She took the folded-up piece of paper out of her pants pocket and reacquainted herself with its contents. Mr. Restarick, Third Girl, Agatha Christie.
When she’d been a kid, reading hadn’t been her thing. She’d preferred TV, movies, music—basically, every other medium—over reading. She’d finally grown to enjoy books, especially audiobooks, but when she wanted one now, she’d just buy it. Checking one out hadn’t even occurred to her and she had no idea where to begin her search. She felt a little overwhelmed by the enormity of bookshelves in front of her, and the computers meant to guide her in the right direction weren’t working. Where were those musty card catalogs she remembered leafing through all those years ago? She pulled out her phone and brought up the site for the Shell Creek Library.
“Of course, the website sucks.” It had advertisements for upcoming events and a coupon for ten dollars off a ticket to Six Flags that had expired four years ago. When she clicked on the search bar for “catalog,” a little man in a construction helmet appeared, holding a sign that said, “Come back soon, we’re working on it!”
With a deep sigh, she started making her way down the aisles. The classics section didn’t offer up anything of use. Juliet had just assumed that Agatha Christie would be located with the classics, but apparently not.
She continued to the mystery section, where the carpet in front of the shelves was well worn. Obviously, a popular area of the library, Juliet noted. She slid her fingertips over the book spines as she read the titles. Jackpot. She found And Then There Were None, and then realized there were about a zillion Agatha Christie books in this particular section.
Bang.
Juliet’s head snapped up. It wasn’t a loud bang, or a deliberate bang, just a soft thud of two things coming into contact with each other. She rested her hand on her weapon and listened closely for any other sound to interrupt the heavy silence. There was nothing.
Satisfied that it had been an anomaly, Juliet continued to look for Third Girl. Her knees creaked as she stood from the crouching position, where a good portion of the Christie books sat on the bottom shelf. As she began scanning the next set of shelves, she finally found what she’d been looking for, a plastic-encased copy of Third Girl by Agatha Christie.
Juliet pulled out her latex gloves and put them on, just to be on the safe side and then plucked the book off the shelf. Nothing in particular stood out about the cover, which was just a long shadow of a woman standing in a doorway. She flipped through the pages slowly to see if something had been stashed in the book. A note, a scrawl in the margins, anything. She checked the signature card in the front of the book, which she knew was no longer used, but it was still nice to see. Richard Kowalski had checked the book out in 1983. Juliet smiled to herself and ran her gloved finger along the depression that his name had made. It was still strange to be in this place, knowing that he wasn’t going to come around the corner with a book suggestion or a corny joke.
Juliet closed the book in disappointment. She’d been hopeful that something, anything, would have been stashed inside it. She pushed it back into its slot on the metal shelf and heard a soft “clink.” She pulled the book back out and took the one next to it as well.
A stout bottle of Woodford Reserve Rye, about three-quarters empty, was nestled in the empty slot behind the books.
“What have we here?” Her voice bounced off the tomes around her. She turned the bottle over a few times in her hands but there wasn’t anything interesting on the label. She slowly took the cap off the bottle and smelled its contents.
“He didn’t like anyone knowing that he drank sometimes.”
Juliet nearly threw the bottle into the air. She whipped around, hand on her holster again, and came face-to-face with Tara Wolfe.
“What are you doing here?” Juliet asked, unable to mask the anger in her voice. “I thought I made it clear that this place was off-limits. How did you get in here?” She noticed that Tara was wearing ballet slippers, which must have been why she hadn’t heard her approaching.
Tara nodded. “I saw your car in the parking lot. I just wanted to get a few more things from my office. Although I see that your crew or whoever it was went through my office. Thanks for that. My notebooks and my computer are missing.”
Juliet was furious. “No, Tara. You can’t just come and go as you please. I understand that you are an employee here, but that doesn’t give you the right to tamper with an active investigation. Is this what you wanted to take last time you were in here? Were you waiting for me to come in again, so you could follow me? What did you come for this time?”
“This.” She held up a decorative wooden compass with the library’s insignia engraved into the cover. “Rich gave me this a few months ago when I completed my course on library technology. It meant a lot.”
