The only thing I liked more than a closed library was an open one. Surrounded by all those books, all those worlds waiting to be explored on the page. The ASMR-like buzz of whispers, keyboards, and turning pages. But I usually enjoyed the after-hours silence almost as much.
Except now it gave me too much time to think.
I’d worked open to close today. Not because it was necessary but because I didn’t know what else to do.
It had been two weeks since the threats against me and Mary Louise. Lucian had worked his dark magic and got Mary Louise transferred to a new prison—the one Naomi’s sister, Tina, was serving time in—the morning after. But even though Allen was now protected by full-time security, she was still refusing to move forward with her own case.
Naomi and Lina had slowly relinquished their obsessive need to check in with me. After five successive nights of sleepovers, we’d all agreed that I was probably safe enough in my house with its locks, new basic security cameras that Waylay helped me install, and hourly police drive-bys.
And being the excellent friends they were, they’d agreed not to mention the inciting incident to Lucian.
My personal life was nonexistent thanks to the near-constant presence of the Knockemout PD, who were “keeping an eye on me” and looking into who would want to keep Mary Louise behind bars. Even if I’d wanted to date, it would have been too awkward with a uniformed, armed babysitter tagging along.
To make matters worse, I was under strict orders from Nash to leave the investigations to the professionals. I could have used the distraction of some interesting research to dig into. But Nash had used his scary cop voice and threatened to tell Lucian I’d been targeted if I didn’t agree. So I’d mostly acquiesced.
Sure. Maybe I took a peek at Mary Louise’s case files from her trial every night until I was too bleary-eyed to see straight. I wasn’t hurting anyone. And if I found something, it would be better for everyone in the long run, considering the police investigation consisted of a series of dead ends. Not only were there no fingerprints or other identifiable evidence left from my attacker, but by all accounts, the attack on Mary Louise appeared to be random and unprovoked.
A soft thump from the children’s section had me bobbling two John Sandford novels.
I blew out a frustrated breath, fluffing my hair away from my face and fogging my glasses. Ever since the man with the cinnamon breath had scared the shit out of me, I’d been an anxiety-ridden hot mess.
“Get a grip,” I muttered to myself.
I was disappointed in myself. I’d always thought I’d react to a dangerous situation with the quick wit and backbone of a feisty heroine. Or at least like an adorably bumbling Stephanie Plum. Instead, I was waiting for a hero to save me. And not even my own hero. Nope. I was waiting for my friend’s fiancé, the chief of police, to save my ass.
It was a sobering, humbling thought.
I finished scanning in the evening’s book returns, then turned out the lights on the first floor before heading upstairs to my office. There were a few more admin tasks I wanted to see to. Not that they needed to be done tonight. But what else did I have to do?
Besides, the library was the only place the cops felt comfortable leaving me the hell alone since it was attached to the station and all. Someone would have to be quite the idiot to try to do harm next to an entire police department.
Upstairs, I settled in behind my desk with a fresh root beer and cranked my Get Shit Done playlist. By the time Joan Jett’s “I Hate Myself for Loving You” came on, I’d scheduled out three weeks of social media posts for the library’s Facebook and Instagram pages, drafted the next two weeks’ worth of newsletters, and ordered several new indie novels for circulation.
I’d never been so far ahead on my to-do list in my entire life.
There was only one person to blame.
I took out my phone and scrolled through my messages. Despite the fact that I hadn’t answered him, Lucian had continued to text me daily.
Assface: I had dinner with your mother.
Assface: I think she needs a pet to keep her company.
Assface: Cat or dog?
Assface: Small, condo-sized pony?
Assface: It doesn’t have to be this way, Pixie. We could find a way to be friends.
Friends? Ha. Friends trusted each other. Friends were honest with each other. I’d wasted enough of my life on a man who was never going to admit to having feelings for me. I didn’t need anything else from Lucian Rollins.
I had more important things to do. Probably.
How was I supposed to find a man, allow him the space and time to prove to me that he was trustworthy, and then convince him to get married while my eggs were still viable? That seemed like a decades-long project.
What if my eggs weren’t actually viable?
What if I wasn’t going to find a Simon Walton?
What if that wasn’t part of my story?
“Oh my God, I’m annoying myself,” I complained over my music. “Stop moping and fucking do something.”
But what? My heart and vagina just weren’t into the dating scene. But that didn’t mean I had no other options. I thought of Knox and Naomi and Waylay, then, chewing on my lower lip, I navigated to the county’s foster care system page and started scrolling.
Icona Pop was in the middle of the chorus of “I Love It” when a faraway noise dragged me out of research mode. I turned down the music to listen, only to be startled by the ancient printer spitting out the foster care and adoption brochures.
I snatched the papers out of the tray and strained my ears. Nothing. It was probably a book tumbling off a shelf or one of the heavy poster boards in the children’s section finally winning its war against the tape.
I returned the music to its original volume and launched my inbox to take care of a few remaining tasks.
This time, it wasn’t a sound that caught my attention. It was a smell. A faint, bitter, chemical scent. Almost like melting plastic or old, stale coffee that had cooked to the bottom of the pot.
I’d turned off the coffee makers. Hadn’t I?
Yes. I always remembered to do it after seeing the news special about a family’s house that had burned down on Christmas Eve due to a faulty air fryer.
