“But what if she’s trying to sabotage his election?” I played devil’s advocate. “What if she was only on the committee to steal the money and make him and the library look bad?”
Molly laughed, throwing her head back as a loud, piercing giggle spilled out. They probably heard her clear down at the beach. “You guys,” she said in between snorts, “all your conspiracy theories. So funny!”
“Well, who do you think did it, Molls?” I fired back at her. If we were so funny with our wild conspiracy theories, surely she had a better idea who our prime suspect should be.
She shrugged. “Fortunately, it’s not a crime I have to solve. It’s the police’s job to figure it out.”
I cleared my throat. “If that money isn’t recovered and put into the library’s bank account… Well, I don’t have to tell you that we’re going to have a budget crisis. One of us will get fired. I guarantee it.”
The color drained from my friend’s already pale face. She sucked in a breath and gathered her long blonde hair into her fist, arranging it over her shoulder like she always did when she was nervous. “I’m sure it won’t come down to that. And I’m sure the police will recover the money. Especially if it is an inside job—should be easy to figure out, right?”
“What about the Founders’ Bible?” Evangeline’s eyebrows arched as she went back to nibbling on her salad, her long nose wiggling like a rabbit’s as she chewed. “Why did they take it?”
“What would be Camille’s motive to take the Bible?” Molly asked. Her face was so pinched, it was hard to believe she was laughing her head off mere moments ago.
I took a deep breath, putting all the puzzle pieces together. “If she wants to sabotage her husband’s re-election campaign…what better way than to steal our town’s most precious artifact right under his nose?”
I had my very first lead on my very first case. Nancy Drew, eat your heart out!
Five
“You wanted to see me?” I pushed the door to my boss’s office open just far enough to meet her gaze.
“Yes, Sunshine, come in.” She worked up a forced smile and gestured to the chair across from her. Then she hovered her cursor over the X on the browser window she had open.
I only caught a brief glimpse of the window before the screen returned to her desktop background, which was a photo of her black Labrador retriever, Bart. The screen she’d been looking at was a beach, but not Bryce Beach. The water was crystal clear as it rolled onto white sand and a bright teal as it stretched toward the horizon. Palm trees waved their long green fronds over the surf. It looked like a tropical paradise. Sigh. I loved living in Bryce Beach, but it wasn’t that type of beach.
“Planning a vacation?” I asked her, thinking it might elicit a real smile.
Instead, the corners of her lips turned down. “Did you talk to Chief James today?”
“Yes, sure did. I believe he made the rounds interviewing everyone.”
“I must have been at lunch when he stopped by my office,” she sighed. “Did you learn anything?”
Revealing my theories to Susan about the mayor’s wife or how Chief James implied one of the library staff was the perpetrator seemed like a bad idea, so I kept my mouth shut—not the easiest feat for me.
“Not much. He seemed to be asking standard questions, like who had access to the workroom.”
Susan ran her fingers through her short gray hair. “I just don’t understand why someone would take that Bible.” She shook her head as she stared down at her desk, presumably looking for answers. “The money, I get it. Though most of it was in checks, and it’s not like they’ll be able to cash them. The Bible? It has no market value. Where are they going to sell a four-hundred-year-old falling-apart Bible?”
“Right,” I agreed. “It’s almost like the person who did it doesn’t want the money. They only want to hurt the library.”
“That’s what I’ve been thinking about.” She nodded slowly, her mind still wrapping itself around all the unanswered questions. I’d never seen my boss so fragile or emotional. She had a backbone of steel and ice water running through her veins. This whole…heist, for lack of a better term…had just demolished her. It was painful to see her crumble like this. “It makes no sense to me how someone could be so cruel…”
It actually made sense to me…if Camille Steyer was to blame. She wouldn’t care about the money. She only wanted to hurt the library and her husband’s chances of re-election.
“Sunshine,” my boss leaned toward me, her fingers interlaced on her desk, “you have to find out what happened. I don’t think the police are going to get anywhere, and if they don’t get a lead soon, they’re not even going to pursue it. Whether we get the money back or the Bible isn’t that important to them. But it’s vital to us.”
“I can try to poke around,” I agreed, downplaying my investment. I was already very much into this whole Nancy Drew thing I had going on.
“I’m afraid of what might happen if we don’t recover that money…” She sucked in a breath and shook her head, her eyes full of concern. “We might not survive…”
My parents had invited me over for dinner, but I suspected it was more to get the scoop on the case than it was because they wanted to see me. When I arrived, I learned they’d also invited my brother, River, who had his full entourage of my sister-in-law, Isabelle, and their twin sons, Jacob and Andrew, with him.
The house was in full chaos mode as soon as I stepped through the door. So much for a peaceful respite after work. My head was already starting to pound, and I was longing for the solitude of my own place and my kitties, but my mother wrapped her arms around my waist and planted a huge kiss on my cheek.
“You looked so beautiful at the gala,” she said. “Why don’t you wear your hair like that more often?”
I looked at her, completely flummoxed as to what she was talking about. “I wore my hair the same way I always do.” It was thick and naturally curly. There wasn’t a lot I could do with it.
