Page 11 of The Lonely Hearts Book Club

“Did you see Mr. McLachlan come in today? Or at all this week?” I asked, refusing to take the bill. If I was going to eat an entire pity cake, I’d buy it with my own money. I did have some standards. “I was busy with that virtual author meet and greet this morning and didn’t notice. And I was doing the new software training every day before that, so I wouldn’t have noticed if he was here or not.”

“Huh.” Octavia stopped and dropped her hand, her rustling coming to an abrupt end. The curve of her bright fuchsia smile flattened. She almost always offset her rich, dark skin with lipsticks that I wouldn’t even dare to look at, let alone buy. “Now that you mention it, I haven’t seen him for several days. That’s odd.”

“I hope this isn’t about our confrontation,” I said, once again glancing around the library to see if I missed anything. An abandoned jacket thrown over a chair, for example, or a cane lying mysteriously in a corner. I’d been on a cozy-mystery kick lately, so I knew better than anyone what had to have happened when a cane was found abandoned. That was an undeniable murder clue. “Do you think I hurt his feelings? Did I scare him away for good?”

From the way Octavia’s lips quivered, it was obvious that Mateo had given her the full rundown on our battle—and that popular opinion said I wasn’t the one who’d emerged victorious.

“Let’s not jump to conclusions, shall we?” she suggested. “He probably took a few days off to go shopping or went on vacation. I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”

I shook my head, unable to accept these excuses. Arthur McLachlan wore the same elbow-patched jacket every day, regardless of the weather, and his shoes always bore the fresh polish of a man who intended to make them last for decades. Shopping was the last thing he spent his time on. And as for vacation…well. All I had was a gut feeling, but that gut feeling said Arthur wasn’t a man who enjoyed sunshine and tropical drinks on the sand.

“Sloane, no. I absolutely forbid it.”

I blinked, startled to find Octavia glaring at me with the full force of her thirty years of library experience—and with a few more years of life experience thrown in for good measure.

“What are you talking about? I didn’t say anything.”

“It’s against library policy. It’s againstmypolicy. Go buy us a cake and then get to work setting up the ornithology display.” She shoved the bill into my front pocket. “I’ll even let you pick which books to face out.”

This was a much bigger concession than it sounded like. Choosing which books to put title-side-out was a treat she didn’t extend very often. Not to me, anyway.

“But I wasn’t going to do anything,” I protested.

“Get me an iced latte with the change, please,” she said by way of answer. She glanced over her shoulder and added, “Extra ice.”

As she walked away, the crinkle of her shirt and the swish of her nylons trailing off into the distance, I realized she was right. Iwasgoing to say something, and Iwasgoing to do something, and no number of iced lattes was going to stop me.

Waiting only until her attention was distracted by someone’s screeched warning that the bathroom was flooding—again—I dashed behind the checkout counter and logged into the nearest computer. I didn’t need her to remind me of the rules and regulations or to point out that some lines weren’t meant to be crossed.

Of all the lines Octavia had drawn—and there were quite a few—patron privacy was the one she’d put down in permanent ink. Especially when it came to a man like Arthur McLachlan, who eschewed every offer of help and turned up his nose at every smile. According to her, libraries were the final bastions of the civilized world, the one place left in society where you could spend time but not money. People came here to learn, yes, but they also came to hide. Our job was to let them.

What she didn’t realize, however, was that the ritual Arthur and I had begun over two months ago had been forged in steel and carried out like a genuine military campaign. Ever since our first clash, Arthur had never failed to appear at his usual time, ready for battle. For him to miss not justoneday but several…

I remembered, then. The phlegmy cough I hadn’t quite trusted. The shuffle in his step. That new and different look on his face—that look of terrible, bleak nothing.

I knew that nothing. I’dfeltthat nothing. On particularly rough days, birthdays and anniversaries, those cold mornings when I awoke from Emily-fueled dreams to find my sister just as gone as always, that nothing came back all over again.

IknewI should leave Arthur alone. I feltsurethere was a perfectly good explanation for his absence.

His address popped up on the screen before I could second-guess myself.

“I’m only going to peek in on him,” I said aloud as I jotted the address down on a slip of paper. “Just to make sure he’s all right. What Octavia doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”

“Oh yes, it will. And it’ll hurt you a heck of a lot more.”

I turned to find Octavia standing with a plunger in her hand and a look of stern foreboding on her face. How she snuck up on me, when every step she took was like the warning rattle of a snake, was beyond me.

Thrusting the plunger at me, she gave a single curt nod. “That’s it. No chocolate cake for you. Sloane, youknowthe rules.”

I gulped as I accepted the plunger. “Yes, but—”

“Yes but nothing. For once in your life, please keep your focus—and your emotion—where it belongs. Both stalls are in need of your attention, which is more than I can say for a man who won’t appreciate you barging into his private home on a whim.”

“You want me to save my emotions for a plugged toilet?”

She didn’t find this amusing, but her expression wasn’t unkind. If anything it wastookind.I understand you, that expression said.I know all your weaknesses, and that’s no mean feat given how many of them there are.

“Considering the state of the bathroom when I left it, yes,” she said and gestured for me to go. “Both you—and the plumbing—need the workout.”