Mark looked at the older detective and smiled. His comment didn’t require an answer. “Nice shot, by the way. Glad you didn’t forget about me here.”
Townsend smacked him on the back. “When have I ever not backed you up?”
“True.” And it was. Townsend may have made a lot of mistakes, but he was a good cop when push came to shove—literally.
“You wanna get a drink after we finish up here?” Townsend asked.
Mark sighed. And yet, some things never changed. “Tim, go home to your wife. Ashlyn’s waiting on me.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he muttered.
EPILOGUE
A knock on the doorjamb caused Mark to look up.
Gregory Burke and his wife, Jacqueline, stood in the open doorway, blue and yellow balloons in one hand, a teddy bear too large for a day-old newborn in the other. “Can we come in?”
“Hey…come in,” Ashlyn whispered, careful not to jostle the tiny bundle in her arms.
Jacqueline tiptoed toward the bed, her eyes immediately filling. “Oh,” she fanned her eyes, “I can’t tell you…” she blinked back the tears. “Can I hold him?”
Ashlyn nodded, allowing her son’s grandmother to hold her pride and joy.
“He’s so beautiful. He looks just like you, Ashlyn.”
Mark smiled. He did. There wasn’t a trace of Burke in his son. If it weren’t for the fact that he was heir to the Burke fortune via Ashlyn, they’d probably demand a blood test. But the Burkes were so happy to have a grandson they probably wouldn’t have even requested it then.
Gregory Burke wrapped his arm around his wife and pulled the blanket away from the baby boy’s face. “Hi, Jayden.” Burke looked up at Ashlyn. “Is that right? Jayden.”
Ashlyn smiled. “Yes. It means ‘thankful’.”
“I like it,” Burke said, making eye contact with Mark.
Mark knew what he was thinking. Jayden…like Jay. And yes, Jayden’s friends might shorten his name when he grows up. But no, Mark hadn’t suggested the name; Ashlyn did. But he liked it. He felt Jay had saved his life by allowing herself to be seen by Wesley Burke Jr. Edda’s being there hadn’t hurt either. She definitely stopped the first bullet, but it was Jay’s presence that had unnerved Mr. Burke. Looking into the eyes of the woman you’d shot in cold blood would drive anyone mad.
Mark had a good idea that if Townsend hadn’t shot Burke, Jay and Edda would have somehow made sure he’d gone over the balcony before he’d pulled the trigger on Mark, though. At least that’s why he thought they’d been edging toward the railing.
Mark walked around the hospital bed and stood next to his wife. “Yeah. I like it too. We have a lot to be thankful for.”
“Hey,” another voice said, walking around the doorway. Captain Davis held a bright blue gift bag and balloons with Congratulations printed on the outside. He lowered the bag over a side table at the end of the room, but looked at the woman who followed in behind him before setting it down. “Is this all right?” he asked Mark’s mom.
“Perfect. Where’s my grandbaby?” Cheryl Lynn asked as she scooted up next to the Burkes. “Oh, he’s so adorable. Can I hold him?”
Everyone looked to Ashlyn, as if the seven-pound bundle of blankets was explosive.
“Of course you can, Mom,” Ashlyn said.
If it were possible, his mother glowed. She always had a beautiful blush and was always chipper, but today she was in her glory. Whether it was from Ashlyn calling her ‘mom’, as she’d suggested the moment Mark and Ashlyn had told her they’d officially tied the knot, or holding a newborn baby in her arms, he couldn’t tell. But then Mark also saw how close Captain Davis was standing to his mother.
The two men made eye contact, and Mark made sure he gave his superior his best, ‘you better not hurt my mother’ look. It’d only been a month since Davis had filed for divorce, but he’d moved out of his house the day after he’d arrested his wife. He’d admitted that he’d known since the beginning that Margaret had been hiding something in the case, probably the reason she’d become so chummy with him. But he’d been lonely, he admitted. And Margaret had been an attractive woman.
Mark sat down on the bed next to his wife and kissed her on the forehead. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” she said, smiling up at him. “Looks like we might have another seat filled on Thanksgiving,” she whispered.
He laughed. “Looks that way.”
As soon as Mark finished speaking with the district attorney after Margaret Davis’ arrest, he headed to see the woman he’d always admired. The DA had mixed feelings about pressing charges against Margaret Davis or William ‘Wild Bill’ James. If tried and convicted, they could end up serving ten years, but he doubted he had enough to convict either of them and didn’t think the public would appreciate the tax dollars it’d take to go to trial.
Yes, they’d tried to blackmail Burke, but they hadn’t known when Bill had told Burke that Jay had the information, not Margaret, that he’d go after her.
Burke had originally hired Bill to find out who was blackmailing him. He’d found Bill from his good friend, who happened to be the commissioner. The commissioner had told Burke about Bill, who’d recently left the police department and gone into private investigation. After all, the commissioner had been out of the department a long time, so he hadn’t known about Bill’s illegal activities on the job. The chief at the time had swept everything under the rug, according to Davis.
When Jay had gone to Burke, attempting to protect his reputation, he’d assumed that she’d been the one who’d written the blackmail letter, Margaret and Bill surmised.
The one thing Mark had not figured out in all of this was how Margaret had figured out that Wesley Burke Senior had murdered Edda.
Surprisingly, when he’d gone to the county jail the day after her arrest, Margaret had been more than willing to talk with him. “Have a seat, Markey. I hold no ill will against you. I know you were doing your job, and I really needed to find that evidence before he did, or my life would have been in danger too. Just like he killed Buck.”