“And you couldn’t wait until we reopened the library to get it? Are you sure you didn’t come for this? After you told me who Mr. Restarick was?” Juliet asked, pointing to the bottle.
“No.”
“You are not to come in here again. You’ll be notified when the library reopens.”
Tara rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “I’m sure I will, Lieutenant Mitchell.” She nearly spat the last two words.
“If I see you in here, hear that you’ve been by, or get a gut feeling that you’re lurking around the parking lot, I’ll arrest you for obstruction of justice. Got it?” Juliet said, making sure Tara didn’t have any doubts about the seriousness of her orders.
“Fine.”
“What can you tell me about this situation?” Juliet tipped the bottle of rye toward Tara.
“He liked a little drink from time to time. His wife didn’t approve. She told him he might as well swig poison if he wanted to destroy his body. So, he didn’t tell her. Probably why he hid it where he did.”
“Did he drink often?”
Tara shrugged. “Not really. That same bottle has been back there for months. I completely forgot about it until just now.”
She’s lying. Her eyes were dodgy, and her demeanor changed. But why? “Did you ever drink with him?”
“No, it’s against policy to drink on the job.”
“But you had no problem with Rich doing it? Did you ever tell him to stop?” Juliet asked.
“Of course not, he was my boss. Besides, he needed a little bit of freedom from his wife, didn’t he? He was entitled to live his own life.”
Juliet ignored her indignation. “What if someone had a hankering for a little Agatha Christie? Wasn’t he afraid that someone would find his stash?”
“Since my computer is missing and we don’t have any electricity anyway, I can’t tell you the last time it was checked out. But based on memory, it’s probably been at least eight years. So, I’m pretty sure he felt like Third Girl was a safe option. If not a little on the nose,” Tara said.
Juliet detected a note of wistfulness in Tara’s recollection. “Okay. I’ll call you if we have any more questions, which we probably will, especially now. We can walk out together,” Juliet said, flashing a fake smile.
“Sounds like a dream.” Tara sent a phony smile of her own Juliet’s way.
When they were safely outside of the building, Juliet locked the door and gave it a tug for good measure. Tara gave Juliet the peace sign with her index finger pointed forward just enough that Juliet got the message. Well, fuck you too.
Chapter Sixteen
By the time Sienna had finished up with Chief Quinlan, it was after four o’clock. She’d updated him on everything that Gretchen had told her about her husband and their life together and who the major players were. She kept everything of a personal nature confidential, of course, but she relayed all of the pertinent facts to him as he’d requested. He’d seemed dejected by the end of their meeting.
“I’m heading over to the elementary school to see my granddaughter run cross-country. Most boring thing you can imagine, but someday she’ll appreciate me being there.” Quinlan smiled. “Ev
eryone else on duty is out and about, so I’ll lock up before we go.”
Sienna nodded, slipping her laptop into its bag while Quinlan selected the key he needed from his keyring of hundreds. She couldn’t help but wonder what person needed that many keys.
As they exited through the front entrance toward the parking lot, Sienna saw Juliet jogging toward them. Twice in one day. Really?
“Oh, hey, you’re back. I’ll leave you to lock up then,” Quinlan said, adjusting his sunglasses. “Hot as a bitch out here.”
“Sure thing, Chief.” Juliet nodded in Sienna’s direction without making eye contact. “Hi, Sienna.”
“Good afternoon, Lieutenant,” Sienna said. She knew she was being immature, but if Juliet wanted to be professional and detached from her, then she could do the same. She wasn’t going to beg Juliet to be her friend. Or whatever it was they were. Quinlan called a quick good-bye and walked briskly to his car.
Juliet stopped and looked at her. Sienna met her gaze and raised an eyebrow in question.
“Do you have a quick second, Sienna?”
Sienna checked her watch. “Yes, if it’s quick. The cable company is coming over tonight to install some sort of internet booster. Declan promises to pay for it himself.”
“With what money?”
