Chapter Twenty-Five
His reply came quickly. Sounds perfect. Text me when you’re done at the bookstore.
Sam smiled and pocketed her phone.
Minutes later, she found a parking spot in front of Twice-Told Tales. The bookshop looked dark and closed, its cheerful window displays somehow lonely without customers inside.
She walked around to the left side of the building and found the lockbox exactly where Charlotte had described it. The code worked on the first try, and Sam retrieved the key.
The front door opened with the familiar jingle of the bell. Sam flipped on the lights and looked around. Sam made her way through the familiar aisles, breathing in the scent of paper and ink.
She unlocked the back door and propped it open with a doorstop she found nearby in preparation for the delivery driver. Then she wandered back to the front of the store to take Charlotte up on her offer and browse the shelves while she waited.
Sam was examining the mystery section’s new releases when the front door’s bell jingled. Sam looked up to see Pamela Cross stepping inside, a canvas tote bag over her shoulder.
Pamela’s face lit up with pleased surprise. “Hi, Sam! I didn’t realize Charlotte was open today. I walked past earlier and thought she was closed.”
“Actually, she is closed. I’m just here to accept a book delivery for her. She’s in Asheville, visiting her mom.”
“I hope everything’s all right,” said Pamela, her forehead crinkled with concern.
“Her mom had a fall, but she’s going to be okay.”
“Sorry about the fall, but glad her mom is okay.” Pamela glanced around the shop, but made no move to leave.
“It’s been such a stressful week for everyone.
Charlotte didn’t need anything else, did she?
First Margaret, then Gerald.” She shook her head.
“I keep thinking about that memorial service. So awkward, wasn’t it? No one knew quite what to say.”
“It was difficult, for sure.”
Pamela set her tote bag on the counter near the register. “I left that chapel as soon as I could. The whole thing just felt so tense. I’ve been trying ways to handle my stress, but I’m not sure it’s working. I guess I’m not handling all this as well as I thought I would.”
“No one is,” Sam said. “It’s been such a shock.”
“The library at the retirement home has been a pleasant distraction. I’ve been spending extra time there, making sure everything’s organized and helping residents find books. Reading is a real comfort during difficult times, isn’t it?”
Sam’s thoughts snagged on something Pamela had just said, although she couldn’t quite grasp what it was. The library. Stress management.
“You mentioned trying to handle your stress,” Sam said slowly. “What techniques have you been using?”
Pamela looked at her, surprised by the question.
“Oh, the usual things they tell you to do online. Deep breathing, meditating, walking. Making sure I’m taking care of myself by eating properly.
And I try to remember to take my medications on time.
” She gave a slightly embarrassed laugh. “It’s not very exciting, but it helps.”
Sam’s mind flashed back to the retirement home’s library.
To Pamela mentioning her blood thinners.
And then, like tumblers clicking into place in a lock, other pieces fell together.
The way she’d steered every conversation away from her past with Margaret.
The fact a resident at the retirement home thought Pamela had been a former teacher.
Margaret’s memoir mentioning ‘academic circles.’
Margaret’s death. Crushed pills in coffee.
Sam must have made some sound, or her expression must have changed, because Pamela went very still.
“Sam?” Pamela’s voice was uncertain. “Are you all right?”
Sam tried to keep her features neutral, but she could feel the color draining from her face. She looked at Pamela, really looked at her, and saw the exact moment when Pamela recognized what had just happened.
Pamela’s expression shifted. The warmth drained away, replaced by something watchful and wary. “You just figured something out.” It wasn’t a question. “I can see it on your face.”
Sam took an involuntary step backward.
“It was the medication comment, wasn’t it?” Pamela’s voice was quiet, almost sad. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it. But I wasn’t thinking. I was just making conversation. I guess I’m not very good at this.” She paused. “Though I suppose it doesn’t matter now. You’ve already put everything together.”
Sam’s heart hammered in her chest. They were alone in the closed bookshop. Her phone was in her purse, which she’d set down somewhere near the mystery section. She tried to remember exactly where without giving away her intentions by looking around for it.
“Pamela,” Sam started.
“The problem is that I can’t have you telling anyone. They won’t understand. Not the police or anyone else.”
Sam didn’t answer. She took another step back, trying to angle toward the center aisle that would lead to either the front door or the back entrance.
“I didn’t want to do any of this.” Pamela’s voice cracked slightly. “You have to understand that. I just wanted Margaret to stop. For her to leave me alone. I didn’t want her to publish those lies about me.”
The betrayal in academic circles that Margaret’s memoir had been referencing.
“What lies?” Sam asked carefully, still backing away.
