Lily leaned into my shoulder, and I put my arm around her. Her sobs were fierce, shaking her whole body as she cried.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
I had no idea what she meant.
* * *
I called the police while Lily went and, in her words, ‘fixed her face.’
When she came back, her make-up was perfectly put together. You could barely tell she’d been crying, except for the tiny patches of pink at the corners of her eyes. I envied her for a moment, but I also didn’t. In the midst of pain, the last thing I wanted to add to my plate was worrying about how I looked.
‘What’d they say?’ she asked.
‘They said they’d be right over, and asked if we touched anything.’
‘Um,’ Lily looked at the books we’d already put away. ‘Whoops.’
‘Yeah, I’m sure it will be fine. They said not to touch anything else. Besides, it’s not like they’re actually going to find out who did this.’
‘You don’t think?’ She started to pick a couple more books off the floor and then realised what she was doing and put them back down.
‘Janine,’ she started. ‘This might be my fault.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, I came here last night and I might have forgotten to lock the door.’
She clearly had more to say. She was rubbing her tattooed ear, blinking at the floor.
I waited.
‘I told you I met someone,’ she said finally. ‘And she, she likes to have sex here, in the bookstore. I might have forgotten to lock the door.’
A vision of Lily on my desk filled my mind. Did I tell her I’d seen her? Would it make her feel better or worse?
I didn’t say anything. I just gathered her in my arms, saying, ‘It’s OK. It’s not your fault,’ until the police arrived.
They showed up quickly, two men, all dressed to the nines despite the early hour.
They asked a ton of questions and took a ton of photos. They were polite and thorough, but didn’t give us much hope of catching the people who’d ransacked the store.
‘It is odd that the door wasn’t jimmied or broken,’ said one of the officers, a tall thin man with short graying hair, who’d said to call him Jim.
I didn’t say anything. I wanted them to find out who did this, but not at the expense of Lily’s guilt.
‘Who else has your keys?’ he asked.
Lily and I looked at each other.
‘No one, as far as I know,’ I said. ‘We had them made special when we renovated.’
‘Where do you keep them?’ he asked.
I sheepishly pulled mine from around my neck to show him. He raised a brow, but didn’t say anything. Not even when Lily, less sheepishly, but with exaggerated ease, pulled hers from a secret pocket inside her skirt band. I almost cracked up at that; I knew she wore hers on her at all times, like I did, but I assumed she wore it around her neck as well, or maybe in her cleavage. I hadn’t expected the skirt.
‘So just two keys then?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Wait. Actually no. We had three keys made. But one of them was for our original landlord, Conrad. He liked to come here and read books sometimes when we were closed.’
‘Where is this Conrad now?’
‘He …’ Was this the first time I’d tried to say this out loud? My heart did a funny little stutter step, like it wanted to run away in fear but banged itself against the wall of my ribcage and couldn’t go any farther. Lily reached out and took my hand in hers. For the second time that day, I felt the fluttery pulse in her thumb as our fingers entwined.
‘He passed away a few months ago.’
‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Jim said. It was such a common phrase, one you heard all the time, but he actually sounded sincere. I liked him for that. ‘Do you know where that key might have gone?’
‘I don’t, actually.’
A moment later, I said. ‘You know what? I might. Our new landlord might have a copy.’
I gave him Wes’s name and address, which he wrote down in a little book. ‘You should consider getting your locks changed,’ he said. ‘I can recommend someone if you’d like.’
‘That would be great, thank you,’ I said.
He pulled out another small notebook and wrote down a name and number. ‘I’d recommend not waiting,’ he said. ‘Locks like these are easy to pick.’
‘How do you know so much about locks?’ I asked.
He smiled, and I saw that some of those laugh lines were smile lines. They were a nice frame to his eyes. ‘My early days on the force were mostly breaking-and-entering. There was a lot more of that kind of crime then. These days, it’s mostly shootings and meth heads and …’ He waved a hand through the air as if he didn’t want to go on and on with such a list. ‘Awful stuff,’ he said finally. ‘I kind of miss those days.’
