Page 27 of The Librarians
I’m sorry, ma’am. We don’t. But the lease doesn’t prohibit tenants from having them, as long as the installation doesn’t damage the buildings.
She has her beanie down to her eyes, her mask up to her lower lash line. Dressed like this, even if individual tenants have cameras, they wouldn’t be able to identify her, especially when it’s still so dark.
Now she’s on the street that leads to Twin Courtyards Apartments, but on the opposite side. As she slowly jogs alongside a wall, she realizes that the wall forms part of the boundary of Astrid’s gated condo community.
Before she can think more about Astrid, a group of four people, dressed in athletic attire, come out from Twin Courtyards. Or rather, they stand right near the entrance, stretching.
The street T-junctions onto a more heavily trafficked road. Sophie crosses to the Twin Courtyards side and starts back. The folks meeting to work out are still there, probably waiting for more people to show up. They step aside courteously as Sophie approaches, but in doing so, they block the entrance.
For a split second she almost asks them to move but doesn’t—she can’t afford to draw attention to herself. So she nods and runs back to her car, parked out of sight, and leaves the neighborhood from a different direction.
Three hours later, she arrives in the Den of Calories. Jonathan, who just made a pot of coffee, hands her a cup. “I meant to tell you about an article in the paper yesterday, but the police showed up and it slipped my mind. You remember the woman who came to Game Night, the one with the third eye on her forehead?”
Sophie’s eye twitches, but she has her response ready. “I saw that article last night when I tried to find some news about Astrid’s ex.”
“Do you think we should contact the police?” asks Jonathan.
Sophie’s other eye now twitches too. “If she was missing, then maybe we could provide a time and place where she was seen alive and well. But she’s dead and try as I do, I can’t think of anything I observed that night that would help any investigators.”
The door to the Den of Calories opens and Astrid comes inside. “You two are here early!”
She seems chirpier than Sophie would have expected. “How are you?” Sophie asks. “Are you holding up okay?”
“I—I think so.” Astrid nods rather hesitantly, but she nods. “I just hope everything will blow over soon.”
“Good attitude,” says Jonathan. “Everythingwillblow over soon.”
For Astrid, maybe. For herself, Sophie senses only impending doom.
When Hazel arrives for her shift early in the afternoon, Astrid waves at her from the picnic table under a sprawling live oak. A dappled ray of sunlight falls on Astrid and picks out the red streaks in her hair.
Hazel smiles as she approaches. “Taking your break?”
“Taking advantage of climate change before it roasts us alive next summer.”
Fall and winter were always the best seasons in Austin, as spring is liable to bring sudden hailstorms and summer, which sometimes lasts for what feels like half the year, turns the whole region into an oven. But in recent years winter too has become thorny—Nainai lost both water and power for days during the Snowpocalypse. And persistently balmy days in November, however enjoyable, are a worrisome anomaly.
Hazel sits down opposite Astrid. “How are you?”
“I’m—” Astrid stops. “Oh, I spoke in my fake accent again, didn’t I?” She plunges her fingers into her hair. “This morning when I got here, I wondered if I could start speaking normally. But then Sophie and Jonathan were there and without thinking I just did what I always do.”
With her smooth, round face and large, wide-open eyes, she looks so young, like a high school student. And she wants so much to do the right thing. Hazel, not terribly maternal by nature, feels a surge of protectiveness toward her new friend.
“Power of habit,” she says. “You can’t eat an elephant in one day.”
Astrid giggles. “That’s—”
She leaps to her feet, all mirth gone from her face. “That’s a cop car.”
Hazel scans the parking lot but doesn’t see any vehicle with a telltale light bar. Then her gaze lands on a blue sedan with a reinforced front bumper. A man and a woman emerge from the vehicle, but they are not the same pair of detectives who came to the library the day before.
“I hope they didn’t send meaner cops this time,” mumbles Astrid.
The plainclothes officers disappear into the library. But by the time Hazel and Astrid enter, they are nowhere to be seen.
Jonathan waves them over and whispers, “I think they’re here about Jeannette Obermann.”
“Oh, God!” Astrid sounds choked. “I hope they don’t think I have anything to do with her.”