Sienna shrugged. “That’s between Declan and Will.” She looked toward the sky, which was that dark shade of blue before a storm hit. The wind was starting to pick up, sending the few leaves that had fallen from the trees into a cinematic swirl.
Juliet opened the door and held it for Sienna. Sienna kept her bag on her shoulder and her files in her arms while Juliet leaned against one of the cubicle walls in the bullpen.
“Did you get any sense from Gretchen that Richard may have been having an affair?”
Sienna was completely taken aback. “No, none at all. Was he?”
Juliet shook her head. “I don’t think so, but Tara, his assistant at the library, was madly in love with him. She had all these ideas and plans for the two of them once he ‘finally realized’ that they were meant to be together.”
“That’s…a surprise. If anything was going on between the two of them, I don’t think Gretchen knew about it.” Sienna tried to remember anything that Gretchen had shared with her that would lead her to believe there was infidelity in their marriage. She couldn’t come up with anything.
“That’s what I thought. What about drinking? I found a bottle of whiskey hidden in one of the bookshelves. I dropped it off at the county lab before coming here so they could test the contents. Hopefully, we’ll get some DNA just to be certain it was his. Did Gretchen ever mention any kind of drinking problem?”
“Nothing at all like that. According to her, Richard was a saint. I take that with a grain of salt, of course, but usually there would be some sign of alcoholism or adultery in the amount of time I’ve spent with her.”
Juliet’s phone sounded an alarm. She plucked it from her back pocket and swiped up to see what the message was.
“Severe thunderstorm warning for our area. No surprise. With how sticky it is out there, something has to break the heat. Feels like a slow boil outside.”
Sienna frowned. She could see flashes of lightning in the distance. “I should probably get going before it gets too bad. Is that hail?” she asked, listening to the “plink, plink” of something hitting the glass.
Both of their phones began to scream in unison. Sienna dug hers out of her bag and her heart began to race. She unlocked her phone and the public service message appeared on-screen.
*AT 427 PM EDT…A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM CAPABLE OF PRODUCING A TORNADO WAS LOCATED 9 MILES WEST OF SHELL CREEK…MOVING EAST AT 40MPH.
HAZARD…TORNADO
SOURCE…RADAR INDICATED ROTATION
IMPACT…FLYING DEBRIS WILL BE DANGEROUS TO THOSE CAUGHT WITHOUT SHELTER, MOBILE HOMES WILL BE DAMAGED OR DESTROYED. DAMAGE TO ROOFS…WINDOWS…AND VEHICLES WILL OCCUR. TREE DAMAGE IS LIKELY.
TAKE COVER NOW. MOVE TO A BASEMENT OR INTERIOR ROOM ON THE LOWEST FLOOR OF A STURDY BUILDING. AVOID WINDOWS.
HEAVY RAINFALL MAY OBSCURE THIS TORNADO. DO NOT WAIT TO SEE OR HEAR THE TORNADO.
TAKE COVER NOW.
Sienna looked up at Juliet, panic setting in. “What do we do?”
“I don’t know,” Juliet said. “We don’t get tornadoes here. We’ve had a few watches over the years, but nothing has ever actually happened. I’m sure it’s a false alarm.”
Sienna stood still, afraid that any movement would set off a natural disaster.
Juliet walked to the entrance door and opened it a few inches. Her hair whipped across her face from the intensity of the gust.
Sienna crept up behind her, trying to see if there was any indication that a tornado was about to hit. The dark blue of the sky that she noticed as she’d walked out of the station had been replaced by greenish-yellow clouds, rotating in a slow circle. Lightning struck somewhere nearby and an explosion of thunder assaulted her ears.
“Okay, maybe it’s not a false alarm.” Juliet rubbed the back of her neck. “Shit, this is new. We should probably get down to the basement.”
“Where’s Declan?” Sienna’s anxiety nearly overwhelmed her.
“He’s at the school until six for some kind of sports assembly. They’ll get them to safety.” Juliet nodded confidently. She then turned to Sienna and said softly, “Right?”
