Page 13 of The Lonely Hearts Book Club

The road we pulled onto was paved, but just barely, several deeply rutted pits indicating that no one with any influence in local government had lived here in quite some time. A few yards boasted colorful flower beds, but just as many were covered with the nodding heads of blowsy dandelions.

“See, Sloane?” Brett pulled his car, a Tesla so quiet that a kitten purred louder than it did, to a halt in front of the house. “Everything looks fine.”

“What are you doing?” Even though the windows were tinted and dusk had started to fall, I ducked my head so that no passerby would be able to identify me. I wasn’t sure if it was Octavia’s wrath or Arthur’s I feared more, but the quake was in my heart either way. “You can’t stop directly in front of the house you’re staking out. Haven’t you readanyspy books?”

Brett chuckled but didn’t move the car. “There’s nothing illegal about parking on a city street. We have every right to be here.”

That may have been true according to the laws of north Idaho, but it didn’t make me feel any better about being caught idling in the street. I didn’t argue with him, however. One thing all librarians excelled at was time management. Getting Brett to accept that there weresomeplaces it was better not to be the center of attention would take more time than I had to give.

From my crouched vantage point, I couldn’t make out as many of the details as I’d have liked, but the lights appeared to be on inside the clapboard house, and I could see a shadow of someone moving around inside.

“Happy now?” Brett asked. “You can’t ask for better proof of life than that.”

He was right. Light and movement and what sounded an awful lot like Doris Day emanating from the front room were all signs that Arthur McLachlan was inside, living his best life. In fact, it was one of the most welcoming houses on the whole block, which was what really alarmed me. Nothing about that man had ever been welcoming before.

The Body Snatchers. The Stepford Wives. The Host.

I’d read the books. I knew what was happening. Body hijacking was a real problem in the literary world.

“Something’s not right,” I said, reaching for my seat belt. “I’m going in.”

“Sloane, don’t—” Brett began, but there was no chance for him to finish. No sooner had I gotten myself unbuckled than a loud knock on my window scared a scream out of me.

I twisted to find myself facing a strange woman wearing a smile so wide it practically touched her ears on either side. It wasn’t an unattractive smile—and she wasn’t an unattractive woman—but something about the way she gestured for me to roll down the window put me on my guard.

“Hey-ho!” she called as soon as I cracked the window. “Are you lost?”

“Lost?” I echoed.

“Oh, are you an Uber? I’m sorry. It’s just that we don’t get many cars like this on our street.”

Something about the woman’s overt friendliness caused me to relax my guard. Well, that and the fact that Brett was seated next to me. He was neither as large nor as intimidating as the man from the elevator, but I trusted him to keep me safe.

“It’s a Tesla,” he informed her unnecessarily. “Model S.”

I took another moment to breathe deeply and examine the woman. She was older than I’d first thought, with a good fifteen or twenty years on me, but it was obvious she’d rather not draw attention to that fact. Her too-blond-to-be-real hair was piled in a messy bun on top of her head, her body swathed from head to toe in expensive athletic gear that didn’t look as though it had been put to use anytime recently.

“My ex is always talking about getting one of these, but I doubt he’ll pull the trigger. Metaphorically, I mean. He doesn’t actually shoot people.” She took her lower lip between her teeth. Laughing nervously, she added, “Well, he did that one time, but it was an accident. He was playing a bachelor party.”

Both Brett and I blinked bewilderedly at the woman, but she didn’t seem to notice. Thrusting her head further into the car, she swept the interior with an appraiser’s eye.

“So does this mean you aren’t Uber?”

“No, we’re not,” I said, fighting the urge to cast Brett an accusing glance.Thiswas why you didn’t park directly in front of the house you were staking. For a man with all the answers, Brett was sometimes wholly lacking in questions.

“Oh! Then you must be friends of Arthur’s.” Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “The poor lamb. You should have seen how many ambulances they had out for him. Three. Well, two and a fire truck. They had to restrain him to get him on the stretcher, and the racket he made while they did… Hoo boy. You never heard anything like it. Have you come to check on him?”

“Yes,” I said, just as Brett set his jaw with a firm “No.”

The playful tones of Doris Day were suddenly masked by a loud and angry male shout. All three of us turned toward the house. A crash and a thump were followed almost immediately by the shattering of glass.

Not even Brett could sit still after that. His chivalry was of the order that waited until it wascertainof disaster before he swooped in. Once it kicked in, however, he was a force to be reckoned with. One time, I watched him plunge into a freezing-cold river to save a teenager floating helplessly by. He could have avoided a lot of trouble if he’d allowed me to call for help the second I’d spotted that speck bobbing along the rapid current, but he hadn’t wanted to intrude on what might have been a pleasure cruise down the Spokane River in February.

The newspapers had heralded him as a local hero for months after that. Witnesses called it a superhuman feat. The teen’s family found it nothing short of a miracle.

No one had asked me for a quote.

Switching off the car, Brett prepared to leap to the rescue. He’d have been halfway across the street, too, only the woman called out to stop him before he got the door open. “No. Wait. I wouldn’t just yet.”