“It looked fuller,” she insisted. “Bouncier.”
I shook off that weird comment and turned to my father, who also pulled me in for a hug. “Hey, Sunny Bunny.”
I tried not to roll my eyes at my childhood nickname. My father was the only one I allowed to call me “Sunny,” and anyone else who dared to call me “Sunny Bunny” would probably never live to call me that a second time.
Wow, I am in full snark mode tonight, I thought, wincing at my own internal dialogue. I’d been praying for God to give me more patience and less attitude, but it looked like I needed to double up my efforts.
“Hey, River, Izzy.” I dipped my chin in acknowledgment of my brother and sister-in-law, who were already seated at my parents’ dining room table. “Where are the boys?”
“They’re in the family room playing,” Isabelle sighed, sounding as if she hoped maybe they’d entertain themselves for a while. The two eight-year-olds were a handful, but they were my buds. I figured I’d better go say hello so they didn’t think their Aunt Sunshine didn’t love them anymore.
As I headed into the family room, my mother called out my name, “Sunshine? Where are you going?”
“To see Jake and Drew.” I narrowly avoided adding “duh” to the end of my statement. See? My prayers were working.
“Oh no you’re not,” my mom said. “You’re going to sit down at this table and tell us what is going on at the library before the boys come in for dinner!”
I whipped around and saw four pairs of eyes drilling into me, full of suspense and intrigue. Not seeing any way out of the situation, I plopped myself down in one of the oak chairs and huffed out a deep groan.
“Don’t want the boys to know there’s a criminal running amok in Bryce Beach?” I questioned, waggling my eyebrows up and down.
“Come on, sweetheart. Isn’t everyone in the library up in arms?” my dad asked.
“Up in arms? We’re librarians,” I countered, trying to keep the mood light. “We’re pacifists. We only arm our
selves with books and information.”
“Not everyone thinks they need a gun to protect themselves, Phil,” my mom added.
A grunt and clenched jaw were my father’s initial responses. And then: “First of all, ‘up in arms’ is an expression. And second of all, if someone would have been armed at the gala, maybe none of this would have happened!”
Oh no, here we go again. We hadn’t even started the conversation, and they were already arguing their opposing political agendas. River and Izzy both shot me “the look,” the one we were all aware of. It meant, “Godspeed. Hope we make it out of this conversation alive.”
I cleared my throat and prepared myself for battle—though it was hard to take up “arms” of information when it was in such short supply. “I don’t know anything yet,” was all I said.
“What did the police say?” my father asked.
“Did they find any fingerprints?” River questioned.
My mother shook her head. “I don’t know if you’re safe there, honey. What if the thief comes back? I’ve barely been able to sleep at night, I’m so worried about you!”
“Has anyone deposited the money?” Izzy asked. “Checked for the Founders’ Bible on eBay?”
“I have some theories about what might have happened,” I cut everyone off. In my family, I usually had to talk over everyone to be heard, but it was so quiet, you could have heard a pin drop after the word “theories” came out of my mouth.
“What kind of theories?” my brother finally asked.
“I can’t disclose the details of an ongoing investigation,” I said, trying to sound detached and professional, “but Chief James seems to think someone on our staff did it, and I refuse to believe any of us would sabotage the library like that.” In the end, I wasn’t really able to disguise my opinion of that nonsense.
My mother gasped, her hand flying up to cover her mouth. “He really thinks it was an inside job?”
“He didn’t say that, exactly. But he did ask me for a list of everyone who has access to the workroom where the money was being kept when it was stolen.”
“Chief James is a very smart man,” my father interjected. “If anyone can get to the bottom of this, it’s him.”
I couldn’t stop the scoff before it flew out of my mouth, along with perhaps a tiny droplet of spittle. Oops. I was less than impressed with Chief James. But I knew my dad was a big fan. He was a big fan of law and order, and since hardly anything ever happened in our little town, Chief James had created at least the illusion of law and order—until this.
“Did you meet him?” Izzy asked, her eyes growing wide. “He did a talk at the boys’ school last year, and he was so interesting and articulate. They loved his stories!”
“Oh for Pete’s sake.” I scrubbed my hand down my face. “Why don’t you guys just invite Chief James to dinner next time instead of me if you love the guy that much?”
“He’s single, you know,” my mother added.
My palm flew to my forehead as my headache instantly intensified. “Drew! Jake!” I yelled, sliding my chair back and rising from the table. I didn’t need this conversation to go one word further.
Seconds later, I was up to my eyeballs in little boy hugs. Just like I liked it.
When I finally made it home that night, I thought I would fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. I completed all my normal bedtime tasks: washing my face, brushing my teeth, putting on my pajamas, devouring a chapter or two of my latest read, and then saying my prayers. I climbed into bed, where Bond and Paige had already claimed their spots: Bond by my feet and Paige by my hip. But the longer I lay there, the more it felt like my heart was racing and my eyes were bugging out.
Scenes from the library gala kept playing over and over again in my head like I was watching a video that someone kept stopping, rewinding, and playing again. The glass of the Founders’ Bible display case must have shattered in my memory a dozen or more times before I bolted upright in bed.