‘Not to devalue what’s happened to you and your store,’ he added quickly. ‘It’s devastating, to be sure. But no one’s bleeding, and that’s a real positive in my book.’
Bleeding. I hadn’t even thought of that. In all the worry about the books and the store, it hadn’t even occurred to me that something far worse could have happened. What if Lily had gotten there just a little earlier, what if she’d walked in on whoever had done this while they were doing it? If something had happened to her…
This time, it was my turn to wave the thought away. I didn’t want to think about it.
‘Thank you for your help,’ I said because I didn’t know what else to say.
‘It’s my job,’ he said.
Which was true.
‘Besides, I love books.’ That soft smile again, and I wondered yet again what his home life was like, who he was when he wasn’t in uniform. I imagined him in a big easy chair in front of a fire, a dog stretched out at his feet, a book in his hands. Somewhere in another part of the house, someone was humming or singing or talking. It was a good image, out of a good story. Lately, I felt like I needed more good stories in my life. More happy-ever-afters and fewer hungry wolves in the woods.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘consider Leather Bound your book version of a coffee shop. Come in any time. I can’t afford to give you free books, but I can promise to take really, really good care of you.’
‘Will do,’ he said.
His colleague joined him, and he tipped his hand at me, in that old-fashioned kind of way that I loved. I watched them walk away, basking just for a moment in the way that everything felt right with the world. And then I went back inside to face the reality of the disaster that was my life.
* * *
Lily looked as exhausted and dirty as I felt. We’d cleaned up a lot already, but we were still so far from done that it made me want to cry. Books still littered the floors. Shelves gaped half-empty. The SHUT sign hadn’t been turned. Nothing was where it was supposed to be. Except, thankfully, my office, which looked like it hadn’t been touched.
‘I think we’re going to have to stay closed for a couple of days,’ I said.
‘Can we afford that?’ Lily asked.
‘No,’ I said. ‘But I don’t know what else to do. We can’t open like this and …’ I had to stop. I wasn’t going to fall apart. I refuse.
‘Maybe we can just miss today,’ Lily said. ‘It’s only …’ She leaned around the shelf and looked at the clock over the counter. ‘Crap. It’s later than I thought.’
‘I know.’ The inertia, the lack of ability to actually accomplish what we needed to do, seemed to stop us both in our tracks. We stood for a moment, surrounded by homeless books, panting as though we’d been running a marathon instead of reshelving.
‘I need coffee,’ I said. ‘If I have coffee, I can do this.’
She perked. ‘Think we can get them to deliver us some?’
I didn’t even wait to answer. I called Cream.
‘Cream. How can we sugar you, sugar?’ It was the same woman who’d waited on me last time.
‘Hey,
is Stefan there?’ I hated calling in a favour. Well, it wasn’t even a favour. Stefan didn’t owe me anything. It was more like calling in a friendship. I could only hope that Stefan wouldn’t mind.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘He’s gone for the day. Actually –’ she dropped her voice low, as though sharing a secret with me ‘– they’re all gone for the day. They left me here all by myself. I tell you, if I didn’t love this job …’ Then she brightened. ‘But I can take a message for you.’
‘It’s OK.’ I said. The phone was too heavy for me to hold any more. Such a simple thing, a way to save us from ourselves, a cup of coffee delivered. And we couldn’t even have that. It was silly, but it felt like the last straw, the thing that was going to make all of this impossible.
Lily was behind me when I turned, her face expectant. That changed as soon as she saw my expression.
‘Well, crap,’ she said.
‘Yeah.’ We looked at the mess, at the clock.
‘Let’s make the best of it,’ I said. ‘No one got hurt, nothing is broken.’ I was nowhere close to convincing myself, and it was clear that I wasn’t convincing Lily either.
* * *
It wasn’t twenty minutes later that there was a knock on the front window.
