Page 109 of Wicked Me
“I wish I was.” It was a sad, sad day when I stumbled upon spoilers, and it made me feel stabby.
“Well, they should be stopped.” She hiked a shoulder and tried to hide her smile with one of her scarves. “It’s a good thing I’m a writer because that belongs in a book. The story practically writes itself.”
“Maybe they’ll meet an unfortunate demise in your next one. With a bear.”
“And the heroes can drink blood from their skulls.”
Well, that escalated quickly. I grinned, beyond thrilled that I was brainstorming Lisa Montgomery’s next book with her. Bears. Skulls. Disposing dead bodies. I would ride in the trunk of a car for her and describe the experience if it meant I could help.
She checked her watch and frowned. “Paige, I wish I could stay and talk book ideas with you because you are an absolute delight, but I have to get going.” She stood and offered her hand once again. “It was a pleasure meeting you. Email me again. Please.”
Her assistants, who had been waiting in the background, whirled her away. I stood there for several moments while replaying our short conversation and clutching her book to my chest, and it hit me—this was what a dream job felt like. I was doing exactly what I was meant to do, and it wasn’t anywhere near the Library of Congress.
It was here in Wichita, Kansas, only four miles away from Sophia who, at the tender age of six and a half, had inhaled the entireMagic Tree Houseseries. She’d called in near hysterics when she’d finished the latest one, and I’d rushed right over to guide her through what would likely be the first of many book hangovers. If there was ever any doubt that she was my daughter... Well, there wasn’t any.
Her adoptive parents had welcomed me into their hearts and home with as much fervor I imagined them welcoming her. In fact, they lovingly called us Thing 1 and Thing 2. We even had shirts made with our nicknames printed on them while we stood waiting at the store’s counter, swinging our clasped hands between us.
I didn’t think I could love her any more than I did when I carried her for nine months, but wow, I was wrong. I’d been wrong about a great many things.
“Hey,” a voice from behind said.
I turned and found Kay in the otherwise empty meeting room. Most of the lights had been turned off, and several part-time clerks shuffled past the open door bundled in their coats and gloves.
Kay’s normally mischief-filled blue eyes narrowed. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I said, my voice a little too breathy. The passing of time did funny things to me lately, especially after the sun set and it was time to go home. Because I didn’t want to. My one-bedroom apartment was a cold, empty, and dark place even with the little reading nook I’d built for myself in the dining room. So I stayed here as long as I could, stalling the inevitable, because six weeks of warmth and laughter and love in a certain D.C. house had ruined my sense of home.
“Lucky for you, I don’t believe you,” Kay said.
I sighed. “How is that lucky for me?”
“You’ll see.” She winked, Kay-style, by bringing her thumb and index finger in front of her eyes, tapping them together, and blinking really fast. The lady couldn’t wink to save her life. She headed for the double doors and wriggled her fingers over her shoulder. “Toodle-oo. Text me tomorrow, okay?”
“Not tonight?” I called after her. We always texted at night. It helped pass the time until I fell asleep in my apartment and then got out of there as quickly as I could the next morning.
But Kay didn’t answer. Maybe she had a hot date she didn’t tell me about. On a Tuesday.
Shaking my head, I strolled to the employee offices near the back of the library, turning out more lights as I went and waving to stragglers on their way out into the blustery January night. One of my favorite things to do when I procrastinated going home was shelving the checked-in books and then innocently blaming the library elves the next morning. It really didn’t take much to entertain myself.
I left on enough lights to read the spine labels without squinting and then wheeled the cart down the appropriate aisles. The wheels occasionally squeaked, but it was a soft, consoling noise that drifted into the background of my whirring mind. This was the part of the day when I allowed myself to think about Sam, his shocking blue eyes that stuttered my heart, the timbre in his voice that curled my toes. Just thinking his name stormed a rush of emotions through me that tied a conflicted knot at the back of my throat. I missed him something crazy, but I never called the jail again to tell him so because of his blunt request that I didn’t. Even after I’d learned his side of the story.
The media circus surrounding his family had been terrible to witness, and while I wanted to know about it and didn’t at the same time, Charlotte and Nicole spilled any details I might have missed since they were still at ground zero of Sex Scandal USA. I couldn’t imagine being in that kind of spotlight. Riley’s charge of campaign finance fraud spun my head in too many directions to fathom, but when Sam was cleared of the major charges against him, guilt had swamped me.
Sure, he could have absolutely told me everything from the start, but my reaction when the police showed up at the LOC could explain why he didn’t want to talk to me. All of it made me feel like I might as well have committed the murders and dealt those drugs myself. How could I have thought he would willingly do something so awful? Of course he would sacrifice his future to protect his sister. When that man loved, he did it with his whole heart, after all. I should have seen that from the beginning, but I’d been forced to confront all of this madhat information at the LOC and I didn’t have time to process.
Plus, I’d been blinded by my past. Rick had turned out to be married after I thought I’d fallen for him and turned cold and hard before he left me. He’d turned into a stranger, and his betrayal of my trust had skipped over the lake of the rest of my life, each bounce widening the circles of that poisonous stone until they were all-consuming. But Sam wasn’t Rick. I’d known that for a while.
Now, several senators, representatives, and upper-political types were under investigation, including Rick, and I could have given the police much more information about our pasts. I didn’t, though, because karma could be a real bitch sometimes.
I did come clean to my parents about who Sophia’s dad was, about how much it hurt to hear Dad call me wicked, and they received all of this as expected. Silence for days, not even a funny cat video link to YouTube, until Dad called about a week after I told them and asked me to go for a walk with them. It was awkward—I’m not going to lie—but weather permitting, we’d gone on walks ever since.
Now as I rounded the corner into the romance section, I had so many things to be proud of, to be happy about, but I couldn’t stop the constriction around my heart. I’d assumed the worst about Sam because I’d been backed into a corner. Could he ever forgive me for that? More importantly, could I forgive him for not even wanting to talk to me about any of this?
The library’s heating unit shut off with a soft click, blanketing complete quiet over the building. I stuck a book in the correct slot, but movement out of the corner of my eye froze my hands against its spine. Something dangled farther up the aisle from the shelves, swaying back and forth like a pendulum, but without any circulating air, it soon stopped.
In the dim light, it looked like something on a chain but I couldn’t make it out. I stepped closer, my cart forgotten, until my lungs clenched and heaved. It was the necklace I’d made Sam all those years ago, the ugly, symbolic dreamcatcher crafted from zero jewelry-making talent. It was stuffed between two Lisa Montgomery books.
A nervous flutter slammed my heart into a triple beat. Why was it here? I rested the pendant against my palm and pulled, slowly, in case things got weirder and it was attached to a bomb or something. The end of the chain popped free from between the books, and with it, a cascade of bookmarks fluttered to the ground.
