by Penny Plume
Nothing.
He carefully turned another page, then another.
No scrawled notes or folded, hidden messages. It was just the most boring book in the world.
“Does this mean anything to you?” Olson said.
Jenna shook her head. “Only confusion. I mean, giving me the Jeep is super nice—super nice—then he throws the book in as, what, a joke? Is he trying to prove something? I don’t…oh, look.”
She pointed to the copyright page, typeset in a lovely font that had slightly bulbous ends to its serif letters.
“I see words,” Olson said. “Some numbers.”
“The author,” Jenna said. “Hollis Kavanaugh. That was Harrison’s grandfather, one of the founders of Lost Haven.”
“And the other place, right?” Cabo asked. “The first town, uh, Sanctuary.”
“Well…”
“Okay,” Olson said, “mildly interesting, but is it significant?”
Jenna tried to find a good answer. “If it is, I don’t see how. I think he’s just being rude. Rubbing my face in the fact that his family maybe wasn’t so bad? His grandfather was a published author?”
Olson continued to flip through the book. The dense copy filled the pages, no white space or even chapter breaks, from what she could see. It looked more like a manifesto than a treatise.
“I don’t know,” Cabo said. “Writing that note was probably one of the last things he did, if not the last. I’ve seen Mr. Kavanaugh’s penmanship, and that’s definitely his writing on the pad, but it looks rushed to me. Not quite even with the lines, which would drive him crazy. He’d tear it up and start over.”
“So he was in a hurry,” Jenna said.
“I’m wondering: Did he know somebody was coming for him?”
Jenna eyed the book again. “You think this is a clue?”
“All I’m saying is, if he knew he was in danger, I don’t think his final act would be to give you a Jeep and troll you with a book. Something else is going on here.”
Olson turned another page. “Somebody might actually have to read this beast to know for sure.”
“Oh, I’ll read it,” Jenna said. “That’s a given. If anything jumps out, I’ll let you know, but it might take a while.”
Olson grimaced at the book. “I’d say about ten years. But hey, at least you’ll have the Jeep to wake you up between sentences.”
“Mm-hm,” Jenna said. She turned to the bookshelf and scanned the other spines, looking for more volumes penned by Kavanaughs or titles that might help make sense of the odd gift.
Wood Pulp and its Many Uses
The Joy of Bandsaw Repair
Maybe the treatise wasn’t the most boring book in the world…
Then she saw it.
“Detective Olson, can you pull a few more books out, please?”
He grinned. “Jenna, you got this page-turner, let’s not get greedy.”
“I think…these four.” She pointed to the two books on either side of the gap where A Treatise had been.
Cabo peered at the titles. “I don’t get it. These seem, ah, worse.”
Jenna stepped back so Olson could slide the books out. He set them carefully on the chair, two stacks of two. He and Cabo stared at them.
“Okay,” Olson said. “What about them?”
But Jenna wasn’t looking at the books. She was looking at the back of the bookshelf, directly behind where A Treatise on Fair Negotiations in the Lumber Industry had been.
There, flush with the dark wood and painted to match the grain perfectly, was a round lock plate. In the center: a keyhole.
All three of them were frozen, staring at the hidden lock. Olson wasn’t even chewing his gum anymore. Jenna wanted to hop up and down a few times, but it felt like a serious moment. And, of course: the corpse in the room.
After a few moments Olson cleared his throat and asked Cabo, “Have you seen that before?”
“Nope.”
Olson put his gloved hands out, holding the room still. “Okay. Nobody touch anything. I’m going to look for a key, and I don’t want your fingerprints getting all over the place. More than they already have, because this is a library.”
He scanned the room, taking in all the nooks, crannies, and endless pages that could easily hide a key.
“Dang it. This is gonna take forever.”
“Maybe not,” Jenna said. She pulled the Jeep’s floating fob out of her pocket and examined the smaller key. It hadn’t fit the glove compartment, and now, Jenna saw, it had been carefully painted to make it look new.
