“Yes, and there are a half a dozen entries after—or seven,” Liam noted, frowning as he read the names. He was surprised to see several that he knew.
“Barney Thibault. He’s a professor who comes down from the University of Miami. And Mary Egans—she teaches high school down here. Actually, Liam—”
“Yes, I know Mary. She was my high-school English teacher.”
Jeanie nodded and then shook her head. “Ah! Old Joe Richter was in here. The attorney. I don’t know George Penner. I do know Jonas Weston—oh, so do you, I’m sure! Here—your friends Ted and Jaden were in, but that’s not in the least surprising—Jaden uses the library frequently. And I don’t know this last fellow or woman, maybe? This Bel Arcowley.”
She shrugged and moved over to the shelves, searching along them until she came to an empty position.
“Oh my,” she said.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s gone.”
“The book is gone? I thought you said that you didn’t lend it out,” Liam said.
She turned to look at him, shaking her head. “We don’t. I’ll talk to my fellow librarians, Liam. I’ll get right on it.”
“Maybe it’s just out of place,” Liam suggested.
Jeanie nodded. “Well, you can help me search,” she told him.
Bartholomew was in the room with them, of course. He searched along with Jeanie and Liam. But the book wasn’t on any of the shelves. They looked thoroughly for at least thirty minutes.
“I suppose it might have gotten put back outside the room,” Jeanie said, sounding weary. “We’ll start a general search for it.”
“Thanks. Tell me, is someone always with visitors in this section of the library?”
“Sadly, no. We don’t have the funding.”
“It would be too much to hope for a security tape, right?” he asked, looking around. He didn’t see any cameras.
“No. We don’t have the—”
“Funding, right.”
They looked at each other for a minute. Liam grimaced. “All right, let me take that list of names. I’ll give all the visitors a call after you check with your coworkers.”
“Thanks, Liam. Do I need to fill out a report or something? I mean, once I find out one of my coworkers didn’t suddenly decide to read up on Satanism in Key West?”
“Yes, we’ll fill out a report,” he told her. “I’ll go ahead and get an officer out here for you to do that. I don’t think you’ll find that any of your coworkers took the book.”
She thanked him, flustered, and they went out. Liam headed to his house to change for the viewing at the funeral home. He was determined to be there when Kelsey arrived.
Kelsey left the house, locking it carefully as she did so, ridiculously pleased that she was leaving while it was still daylight.
She thought she smelled the scent of death and decay again, but she was impatient with herself; she had it set in her mind that she could still smell the horrible lonely end that had met her grandfather, and she wasn’t going to change what was set in her mind. She felt oddly irritated with Liam, though at the same time, she wished that he was with her. She wasn’t a scaredy-cat. He was turning her into one.
She walked slowly to the funeral home, knowing she was a little bit early. But that didn’t matter. Liam was there when she arrived. He was extremely handsome in a dark pin-striped suit, clean shaven, his hair still damp. He met her at the entrance.
“You’re early,” he told her.
“You’re earlier,” she noted.
He smiled. “I didn’t want you to be alone.”
“Thanks.”
They walked on in. As Liam had predicted, the hallway was alive with flowers. The funeral director came out to greet them, telling Kelsey that her grandfather’s was the only viewing that night, and so they had been liberal with the layout of the arrangements, which he hoped was fine with her. She assured him it was.
“Where is…Cutter?” she asked.
“Right here, first door to the left,” the director told her.
They walked into the room with its rows of chairs, multitude of wreaths and flower arrangements, and, at the far end, the podium, stand and coffin.
The coffin was open.
Liam walked in ahead of her, moving quickly. She heard him make a strange sound, and then he turned back to her.
“Kelsey, please. Let me have them close the coffin. I thought they were going to leave it closed,” he said, irritated.
The funeral director, correctly solemn in his dark suit, said in quick explanation, “In such cases, we wait for the family to arrive.”
Liam was aggravated, she knew. Yet why he didn’t want her seeing her grandfather perplexed her, and made her want to see him more.
She pushed past Liam and came to the coffin.
She’d seen what ravages disease could cause the human body, and in that sense, he didn’t look horrible.
He was pasty and slightly plastic-looking, as she’d expected. Pale. Sunken. She could see that his eyes had been delicately sewn shut.
But his eyes were open.
Tiny trails of spiderweb-thin thread clung to his eyelashes.
He stared out at the world in horror, as if, even in death, he was still seeing something eternally malignant and evil.