“I know what it means; I’m not an imbecile.”
Jessica muttered something.
“What was that?” Hazard asked.
She gave him a saccharine smile.
“So these clues are supposed to go together somehow,” Hazard said, pulling up the pictures. “A nursing home with a sunrise and a sunset, and a library bulletin board.” He grunted. “Do you think Somers is standing by a bulletin board in the nursing home?”
“That seems a tad literal,” Jessica said. “Usually you have to think laterally. Like, maybe the nursing home picture is really about the sunrise. Do you guys go anywhere with the words sunrise or sunset in the name? A hotel? A restaurant? Or do you like drinks with the word sunset in the name, maybe a place with a sunset cocktail?
“Or maybe Somers is joining some kind of geriatric quilting club? That’s the kind of thing that gets posted on bulletin boards.”
Jessica made a noise, but when Hazard looked up, her face was composed. Her eyes were very bright. And her lips were quivering. But otherwise, composed.
“Or not,” Hazard finally said.
“Maybe not.”
“Well, fuck,” Hazard said.
“Laterally,” Jessica said.
“I heard you the first time.”
“Ok,” Jessica said, pushing away from the circulation desk. “I think that’s enough helping for one day.”
“What help? How did you help?”
“Stay away from my pencils.”
“Fine. They can look like the jagged stumps of rotten teeth.”
“It’s always a pleasure, Emery. And now, since you did promise to help me, can you get the newspapers ready?” She gestured to a stack. “I’m going to unlock the doors.”
“Not exactly a fair trade,” Hazard said to Jessica’s back. “Just because you have a stranglehold on public access to informational resources doesn’t mean you can treat the rest of us like second-class citizens.”
Jessica waved her middle finger without looking back.
Hazard grabbed the stack of newspapers and moved over to the rack, stripping the old editions from the newspaper sticks and then sliding today’s copies into place. Hazard approved of libraries in general, and he thought that, for the most part, they provided a much-needed public service while perpetually underfunded. What he didn’t approve of, in this particular case, was freeloading senior citizens who took up valuable library table space to read the Wahredua Courier while a wealth of literature—
“Oh,” Hazard said, dropping the stack of newspapers. “Damn it.”
Then a much younger voice echoed, “Damn it!”
He could hear Jessica’s sigh all the way across the library; he glanced over his shoulder, to where a woman and a small boy stood just inside the doors.
“Richard,” the woman said to the boy. “We do not use that kind of language.” Then she turned on Jessica. “Excuse me. I thought the library was supposed to be a family-friendly institution, and—”
“I didn’t finish the newspapers,” Hazard said as he jogged past.
“Tell John-Henry hi,” Jessica said with a small wave.
VI
APRIL 24
WEDNESDAY
9:12 AM
HAZARD GOT TO WAHREDUA HIGH during passing period. After he’d identified himself via a security camera and been buzzed inside, he found himself carried along like a leaf in a river. He was a big man, but there were just so many goddamn teenagers. And they just kept moving. And talking. And tapping on their phones. And he found himself stumbling to keep up so that he wouldn’t be trampled. A lot had changed since Hazard had first come here as a gawky fourteen-year-old freshman: kids staring at their phones, kids covered in piercings, kids with wireless ear buds. But a lot hadn’t. He remembered this same feeling from all those years before, being carried along by the same current, carried by it but somehow never quite part of it.
The building was a single-story maze, built before land had become valuable, and Hazard followed offshoots and side hallways until he stood outside room 137. The door didn’t look any different. The window set into the door had obviously been replaced, and Hazard wondered about the story behind that. Had a kid thrown a chair through it? Had a teacher lost his cool one day? Or something more mundane, like a safety measure of some kind? The plaque by the door was different too; under the room number was printed the teacher’s name: Dr. Stratford.
Inside, the light was on, but through the window Hazard could only see rows of chairs, each with a tablet arm. He wiped his hands on his new trousers. Sweat popped out across his back. New kids, the few that had come to Wahredua High, had to stand at the front of the room in each class and introduce themselves. Hazard’s hand hovered over the doorknob.
Then the bell rang, and the hall emptied. Hazard opened the door and stepped inside.
Somers was sitting cross-legged on the teacher’s desk with an elaborate brunch spread out beside him: not just the mini quiches and the fudge bites, but a fruit platter, a pitcher of what Hazard guessed was mimosas, and a basket covered with a tea towel. Hazard guessed by the smell that it held biscuits from Big Biscuit.
“Tardy,” Somers said.
“I was in the bathroom,” Hazard said, shutting the door behind him. He leaned against it, studying Somers.
“Talking back? I should send you to the office.”
Hazard looked around the room. Some of the posters on the walls had changed, but—unless Hazard’s memory was worse than he thought—some of them hadn’t. He was positive the IRISH PLAYWRIGHTS OF THE 20TH CENTURY poster had been there since his senior year.
“Senior Lit,” Hazard said.
“Took you long enough to figure it out.”
Hazard began walking up an aisle of chairs.
“I really expected better,” Somers thought, crossing his legs at the ankle and leaning back, his weight supported as he planted his hands behind him on the desk. “I really thought you’d be here while the food was still warm.”
One of the desks was out of line; Hazard straightened it, and then he adjusted the tablet arm, flattening it.
“And then you had to turn into a wiseass,” Somers said, leaning back even farther, the lean lines of