Mark wasn’t so sure he believed the woman, but he pulled out a chair and took a seat across from Margaret. “Without the bullet or casing, there’s no way to know for sure who killed Buck. Since Burke admitted to shooting Jessica and her mother, and was ready to shoot us, we assume he did in fact kill Wade Buchanan. But I guess we’ll never know. I assume someone who’d seen Wade Buchanan at the library must have tipped Burke off, and Burke, not wanting to leave any loose ends after all these years, must have shot him.”
All the pieces had fit together nicely, but Mark wasn’t convinced.
He leaned across the table, hoping to catch her confidence. Maybe he’d find a few more pieces to finish his puzzle. “From what I understand, Buck heard that Devin Burke had died, so he came back into town, as he thought it was odd. I think he missed being near where he felt the strongest presence of his daughter.”
Obviously not buying his guess on why Buck had come back to town, Margaret narrowed her eyes. “You saw her, didn’t you?”
Mark glared back, wondering if it mattered. “Yes.”
“I looked everywhere for those damn films. I’d always assumed she’d hidden them in the reference room or her house. No way could I have checked every book in the library.”
“Why now, Mrs. Davis? Why after all these years, though?” Mark asked.
Margaret shrugged. “The same as Buck, I imagine. He came back because of his daughter and her fiancé’s son. I didn’t know why he was back, but I knew I had to find that information before he did. So I called my old friend, Bill, who’d, as you know, come to me the first time with his idea of blackmailing Burke. I, of course, only wanted to save my library.”
Mark nodded. He did know that, but there’s one thing he didn’t know. “I have to ask, Margaret. How did you connect Edda’s death with the Burkes?”
She smiled, even sitting in a jumpsuit in county loc
k up, she was the same old Mrs. Davis he’d known since he was a child. “Jessica found the first piece. She’d been riffling through some old boxes in the back when she found some photographs from a benefit held at the library in the thirties. She’d been so excited because the man in the picture looked so much like her fiancé. And he did. When she showed me a picture of Gregory, and I realized he was one of the Burkes, I got angry. I hadn’t realized she’d been dating the man who wanted to shut down the library.” Margaret leaned back. “Ironic, huh? The man who’d wanted to shut down my library was related to one of the benefactors who’d tried to save it.”
Mark nodded, but let her continue.
“So I started looking through the microfilm for the benefit. I thought, what if I could find all the names of the people who’d attended years earlier? Maybe they’d be willing to help again if they were still alive or if, like Burke, their families were wealthy. But what I found in the microfilm only a few days after the library benefit was the tragic murder of the woman in the picture. Though shredded and discolored, it was clear that she was even wearing the same dress. Somehow, someone had made sure that the picture that Jessica had found was never in the papers.”
Mark shook his head at the unbelievable coincidence. Three men in the Burke family had dated Ashlyn’s relatives. Two had tried to murder the women they’d once loved, and one had succeeded. “So, where’s the picture?”
Margaret tilted her head. “It wasn’t with the other items? That was the biggest piece of evidence. That photo put Wesley Burke Sr. with Edda days before the police found her murdered, and she was even in the same dress. He had to have killed her that very night.”
“No,” Mark said. “Not that we need it, though. Everyone responsible for all those unnecessary deaths is dead.”
***
Laura Allan gazed at the picture of her grandmother and the man who looked so much like Gregory, the only man she’d ever loved, one final time before she burned it.
It’s never the end…
Please read on to assist me with the next story in the series.
BEFORE YOU GO…
Dear friend, I hope you enjoyed The Library. Detective Mark Waters made his debut as a supporting character in the short story The Pit Stop. So if you enjoyed The Depot and The Library, please check it out as well.
I’d like to give a shoutout to Kim Stapf. Not only has Kim read every one of my books, she won the ‘name the place of my next book’ contest. It is because of Kim that this story took place in ‘The Library’. It was a wonderful recommendation on her part. I hope I did your suggestion justice, Kim.
Initially, I’d planned to write a series of one-hour reads, but since my lovely readers insisted I write a full novel with Detective Waters, and insisted he and Ashlyn get their happily ever after, I think I will have to end his story, but I’ve been known to change my mind. Ashlyn and he could open a detective agency investigating unsolved murders or paranormal events. Heck, we could even start on their honeymoon…at some historical hotel.
I think I’m leaning toward Anna, though, our lovely redheaded forensic scientist. I’ve never written a novel with a female lead as an officer or similar position, as it requires more research than I already do for my stories. I also thought about cleaning up Detective Tim Townsend, see how he fares as a main character. Of course, there’s always Captain Davis. At fifty-one, he’s still young enough that he could move on to another career. And then…if you already read The Pit Stop with Detective Gino Canale, I contemplated continuing his story.
The point of me telling you this is that I love reader feedback. Several of my novels are a direct result of readers’ requests. So if there’s something you’d like to see in this series, please leave your notes in the review or connect with me via one of my cyber residences. You can always find me chatting away on Twitter, Facebook, and I always respond to comments on my website about a blog post.
Although all of my stories have a common thread—romance, mystery, and suspense—not all of my novels are supernatural. My first five books are romantic-suspense whodunits. They are all stand-alone novels; however, I do link each of my stories with a little surprise. I also write paranormal romance, The Creatus Series.
You can find all my books on my Amazon Author Page.
Please…please…please…if you enjoyed this story, leave a review. It doesn’t have to be fancy, just a few words to let other readers know if they should download it too. It means so much to an author to hear what readers loved—even didn’t love—about a book. It’s how we grow and learn what you want to read next time…and in the case of a series, which characters you want to see more of in the next books or which ones we should knock off. :)
Thank you again!
Carmen
TABLE OF CONTENTS
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART ONE – THE DEPOT
PROLOGUE
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
PART TWO – THE LIBRARY
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
EPILOGUE
BEFORE YOU GO…
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Library: Where Life Checks Out Page 19