“Cops can sense when someone’s hiding something. Reason why I lost my husband. Well, the second one.” She reached over and put her hand on Serenity’s. “Joe seems like a keeper.”
“He is. Or was. I’m not sure. Joy, I’ve got kind of a weird question for you. On a scale of one to ten, what am I? In hotness, I mean.”
Joy tried to read Serenity’s face, gave up, and answered the question straight. “I don’t know. Seven. Eight on a good day. What brought that on?”
“Not the absolute hottest woman in Maddington County?”
“No. I mean, no offense. Remember a couple of years ago that reality TV show had that woman from Clift’s Cove on that dating show? Flew her out there and all that. Don’t think they’d do that for you.” She paused. “No offense.”
“None taken.” Serenity exhaled. “Joe sees me as a lot hotter than I am.”
“Fight for him.” Joy pulled her hand back. “On the other hand, you need to find some story to keep him away from our Excitable Girl and make sure he doesn’t think your library secret has anything to do with, you know, murder and actual crimes at the library.”
“I don’t want to lose him.”
Serenity slid the Scarface DVD across the desk to Joy. “Let’s talk about something else. This was in the drop box the other morning.”
“Good movie.”
Then Joy read the note.
“Good movie,” said Serenity, “unless someone is pointing their ‘little friend’ at you. And, someone tried to run me off the road.”
“Serenity, we need security here.”
Serenity took a sip of her coffee. “We’ve got our high school kids. And for now, we’ve got Maddington’s finest.”
“Who we can’t tell about the danger.” Joy paused. “We need to do something. I’ve got an Israeli submachine pistol that is so cool. Give me the budget and I can have our whole staff armed with them by this afternoon.”
“No. Hell, no. And if I catch you bringing any firearm on MAD property, you are fired on the spot. You got that?”
“Thought you’d say that. Choice number two. I know a guy,” said Joy. “OHR.”
“Is that a company? Are you sure we can trust them?”
“Not them. OHR is a guy. One Hand Ryan. And, yes, we can trust him. If he takes the job. I ran into him when I was on the force, but he wasn’t a cop. He was kind of invisible security for a rock star. The star had all these people strutting around in dark suits like FBI, or maybe Secret Service. But they were just for show. OHR stayed invisible and took care of everything. He is loyal with a capital ‘L.’ But he only takes jobs he wants to.”
Serenity nodded. “Bring him in.”
A few hours later, Serenity rubbed her eyes and shut down her computer. Enough. Who would have guessed that spending money could be so tough? She had spent all morning staring at the screen and sending money everywhere she could.
She stood up and stretched. No sleep, no food. At least five trips to the coffee pot. And now she needed one more. Maybe she’d get some peanut butter crackers from the machine. That sounded as appealing as week-old cat litter, but she needed something.
Serenity opened her door and looked out through the glass wall from the old library to the new MAD. Three floors of steel frame were up. Glass was going in on the third floor and the frame was started on four.
Amazing what you could do with money.
She went to the coffee bar that was crammed into the corner of what had been the break room. Tom, the new library barista hired to set up shop in the MAD, smiled from his temporary quarters.
“You’re keeping me busy today, Ms. Hammer.”
“Yeah. Good thing we made this stuff free for everybody or I’d be broke.”
“How about some decaf? I can make you a caramel decaf latte. Take some of that edge off.”
“I wish. Even straight caffeine’s not getting it done today. Give me a large Depth Bomb. Make it a double.”
“You sure? Dark coffee with two shots of espresso?”
She handed him her cup. He worked on it a minute and handed it back. “When you get done drinking that, you may want to throw the cup out. But don’t kill anyone in the process. Aim well.”
“I promise.”
To keep Tom’s brew from spilling and eating through the carpet, she cradled the cup in two hands as she walked back to her office. She unlocked the door, kneed the empty visitor’s chair out of the way and sat down at her chair. Faulkner peeked out and stared across the room.
“Don’t touch this stuff,” she warned. He kept staring.
She jumped when she saw a short teen-aged boy sitting in her visitor’s chair.
“Young man,” she said, “where did you come from?”
He didn’t say anything and she looked closer. The teen-aged boy had wrinkles around his eyes and a gymnast’s build.
And one hand.
She caught herself staring. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t staring.”
He let her hang there for a long moment before he said, “Yes, you were.”
“Well, yes, but… are you…” She realized she didn’t have a full name and wasn’t sure if One Hand Ryan was offensive. Just because Joy said it, didn’t mean Emily Post would approve. “Are you, uh—”
“One Hand Ryan. Just call me OHR.”
“I’m sorry,” she stood up and reached a handshake across the desk. She was glad to see his right hand was the functioning one.
Didn’t matter. He didn’t take it. Her hand hung in the air for a second before she pulled it back.
“Well, Ryan,” she said, “if you come to work here, what last name should we put on your paychecks?”
He shrugged and looked at the wall behind her. “How about Maddington?”
Could be worse. Could have just been Mad.
“Okay. Mr. Maddington—”
“OHR.”
“OHR. How much do you know about our situation?”
“Everything. Joy told me everything she knew, and I did my own digging.”
“When? We just decided to talk to you—and that’s all this is, just an interview—a few hours ago.”
“Plenty of time to dig. And travel.”
“We’re pretty secretive here these days, and our computer security features some of the best.”
“Best for a library.” He paused and leaned forward. “It’s not good enough for a criminal enterprise.”
“We’re not a criminal enterprise.”
“You are a civic criminal enterprise. Lots of organizations start that way, and then change. The people involved start taking a little for themselves, then a little more until there’s nothing left. You appear to be the exception. You’ve raised the salary for your staff, but not for yourself.”
“Joy tell you that?”
“She told me some. Most I found on my own. And if I can find it, others can. We need to fix that, and fast.”
“We? You’d work for a—what did you call us—civic criminal enterprise?”
He stood up. He was small, and his muscles were compact.
“Everything’s a civic criminal enterprise, if you think about it. Even the obvious criminal organizations like the Mafia and drug gangs don’t survive because of their crime, but because of the roots they put down in the community and the needs they serve there. At the other end of the spectrum, churches are—sometimes—completely legal, but they only survive by the legalized theft of their tax-free status. In between are all the civic and business and political enterprises that write the laws to let them get away with murder.
“The problem that you’ve got here,” he continued, “is that your library has nothing to protect it—no politicians, no tax breaks, no tough guys. And no OHR.”
Serenity looked at him, a slightly wrinkled former teen-aged boy with muscles and one hand.