The Light of Redemption

by Natalie Damschroder

  I’d thought I understood what I was getting into when I bought stretchy black clothes and started working out and looking around for bad guys to capture. At the time, a little publicity had seemed a small price to pay for saving lives, and I was sure I could keep my identity hidden. I hadn’t counted on Simon Dragosovich.

  A vigorous throat clearing from the study kiosks on the other side of the main table caught my attention. I smiled apologetically at Steve Komarski, a stockbroker whose home Internet connection was on the fritz, and then glared at the teenagers. They immediately quieted and turned to their books, and I went back to checking in returns and sorting them onto the shelving carts. The quiet lasted about twenty minutes before the kids started murmuring again, this time low enough that I couldn’t scold them. A short while later, Steve came up to the desk. I braced myself for a complaint about the talking.

  “Harmony, I’m having some trouble with the wireless connection. Can you check the router?”

  “Sure.” I slipped into the glass-walled office behind the desk and checked the signal, which looked fine. There wasn’t anyone else in the library using the connection, so I cycled the power on the router, waited for it to boot up again, and went back out. “Try it now,” I told Steve. He thanked me and went back to his laptop, hit a few keys, and gave me a thumbs-up.

  “Oh, goodness, I’m so glad you were still here for that.” Gladys, the assistant librarian, hurried across the entry from the main doors and squeezed behind the counter. “I never know what to do.”

  I sighed and took the books she handed me to scan in as returns. “It’s not that hard. You just turn the router off and on again.”

  She waved a hand and stowed her gigantic purse under the counter, bouncing her equally gigantic behind in the air as she did so. “I never did get all that stuff.”

  I pressed my lips together and said nothing. Gladys had no trouble with the online catalog and the computer system that kept track of inventory and patron records. But she kept up pretenses of ignorance, usually using her 60s-ish age as an excuse to avoid the upgrades I kept trying to bring in. I wasn’t sure if she was lazy or just liked keeping the status quo. She’d worked at the library for over forty years, but when the time came for a new head librarian, the board promoted me over her. Mainly because I was as much tech geek as book nerd and would be able to keep up with the times, something our sophisticated patronage expected.

  Scottie belched, and his friends giggled. Okay, only some of our patrons were sophisticated.

  “So.” Gladys finished clocking in and turned to me, her face flushed, her dark-red bun askew. “Have you heard?” But then she saw the cut on my cheekbone and turned on Mother Mode. “Oh, dear, what happened? Your poor face.”

  I touched the cut. It hadn’t bruised much, so she was pouring it on a little bit. “I smacked myself with a book.” Totally believable story, and she immediately bought it. “Heard about what?”

  “Last night!”

  My heart rate sped up. I’d been waiting all morning for someone to talk about last night’s events. About real events, not hole-blasting.

  “Eclipse?” I set the box of printed hold slips to the top of the counter and started sorting them alphabetically so they’d be ready when the books came in from other county libraries. I’d perfected my blasé attitude long ago. “The kids were talking about it, though I don’t expect she really blasted a hole—”

  “No, no!” Gladys flapped her hand at me. “Not that! And of course she didn’t, she just knocked over a newspaper box. The glass broke and the papers scattered. Simon’ll be livid.”

  I tried not to scowl. Eclipse had done no such thing, not last night or any night in the past. The box she was talking about had been damaged several nights ago, when Eclipse caught someone spraying graffiti at the high school. He had run and tripped over the box, and by the time I finished corralling him and delivered him to the back door of the station, the papers had blown away.

  But that was clearly not why Gladys was all excited.

  “What are you talking about, then?” I asked when she didn’t launch into her story.

  “You’ll never guess,” she breathed, as if I’d tried. “Someone bought the Parsons house!”

  “Wow.” That actually was big news. The house had gone through three owners in two years, then stood empty for five more, the For Sale sign on the front lawn getting more and more dilapidated. Freddy, the real estate agent, had given up trying to sell the place. The Columbus escapees who moved to Pilton from time to time preferred the new housing developments north of town. The Parsons house—named, of course, for the old woman who’d lived there her whole life, rather than any of the more recent short-term owners—was in an older neighborhood on the south side of town. That meant mature trees, bigger lots, and smaller houses with no dishwashers or decent outlet placement. The Parsons house also needed more work than typically desired for the average “fixer-upper.”

  “Do we know who?” I tried not to think of Mr. Clothesline. There were plenty of people who could have bought the property. I thought of a few house flippers I knew. They did a lot of local research at the library and also used the free Internet when they didn’t want to go to the expense of getting service in the house they were working on. Sometimes I obtained special references for them, depending on the house and whether or not it had historical possibilities. But none of them had ever mentioned an interest in the Parsons place.

  “No, it’s a new guy, and Sally down at the coffee shop saw him this morning, and she said he’s gorgeous. And he tipped her twenty percent. But get this!”

  I sorted through a few more slips before I realized she wasn’t talking. I looked up. Her eyes glowed with gossip fever.

  “What?” I obliged.

  “He’s working for Ralph Jones!”

  My eyebrows went up. “Seriously?”

  She nodded, sending her bun sliding down her neck. “Sally asked him lots of questions, of course, and he was real polite and answered most of them, though it sounds like he gave superficial answers to everything. I mean, she acted like he’d confided a lot to her, but what she told me didn’t seem like much.”

  I went back to my slips. I didn’t like to gossip, though my job made it hard to avoid. And I had to admit, I liked to know what was going on as much as anyone did. But I wasn’t going to ask questions.

