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Greta abandoned her post, crossing briskly to the door and clicking the lock before returning to the safety of her desk. Even with the door locked and only the two of them in the basement chamber, she still threw a look over her shoulder, as if someone might be lurking in the shelves behind her.

“How did you find out?” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. It’s all so humiliating.”

“What is?”

“Being fired. Twice. Something about my temperament. Utter nonsense, of course.”

“Of course,” said Jack.

“I couldn’t find another job for the life of me. No other libraries would hire me. My reputation was ruined.”

“So you needed the money,” said Jack. “And that’s why you stole the list.”

Greta just gave him a blank stare.

“Or maybe not. Go on.”

“Well, when the last archivist died, Omesh thought I’d be a good fit. I could finally get back on my feet. But, of course, I was never supposed to know this place existed. Plus archivists spend years training to handle all the sensitive material that comes their way. My time studying library science doesn’t mean much around here. Some nonsense about how traditional college learning is more focused on the Dewey decimal system than the rules of life and death. People die in libraries sometimes, Ms. Chen! It’s really not that different.”

Jack took a full breath cycle to catch up to what Greta was saying. All her secrecy, all her tenseness and recent attempts at subterfuge, it wasn’t because she was here to steal a priceless artifact. It was because she was a nepo baby.

“So what you’re saying is you’re worried that if anyone finds out that you’re not qualified and the only reason you’re here is because you’re related to one of the bosses, you’ll lose your job?”

“Of course,” Greta said, as if that should be obvious. “I cannot be fired for a third time, Ms. Chen. I simply cannot. Plus this job has dental.”

Jack made a mental note of that. One of Margaret’s remaining teeth had been acting up recently.

“Right,” he said, still recovering from the whiplash of his back-and-forth suspicions that afternoon. “Okay.”

“Will you tell?” The sudden fragility of such a prickly figure unnerved him, but he couldn’t help empathizing with her plight. Everyone had a secret that could destroy them. He kept his own close to the chest that wasn’t his.

“Nah,” he said.

“Wait, really?”

“I mean you’re clearly a solid archivist,” said Jack. “And you’re not hurting anybody by being here. No reason to get you fired for a little bit of secret nepotism.”

“Oh,” said Greta. “Thank you.”

“It’s cool,” said Jack. Then, re-Margaret-ing, he added, “I mean, it’s my pleasure, dear. No one else could find the section on plunger-related deaths as quickly as you.”

If Jack squinted hard, it would almost have looked as though this drew a tiny smile from the woman in front of him.

“Well, if there’s anything else you require assistance in researching, I would be happy to help.”

Jack wasn’t fully convinced that “happy” was the word she actually wanted to use, but it sounded nicer than “duty bound” or “guilted into,” so he let it slide.

“Actually,” he said, in a last-ditch effort to take something productive away from this whole endeavor, “when Gerard was still alive, he mentioned in passing that some people had access to a special skeleton key that could open up a glass dome hidden somewhere in the building.”

Jack studied Greta’s face as he spoke his lie; her expression soured slightly.

“He really wasn’t supposed to talk about that,” she said.

Jack powered on. “Well, what can I say? Old Gerry and I had a special connection. Anyway, it got me thinking. Who actually has access to that key?”

Jack watched a debate play out across Greta’s stern features. He wasn’t supposed to know that the key, or the dome it unlocked, even existed, and talking about it likely went against the protocols of Greta’s job. But at the same time, Jack had just spared her that very job, and she clearly felt indebted for that.

Finally she sighed. “There are six copies of the skeleton key. Only branch directors and archivists have a copy. Does that satisfy your curiosity?”