The elevator opened and he slapped the button to the third floor. The stool where the elevator operator normally sat, a throwback Sean never understood why the court continued, had a folded newspaper sitting on it.
He got off the elevator and turned left into the librarian stations. He took another left into the massive Reading Room. The carved oak walls and balconies were lit by only a few reading lamps, and shadows cast about the room. The library smelled of old books and wood polish. Sean walked the center aisle, looking at the long stretches of wood with lanterns and globes perched on them. The tables were bare, except for two with tablets and some books and papers spread across them. Sean walked over to one and saw a blank legal pad and two U.S. Reports opened, but nothing else. Abandoned research.
At the next table, he pulled the chain on a brass lantern. In the shallow light he saw a Tax casebook, not a source someone working on a Supreme Court case would normally consult. Something a law student would read. Under the book was a spiral notepad. He picked it up and flipped through the pages: Abby’s meticulous handwriting. Then he saw her book bag, its contents scattered across the red carpet. Dread gouged into him.
Pacini and Police Chief Martinez came into the library, and he called them over.
“Abby’s things,” Sean said, his voice echoing.
Pacini looked at Sean, then darted his eyes about the Reading Room. More officers came into the library. “Get the lights on,” Pacini shouted.
The chandeliers from the high gilded ceiling came on, and Sean paced the shelves along the north wall. Pacini and Martinez directed officers to the back of the Reading Room. Pacini pointed to the narrow stairs that led up to the stacks. Sean continued clicking on the lamps affixed to the tall bookshelves. He told himself to stay calm, but he started running from aisle to aisle.
“Abby!” He tore through the federal reporters, the state reports, the congressional record sections. “Abby!”
He heard a voice from above. One of the officers on the balcony near the stacks. Pacini raced up the small iron staircase. Sean couldn’t hear them, but the speed at which Pacini ran to the officer sent a tremor through Sean’s body. He watched as an officer staggered out toward Pacini. He was a young guy and he bent over, vomiting near the staircase.
Sean ran to the stairs, but he felt hands on his arms. Two officers, one holding each bicep, were saying something, but he couldn’t process the words. Pacini also was yelling something he couldn’t make out. Their grip tightened as he started up the stairs. But he managed to break away.
“No, Sean, no!” Pacini yelled as Sean pushed through to the dark crevice between two massive bookshelves.
Abby’s body was twisted, shoved into the bottom shelf. Blood was smeared on her face, her hair matted. She was pale white.
And that’s the last thing Sean would remember from that day. That terrible day.
CHAPTER 15
“Are they still out there?” Emily asked. She was bundled under the covers, looking toward the bedroom window. Long rays of sun hit the bed through an opening in the curtains, and she shielded her eyes with a hand.
Sean looped his tie. It was supposed to be a return to the morning routine, but nothing felt the same. Had it really been only two weeks? He glanced out the window.
“They’re still there, but it looks like the village manager shooed away the van.” A FOX 5 News van had blocked their single-lane street for the past week. Sean finished knotting the tie and sat on the bed. Emily’s eyes were hollowed out and the lines on her face more pronounced than he’d ever seen them. He put his hand on her arm, but she rolled over, her back to him.
Everyone had assumed that she would be the strong one, the one holding their family together. And why not? That’s what Sean would have predicted. She was the center of the family. She kept the trains moving while Sean spent his days, evenings, and most weekends on the fifth floor of the Justice Department building. And more than that, she had mettle that he did not, emotionally and physically. When they were in law school and Emily got pregnant, he panicked while she took charge and made sure her pregnancy didn’t interfere with either of them graduating. When Ryan was rushed to the ER with an asthma attack, she was the one who sprang to action while Sean floundered. If Emily had a migraine, she’d still go about her day—she had natural births for all three children, no epidurals for Christ’s sake—while Sean would be curled up in a ball if hit with a minor cold. She was Superwoman.
But the death of Abby was the ultimate devastation to Emily, and Sean didn’t resent her for not living up to expectations. In an odd way, Sean loved her more for it. For now, and for a change, it would fall on him. Sean would have to be the strong one. Emily had found her Kryptonite: the knowledge that she would never again see or speak to their beloved daughter.
He stood and gazed out the window again. “Oh shit,” he said.