Pamela’s laugh was bitter. “In her memoir. She was writing about our time at the university together. We were both graduate students, working on our dissertations in Victorian literature. I was finishing my PhD. Margaret was further along. We’d discuss our research over coffee and share ideas the way colleagues do. I thought she was helping me.”
“So this was some time ago. How was Margaret back then? Was she just as difficult?” All Sam could think about was buying time.
“Margaret was actually pretty fun back then. She was super smart and I loved getting her perspective. But when she published, it was my framework.”
Sam asked, “She’d stolen your work?”
Pamela nodded. “It was my analysis of how Victorian women writers subverted narratives through domestic fiction. When I confronted Margaret, she claimed I’d stolen from her. Can you imagine?”
“Did you tell the English department chair what happened?”
Pamela said, “Of course I did. They investigated and sided with her. Naturally. She’d ingratiated herself with the entire department while I’d been focused on my research.
I was a nobody, just an assistant professor who’d never published anything significant.
” Pamela’s hands shook. “They suggested I quietly resign before my tenure review. They said it would be better for everyone. So I left academia entirely and became a librarian. I had to rebuild my whole life from nothing.”
“I’m so sorry this happened to you.”
Pamela’s eyes filled with tears. “Margaret destroyed my entire future. And she was going to do it again with her memoir. She said the publisher wanted it by spring. I had maybe four months.” Her voice rose.
“She was going to call me a liar in her memoir. Margaret would paint herself as the victim when she was the one who stole from me.”
Sam’s mind was racing, pieces clicking into place.
Not just the memoir, but the method. She said, “At the book club, the first meeting I went to, Margaret talked about the previous month’s book.
It was The Cardiac Protocol, I think. She mentioned she was on three different heart medications.
” Sam’s voice was steady now, certain. “You knew that.”
Pamela shrugged. “She told everyone at that book club meeting. Margaret loved being the expert on everything, even her own medical conditions.”
“I’ve been reading the next month’s selection.
Middlemarch.” It sounded absurd, even as she spoke the words.
“The book Margaret chose. There’s this character, Bulstrode.
He’s built this respectable life, but it’s all constructed on top of buried secrets from his past. And then someone threatens to expose his past and destroy the reputation he’s spent decades building. ”
“Stop,” Pamela whispered.
“Bulstrode can’t let it happen. The threat of exposure, of having everyone know what really happened twenty years ago, was horrifying to him.” Sam took a deep breath. “You couldn’t let Margaret make those lies permanent, in her memoir. You’d already rebuilt your whole life once before.”
“She was going to publish it,” Pamela said, her voice breaking.
“Everyone would read Margaret’s version of events.
Those lies about me plagiarizing her work when she was the one who stole from me.
” She stopped. “I spent twenty years being the bigger person. I couldn’t let her make those lies permanent. ”
“So you put blood thinner in her coffee. You knew, from what Margaret had said, that it would interact with her heart medication.”
Pamela’s eyes filled with tears. “I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I just wanted her to stop.”
Sam thought about Bulstrode, how George Eliot had shown the way one desperate act led to another, how trying to protect a secret could destroy everything.
“I can only imagine how hurt you must have been by what Margaret did to you. And how you must have felt when she stole your work.”
Pamela’s laugh was bitter. “Hurt? I was completely erased. Everything I’d worked for was gone.
And she got tenure, the publication, and all the respect.
She built her whole career on my research.
” She wiped angrily at her eyes. “But I never meant for Gerald to get hurt. Never. I didn’t know he’d seen me. I panicked.”
Sam’s back hit a bookshelf. She’d unconsciously been retreating and now was near the history section, halfway between the front and back of the shop. “Pamela, it’s not too late to talk with the authorities about this. It’s better that way.”
“Not too late?” Pamela’s voice sharpened. “I’ve killed two people, Sam. There’s no coming back from that.” Her gaze focused on Sam with sudden intensity. “Have you told anyone? Really, I need to know. Have you talked to the police?”
Sam tried to answer, but when she opened her mouth, no sound emerged.
Pamela closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them, something had changed. It was a hardening, as if she’d made a decision. She moved toward the counter near the register, where Charlotte kept supplies for opening boxes and processing new inventory.
Sam saw Pamela’s hand close around a heavy brass bookend shaped like an owl. She remembered it was part of a pair Charlotte used to display new releases in the front window.
“I’m sorry,” Pamela said, her voice breaking. “I’m so sorry, Sam. You seem like a genuinely good person. But I can’t go to prison and have everyone know what I’ve done. Margaret’s already taken so much from me. I’m not going to have her take my freedom, too.”