“No,” Deva said as Beth shook her head.
Beth tore something in her person and handed me two scraps of paper that I used to book the pages. Then, I closed them and pulled them into my arms, pressing them against my chest.
Finally, my gaze met Deva’s. “Do you think there was a struggle here?”
Deva’s mouth curled into a frown. “Given that she was here to look at these books, the librarian was drugged, Carol’s car is here, and yet she’s nowhere to be found. Yeah, I think there was a struggle here. And I think Carol is in trouble.”
That’s what my instincts were screaming, and I hated it.
Dread and fear filled me. Something was very wrong, and Carol was missing.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Daniel
I walked up to the body shop with my hands in my pockets. I wanted to hurry over to the library, but I also didn’t want to be a jerk and make Sheriff Danvers come hunt his truck down. So I’d dropped it off a couple of blocks away at the police station, then walked to get my truck. Even though it was a chilly evening, and my bear liked the chill normally, I wasn’t enjoying the fresh air.
Not when my Emma and her friends were potentially walking into a dangerous situation.
The more I thought about it since leaving her house, the angrier I got with myself. I’d been so thrown off from reading the journals Sarah had written, it was like my cop instincts had flipped off. Yet the fresh air had brought me back to reality. Someone wanted to hurt Emma. Her friend wasn’t answering her phone. Maybe Carol was fine, but I sure as hell should be with Emma, making sure.
I could hear the noise of the mechanic’s shop before I saw the big letters on the raggedy brick building. This was one of three shops in town, and definitely the one I liked best. Joel ran it, and he was always the type to get straight to the point and not charge for pointless stuff.
I just hoped Joel wasn’t too busy and I could just get my truck and go.
But I had no such luck. The sound of something electrical stopped, and I could suddenly hear that some lady was inside the bay screaming at him. Not the, I need a cop’s help, kind of screaming. More like, I wanted a whisper of cinnamon on my obnoxious drink and got a dolp of it.
Sigh.
“She’s pretty ticked off.”
I whirled to find Jackson, a half-brownie who nobody ever wanted to run into, off to the side of the garage. He had to have just walked around the building. Damn brownies. They were so sneaky at times. “What’s up, Jackson?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I’ve been waiting to pick up my car, but Joel is dealing with…” He motioned toward the yelling woman. “Louisa.”
Oh, that’s who that was. “Ugh,” I muttered. I’d worked with Louisa at the station. She was in the animal control department, which was technically under the sheriff department’s purview.
She was not a pleasant woman. I’d wondered several times over the years if she really should be in charge of animals, but if I’d moved her out of that department, I would’ve had to deal with her on a regular basis. My patience had its limits, and since we didn’t have a lot of stray animals or ones that needed rescuing, I left her where she was.
“This is going to take longer than I thought.”
“Nah, Joel is pretty good at shutting down that kind of stuff.”
I glanced back at Jackson. He was usually so chatty that it was actually weird for him to be so concise. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” he blushed, his too-long hair falling over his forehead. “Actually, I met a lady a few days ago. You know Daisy, who runs the flower shop?”
I nodded, remembering a very quiet woman with short grey hair who always seemed to be hiding behind one plant or another. In high school, she hadn’t been much different. Quiet, terribly shy, and only really comfortable when she seemed to be working with plants.
“I asked her on a date. And, well, we’ve been inseparable ever since.” He looked at the shop with a frown. “Until today. I’m actually eager to get back to her.”
Man, I wasn’t exactly a romantic, but the thought of those two together actually made me smile. Jackson could be a bit annoying, but every pot had its lid. Maybe Daisy was his lid… or pot. Whatever. Maybe I wasn’t the only one finding a new love at my crotchety old age.
I almost laughed to myself. I think I had to be eighty before I could comfortably call myself crotchety. But then, I really wanted to deserve the description. I’d sit at the edge of my lands and shake my fist at the young wolves. Yell at them to stay off my territory. Tell them how easy they had it. You know, all the fun stuff.
Well, maybe not if I had Emma back at the cabin waiting for me.
Louisa was still going on about her car taking so long and didn’t seem to be stopping. I pulled my hands out of my pockets and steeled myself. It looked like I wouldn’t be able to just wait until she was done.
