While Charles watched, I went to the fiction section and searched under the “Rs.” No sign of it. I tried the Religion and Spirituality shelves. Nothing.
I checked on the tabletops and in the magazine rack. I peeked under the table in the alcove, searched around all the chairs, and flicked through the books on the returns cart.
The Celestine Prophecy was nowhere to be seen.
I let out a puff of breath and dropped into a chair. I wouldn’t normally give a thought—and certainly not at this time of night—to a missing book. It would turn up. They usually did. Someone had shelved it incorrectly, thinking they were helping us, or slipped it into their book bag without thinking, and would return it along with the rest of their books.
That book was nothing special. It wasn’t rare or valuable, or of any particular interest to anyone. It had been removed from circulation when it got damaged.
The only thing that made it stand out was that it was the book that, apparently, Jeff Applewhite had checked out in the days surrounding the theft of the Blackstone necklace and his subsequent disappearance.
“Okay,” I said to Charles. “It’s gone. What do I do about it?”
Charles washed his whiskers.
I decided at this point in time to do nothing. I’d stood at the door, greeting book club members and guests (and those who’d barged into our meeting under false pretenses). Admittedly, I hadn’t focused my eagle eye on what was going on in the main room, but I would have been aware (I should have been aware anyway) of what was happening. No one, as far as I knew, had browsed the shelves or gone into the alcove. All the book club members headed immediately upstairs when they arrived, most of them hoping Josie’s goodies wouldn’t have all been snatched up yet.
The only people who hadn’t gone directly to the third-floor meeting room were Louise Jane and Sheila. Louise Jane had found the key to the gates and unlocked them. They’d gone to the upper levels, supposedly so Sheila could see the view from the very top. Louise Jane had come in shortly after to join the meeting, leaving Sheila alone. When Shelia joined us, she’d been holding her bag, a bag big enough to contain a regular-sized hardcover book. She’d fussed with that bag all evening but never opened it or took anything out of it.
Sheila, I was convinced, had taken the book.
Whatever for? was the question.
I didn’t call Louise Jane and demand she put Shelia on the phone. I didn’t go to Jake’s Seafood Bar and track them down. I did nothing.
I decided to wait to see what Sheila wanted with The Celestine Prophecy.
Earlier in the summer, while doing much-needed renovations to the lighthouse foundation, we’d uncovered a code page and a hand-drawn map dating from the Civil War, hidden deep underground.
This, I thought, wasn’t the same. Nothing at all was unusual about our copy of The Celestine Prophecy. It was a standard library copy of a mass-produced novel. It happened to have been taken out by a suspected thief around the time he disappeared, but I couldn’t see what the book itself had to do with that. Theodore had checked into the provenance of our volume and found nothing at all out of the ordinary.
He might be wrong.
I might be wrong.
But I didn’t think so.
I called to Charles and we went upstairs to bed. Sheila had some plan for the book, and I’d wait for her to reveal herself. She’d be back—and soon. I was sure of it.
I didn’t have to wait for long.
Sheila strolled into the library as we were about to close on the afternoon following the book club meeting. Her canvas bag was tossed over her shoulder, and she was with Louise Jane.
They gave me such huge smiles I immediately knew something was up. “Are you here to return the book?” I said to Sheila.
“The book?” she asked innocently.
“The copy of The Celestine Prophecy you stole last night when you were pretending to be at the top of the lighthouse tower, watching the sun set over the mainland.”
“I was watching the sun beginning to set over the mainland. I was too early, but it was still pretty up there.”
“Okay. The book you stole after you watched the sun not quite set.”
Sheila glanced at Louise Jane. Louise Jane shrugged and said, “Shelia borrowed a library book. You were busy, so she didn’t want to bother you by asking to check it out officially.”
“Another word for taking a book from a library without checking it out officially is stealing.”
“Whatever.” Sheila dug in her bag and produced the purloined volume with a flourish. “I’ve brought it back.”
“Thank you.”
“Is Bertie in?” Louise Jane asked.
“I am.” Bertie stepped into the room, and Louise Jane and Sheila turned to her with their big smiles.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I said in a voice pitched to carry to every nook and cranny on the main floor, “the library is about to close. If you can bring your books to the circulation desk, I’ll check them out for you. Thank you.”
People popped out from the stacks. Mr. Snyder, who came almost every day to sit in the big wingback chair next to the magazine rack with Charles on his lap, got slowly to his feet after dislodging the reluctant cat.
As I checked out books and wished everyone a good night, out of one corner of my eye I watched Bertie with Louise Jane and Sheila. They were clearly arguing about something. Sheila was waving her arms around in the air, and Louise Jane was pointing a finger in Bertie’s face. Bertie stood stiff and resolute, a rock firm against the constant battering of the waves. I thought she showed enormous restraint by not knocking Louise Jane’s wagging finger out of the way.
“The book—” Louise
