“You’re out of your fucking mind.”
“Trust me.” I hung up before she could continue to analyze my mental status.
I ran out to the Rover. I shifted into first gear and thought, Audrey out with Carl? Unbelievable. But that was the least of my concerns.
The Rover engine roared as I sped down Interstate 70 to Denver. At the First Avenue light I turned left on Milwaukee and pulled up to the parking garage entrance. The first thing I had to figure out was whether Julian had taken my van anywhere.
Glitch: the lot was closed. Worse, the horizontal bar was down.
What was a barricade to the rhino guard of a desert vehicle? I backed up, gunned the engine forward, and crashed through the horizontal bar.
The growl of the car engine echoed off the concrete walls and through the cavernous space of the deserted garage. Up, up, I went to the third-floor level. And there was my van, parked ominously, alone, next to the entrance. Glass sparkled at its tires.
My heartbeat banged in my ears. How was I going to get back into the store? Could Audrey, in stomping out of the bookstore in a rage, have forgotten her purse in my van? I desperately hoped she had left her security entrance card behind. Unless she had manufactured her tantrum …
Best not to speculate until I had the grade book in my hands. I hopped out of the Rover and slid open the van door. The sound reverberated eerily.
“Julian?” I whispered into the van’s cold depths. Silence. And then I looked in shock at the mess of papers, boxes, and cups that the overhead light illuminated. The vehicle had been trashed.
I was so angry, I almost slammed the door. But then I saw Audrey Coopersmith’s overturned purse on the floor. I searched desperately for the magnetic-striped security card. It was not there. Now what?
An explosion cracked the stillness. A gunshot. I fell forward.
The sound had come from inside the store. I ran up to the back entrance security post. The light was green: Whoever had ransacked my van had probably used Audrey’s card to open the electronic lock. I wrenched open the first glass door and then the second. I cursed wildly to overcome fear as I stepped into the dark depths of the bookstore.
The air was black, tarlike. The silence was absolute. I stepped carefully out onto the soft carpet. The smell of the bookstore was rich: paper, carpet, bindings, books, chairs, wood, dust. The odor of humans still lingered. I was near the kitchenette but could see nothing. The desk was close by; Audrey had shown it to me… .
The flashlights.. One under each desk. I walked through the darkness, not knowing whether I was going in a straight or crooked path, but heading in my mind’s eye toward where that desk must be. My foot thumped the side of a chair. It squeaked forward on tiny, unseen wheels. Damn. I groped underneath the desk until I found the cold metal clips holding the flashlight. My fingers closed around it. When I turned it on, I heard another shot. Louder, this time. Closer.
“Julian!” I shouted into the darkness. The phone. Call Schulz. I extricated myself from underneath the desk, stood, and directed the light to the phone. I dialed 911, begged them to come to the Tattered Cover right away, and hung up. The silence pressed down on me.
“Julian!” I shrieked again. My flashlight beam washed across the carpet to the steps.
And then I saw something out of place that made my heart freeze. Near the steps there was a large, dark splotch on the carpet. I dashed toward it, then stopped and swayed backward. Blood in a bookstore. But wait.
What had I just said to myself? Something out of place.
My mind reeled.
What had the woman in Lakewood said? Something it was too late for, something that was out of place… What had Arch said? You can’t see Andromeda in the summer… and, of course, I couldn’t buy a Good Humor bar from the ice cream man in the winter, now, could I? And I wouldn’t see a spider in an immaculate kitchen, would I? Tom Schulz had always told me: If you see anything that’s out of place…
And now I knew. The crimes, the perpetrator, even the methods… I knew. I sank against a bookshelf, sickened.
Move, I ordered myself. Down the wide, carpeted stairs I went, flashing the light ahead of me, until I reached the second floor. The scents were different on this level ? more people had been here, more sweat hung in the air. There had been no sound since the two shots.
?Julian??
“Goldy!” came a bloodcurdling call from somewhere below me. “Goldy! Help!” Julian’s voice.
“Where are you?” I yelled, but heard only shuffling, someone running, thudding footsteps. I nearly tripped running down the last flight of stairs.
Here, on the first floor, there was more light. It poured through the first-floor windows from the street lamps on First Avenue and Milwaukee Street.
“Agh!” came Julian’s muffled voice again. And then there was a scuffling sound from… where? From over by Business books.
I ran through the shadows to where I thought he was, near the exit to Milwaukee Street. I swept the flashlight across the rug… nothing. When I was almost to the first-floor cash registers, something slammed against me. I fell forward with a great crash, sending the flashlight skittering across the carpet. I came to my knees and leapt for it just as the body hit me again. I grabbed the flashlight and whirled around. The light shone on the furious, leathery face of Hank Dawson.
“You son of a bitch!” I screamed, and swung wildly with my flashlight. “Where’s Julian?”
He leapt for me, but I sidestepped him. With a curse, he drew back, then lunged for me again. Frantically, I grabbed for a wire display of oversize paperbacks and tipped it over in front of him. Hank tripped and fell hard. Desperately, I reached for books, any books, on nearby shelves and flung them on top of him.
To my amazement, his sprawled body remained motionless. I scuttled around the corner to Business books.
“Julian,” I called into the shelves, “it’s me! You have to come out quickly.” Which one of these godforsaken shelves was the one that opened outward? I couldn’t remember. But slowly, absurdly, as if I were in a horror movie, I saw a shelf begin to move. Books wobbled, then toppled out to the floor. A face peeked out of the vacant shelf.
“Is Mr. Dawson… dead?” It was Julian.
“Down but not out,” I said when I had caught my breath. “Oh, God, Julian, is that blood on your face? I’m so glad you’re alive. The police are on their way, but we’ve got to get out.”
“I can t move, he whimpered. He shot me … ?
Hank Dawson groaned and moved under the pile of books.
“Go!” Julian whispered desperately. “Get out!”
“Scoot back in there,” I ordered. He groaned, then inched back into the tiny space. I shoved the wall of books back in place just as Hank Dawson came around the corner of shelves.
“Hi, Goldy,” he said absurdly. I might have been there, in a darkened bookstore, to cater a Bronco brunch.
“Hank?”
“I want what I came for,” he told me with enormous, terrifying calm. “I want the kid.”
“Hank ? “
“Should I just start shooting into these shelves? I know he’s in here somewhere.”
“Wait!” I yelled. “There’s something else you’re going to need. Something you wanted before.”
He shone his flashlight into my face. The light blinded me. “What?”
“Miss Ferrell’s grade book. You were looking for it in her room, weren’t you? And… in my van? I have it here in the store.” I added fiercely, “You’ll never be able to prove Greer’s high class rank without it.” I had to get him away from Julian. Julian was the key.
Hank was breathing hard. “The book,” he said. “Where is it?”
“Here in the store. I hid it, I was going to … to give it to the police,” I sputtered. I was afraid. I was also passionately, blindly angry. Hank glanced at the unmoving bookshelves. Satisfied that Julian was immobilized, he growled, “All right, let’s go get it.” He shifted to one side of the shelves; I pushed past him. He stank of sweat.
My feet shuffled across the carpet. Hank clomped close behind. Where was my damn flashlight? I wanted to
