again.
"I'm serious," he says. "Tell her Shane from the bookstore owes her a better recommendation."
She leaves smiling, clutching all three books against her chest.
Another customer walks up, having overheard the Devon Hook conversation, and Shane's face does what it always does when the subject is something he actually reads.
"The first three set everything up," he says, "but the sixth is where it gets good.
Missing mother, six kids, all of them suspects.
" He shakes his head. "I did not see the twist coming.
I've read a lot of procedurals and that one got me. "
He sounds exactly like someone Avery would trust without hesitation, which suddenly feels a lot more dangerous.
I read the first three Devon Hook books a year ago and I know that the lead character, Mark Mossman, is a man who lies cleanly to everyone around him for the entire length of the series because he believes the ends justify the particular means.
Shane leaves at five-thirty and Avery closes the shop behind him, turning the lock and standing with her back to the door for a moment with her eyes on the middle distance.
"Okay," she says after a second, like she's trying the word out to see if it can hold the weight of any of this. She rubs the heel of her hand against her forehead.
"Apparently my new favorite hobby is processing active criminal conspiracies inside a bookstore." She looks at me. "Meet me at my place."
I follow Avery home, keeping two cars between us most of the drive while her taillights cut through the side streets like she’s done this route a thousand times.
At a stop sign, I catch myself checking the rearview mirror like I expect to see Shane pull out behind me. I ease off the gas, force my grip to loosen on the wheel, and hear Pham tell me that "Nothing changes for forty eight hours."
She has the door open by the time I get to the porch and steps back to let me in without saying anything.
The house smells like the candle she keeps on the kitchen counter, cedar and lemon cutting through the air the second I step inside. It hits me low and hard that I could get used to coming home to this. Which feels like a reckless thing to realize about a place I wasn't supposed to stay in tonight.
She sits on the arm of the couch with her arms crossed, not defensively, just like someone who needs to hold themselves together for another few minutes, and I sit across from her and tell her the rest of what I can.