“All right,” she said. “When?”
“Tomorrow night. Days are boring.”
8
THE SILENCE IN the library was oddly expectant, different from the relieved quiet that settled after closing. Not even Cody’s presence changed that. Phone in hand, Alana shrugged purse, tote, and plastic take-out bag from the Heirloom onto her desk while Cody removed the wooden drop box and quickly sorted the books onto the cart. In an unspoken agreement, Cody took the Styrofoam box containing his breakfast and headed down the stairs to sort books in the basement. He paused in the doorway, box in hand, and said, “Thank you.”
The quiet words, buttressed by pride and offered with humility, diverted her attention from the list of links for reception sites she’d compiled in an e-mail. “You’re welcome,” she said.
The tips of his ears turned a dull red. “The little kids aren’t so little anymore. They eat more than they used to, but Mom’s hours were cut at the plant. Colt’s home, but he hasn’t found a job yet.”
Her throat tightened. “I’m sorry,” she said inadequately.
He shook his head. “We’ll figure something out,” he said. “We always do.”
She found when she lifted the lid from her oatmeal that she’d lost her appetite. In the hopes that if she distracted herself she’d regain her appetite, she dropped the last link into the e-mail on her iPhone and clicked Send, then shrugged out of her jacket. Freddie had asked for recommendations for movers to get her furniture and clothes moved to Toby’s flat in London.
Intending to hand off her phone to Cody, she followed the narrow staircase to the basement. In the small room the books were now sorted into various stacks: Give Away, Sell. The unsorted stack shrank nicely every day Cody worked. “Here you go,” she said, and offered Cody the phone.
“Thanks,” he said.
“What are these?” she asked as she shifted a stack at the back of the table so she could read the spines.
“Ones to sell,” he said without looking up from the phone.
His voice was too noncommittal. As if he didn’t care that she’d looked at the stack. But she was becoming an expert in noncommittal responses that were truly unemotional, and Cody couldn’t quite match Lucas’s even tone. “Oh. Good.”
Upstairs she powered up the computers, then she opened the link to the resale market Cody set up online. Three, no, four pages of books were listed, and nearly a page of sales came up. They’d need to get to the post office in the next day or two.
On a whim, she searched for one of the titles in the box in the corner. A list of used options appeared on the screen, but the cheapest price was a seller with no ratings, located in South Dakota, open for just a few days. Chalkart was the seller’s name.
Oh, Cody.
Alana rubbed the base of her thumb against her forehead, then clicked on Chalkart’s other books for sale. They matched the titles in the innocuously invisible stack, as well as several others Alana remembered from her initial survey of the boxes. She pushed her glasses up on top of her head and rubbed her eyes.
Mrs. Battle pulled open the library’s front door. “There are three universal truths to life,” she said precisely as she crossed the marble floor. “Death, taxes, and the trash that remains behind after the Walkers Ford baseball team wins an away game. Send that boy outside to pick up—what’s wrong?”
She joined Alana at the computer. Alana tilted the screen down and toward the shorter woman. “I don’t know what I’m looking at,” she said.
Alana clicked back a couple of screens. “These are the books we’re selling online.”
“Yes.”
“And these are the books matching a seemingly innocent stack downstairs that we should be selling online but are instead being sold by a brand-new retailer who lives in South Dakota and calls himself Chalkart.”
She expected exclamations of disbelief and righteous indignation. Instead the elderly woman’s face sagged a little before she spoke. “Oh.”
“I don’t know how to handle this.”
“Obviously, the right thing to do is to call Chief Ridgeway and tell him Cody is stealing from the library.”
“Is that the right thing to do? I mean, I know that’s what I should do. But . . . is it the right thing to do?”
Mrs. Battle’s cornflower blue eyes held a hint of doubt. “You’re the library director. That’s your decision.”
It was her decision, at least for a few more days. She had options. She could turn a blind eye to Cody’s theft and let whoever the mayor hired deal with the problem. He needed the money. But so did the library foundation, and in the end, it was wrong.
She looked at the clock. They had fifteen minutes until the library opened. “You’re here early.”
“We need to talk about the final proposal. I have garden club this afternoon, then a doctor’s appointment, after which I will need to lie down. You’re delaying.”