She scraped with a thumbnail and the paint flaked away like a scratch-off ticket. The metal beneath was smooth, worn brass with a green patina to it. She used the Jeep’s key to pick out the last of the paint, then held the small key up.
“Kavanaugh gives me the Jeep to use with this on the keyring. Then he writes a note giving me the book concealing that lock, which this key must be for. I think it’s safe to say he wanted me to open it.”
“I’d say so,” Olson said. “Just…wear gloves. Please?”
Freshly gloved, Jenna stood in front of the empty shelf. One by one she slid the books out and handed them to Olson, who flipped and stacked them on the floor so they’d be in the same sequence when looking at the spines.
When the row was empty Jenna brushed the back of the shelf with her fingertips, searching for a seam or hinge that indicated the border of the hidden panel. There was nothing. As far as secret compartments went, the craftsmanship was superb.
Jenna lifted the key and checked with Olson. “Okay?”
“Hold on.” He pulled out his phone and took a few pictures of the shelf, the books, the lock, the key.
“Okay.”
Jenna slid the key in. It rolled over well-oiled pins and tumblers until it was fully seated, the engineering so finely tuned it gave Jenna the sensation that the key was returning home.
“Hold on,” Cabo said.
Jenna and Olson both looked at him.
“We assume this is for a secret compartment, but what if Kavanaugh has some sort of self-destruct mechanism in this place?”
Jenna and Olson glanced at each other, barely hiding their concern for Cabo’s sanity.
“Hey, you two weren’t around him twenty-four-seven like I was. The past few days, when nobody else was around, I saw some serious paranoia and…and furtiveness.”
“Furtiveness?” Olson said.
Cabo nodded gravely.
Olson turned to the shelves. “Anybody see a dictionary in here?”
“It means he was being shifty,” Jenna said.
“Ah. Shifty I know.”
“Or no,” Cabo said, “an escape pod, in case of nuclear war, or climate change. Oh man, what if you turn the key and this whole room just launches up into orbit?”
“Space library,” Jenna mused. “I like it.”
She turned the key.
Jenna pulled lightly on the key to open the hidden panel. It didn’t move.
But the entire bookshelf did.
It swung away from the wall on silent hinges, ghosting a hair above the carpet so it wouldn’t leave any marks. Jenna stepped back, her mouth open.
Was she dreaming?
Because this…this was too good to be true.
It was a secret library.
Small, certainly—she could probably touch every wall at the same time—but the walls were paneled in dark, rich wood and lined with shelves above a small reading desk with a blotter and lamp. The chair was functional and well-used, angled toward the opening, ready for her.
The bookshelves were orderly, even with the bundles of yellowed paper in protective plastic sheaths nestled between some of the books. These looked like unfinished, unpublished manuscripts, perhaps journals.
Jenna leaned closer to examine the spines.
“Don’t touch anything,” Olson whispered from behind her. “Don’t even step in there, please.”
She didn’t know why he was whi
spering, but it seemed right. This was a reverent moment.
She saw:
The Minks: A Family of Pelts and Scandal
The Shipwrecks of Sanctuary
Her breath caught.
These books were about Lost Haven!
The people, the stories, the history.
She finally found the air to speak.
“You guys, these books, they—”
Then her eyes drifted down to the blotter. The large sheet of paper there was held in place by dark, smooth stones at the four corners. A light dusting of fine sand covered the blotter around the sheet, and she saw small piles of the grit pushed toward the edges of the desk. Even more sand lurked beneath the chair.
Jenna cocked her head to read the sheet without stepping into the hidden room. The paper was ancient, flaked at the edges and rippled with water stains. A perfectly round hole with a charred rim showed where a careless spark or ember had landed. The ink might have been dark at one time, but now it was a series of faint tan lines that vanished altogether in some spots.
The shapes were slightly familiar…
Jenna leaned so far into the room she started to tip, then fall. She reached out to catch herself on something that wasn’t a priceless, delicate piece of paper or book and saw no options.
