Damn. Guess he’d paid more attention than I thought.
“Yeah. You work for his little company. What was it called?” He looked around as if the name was just lingering in the air, waiting for him to see it.
“Hermes,” I said. No point denying it now. If he knew Jerry’s name, he’d eventually be able to tie it back to me.
“That’s it.” He pointed at me. “It still doesn’t explain why you’re inside the store.”
I shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “I was looking for a book. Why else would I be here?”
His laugh was a cackle suited to any movie villain. “There are more reasons than there are stars in the galaxy. How did you even get in?”
“Same way most do.”
“Be more specific. There are a million ways to gain entrance.”
I’d really hoped to keep that part secret.
His eyebrows, two white caterpillars perching just above his sunken in eyes, rose in question as if to say ‘today’.
“I asked the cashier at The Book Haven for a map to the feline behavior department,” I admitted.
He harrumphed. “That shouldn’t have gotten you inside. The code changed about five minutes after you dropped my package off last time.”
I blinked. On one hand, his response shouldn’t have been surprising. It was only good security to change passwords and codes once an unknown entity or hired errand girl was gone. I just hadn’t expected it to be so instantaneous.
It did bring up the question of why the password had worked for me.
He shuffled over to a book case and pulled down a red leather bound book and flipped through its pages as he grumbled to himself.
He ran his finger down the page, pausing at one entry.
“Ah ha, I was right. The code changed three minutes after you left.”
He peered back up at me, his eyes a bright spot of blue amidst his wrinkles.
I shrugged, not knowing what response he wanted from me. I couldn’t change the truth.
“I don’t know what to tell you. That’s the code I used with the cashier. Maybe your system’s broken.”
“Impossible,” he snapped. “It’s never once had even a hiccup in all the years I’ve been the shopkeeper.”
Judging by his wrinkles, that’d been a long, long time.
His eyes sharpened on the book at my feet. “What’s that?” his voice deepened to nearly a growl. If I hadn’t been staring at the old man in front of me, I would have sworn his voice was that of a young man.
I looked down at the book he was trying to incinerate with his gaze. Its cover was plain leather with the title embossed in it. It was a deep brown and the pages cream colored.
I bent down and picked it up. Out loud I read the words on the spine, “A study of the unexplained. The uninitiated’s guide to the supernatural.”
“Let me see it.” He shuffled forward.
I held it out to him, but he didn’t touch it, just peered at it like it was a snake preparing to strike.
“Well, that explains that,” he murmured.
“Explains what?”
He gave me a gimlet glare. “Everything.”
