“Any chance of wedding bells? You’ve been seeing him for a while now. You must have a good idea of what’s possible.”
“We’ve only been going out for a few weeks.” I shifted my feet, realizing that if I didn’t move them out of the sun soon, I’d end up with a very strange-looking case of sunburn. “It’s too early to say.”
“Sure,” Kristen said.
I checked her expression for sarcasm, but couldn’t detect anything overt. “It’s too early,” I repeated. “But at breakfast, we were talking about skiing this winter.”
“A week out West?” Kristen rotated her glass, making the ice cubes clink.
“What? Oh. No, we were talking about our favorite places to ski up here.” I watched her ice cubes go round and round. “Speaking of ski places, when I was talking to Bianca, I found out how the rumor about Kim and Bob Parmalee going bankrupt got started.”
“Yeah? How’s that?”
“They have a condo in Colorado. Breckenridge. When their kids were young, they used to spend a lot of family time out there, skiing. Now that the kids are grown and gone, they’re selling it and buying a couple weeks in a time-share instead.”
“Gossip,” Kristen said, rolling her eyes. “The whole bowl contains one grain of truth, but which grain is it?”
“Speaking of gossip, I have a question.”
“And I might possibly have an answer. What’s up?”
“Dana Coburn. Why haven’t I met her before now? I would have thought a kid like that would practically live at the library.”
Kristen looked out at the sparkling waters of Janay Lake, then back at me. “You liked her?”
“I’m annoyed it’s taken me this long to meet her. She’s obviously smart to the genius level, she’s personable, she’s . . .” I stopped, frowning. “What’s so funny?”
“Peas in a pod,” she said, still laughing. “I should have known you two would get along.”
“I’m no genius.”
“No, but I’ll lay down money that you and Dana have more in common than you have differences.”
“Not if she’s not visiting the library.”
Kristen gave me a speculative look. “I kind of don’t want to tell you why.”
“Then don’t.” I slid my toes back into the sunshine. “Especially if it’s gossip, because we know how true that’s likely to be.”
“Not gossip,” Kristen said vaguely. “It’s just, well, Dana has this bizarre condition. She can’t stand being touched. She freaks out if anyone other than her mom or dad touches her, and even that she doesn’t like much.”
“Oh. That’s . . .” I searched for a word, but couldn’t find the right one.
“Horrible,” Kristen supplied.
It wasn’t quite right, but it would have to do.
“Anyway,” she went on, “that’s why she’s being homeschooled, and that’s why she doesn’t go out in public much. Even accidental touches can . . . well, let’s just say it’s not good. If she’s willing to talk to you, that’s great. I’m sure her mom was all over it.”
“She was,” I said, remembering Jenny’s grateful tone and eagerness to have me stop back at the house. Any time, she’d said. An exaggeration, of course, but still. “I like her,” I said. “Dana, I mean.”
Kristen sent me a lazy thumbs-up. “Excellent. You can’t have too many friends.”
We sat for a while, chatting about this and that, me suffering the occasional pointed comment about running headlong into danger every time it came near, her taking my abuse that her perfectionist ways were going to shorten her life by decades, both of us guessing Rafe’s golf score for the day, both of us guessing in the hundreds and laughing ourselves silly.
It was a fine way to spend a hot Sunday afternoon, but eventually, when the pink pitcher was nearly empty and the sun was starting its slide down the far side of the sky, Kristen looked at me. “Is it tomorrow you’ll hear about your new boss?”
“Yup.”
“Do you know what’s going to happen?” she asked.
“Nope.”
“Are you going to guess?”
I made a face. “There’s enough of that going around without me joining in.”
She sighed and poured the last of the pink concoction into my glass. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
I grinned. “Have I ever not?”
“Well,” Kristen said, flopping back in her chair, “there was that once. The summer when we were fourteen, remember? When you thought Robby Teller was going to be the love of your life forever and you wrote letters telling him so.”
I did, and the memory still made me squirm, which was why she’d brought it up. “I’m really, really glad he moved to Hawaii.”
“Didn’t you hear?” Kristen peered at me through half-closed eyes. “He’s in town for a family reunion.”
My eyes went wide with horror and my mouth dropped open.
“Gotcha,” my best friend said. “You are so gullible.”
I took a long drink of pink as I tried to plan an appropriate method of revenge.
“You know what?” she asked.
“What?”
“I’m glad you didn’t get sliced up with a big, long, scary knife,” Kristen said softly.
“Yeah,” I said just as softly. “I know.”
Chapter 20
The next morning, I got to the library early and dove deep into the pile of work on my desk. I kept my head down, ignored the footsteps passing my open doorway, and, in general, did all that I could to keep busy and not think about what was happening upstairs in the boardroom.
It didn’t work, of course, but I made a valiant effort.
Finally I couldn’t stand it any longer. I needed to hear a human voice and, almost as much, I needed caffeine. I grabbed my coffee mug and headed for the break room, which seemed to be packed full of noisy library employees.
I looked around, counting heads and trying to remember how many people I’d scheduled to work that morning. I’d been preoccupied lately, but surely I hadn’t put this many people on the calendar. Had I? “Please tell me that someone is at the front desk.”
Holly gave me a stern glance. “How can you think about things like that when the Big Decision is about to come down?”
“Kelsey’s out there,” Donna said, coming by with a full pot of coffee.
“Did you switch with someone?” I asked. “I’m sure I didn’t put you on the schedule today.”
Donna grinned. “What makes you think I’m on the clock?”
“I’m not working, either,” said another part-time clerk a little tentatively. “Um, that’s okay, isn’t it? To come in if I’m not scheduled to work.”
Josh held up his mug for a refill. “Like Minnie would be one to talk about that. She’s here seventy hours a week, and she’s salaried.”
“She’s dedicated,” Gareth said as he winked at me.
“Or she’s stupid,” Josh muttered.
“Or both,” Donna said, laughing. “Anyone want more coffee?”
“How long do you think they’re going to be?” Holly said, pointing at the ceiling.
Trying to guess the length of a board meeting was a pointless exercise. “No idea.” A large number of speculative glances were being sent in my direction, so I said, “Anyone want to hear about Saturday night?”
On a normal Monday morning, the first thing we would have done was exchange any significant weekend stories, but this Monday was far from normal.
“That’s right,” Gareth said. “I heard you were in the hospital with a gunshot wound to the gut.” He studied me. “You must be a fast healer.”
“What!” Donna turned around so fast I was afraid the coffee in the pot she was holding would swirl out. “Minnie, are you okay? What happened?”
So I explained everything, starting with the passing of Talia DeKeyser, the murder of Andrea Vennard, the break-ins, and Pam Fazio’s injury. When I told them that a copy of Chastain’s Wildflowers had been sitting on the DeKeysers’ sideboard for decades, a collective gasp went through the room, and I finished up with the arrest of Paul Utley and the uncovering of the near-pristine Wildflowers.