Page 34 of Confessions of the Dead

Gilmore was standing among the tiny chairs in the story-time area next to a giant cardboard bunny dressed in a suit. The librarian was holding a book, studying the print on the back. She normally wore her gray hair pulled back in a neat bun. Ellie noticed wiry strands standing out all over her head as if she’d slept with her hair up and hadn’t bothered to fix it this morning. Her silver glasses were perched precariously at the end of her nose as she turned the book to its spine, frowned, and flipped through the pages. “Absolute filth,” she groaned before throwing the book on a pile at her feet.

Ellie glimpsed the title:If I Ran the Zooby Dr. Seuss.

Gilmore plucked another from the shelf and gave it only a cursory glance before throwing it aside.The Cat’s Quizzer, also by Dr. Seuss.

The air was hazy and stank of lighter fluid, but that didn’t keep Gilmore from taking the small can from the purse hanging off her shoulder and dousing the books, the surrounding carpet, and part of the wall. Even the cardboard rabbit hadn’t escaped.

Ellie motioned for Newton to stay behind her, then said in the calmest voice she could muster. “Arwa, want to tell me what you’re doing?”

At first, the woman didn’t acknowledge her; she seemed to look right through her to her boss. Her eyes narrowed to tiny pinpricks. “I’m trying to clean up the mess made by that man!” She grabbed another book off the shelf and shook it. Another Seuss book—On beyond Zebra!“This garbage has no place here! It’s poison to anyone who touches it!” She threw it on the pile and zigzagged the colorful cover with a spray of lighter fluid, which splashed up on her shoes and the hem of her dress. A large box of matches stuck up from her open purse.

Ellie’s grip tightened around the fire extinguisher. “I imagine there is some kind of process in place if you’d like to remove a title from the library. No need for you to do this, right?”

“Process …” Gilmore huffed and blew a strand of loose hair from her face. “I’ve been telling Mr. Newton to remove these books for the better part of a year. I’ve shown him the supporting literature, the studies, the peer reviews. You know what his answer to me has always been?” She paused and licked her chapped lips. “He said, ‘I like Dr. Seuss.’ He told me the same thing with all the others.” She grabbed another title off the shelf and waved it around. “He even leftCharlotte’s Webin the stacks, of all things! Banned by numerous school boards in 2006! And when parents come in here asking why we still have it, he expects me to defendit!” She dropped the book on the pile and saturated it. “I will do no such thing!”

Newton cleared his throat. “Ms. Gilmore and I have a difference of opinion, which we’ve discussed at length. When she’s running the library, she’s more than welcome to exercise those opinions.”

Newton was seventy-two and more than likely to die in that library than retire. Gilmore must have come to the same conclusion, because she raised the bottle of lighter fluid and doused him—one quick stream starting at his shoe and getting halfway up his suit jacket before he managed to back away.

“Arwa!”

Ellie tried to slap the can from the woman’s hand, but Gilmore was far faster than she looked. Not only did she pull away, but she managed to hit both NewtonandEllie with another stream, splashing Ellie’s cheek and left eye.

Ellie screamed and twisted away. She nearly dropped the fire extinguisher when she wiped at her face with her uniform sleeve. The burning came on a delay, not as bad as she expected, but bad enough to cause tears to cloud her vision and set her nose running. She spotted a water fountain against the wall and started for it when Gilmore told her not to move.

“Just stay right there,” the woman said, and Ellie realized she was no longer holding the can of lighter fluid. She’d dropped that and managed to strike a match.

While Ellie stayed where she was, Mr. Newton did not.

He backed away at a quick shuffle and managed to get behind some kind of craft table. He pulled a phone from the wall and frantically punched in 911. Little good that would do—Sally would get the call at the station, if it went through at all.

One eye closed, the other a hazy mess, Ellie locked on that flickering flame in Ms. Gilmore’s hand and tried to keep her voicecalm. “You’re covered in accelerant, Arwa. Put that out before you hurt yourself.”

The woman was staring at the flame, too; her eyes were locked on it. Mesmerized. She watched the matchstick dwindle until it was nearly to the tips of her fingers. “I think you’re looking at this all wrong, Sheriff. Fire sets us free. It’s nature’s equalizer.”

Ellie threw the fire extinguisher at her.

It caught Gilmore under the chin, sent her staggering. She fell back and cracked her head against the side of a table. The match tumbled, rolled, and landed on the carpet. Ellie quickly stomped out the flame and crouched next to the other woman.

Gilmore wasn’t unconscious, but the two blows had stunned her. A good size knot had already started to form on the side of her head, but she wasn’t bleeding. Ellie pulled several zip ties from her pocket and quickly secured the woman to a chair before getting to her feet and staggering toward the water fountain to wash out her eye. Waving a hand behind her back, she shouted at Newton, “Watch her! I need to get this shit out of my eye …”

If the head librarian heard her, he didn’t say anything. Didn’t sound like he was on the phone anymore.

Ellie pressed the bar on the front of the fountain, scooped the water in her palms, and splashed her face. Her left eye didn’t want to stay open so she pried it with her fingers, forced the water in, and kept at it until the burning turned to a dull ache. Nearly five minutes had gone by before she finally stood upright again and blinked away the last of it.

“Mr. Newton, are you—”

She heard a strangeswooshfollowed by a loudchomp!

Ellie turned to find Newton still standing behind the craft table. He was staring down at a large paper cutter, the large blade glistening under the overhead lights.

He’d just chopped off four of his own fingers.

25

Hannah

BACK IN TOWN, HANNAHand Danny were parked in the far corner of the empty lot sandwiched between Lou’s Laundry and the muffler shop. Hannah’s playlist came from the speakers, not too loud. They had relocated to the back seat of Danny’s car, and he had his hand under Hannah’s sweatshirt, gingerly caressing her stomach as he slowly worked his way up to the frilly underside of her bra. Hannah nibbled on his ear as he traced the cup, followed under her left breast to the center, and fumbled around for the clasp.

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