Page 71 of The Librarians
Sophie sighs and gets in the car—she can’t care about this right now. But she does glance at her phone, in case Elise texted about why she’s taking so long.
But the only new message is from Jeannette, whose number, though not in Sophie’s contact list, has now seared into her brain.
After an initial onslaught of panic—Jeannette has decided to condemn Sophie without listening to the recording and will call the police imminently!—Sophie sees that Jeannette has shared her location.
Without any explanation as to why.
A different set of alarm bells clangs in Sophie’s head.
Is this Jeannette demanding another meeting? Has she changed her mind? Is she a sociopath who pretended to be reasonable just so she could yank Sophie’s string harder? Or a fragile snowflake who was annoyed that Sophie wasn’t humbler and more obsequious in her demeanor?
Will she demand money? How much can Sophie afford to give her to keep her quiet for the next twenty months?
Oh, God, what if Jeannette doesn’t want money? What if the woman just wants to watch Sophie burn?
Sophie hangs on to her self-control. She resists the overwhelming urge to typeWhat do you want?!in response. There must not be any trail of traceable writing from her to Jeannette.
Fine, so she’s been sent a location. It’s not that far, somewhere in Astrid’s neighborhood. She will go there, on the off chance that Jeannette made a mistake. These days people inadvertently send stuff to their contact list all the time.
She drives back in the library’s direction, crosses under the highway, and turns into an apartment complex half a mile further on. But she doesn’t see Jeannette’s distinctive orange RAV4—not at the exact spot indicated by the shared location, nor elsewhere in the complex.
The emotional whiplash of this day is taking a toll on her—her brain feels as sludgy as a drying-up mud puddle, yet she is also jumpy and paranoid. Her reaction to Jeannette’s car not being there is equally bifurcated: She is dying to go home to bed; she is convinced something is wrong.
She tries to tell herself that it was a prank.
But what if it’s not so simple?
She drives out of the apartment complex. It is located on a street that leads out of a neighborhood onto a thoroughfare. If she turns left, she will reach the thoroughfare roughly fifty yards away and be on her way home. If she turns right, she will head deeper into a large subdivision from which the library draws a good share of its patrons.
She heads right, not because she knows what she’s doing but because the matter feels unfinished.
Northwest Austin is well-off and the entire district is generally considered safe. Still, it can be spooky to visit an unfamiliar neighborhood at night. The sprawl of streets, carefully designed to never be straight for long—to discourage speeding—starts to take on a warren-like quality, making her question whether she’s driving in circles. Some of her agitation transmutes into uneasiness—or rather, an even greater uneasiness.
She makes another turn and suddenly an orange SUV looms ahead, parked in a shadowy spot, yet so gaudy it still gleams in the scant light.
Does Jeannette live here? Why is her car on the street?
Sophie parks but is reluctant to get out: This is Texas; no matter howquiet and sleepy a street looks, it’s always possible that a homeowner will materialize, firearm in hand.
Okay, she is going to peek into the RAV4, just to make sure that Jeannette hasn’t somehow dropped dead inside. Because if she did, then Sophie, probably among the last people she contacted on her phone, is going to be in a lot of trouble.
Sophie knocks on the rear of the car. No response. She inches closer, but it’s too dark to see much.
After a moment of hesitation, Sophie turns on the flashlight on her phone and shines the beam of light into the car—and screams, a short, shrill sound that immediately disappears, leaving her with her mouth open, her legs shaking.
A woman is slumped over on the back seat. Peasant dress, orange scarf—it’s Jeannette.
What happened? Did she go to a bar and get drunk in the time Sophie did fifty dollars of grocery shopping? Can anyone black out in that little time?
Or…did Jeannette get roofied? As in, she was lucky enough to realize that something wasn’t right and leave the bar just in time? And if so, was it because Sophie’s number was at the very top of her messages that she sent her location to Sophie? But why send Sophie one location when she was going to drive to a different one?
Gritting her teeth, Sophie pulls on the door and almost screams again when it opens readily.
Jeannette lies on her side, her legs drawn up. The orange scarf is on the floorboard. Her head pushes against the opposite door, her face obscured by her now loose hair. Sophie leans down and shakes her by one calf. “Jeannette, are you okay? Jeannette?”
No response. Sophie typesCan you OD on Rohypnol?into her phone. Apparently so. And if that Rohypnol is mixed with alcohol and other central nervous system depressants, it can be fatal.
Sophie reaches in further and grabs hold of Jeannette’s limp hand. Does her skin feel slightly cool to the touch? Sophie digs her thumb into Jeannette’s wrist and fails to find a pulse. That can’t be true. She must be pressing in thewrong place. She tries again. Bottom of wrist, near the thumb. But the familiar throb of the radial artery is missing.