Stefan waved at us through the glass, then lifted the coffees in his fists as offerings. Behind him stood half a dozen people. A couple of baristas I recognised from Cream. Jay, looking half-asleep. I was sure Stefan had roused him from bed long before his bar-nightowl self would have liked. The blue-haired singer from the bar. It was a motley crew, but one I was incredibly glad to see.
I opened the door and ushered them in. They smelled like cold air and lots and lots of coffee.
‘Coffee delivery, sugar?’ Stefan asked.
‘I have never been so happy to see someone in my whole life,’ I said. Just saying that made me want to cry. I could hear Lily laughing behind me in delight as the others laid down fixings: coffee, bagels and a bunch of spreads.
‘You girls eat and caffeine up for when the store opens,’ Stefan said. ‘We’ve got this.’
I didn’t even recognise Kitty until she hugged Lily with a low murmur. Then I recognised her twice: first as Kitty and then as the woman who’d fucked Lily so lovingly in my office. Despite everything that had happened so far today, watching the two of them together made me smile.
Stefan ran the team as efficiently as he ran Cream, putting everyone into an aisle and telling them what they needed to do. Soon, the sound of books being reshelved was all around us. Lily and I stuffed our faces, then got to work beside everyone. Less than an hour later, nearly everything was put back in its proper place.
‘I think we can open now,’ Lily said.
‘Turn that sign, Miss Lily,’ Stefan said, laughing.
Lily turned it. When everyone cheered, I did cry. Tears came hot and fast. Jay put his arms around me, squeezing me so hard I wasn’t sure I could breathe.
‘All right, crew, prepare to move out,’ Stefan said.
Once they were outside, Stefan leaned in and kissed Lily’s cheek, and then mine.
‘Thank you, Stefan,’ I said. I had to ask the question that had been bugging me. ‘But how did you know?’
‘Hello, sugar. Coffee shop. Cops. I know everything that goes on our lovely little neighbourhood. But next time, if you need help, you call and ask me, yes?’
‘Promise,’ I said.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Now go sell some books. And, you still owe me a very sexy tale, do you not?’
I nodded.
‘Don’t make me wait,’ he said.
* * *
A few books hadn’t made the reshelving process for one reason or another. Too damaged. Or someone didn’t know where they belonged. They were piled on the end of the counter, and I flipped through them. Maybe we could put them all on sale, a special discount.
I picked up a book of black and white photos and flipped through it. Something fluttered out from the back. A photo, from the looks of it, with something written on the back. I leaned down and picked it up.
Davian and C.K., it read.
I took a deep breath and turned the photo over.
It was a black and white photo, the kind of artsy shot that can sometimes change someone’s features, make you wonder if it’s really who you think it is. But I’d fucked the man. I would recognise Davian anywhere.
He was standing, profile to the camera, dressed in a ’40s-style outfit. Those perfect-fit pants, a white button-up, a jacket that showed off his wide shoulders and thin waist. A hat cocked in a perfect jaunt on his head, and his hair pulled back. He had grown a small goatee, and it darkened his features just a little, brought the sexy out.
It wasn’t Davian’s image that surprised me the most. Next to him, his arm slung over Davian’s shoulders, was a slightly older man, his dark hair clearly silver-tipped even in the photo. He was looking at Davian and his smile was a beautiful thing, full of love.
Something clicked about that smile. I’d seen it before, aimed at me. I took the photo over closer to the light from the picture windows and tilted it until I could see the man’s face clearly.
The man in the photo was Conrad.
* * *
‘Lily,’ I said. ‘Look what I found.’
I handed her the photo and heard her sharp intake of breath. ‘I knew I recognised him from somewhere,’ she said.
‘You’ve seen this photo?’
She shook her head. ‘Not that one, but one like it. I just can’t remember where.’
Her eyes scanned the shelves, her mouth musing. Moments later she came back with another book, one I didn’t recognise.
