“Go for it!”
He nodded, but I knew he’d have to finish his sandwich and wash his hands before touching the journals. It was one of the things that were important to him.
“Just be careful,” I said, grabbing my purse.
“Because of the would-be murderer?”
I smiled. “Yeah.” Thatwassomething I’d warned him about when he’d come in for a snack earlier.
“Okay. I’ve pretty much decided to be careful since you got back.”
Man, that was hard to hear him say.
“Sorry to have brought so much trouble into your life,” I said and felt a wave of guilt.
“Having you here in person, rather than just on the video chats, more than makes up for all the trouble. Besides, I’m pretty sure I’d have been murdered by sirens if you hadn’t showed up.”
He had a point.
“Besides, I’m having some gamer friends over later.”
I was a little surprised. “Really?”
He shrugged. “Yeah. They’re the same group I always play with. I’ve met all of them except one up until now. But tonight one guy had the awesome idea to bring all our computers together and have an epic LAN party, so I’m excited for that. As long as they don’t touch my setup.”
“I guess I’ll be coming home to a party,” I said. “Try not to let it get too wild.”
He seemed to take me seriously. “Not to worry. We have headsets. We shouldn’t bother the neighbors.”
It took everything in me not to laugh. LAN parties I could handle a lot more than him gambling at vampire clubs. He could have a computer party here every night from now on, for all I cared.
I gave him a quick half-hug, and my friends and I went outside. There was still no officer outside. Apparently, the local teens had had a big party on a cliff, and some kids had gotten seriously hurt. A lot of the kids had taken off. Some had gotten lost in the woods. It was an all-hands on deck kind of situation. And because I figured we were okay with Daniel, I’d just accepted it.
Now I kind of wished there was someone to watch Henry.
Releasing a slow breath, I kept going to my car. Henry was smart and fully capable of keeping himself safe. He’d been fine all these years without me here, so I wasn’t going to start babying him now.
The three of us loaded into my car and headed for the library. In my mind, I kept going through the most logical reasons that Carol hadn’t shown up and hadn’t answered her phone. Deva was right. I loved Carol, but she could be a bit absentminded. It was one of the things I loved most about her. I remember one time in high school she missed a test because she’d thought she’d seen a kitten in a bush. She ended up going on a big search for the thing, and ended up finding nothing. She swore to our teacher that a kitten had needed her, and the teacher had just sighed and let her retake the test after school. Or it could be a bird, I knew she got really excited when she saw an unusual one and almost everything else would go out the window.
And besides, I think all of us would turn off our phones in the library. It could be a simple mistake.
Or something scary and dangerous.
But I refused to think about that. Carol was one of my best friends. She was fine. They had said Daniel and I were in trouble, not Carol.
Still, my heart was racing as we got closer to the library.
“She’s okay.” Deva’s voice shook a little.
“She better be, or Karma is going to destroy someone,” I said.
“She might not even be here,” Beth said, her voice a little too high. “Maybe she went home and took a nap. Or she got busy with a customer.”
Maybe...
We pulled into the library parking lot. It was fairly empty, but that wasn’t exactly surprising given that the local library wasn’t exactly a hot spot for the locals.
“Look.” I nodded toward the far end of the lot. “Her car is here.” Carol liked to park far away to help get her steps in. She loved getting that little buzz from her tracker that told her she’d hit her goal for the day.