The chair would tip.
The paper would tear.
The secrets would—
A hand caught her flailing arm from behind. Eyes wide, she looked over her shoulder and saw Cabo holding her wrist in both of his huge hands, keeping her from falling. He wasn’t straining. In fact, it looked like he barely noticed the effort, like holding onto a helium ballon’s string.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Mildly embarrassed,” Jenna said. “I don’t usually do the whole book trance thing around other people. Can you, uh…”
“Right, sorry.” He pulled her upright, patted her sleeve flat, then didn’t seem to know what to do. “There you go.”
“Thanks.”
Olson watched them, grinning and chewing his gum.
“What?” Jenna said.
“Nothing. Just a semi-observant detective, observing.” He looked past her. “So this was Kavanaugh’s, what, hidden office?”
“No, library,” Jenna said. She turned to the desk and studied the sheet of paper again, one hand on the outer shelf to prevent another near-topple.
The faint lines, the shapes…
“Oh.”
“What?” Olson said.
“Oh, no.”
Cabo leaned next to her. “Bad?”
“Guys,” Jenna said, “this is a map. This is Sanctuary.”
“Sanctuary is real?” Cabo asked.
Jenna just shook her head. “I…maybe? If not, why would there be a map?”
“Just so I’m up to speed,” Olson said, “Sanctuary is what, exactly?”
Jenna started to talk but Cabo beat her to it.
“It’s the original town here, before Lost Haven. The Kavanaughs and other founding families stripped all the trees to sell the lumber, and the sand dunes crept closer and closer until they buried everything. Then the founders built Lost Haven on top of it like nothing ever happened. That’s the legend, anyway. It’s supposed to be an urban myth. Well, rural myth.”
Impressed, Jenna said, “Exactly.”
Olson pointed at the map. “You’re sure it’s genuine?”
“Not at all,” Jenna said. “But it certainly looks like it. The age of the paper at first glance, the shape of the land and harbor, the names of the buildings.”
She leaned into the hidden room again and squinted at the faded, cursive text.
“See, First Bank of Sanctuary. Gallagher’s. Shoreline Gaming House. These are all businesses mentioned in the history of Lost Haven, but it was never clear where they were. Maybe that’s because they got buried.”
“So why keep this in a secret room?” Cabo asked. “This sort of proof would bring the tourists in droves.”
“I have no idea,” Jenna said. She studied the desk and shelves above. Maybe the books and yellowed, loose papers had more information about why they all needed to be kept behind a hidden door. Her fingers wiggled at the thought of—
“Don’t do it, Jenna,” Olson said. “The crime scene techs are on the way. Once they process everything, you can go crazy. Until then, no touching.”
“Can I take a picture of the map?” she asked.
Olson squinted, considering the legal implications. “What are you going to do with it?”
“Just…look at it.”
“Not sell it to the local newspaper, or, uh, whichever internet site would want it?”
Jenna frowned. The thought hadn’t occurred to her. “Nope. Just look.”
“Okay by me,” Olson said. “But no pics of the dead body.”
“That’s not a problem.”
Olson nodded. “I think I’ll take a few myself, just for…what was it you said before? Posterity?”
Jenna gave a surprised smile. “That’s right.”
“Huh. I always thought that meant somebody’s butt.” Olson chewed his gum and held his phone over the desk, took a few photos, then captured the whole secret library with a short video.
Jenna did the same, but was much more deliberate about her map photos. She leaned as far as she could into the room and maneuvered her phone until the map was the only thing on the screen, or close to it, and took a dozen shots. Then she held the phone even closer and took photos of each quadrant of the map, images that provided finer detail and could be electronically stitched together later.
As she took the photos and saw how Sanctuary might fit into the current layout of Lost Haven, she thought: If this is genuine, it changes everything.
Olson said, “Okay, you two need to scoot. The crime scene crew will blow a gasket if we’re all just milling around when they show up—they hate that. But I need you to leave the key to the secret library here. I also can’t believe I just said that.”