‘I found this when I went through Conrad’s books,’ she said. ‘I left the photo in because people like their ephemera. Of course, I didn’t realise who it was at the time.’
She flipped to the back and there was another photo. In this one, the two men were harder to distinguish. They were kissing, their mouths pressed tight together, their bodies equally close. They were clearly intimate, and just as clearly in love.
‘That’s incredibly hot,’ I said.
‘I know, right?’ she said.
‘That also explains how Davian had one of our disaster cards,’ I said.
I sat down on the nearby chair with a whoomp. Things were starting to come to light, finally.
‘So Davian’s friend C.K. is our friend Conrad,’ I said. I had to say the stuff out loud so that my brain would start to clear out. ‘That means, Conrad is the man who sent Davian here to find a sex club book that he lost.’
‘Conrad would never lose a book,’ Lily said. ‘He took better care of his books than anyone I’ve ever known. And I’d say they were more than friends.’
‘Yes,’ I said, musing. ‘That’s what I don’t get.’
Add Wes to the mix and things got really complicated. It was an odd triad, with me somewhere in the middle. I wondered how much Davian actually knew about all this. He’d seemed genuinely surprised to realise that Wes was my landlord, which meant he probably didn’t know that Conrad was my former landlord. And Wes had obviously been surprised to see me at his party.
Which meant that there was only one person who actually seemed to know what was going on.
And he’d been dead for months.
* * *
I needed to think, and clear my head. I thought about going to L&L, but I didn’t think this was the kind of clarity that could be achieved through sex. For once, I needed something else. Something simple. Like a walk around the block.
Which I took, despite the cold. My mind kept spinning the questions over and over, but it was like being stuck in a rut. If Davian and Conrad knew each other, why hadn’t Conrad ever mentioned Davian to me? I got why he’d never mentioned that he was head of the Keyhole Club. Vow of silence and all that. And was there even a book? If so, why had Conrad set Davian on the task of finding it, when he could have just come to me?
Here were the
answers I found on that walk: not a single one.
When I got back to the store, Lily was manning the front counter. She gestured toward my office with her thumb. Davian was there, looking at the photos we’d found. I watched him from the door for a moment, revelling in his forearms, in the way his long legs tilted as he leaned against the counter. I wanted to run my hands through his dark curls. Tug off his glasses. Kiss him until he begged me to fuck him.
Instead, I cleared my throat.
Davian wrapped me in a bear hug that smelled so strongly of cinnamon and sugar that it nearly made me cry with desire and sadness. ‘I’m so sorry this happened to the store,’ he said.
‘Me too,’ I said.
Davian released me and then picked one of the photos off my desk. ‘He was an amazing man, wasn’t he?’ he said.
‘He was.’
‘I loved him fiercely,’ Davian said. ‘But we were better friends than lovers. I think he was always sad to see me alone.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I asked.
Davian shook his head. ‘I didn’t actually figure it all out until the morning. Well, actually, as soon as I heard the place was ransacked, I knew it was Wes, looking for the book. And then I put it all together.’
‘Wes realised that raising our rent wasn’t an option, so he came looking for the book on his own,’ I said. Because, of course, if Conrad was going to lose a book – or in this case, hide it from someone – why not right in the midst of a million other books? ‘Oh, God. What if he found it?’
Davian shook his head. ‘I don’t think he did. We should have heard about it already. He’s not the type to keep his bragging to a minimum.’
‘OK, so Conrad hid the book here. Maybe. But why? Why not just give it to you?’
Davian sat in the theatre chair, and I thought of the day he’d first come here, asking for help, and how I’d turned him down. Oddly, if it hadn’t been for Wes and his stupid scheme to raise our rent, I never would have called Davian back. In some ways, I had Wes to thank for that.
‘I never wanted to run the club,’ Davian said. ‘Conrad knew that, if he asked me, I’d only say yes because I loved him and because he was dying. And he wasn’t the kind of man to guilt someone into something. He gave me a sealed letter, and asked me to open it on a certain date and follow the instructions.’
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