the night. I began turning out lights in the main room. Of course, we kept some on all night, but that still left plenty to do. I looked around the big room, took one big inhalation of eau de book, and opened the heavy door that led to the new wing of the library. The employee lounge still smelled of Perry's cologne, and I decided that if Perry was putting on cologne and shaving for a drink with a guy, he wasn't as totally clueless of his own nature as he'd tried to appear. I got my purse out of my locker, extracted my keys, and spotted a light still burning in Sam's office. I went to switch it off. Now the employee lounge was the only lit room.
The building suddenly felt very empty, uncomfortably empty.
I heard someone fumbling at the lock outside and I stood in the middle of the floor, paralyzed with sudden fear. The door flew open, picked up by the wind outside. I realized as a leaf gusted in that it was beginning to rain again outside.
Patricia Bledsoe - I could not think of her by her real name - stepped in from the dark. She was as astonished to see me as I was to see her.
"He hasn't called the police," I said instantly.
She gave a sigh. I thought it was of relief. "I saw your car in the parking lot, but I noticed two people came out the front. I thought you'd gone somewhere with Perry," she said. "Jerome's out in the car. We had to turn back halfway to ... well, halfway, and come back. I forgot something important."
"Get whatever it is, don't mind me," I said. "I'm not even here." I'd dropped my purse on a table, and now I picked it up again. Patricia sped into her office, pulling a drawer out all the way and fumbling under it. Her hand came up clutching an envelope, and I realized she'd had it taped to the bottom of her drawer. How the paranoid live. Though, in Patricia's case, the paranoia was justified.
"Where will you go?" I asked. "Wait a minute, forget I asked that."
And we both heard the back door begin to open. Patricia hadn't locked it behind her.
With a desperate expression on her face, Patricia ducked down below her desk. I stepped out of her office, hoping the light in there didn't show anything suspicious over the half-wall.
To my surprise, Will Weir stepped in. I'd half-forgotten out conversation. His timing was awful.
"What are you doing here?" I asked, not caring if I sounded rude or not.
"I'm glad I caught you," he said, smiling. "I'm sorry if I scared you. Is it illegal, coming in the back way? The front was locked, and it's not nine yet."
No, it was all of 8:58. I felt abruptly uneasy. "You're not supposed to come in this door," I said. I didn't smile back. "You're going to have to wait to come to the library tomorrow. I've shut everything down."
"I just needed to see the books Mark brought in," he said, still smiling. "I see they're over here in the box."
"It's too late. You have to come back tomorrow."
"I have to work tomorrow. Let me just take a minute, and I'll be all through." He'd made his voice soothing, as though I was being childish.
I know when someone's trying to get away with something. I've sure been a librarian long enough for that.
"Will, what's in those books that's so important? That can't wait?"
He smiled again, made a "wait" gesture with his hand, and began riffling through the pile of books. The wind was whooshing through the cracked door, and it fluttered the pages of the book he held, the book about diagnosing your own illness. Will shook it. Nothing happened. He followed that procedure with every book in the box. As book after book proved a disappointment, he tossed them to one side. I almost protested, and then caught myself.
He kept talking the whole time, meaningless phrases like, "I'll be out of your hair in just a second," and "I just need to check these books." He was just trying to keep me sedated, I realized, and then he lifted the bound movie script that Mark had brought by accident. I'd completely forgotten it. Will turned it upside down, and shook it, and from its pages flew a folded piece of paper. The wind picked up the paper and blew it in my direction, and it