“I can keep the Jeep key?” Jenna asked.
“Yeah, for now. But if the investigation expands to include that as evidence, I’ll let you know.”
Jenna worked the small key off the ring and offered it to Olson, who pointed at the desk beneath the window.
“It’s totally worthless for fingerprints by now, but no reason to make it worse.”
Jenna set the key near the lamp and edged toward the door without turning. She wanted to avoid seeing Kavanaugh’s body again. And the sooner she could get a better look at the map photos, the better.
Olson said, “I’ll call if you need to come back for anything. Cabo, I need those clothes for the crime scene crew.”
“Sure,” Cabo said. “Can I rinse the rest of the blood off?”
Olson looked at the smeared mess on his hands, wrists, and neck. There was a swipe of crusty blood above his right eye as well, where it looked like Cabo had wiped sweat off his brow.
“Hold on.” Olson took photos and video of all of it while Cabo stood, arms out, looking like he was being gently electrocuted. Then the detective pulled out a very official-looking plastic bag, filled with smaller bags, and inside those bags were small gauze pads. He used those to swab blood from different spots on Cabo’s skin and suit, labeling each small baggie with the sample’s location. He put all the samples back in the larger bag and pressed it shut.
“All set.”
Cabo let his arms fall. “I, ah, probably shouldn’t stay here any longer, right? Would that be tacky?”
Olson said, “Well, technically, the body you were guarding is slowly getting closer to room temperature, so I’d say your employment has ended. Unless Bart and Sherri want to keep you on.”
Cabo closed his eyes. “Man, I suck. Is there a Worst Bodyguard Ever contest?”
Jenna tugged his sleeve. “Come on. Let’s get your stuff, I’ll help you find a place to stay.”
“But don’t leave town,” Olson said. He was chewing his gum with that same gr
in he’d had earlier, when Cabo kept Jenna from falling into the secret library.
Jenna caught it. “What?”
“What?” Olson grinned.
“What’s that smile for?”
“Oh, you know. Just detecting.”
Jenna grabbed her stuff and cocked an eyebrow at him until she and Cabo were in the hallway, around the corner. Because whatever Olson was smirking about, with that dumb face of his, he was wrong.
Cabo’s room was off the first floor hallway, turning left from the grand foyer. As they walked down the hall Jenna had a brief moment of panic when she thought his room might be directly beneath the library—and the corpse—and Kavanaugh’s blood would be seeping through the ceiling to haunt Cabo even more.
But they kept going, all the way to the end, where Cabo opened a heavy wooden door onto a large bedroom complete with a fireplace and sitting area. The king-sized bed had four posts and a dark, velvet canopy that perfectly matched the thick rug beneath the sofa and chairs. A doorway along the left wall showed the edge of a granite countertop and part of an ornate mirror.
“Nice digs,” Jenna said.
“Yeah. Most other jobs, I’m crammed into a musty motel room with three other dudes or sleeping in a truck. This is the nicest room I’ve ever stayed in, for work or otherwise.”
They stood there for a moment, mourning the loss of the room, then Jenna said, “I’m going to talk to McTavish, see if he’s okay. Meet you at the bar?”
“Yeah, I guess. Jenna, what am I going to do?”
Jenna blinked. “Shower. Change clothes. Meet me at the bar.”
“No, I mean do. I’m a freaking bodyguard, and the guy who hired me just got killed in his own house. That doesn’t look good on a resume.”
“Well…can’t you just…leave it off?”
“No, this sort of stuff travels like wildfire through the community. I bet the message boards are already lighting up.”
“There’s a bodyguard community?” Jenna said.
“Of course there is. I’m just…I’m done. That’s it.”
“Wrong,” Jenna said. She lifted her phone. “Because I have pictures of the Sanctuary map, and the other papers on Kavanaugh’s secret desk in his secret library, and you’re going to help me figure out who killed him and Ingrid.”
