out to have left her more than one hundred million dollars in cash, annuities, life insurance, and real estate holdings—a fortune no one in Little Bridge, least of all his wife, ever suspected he possessed—no one was too surprised when she donated a large portion of her sudden fortune to the construction of a new library.
The library board agreed to purchase the building—a beautiful though rundown example of classic revival architecture—which had once been the Little Bridge High School. A new, modern high school had been built years earlier after the discovery of asbestos in the halls of the old one, which had sat empty and decaying for more than fifty years until Mrs. Tifton and her fortune came along.
The new Norman J. Tifton Public Library, though not quite finished, had already been restored to its former nineteenth-century glory, but with all the modern amenities: multiple media/movie rooms; plenty of free parking; two auditoriums; a children’s and teens’ wing; cheerfully lit reading rooms with large, comfortable chairs; a café; meeting rooms; study carrels; digital facilities; and of course enough shelving for all manner of genre fiction.
Sometimes Molly couldn’t believe her good luck—especially now, going on a walk-through of the new building with Mrs. Tifton. They were accompanied by Richard Chang, the building’s architect; the district’s councilwoman, Janet Rivera; Meschelle Davies, a reporter from Little Bridge’s local newspaper, The Gazette; and of course Mrs. Tifton’s toy poodle, Daisy.
But Molly still felt special. It seemed too good to be true.
Which meant, of course, that it was.
It wasn’t until they reached the second floor of the twelve-thousand-square-foot building that Molly realized something was wrong.
“What’s that smell?” Janet asked.
“Oh, that,” Mrs. Tifton said, waving a small hand dismissively. “I know, isn’t it awful? All that drying paint.”
“That isn’t paint,” Molly said. She loved eating and knew her food smells. “It’s pizza.”
“That’s impossible.” Richard Chang was looking down at his phone. Richard never went anywhere without his overly large phone in his hand and his overly small glasses on his face. “Nobody’s been here since last week. All the work is done. We’re just waiting on the final inspections and certificates.”
Meschelle, the reporter, dutifully jotted this down.
“But.” Molly realized the smell was coming from the new children’s media room, the double doors to which were both closed. “It really smells like pizza.”
“Oh, well,” Mrs. Tifton said, brightly. “Maybe the crew had pizza last week.”
“And didn’t properly dispose of the leftovers?” Richard scowled behind his artistically framed eyeglasses. “That’s not like them. They’re normally very—”
He broke off as Molly pushed open the doors to the media room.
As soon as she stepped inside, she saw that she’d made a massive mistake. She ought never to have gone in there—at least, not while being followed by the donor and a reporter from the local paper. Quickly, she moved to shut the doors behind her, but it was too late. Daisy, Mrs. Tifton’s little dog, darted between Molly’s legs, making an eager beeline for the source of the odor.
“Daisy, no!”
There was nothing else Molly could do. She slammed the doors closed, shutting Daisy up inside the media room with all the boxes of leftover pizza someone—or more likely, quite a lot of someones—had left behind, then leaned against them, blocking Mrs. Tifton’s—and Meschelle’s—view into the room through the glass panes.
“Let’s go back downstairs,” she said, plastering a fake smile on her face. “I just remembered I forgot my bag.”
“What?” Mrs. Tifton smiled up at her. The widow was quite small in stature but made up for it by being pleasantly curved, often reminding Molly of a bouncing ball because of her seemingly boundless energy. “No, you didn’t, silly girl, it’s on your shoulder. What’s in there that you don’t want us to see?”
“N-nothing,” Molly said, quickly. “I just—I—”
Molly didn’t normally stammer, but what was behind the media room doors wasn’t something that a sweet woman like Mrs. Tifton—let alone a reporter, who would doubtlessly blast it all over the front page—ought to see. Molly wished she hadn’t seen it herself.
Fortunately, Janet Rivera had also seen what Molly had seen, and hurried to help.
“Mrs. Tifton, I don’t think the paint in that room is dry,” Janet said. “Why don’t we let Richard show us the meditation garden downstairs instead? We can check to see if they got that powderpuff tree you asked for.”
“Oh, the powderpuff!” Mrs. Tifton’s voice rose in delight as the councilwoman took her by the arm and steered her back toward the stairs. “I do hope they