Page 15 of Girl, Sought

'I'm always at the library. They're all this country has left.'

‘What? I’ve never seen you at the library.’

'And I've never seen you shave your legs, but I know you do it.'

‘Touche.’ Ella opened the door and stepped into a small foyer. There was an arrangement of books on a small table beside a Christmas tree.

‘If nothing else, we might find a copy of Profiling for Dummies here.’

'You joke, but that's a real book.' Ella lead the way into the main area. The librarian at the front desk looked like she'd been poured into the chair sometime during the previous administration and left to set. Her hair was an immobile helmet and the nameplate on her lanyard read 'DOLORES' in heavy bold letters that looked like they'd been carved with a chisel.

‘Can I help you?’ Her voice dragged the words out like they'd done something to offend her.

Ella flashed her badge, watching the woman's eyes narrow behind rhinestone cat-eye glasses. ‘ Agent Dark, FBI. This is Agent Hawkins. We need to speak to someone here about Eleanor Calloway.’

‘Ellie?’ Dolores' mouth pinched even tighter, which Ella wouldn't have believed possible without some kind of industrial vice. ‘Did you find her? It was me who reported…’

Ella swallowed that pill of bittersweet optimism that perhaps word of Eleanor’s death had already reached her colleagues. Given the look of vague hope on Dolores’ face, it hadn’t.

‘I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but Eleanor was found dead this morning.’

Dolores blinked once, slow, like a lizard contemplating a particularly juicy fly. ‘Wha… dead? No. That can’t be. She was…’

‘We know this is a shock,’ Luca offered, smooth as a river rock. ‘That's why we need your help. To understand what might have happened.’

Dolores covered her face with her hand then slowly rose out of her chair. She fumbled below her desk for something then planted it on the reception desk. It said RECEPTION UNMANNED – BACK SOON.

'No one knew Ellie better than me,' Dolores breathed. She scrubbed at phantom tears, but Ella knew they weren't far away. It sometimes took a few minutes for bodily responses to catch up to the brain.

‘Is there somewhere we can talk?’ The library was dead enough, but talking in public was always a risk regardless.

‘Yes. Follow me.’

Dolores left her desk and strode across the carpet towards a back room. Ella and Luca followed her in there. Once inside, Dolores collapsed into a chair and sobbed into her hands.

‘We really hate to be the ones to break the bad news,’ Ella said. Anything to soften the impending wave of grief that would gnaw at this woman for the foreseeable future.

‘It’s… how did she die? Can you tell me that?’

Ella and Luca exchanged a glance. Balancing truth and platitudes was a tough dance. You had to be as honest as possible without giving them anything for journalists to squeeze out later. Once news of Eleanor’s death reached the masses, this library would see more footfall than it had in years.

‘Eleanor was murdered,’ Ella said. ‘That’s all we can say.’

Every interviewee had a different response to the wordmurder.Some cried, some denied, some went into shock. Dolores’ response landed somewhere around the latter.

‘Ellie? Killed? Are you… serious?

‘Yes. I’m sorry. Eleanor seems like a wonderful person, and we need to learn everything we can about her. Can you help us?’

Dolores took a moment. She wiped her face with a forearm, sat back in her chair, and suppressed another wave of tears with her fingertips. Ella let her get it all out.

‘You’re serious? Ellie is… gone?’

Ella shook her head. She let the silence do the talking.

‘I don't know what I can tell you. Ellie was a good girl. Kept to herself, mostly. Not one for gossip.’

‘What did she do around here?’

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