“That author’s signing isn’t until next weekend, so do you mind if I find the boxes in the morning? I’m anxious to get on the road.”
“Of course,” Monika says, and before she can add abut, I tell her good night and make long, purposeful steps towards the exit. It’s only when I am more than halfway to freedom that she adds, “I’ll check again after I put this deposit in the safe. Maybe they got moved or something.”
I pause, a mere five steps from the door, because the only thing worse than me getting knocked unconscious by a rogue candlestick or impaled by a metal shelving bracket is those things happening to Monika. After all, if I hadn’t rushed that family out of the store in an attempt to get home before anythingbad happened, the utility truck might have already passed before they even stepped outside.
“No,” I say, and double back. “You stay right there. I’ll go check.”
I can’t be certain because I am moving so fast, but it almost seems like Monika is struggling to contain a smile as I race past her, as if this was her plan all along. Or maybe she has just decided to switch from lectures to exposure therapy. Either way, I pull the door that separates the front from the back closed tightly behind me and head straight for the new release section.
I turned off the bookstore music twenty minutes before we closed so that I could put some subtle pressure on the last few customers to wrap up their browsing and come to the cash register, which means that the only sound is the hum of the wine refrigerators and the click of my boots on the concrete. Normally, I would enjoy the quiet, but tonight it’s unnerving.
I shake off the feeling with a deep breath and move purposefully through the space. This area of the store is my domain. Working as the inventory manager of an independent bookstore is not something I dreamed of growing up, but it has ended up being the perfect job for me. I typically don’t have to interact with customers unless I need to cover a shift, like today. And I thrive under California’s strict safety guidelines for storage and alcohol sales. I get to write reviews for the Book & Barrel blog, too, which means that I technically get paid to drink wine and read books.
In fact, Evelyn Graves, the author whose books I am looking for now, is the subject of my most recent blog post. Her upcoming release is about a girl who was cursed at birth and goes on a road trip along the California coast to try and change her fate. Naturally, I was drawn to the premise, so I jumped at the chance to review it.
Comparing the main character’s curse to my own gained some traction on our website and boosted her preorders enough that she wanted to repay the favor by doing an in-store signing next weekend, which Monika happily agreed to. I hope that Evelyn has a good turnout because the book was excellent, but also because I ordered extra cases of the fizzy Rosé,Feeling Lucky,that I paired it with to sell at her book signing. I would hate for Monika to have to eat the cost if the turnout is lackluster.
The fact that I am personally invested in Evelyn Graves’s book is also why Iknowthe boxes are here. I approach the row of upcoming releases, fully expecting to see everything in order, but stop short when I realize that Monika is right. The boxes I placed here yesterday are gone. In their place are similarly sized boxes of Lee Wolf’s next thriller book, which are completely out of order, both because of his release date and where his name falls in the alphabet.
I stand on my tiptoes to scan the adjacent bestseller section in case someone moved them there and then check all the other rows in view for good measure, to no avail.
Evelyn’s books are nowhere to be seen.
I pause to think about where else they could be, but two giant cardboard boxes would have stuck out like a sore thumb anywhere else. Which means they can only be in one of two places: the very back of the storage room, where I keep seasonal decorations, or the Book Cellar, the event space Monika owns next door.
It makes more sense for them to have wound up in the Book Cellar since that is where Evelyn will be signing next weekend, but I decide to check the decoration stacks first since I am already here.
Every square inch of the back is well-lit, per OSHA standards, but I still get an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach as I venture into the furthest and least-visited part of the storageroom. The tightness in my chest reminds me of the feeling I get when Monika forces me to watch scary movies with her, and there is a scene of suspended silence when a character goes somewhere they shouldn’t. I brace myself for the inevitable jump scare when the towers of storage containers come into view and relax a fraction when they look just as I left them when I put away the supplies from the annual Valentine’s Day poetry slam.
Upon closer inspection, both towers of boxes are pushed forward at least a foot or two, if not more. Any other person may have overlooked that detail, but I use Duct Tape on the floor to mark where each stack goes, and that line is no longer visible. My mind goes to the absolute worst-case scenario, as I imagine that a killer is hiding behind them to jump out and murder me.
Before they get their chance, I push as hard as I can against the storage containers to trap the killer in place. When no sounds of a human being smashed against the wall materialize, I decide it’s probably safe to pull the storage containers out from the wall to see what has actually shifted everything forward. It’s not an easy task, and I am out of breath when I finally get the job done, but I can hardly believe my eyes when Evelyn’s boxes of books reveal themselves to be the culprit, tilted up on their sides and shoved against the wall.
There’s no way those boxes ended up back there by accident, so someone definitely did this on purpose, but for the life of me, I can’t think of a single reason why anyone would waste their time doing it. Regardless, the boxes were located, so the sooner I put them back where they belong, the sooner I can go home.
One thing is for certain as I attempt to pull the boxes away from the wall: Whoever did this is strong. Plus, wasting time and energy to hide them here makes about as much sense as pushing water uphill with a rake, so the person who did thiswas purposefully trying to annoy me, since I am the inventory manager.
It feels egregious to go to such lengths, but it helps me narrow the list of suspects down to a grand total of one person, because only one employee at the Book & Barrel is capable of this, both mentally and physically. He is the same person who called out sick at the last second for his shift, which led to me working this cursed day in the first place: Chad.
Chad is the son of one of Monika’s old college friends. He’s the kind of guy who wants so badly to be seen as irresistible and hilarious that it actually makes him the complete opposite of either quality. Most of his jokes are made at my expense, which is fine with me, because I’d much rather be the punchline of his jokes than the object of his desire. The only joke that actually grinds my gears is when he pretends not to remember my name and instead refers to me asthe girl who dresses like a grandma.Two actual grandmothers work in the store with us, and they dress much better than I do, so they don’t appreciate the joke either.
Chad also loves to prank people in exceptionally lame ways and has targeted me a few times in the past, saying that I just needed to lighten up. But just because I’m serious doesn’t mean I don’t like to laugh. I laugh at things that are actually funny. Take my brother, Scott. He is one of the funniest people I know and has been since we were kids. His jokes are clever and light-hearted, though, and not just rude for the sake of being rude.
My heart pangs as I remember the missed calls and voicemails from him waiting on my phone, but I push the thought away for the time being. I need to get these boxes back in their place and run—scratch that—walk purposefully to my car so that I can go home. I bet I can be out of here in less than five minutes if I safely hurry.
After the job is done, I wipe the dust from my hands onto my jeans, grab my purse and coat and head back to find Monika.
“I found them,” I announce as I reenter the sales floor, and leave out the part about it likely being Chad’s fault because it’s not even the worst thing that he has done since being employed here, and I don’t want the conversation to stall my exit.
Monika does not respond, and as my eyes struggle to adjust from the bright fluorescent lighting in the back to the near-complete darkness of the front.
“Monika?” I call out again.
I check my phone for a text that she decided to leave without me but only see the same unread messages and missed calls from my brother. Did she really forget I was back there and leave?
My stomach drops as I take a step towards the register in case something bad happened to her when I was searching for the boxes, and I stop short when the lamp clicks back on to reveal not one, but two male silhouettes on either side of her.
Chapter three
