Page 40 of Dark Sky

“I thought I had,” was Evelyn’s response.

“Please make sure you do so in the future,” Marybeth had snapped.

“I really thought I had,” Evelyn said before looking away.

So Marybeth scrolled through the spreadsheets and graphics on the monitor of her library computer and tried to anticipate not only the questions they’d ask her, like,Do people even go to the library anymore?andDo you have porn filters on the computers available to the public?but what her answers would be.

There were five commissioners. Two were reliably pro–library funding. Two were adamantly against any taxpayer expenditures that weren’t devoted solely to infrastructure, although they had pet causes such as funding the county fair and spending money on lawyers to advance a county-wide wolf eradication policy in opposition to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The fifth commissioner, Laura Beason, could go either way. Beason was the swing vote, and Marybeth had learned to tailor her answers to her. Beason had married into a third-generation ranch family, and although her husband was squarely with the two anti-spending commissioners (except forhispet projects, of course), Laura enjoyed defying him when she could. Marybeth would play to Beason’s soft spot for culture and the arts in the community. It had worked in previous years.

Satisfied that she could respond to even the most hostile questions from the commissioners in a cheery and informative way, Marybeth saved the presentation to her laptop so she could go over it at home, then cautiously opened the ConFab app on her phone.

Since she hadn’t heard anything from Joe the night before, which was the reason she was in such a foul mood to start the day, the only way she could assure herself that he was still alive and well up in the mountains was to monitor Steve-2’s posts.

The last post he’d made was from late the night before. Obviously, someone else had taken the shot and had posted it on Steve-2’s behalf. It was a photo of him sitting on a log in thefirelight looking satisfied and very content as he gazed at the campfire near his feet. The caption simply read:

Home, home on the range,

Where the deer and the antelope play.

Where seldom is heard a discouraging word...

What she’d noticed, though, was that to the side of Steve-2, leaning back out of the firelight, was Joe. His head was turned away, but she knew the profile. He obviously didn’t know the photo was being taken at the time.

She scrolled through Steve-2’s previous posts and photos to find there were many discouraging words aimed at him. There were a number of user threads denouncing Price and threatening to delete the app because he was in the act of hunting. Others defended him, but they were overwhelmed by animal rights activists and others who thought a man of his wealth and intelligence should be spending his time on more beneficial pursuits. Marybeth thought several of the users made very good points.

She wondered if Steve-2 cared either way what some of his users thought. She sensed that he had such supreme self-confidence—and so many millions of users around the world—that their arguments would wash right over him.

But there was Joe, she thought. He looked fine. So why hadn’t he called her as promised and filled her in? And why did she have to resort to checking social media to know that he was still alive and well?

Marybeth was mulling this over when Evelyn Hughes stuck her head through the open door and cleared her throat.

“Yes, Evelyn?”

“Your daughter is here and she asked if you had a few minutes.”

“Sheridan?”

“Yes.”

“Of course.”

She gathered herself and placed her phone facedown on her desk. It was rare when Sheridan showed up without texting.

As Evelyn exited her office, Marybeth called out to her.

The older woman turned.

“I’m sorry if I seemed snappish to you this morning. I apologize for my tone. I just worry that some derelict will wander in here during the night and wreck the place.”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Evelyn said with a blush. But she was obviously relieved. “I’ve got a lot on my mind. I really thought I’d checked the doors.”

That doesn’t matter, Marybeth wanted to say while throttling Evelyn.We all have a lot on our minds. And it doesn’t matter what you thought you did. Just take responsibility and apologize and don’t mess up again.Why is it that adults—and you’re older than me, Evelyn—can’t admit an error without offering up an excuse?

But she didn’t say any of it. She knew Evelyn was a long-time library employee who was very quick to complain to HR about any perceived slight. Marybeth knew she couldn’t afford a complaint like that on the record prior to her budget presentation before the commissioners.

So instead, she asked, “Where is my daughter?”

“I think she was on her way to the computer room.”

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