"It sounds far-fetched, I know.
But there is the book and the phone call to Tad that ties me to the fae who came into Phin's bookshop and destroyed it.
They beat Phin until he bled, then took off with him.
Violence and fae--just like this morning.
And the only common factor is me.
Coincidences happen, I know.
Maybe I'm just egocentric, thinking it's all about me." I waited in the bookstore until I realized I was waiting for Samuel to say something.
But Samuel wasn't here: it was just Sam and me.
"Okay, that's enough make-believe for me." I dusted off my jeans.
I'd have been hoping that I was wrong, but the way my life had been going the past year--this almost sounded tame.
No vampires or ghosts, right? No Gray Lords who terrified even other fae.
If I was wrong, I was afraid that it was only because the reality was even worse.
"Let's keep looking.
I'd feel really dumb if Phin turns out to be hidden in the basement." Sam found a door behind about three bookcases.
Happily, it opened away from us, so we just had to scramble over the top to drop to a landing.
Straight ahead was a brick wall; to the right of the door we'd entered through was a set of narrow and steep stairs that led down into a pit of inky blackness: the bookstore had a basement.
I didn't think that anyone would notice if I turned on the lights here because I was pretty sure that there weren't any windows in the basement.
I'd have noticed.
It took me a minute to find the light switch.
Sam, apparently unfazed by the darkness, had already continued down on his own when my hand found the right place.
With light to guide my way, I could see that the basement was mostly a storage facility with cardboard boxes set in piles.
It reminded me of the hospital's X-ray storage room in that there was obvious order to the stacks.
The ceiling height was deeper than usual for basements this near the river, but I could detect no trace of dampness.
Just to the right of the stairway, a section had been used as an office.
A Persian rug delineated the space and stretched out beneath an old-fashioned oak desk complete with clamp-on desk lamp.
There was a large framed oil painting of an English-type garden placed just in front of the desk, where someone sitting might use it as a mock window.
At one time the desk had held a computer monitor.
I could tell because the monitor was lying in pieces on the cement floor next to the rug.
There were more broken things on the ground--what looked to be the remains of a scentless jar candle, a mug that might have held the pens and pencils that had scattered when they hit the cement, and an office chair minus a wheel and the backrest.
"Be careful," I told Sam.