“If there’s anything I can do to help…”
Julia smiled. “Thanks, Mr. Hayes. That’s sweet of you to offer, but I can take care of myself.” She grabbed an old cloth from behind the counter and began wiping her ink-stained fingers. “Are you looking for anything particular today?”
“No. Just browsing.”
“Alright, then. Feel free to holler if you need help with anything.”
I carried on, venturing deeper into the bookstore, past the new arrivals, and into the back alcove. What I was searching for lived back here, bound in cracked leather, spines softened with age. Water-damaged, foxed, ink-stained books that had survived the elements but hadn’t quite escaped the time. Forgotten field guides, old weather logs, personal notebooks that had long outlived their authors. I ran a finger along the edge of a shelf and crouched to pull a warped volume from the bottom.
Étude médico-légale sur l’empoisonnement, 1867.
This looked promising. The edges were frayed. A few of the pages had stuck together, which meant I’d have to separate them carefully, tease the ink loose with a solvent blend I’d been adjusting for months. Caught up in the book, turning it over in my hands to examine the spine, I only noticed I had company when an old floorboard creaked softly behind me.
“Didn’t peg you for a collector.”
The voice was familiar. Friendly. I looked up to find Naomi’s boyfriend standing a few feet away, hands tucked casually into the pockets of his dark wool coat.
I’d last seen him at the department’s holiday mixer, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t heard about him since. Naomi had been singing his praises nonstop—when she wasn’t bright-eyed, distracted, or smiling for no reason at all. It was entirelyuncharacteristic behavior coming from her, this giddy warmth that seemed to follow her around like perfume. She hadn’t been this taken with anyone in all the years I’d known her.
“It has less to do with collecting and more with restoring,” I explained, carefully sliding the French volume under my arm.
“Taking something broken and turning it into what it once was,” Daniel smiled. “Very poetic.”
“What about you?” I asked.
“I’m trying to pick out a gift for Naomi. She likes old books. The ones with the scribbles in the margins and stuff. Personally, I don’t really get the appeal.” He paused, offering me an apologetic smile. “No offense intended, of course.”
“None taken.”
Daniel’s eyes continued to drift across the crowded shelves, a faint crease forming between his brows. He looked like a man trying to navigate foreign territory without a map.
“Do you need any help?” I decided to ask.
The look he gave me was almost comical—like I’d just offered fresh water to someone wandering the desert for days.
“God, yes. Please.”
I led him to the front of the store, toward the glass display case near the register. Inside were the most delicate pieces, things too fragile or specific to sit on general shelves. One caught my eye immediately—a weathered poetry collection. The ribbon marker hung limp between the pages, its end unraveling into individual threads. The margins were filled with pencil annotations, the kind that smudged if you so much as grazed them.
I nodded toward it. “I think she’d like something like this.”
Daniel leaned in, squinting at the case like he wasn’t entirely sure what he was seeing. “Looks like it’ll fall apartif I breathe on it too hard.”
“It won’t, trust me. It’s a lot sturdier than it appears.”
He considered it for a moment longer before shrugging. “If you say so. You’re the expert.”
We approached the register together, where Mrs. Winslow sat hunched behind the counter, one elbow propped on a precarious stack of paperbacks as if it were the only thing keeping her upright. She wordlessly wrapped the poetry book in brown paper and secured it with a string tied in a neat bow.
“Well, thanks for the help,” Daniel said, turning to me. “I’d probably still be staring at the cookbooks from the 1980s if it weren’t for you.”
“Don’t mention it. I just hope Naomi likes it.” I pulled out my wallet as Mrs. Winslow finished wrapping up my own book.
Daniel offered me a parting nod and moved toward the door. When he opened it, a gust of cold wind rushed inside. Dust motes scattered in the air, caught in the light like ash.
I checked my watch.
I’d better hurry. I had to get ready for my dinner date with Detective Sawyer.