“Right. Absolutely, they’re trained for this kind of thing,” Sienna said, swallowing hard. They had to be trained for that kind of thing in a school, right? “I should try to get home—”
“Are you insane? You can’t leave! What, are you going to outrun a tornado? Have you never seen Twister?” Juliet swirled her finger in the air.
“Well, where is the basement in this place? Does a police station even have a basement?” Sienna asked. The hail had cranked up a notch, hitting the building and the windows with golf ball-sized chunks of ice.
“Come on,” Juliet yelled over the din of the wind, grabbing Sienna’s hand. She pulled her toward the back of the station, where a wooden door with a skeleton key sticking out of it was situated next to a printer table with a mishmash of paper strewn around it. The police station was an old town landmark that had been updated in a lot of ways, but still had the same bones from the late 1800s when it was originally built. Juliet pulled hard, fighting to release the swollen wood. “Okay, go.”
Sienna brushed past Juliet, who put her hand on the small of Sienna’s back, ushering her down the stairs. She turned to see Juliet closing the door tightly behind them, pulling hard on the knob so that the door would stay shut. She nearly tumbled down the stairs when the door finally clicked into place.
Juliet stared down at her hand and the doorknob sitting in her palm. “Fuck,” Juliet muttered.
“Juliet, come on,” Sienna yelled. The howling wind above them had begun to intensify, and a distant growling grew louder by the second.
Juliet moved out in front of her, fumbling for Sienna’s fingers as she descended the rest of the stairs. Sienna latched on and followed Juliet into a dark corner of the basement.
“Under here,” Juliet instructed, pointing below a tool bench bolted into the stone wall of the basement. She snatched some tablecloths that would have to act as pillows from the shelf beside the tool bench, and she crawled into the small space next to Sienna.
Sienna breathed deeply, trying to avoid having a panic attack. She felt chills crawl up the side of her face, and the pit in her stomach grow larger.
“We’re okay,” Juliet said soothingly, pushing a piece of Sienna’s hair behind her ear. “Declan is with his coaches and about a hundred other kids, so he’ll be fine, too. Will is probably at the office, which I’m sure has all kinds of safe spaces. We’re all okay.”
Sienna nodded, blinking back tears. She knew Juliet was trying to relax herself as well as Sienna, so Sienna held on to Juliet’s hand with ferocity. There was no way she was letting go.
�
�I thought Massachusetts was supposed to be safe from these things,” Sienna said. “We had hurricanes in Florida, but at least you had time to prepare for those. I expected blizzards, not fucking tornadoes!”
Juliet covered her mouth with her hand. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you swear. I’m offended.”
“Oh, shut up, Juliet,” Sienna said. She gave her a half-smile, but she realized that her air intake was shallow at best.
Juliet smiled back at her and squeezed her hand.
The air outside grew quiet. Still. It had gone from the pounding of hail and the whistling of the wind to near total silence. Juliet looked slightly relieved, but Sienna knew this was probably a bad sign. A very bad sign. Her limited knowledge of weather included the fact that the atmosphere was at its most tranquil before unleashing a raging tempest. But maybe she was remembering wrong. Hopefully.
She wasn’t remembering wrong.
Juliet clutched her ears as Sienna’s popped painfully from the shifting barometric pressure. They slid closer to each other and Sienna rested her head on Juliet’s chest, her arms circling her waist in a tight grip. Juliet adjusted her position and held onto Sienna just as tightly, burying her face in Sienna’s hair. Had she not been fearful of losing her life, Sienna probably would have appreciated the moment a little differently. For the time being, she was grateful that Juliet was there with her in what could very possibly be the end of everything.
Chapter Seventeen
While she didn’t really believe they were going to die, Juliet shot off a few silent prayers to whoever might be listening. It was all very surreal; these kinds of natural disasters simply didn’t happen in Shell Creek. The fact that she was crouched under a tool bench with Sienna Bennett, wrapped in her arms like they shared the same heartbeat, only added to that feeling of unreality.
The roaring outside became deafening. She’d heard that the sound of a tornado closely resembled that of an oncoming freight train, and she could now confirm that rumor to be true. It was somewhere between a freight train and a jet engine flying way too low.
Heart of the Storm Page 10