I pushed away from my desk with a frown. The smell was getting stronger now. The lights in the library were still out, but there appeared to be a sort of eerie glow through my office window. Was it getting hotter in here? Maybe the furnace was on the fritz.
I opened my office door, and the sharp tang of smoke hit me.
“What the…”
It couldn’t be a fire. The entire building had been equipped with a state-of-the-art sprinkler system when it had been built.
But there was no mistaking that orange, undulating glow coming from the first floor or the punch of heat that enveloped my body.
I raced back to my desk and picked up the phone to call for help. But there was no dial tone. The line was dead.
“Damn it! Okay. Think, Sloane. Do not fucking panic.”
With shaking hands, I found my cell phone and managed to dial 911. As it rang, I gathered my tote, indiscriminately shoving books and personal items inside. I yanked Ezra Abbott’s Valentine’s Day pirate drawing off the window and rolled it up.
“911. What is your emergency?”
“This is Sloane Walton calling from the Knockemout Public Library,” I said as I raced back to the door. “There’s a fire. In the library. At least I think it’s a fire.” The air felt thick and hot, and it burned the back of my throat.
A coughing fit overtook me, and I bent at the waist, trying to suck in a breath.
“Calm down, ma’am. Please tell me your location.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down, Sharice. And don’t ma’am me either. The library is on fire,” I rasped as I left my office. Sharice was a recent graduate of Knockemout High School and had been a library summer camp counselor for the last three years.
It was getting hotter by the second, as if I’d relinquished thermostat control to the always cold Barbara during book club.
Fires required fire extinguishers. I embraced the thought with relief. I remembered the big, red one hanging on the wall in the kitchen.
Ducking low to see through dark, fetid smoke, I headed away from the stairs and toward the kitchen. I was sweating freely.
“Sorry, Sloane. Do you know where the fire is located?”
“I think it’s on the first floor. I’m upstairs.” I cradled the phone against my shoulder and blindly felt along the wall, bending over as far as I could in search of fresh air.
My fingers found the protrusion of the doorframe, and I hurriedly reached for the handle. It was warmer than it should be against my palm.
“I’m putting out a call to the fire department now. Can you get out of the building safely?”
“I’m getting a fire extinguisher from the kitchen.”
“Ma’am—er, Sloane, I need you to tell me if you have a way to exit the building,” she said crisply.
“I’ll tell you after I find the damn extinguisher.” I was not about to go into battle unarmed. I felt inside the door for the light switch, but nothing happened when I flicked it.
Shit. No lights.
I stumbled into the kitchen, ignoring the muffled conversation on the other end of the call.
“I have police officers responding to the scene now.”
“I would hope so, considering they’re literally in the same building.”
“You are to evacuate with them immediately. The fire department is on their way.”
My shin met something hard, and I went down with a yelp.
My phone and tote went flying.
The goddamn trash can. The dark and smoke made a familiar place a disorienting maze of danger.
“Damn you, Marjorie Ronsanto!” I muttered, climbing onto my hands and knees. It was a little cooler and a lot less smoky down here. I crawled forward, feeling around for the phone. “If you’re still there, Sharice, could you yell really loud or push some buttons?” I asked the dark.
But I realized the roaring wasn’t just in my ears. It was coming from beneath me.
“Why the fuck aren’t the sprinklers working, and where the fuck is the extinguisher?” I demanded.
Miraculously, I found my way to the cabinets and followed them to the far wall. I composed a staff-wide memo in my head as I crawled. Fire extinguishers will now be mounted inside the door, not all the way across the goddamn room. And Marjorie’s trash can was officially being retired to the dumpster.
My throat and lungs burned. I was sweating so profusely I wondered if it was possible to turn into a human raisin.
Finally, I ran forehead first into the far wall. “Ouch!”
Scrambling to my feet, I skimmed my hands in wide arcs over the drywall. My pinkie finger smashed into the metal canister, and I cried out in pain and triumph.
Blindly, I yanked the extinguisher off the wall.
“I got the extinguisher from the kitchen,” I yelled in case the call was still connected. I shuffled back toward the door as quickly as I dared. “I’m going to try to get down the stairs. If I can’t, I’ll go to one of the windows on the side—”
My foot met something unexpected, and I fell sideways awkwardly. My ribs met something hard and unmoving, knocking the wind out of me. The damn table I sat at every damn day.
“I won’t have a chance to die of smoke inhalation at this rate,” I wheezed. “I’m going to clumsy myself to death.”
The immovable thing on the floor turned out to be my tote bag. I shouldered it, tucked the extinguisher under my arm, and crawled out the door.
“Sloane!”
Sergeant Grave Hopper was calling for me from somewhere, and he sounded pissed.
I sucked in a breath to call back, but another coughing fit overtook me.
I was the worst firefighter ever, I decided as tears streaked down my face. I stayed as low as I could, crawling with only one arm, and made my way toward the stairs.
“Sloane!” another voice called.
“Here.” It came out as more of a croak than a shout, but it was enough.
“She’s on the second floor.”
“There’s no exit up there.”
“I’m coming down,” I barked. “I have a fire extinguisher.”
“Drop the fucking extinguisher and get your ass to the stairs,” Grave ordered.
Drop the extinguisher? There were books to save. But I heard them then. The sirens. They would save the books.
I was so tired. My lungs hurt. My head rang. It was so dark. I just needed to rest for a minute.