All I could think about was Camille’s little cheerleader posse busting that glass to create a diversion so she could go back to the workroom and steal the proceeds from the gala. Camille was the type of person whom people loved to hate. It wasn’t her fault she was beautiful, elegant, and svelte—and married to the mayor. She was seemingly perfect, but she didn’t have a humble bone in her body. Sure, everyone was nice to her face, but behind her back, there was nothing but gossip and eyerolling.
If what Evangeline overheard was true, Camille loathed being the mayor’s wife and thought the library was worthless. She pretended to be committed to the cause, even chairing our committee, but who was really doing all the work? Me—along with a few of the other committee members. Would she really stoop so low as to ruin all our hard work and put the library’s future in jeopardy? Did she really think she could get away with stealing the library’s money and absconding with our town’s most precious relic?
She wasn’t the least bit likable, but was she actually a duplicitous snake?
For all the questions I had, there was something I knew for certain deep down in my heart:
Chief James would never, ever suspect Camille Steyer of committing this crime. Bull and Camille Steyer were probably the first two people he crossed off his list of suspects.
So if I didn’t stay on the case and get to the bottom of this…
1. I might lose my job,
and
2. Camille Steyer might get away with it!
I wasn’t about to let that happen.
Six
We were blessed with another nice day of weather, so my co-conspirators and I assumed our usual positions at the picnic table in the courtyard and pulled out our respective lunches. I had leftovers from dinner at my parents’ last night, which my mother had lovingly packed in little Tupperware containers. I was sure that would garner a snarky comment from Evangeline, but they were delicious, so I didn’t really care what she thought. Molly had been on some weird rice and mushrooms diet, and her stir fry or whatever it was stunk to high heavens. At least mine smelled good. And tasted amazing!
“So, it occurred to me last night that if Camille Steyer is our culprit, then she’s going to get away with it scot-free because Chief James would never, ever cross Mayor Steyer. He’d never even question them,” I shared with my comrades.
Evangeline’s eyes narrowed as she peeled her orange, then popped a section into her mouth. She spit out a seed into her napkin before responding, “Do you think I should tell Chief James what I overheard?”
“Maybe. I want to get some more information first.” I pulled out a notebook I’d been carrying around with me. I’d taken the liberty of writing down the names of everyone who was at the library gala on Saturday evening. And in true librarian fashion, I’d divided them into categories: Friends of the Library Committee Members, Library Staff, and Townsfolk. Then the names were alphabetized. Naturally.
“Ooooh, is that what I think it is?” Molly’s eyes trailed over the names when I flipped the cover over, revealing the first page of my flowing script.
“Yep. Everyone at the gala.” I tapped my pencil against the lined paper. “Anyone we can cross off as suspects?”
“Um, all of us?” Evangeline suggested, her lips curling into a tiny smirk before she sucked another orange slice into her mouth.
“Right! We didn’t do it!” Molly giggled.
That was true. I drew lines through each of our names. “Who else?”
“Well, I’m sure Chief James’s parents didn’t do it,” Evangeline said. “Or your parents either, for that matter.”
Molly was still laughing from earlier, but her chuckles peaked again before dying down. “The most adorable couple on earth? Nope, they’ve gotta be innocent, or my faith in humankind will be destroyed forever!”
“And the Wilsons, that sweet little couple who goes to our church,” I added, ignoring Molly’s remark. “I’m sure they’re beyond reproach. Plus she’s in a wheelchair, and he walks with a ca
ne.”
“Willa Bryce Monroe?” Molly’s eyebrow rose. “She always donates a lot, right? Why would she steal the money?”
“True. I saw her check, guys. It was twenty grand—about twenty percent of what we collected.” I probably shouldn’t have disclosed the amount, but I could trust my two best friends, right?
Molly’s mouth formed an O. “I can’t imagine having so much money that I could give away twenty thousand.”
Evangeline sipped from her water bottle before nodding. “Must be nice.”
“Well, she was born into money, then she married rich. At least she’s generous!” I crossed her off the list and stopped at the next few names. They were townspeople I didn’t know very well.
“They’re all rich too. Old money,” Evangeline said. “Doubtful any of them were involved.”
We made it through all the citizens of Bryce Beach who weren’t connected to the library or the Friends of the Library. These were the people who came to the gala to show their support for the library and donate money to the cause. There were a few names no one could vouch for, so we left them on the list before moving on to the Friends of the Library committee.
“I don’t know why anyone would bust their behinds working on a committee year after year—most of these members have been involved with the Friends of the Library for a long time, decades even—just to steal the proceeds of the biggest fundraising effort of the year.” My gaze shifted between my two friends, awaiting their reaction.
“And to steal the Founders’ Bible!” Molly added. “I can’t believe anybody who cares about our town would have the nerve to do that.”
“None of these members were new this year?” Evangeline questioned, grabbing the notebook to peruse the list of names. “What about Melanie Cho?”
“She’s been involved for a year or two,” I answered. “I don’t know her well, but she’s lovely. She owns the art gallery in town.”
Dangerous Curves Boxed Set 1: 3 Cozy Christian Mysteries Page 5