  “So. His name is Conn Parsons, short for Connor, and he’s living alone in the house. He wouldn’t say if there was any relation to Old Lady Parsons, but if there was, why wouldn’t she have left him her house when she died fifteen years ago? Sally offered him a coupon for a mani/pedi at Smart’s Salon for his wife, and he declined, though I don’t think he said he doesn’t have one. No kids, though. She said it would be a shame for them to have to start in a new school so late in the year, and he said it was a good thing he didn’t have any, then. Hmmmm.” She peered off and up, thinking. “He did say he was living alone, so I don’t know why she bothered with all that. Oh, well.” She slapped her hands against her thighs. “Always good to back up your information. Anyway, when he left, old Bentley checked out his ride, and it was a beat-up pickup truck. Well, you’d expect that, since he’s working with Ralph, right? And you live close enough to Medici Street to walk—”

  I threw up a hand. “Stop right there.”

  “What?” The innocence in her voice was totally fake.

  “You know what. You try to fix me up with every unattached guy you come across. We know nothing about this man. And I’m not interested, anyway.” I didn’t say why, but of course she knew. Or thought she knew. Everyone did, except Simon. Or maybe he did. It was hard to tell. If he knew, he’d ignored it and hadn’t let it interfere with our friendship. But the real reason I claimed no interest was because I was tired of trying and failing.

  My mother used to tell me that r
eal love came along when you weren’t looking for it. If that were true, I’d have been married years ago.

  Gladys muttered something I couldn’t hear—except the word “liar”—and rolled one of the shelving carts around the end of the counter.

  “I’m going to dinner,” I called to her. She grunted and headed down the biography aisle. The kids were starting to pack up, so I grabbed my small purse and took my time slinging it over my shoulder so I could follow them out. They were trustworthy enough, but they were teenagers, and there was a new display of Native American pottery in the main hallway. My proximity would make sure roughhousing waited until they were outside.

  I waved to Scottie’s mom, whose minivan idled at the curb, and headed down the street toward Millie’s Tearoom. It was really more of a diner, but when Millie, Angie’s mom, died, Angie ripped out most of the booths and added cushions to the counter stools and flowered wallpaper to the walls, then filled a menu with exotic teas and finger pastries in addition to the regular sandwiches and dinners her mother had always served. It wasn’t the only place to eat in town, but it was the most central, and it was closest to the library, so I ate there when I hadn’t felt like packing my own dinner.

  I laughed at the fairy bells that signaled my entrance. Angie grinned at me.

  “Aren’t they cool? You should have seen old Bentley’s face when he heard them.” She grabbed a menu and waved me to the counter.

  “You’re busy.” I was a little earlier than usual. Most of the time, I waited until the main dinner crowd was gone. But Gladys had pushed me tonight.

  “Yeah, a bit, for a Monday. Must be the nice weather.” She held up the menu. “You need this?”

  I settled onto a cushy stool. “No, thanks, I’ll just do the cucumber wrap tonight. And iced tea, please.”

  “You got it.” She shouted the order through the window to Cookie before pouring my tea. “Did you hear?”

  I sighed. “About the new hunk in town? Gladys is on tonight. What do you think?”

  “Oh, then, you probably know more than me.” She poured her own tea and leaned on the counter. “Have you seen him? Do you think it’s your guy?”

  “Isn’t it cliché to sit around a diner and talk about the new intruder in town?”

  “We have an intruder?”

  Simon’s hand slid across my shoulders as he passed, then sat on the stool next to me. “What kind? Pestilential, criminal, or the kind we ply with lemon crumpets?”

  Angie snapped her towel at him and turned away to collect the order Cookie had just put up. I drank my tea, taking in Simon’s appearance out of the corner of my eye. Normally, he looked neither the part of ink-stained intrepid reporter nor owner of the most profitable business in town. Thanks to small-town tradition, the Daily Reporter still had superb circulation numbers and a high advertising rate, but Simon had also invested in expansion of the appliance store, focusing on gadgets and technology. Tonight, though, he bore unmistakable signs of both businessman and nosy parker.

  “What’s with the suit?” I asked him. “Big-city interview?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. Or close, anyway.” He motioned for Angie to get him an iced tea like mine and then seemed to notice the stains on his fingers. “Dammit.” He rubbed at the smears with a napkin, but of course nothing happened. “The rec department is trying to buy Pottieger’s Field for a soccer complex, and some developer from Columbus is blocking it. I went to a hearing this afternoon.”

  We talked about that for a little while as Angie helped some customers, but when she came back, Simon changed the subject again.

  “So? Intruder? Tell me more.”

  Angie shook her head at him as she prepped a new pot of coffee. “What, are you going to write an article about him?”

  “I might, if he’s newsworthy and not just gossip-worthy.” He looked at me.

  “Jury’s still out.” I was surprised Simon didn’t already know about him. Wouldn’t Josh have mentioned him when he was arrested? So that would be part of the police report, and Simon would have gotten the details for the police blotter in the paper.

  He pulled a menu out of the holder and skimmed it, an unnecessary exercise since we all knew what was on it. I ate the last bite of my wrap and checked my watch. If Simon was going to hang around, Angie and I couldn’t talk about Mr. Clothesline, and I didn’t want to talk about the new Parsons house owner in front of him, either. Eclipse aside, I wasn’t good at hiding things. “I need to get back.”

  “Hang on, I have to ask you something. I almost forgot.”

  My heart skittered a few beats, a reaction that was pure habit. But Simon was digging in his inside pocket, where he kept his notepad. He wouldn’t need a notepad to ask me to the festival coming up on Memorial Day weekend. Which was fine. I’d stopped really hoping for such things a long time ago. But nothing had replaced it since, so I hadn’t retrained my body.

  “Eclipse’s adventure last night led to the bust of a guy the chief thinks is the biggest drug distributor in town.”

  I swallowed hard. “Really?”

  “Yeah, the two people they arrested last night were eager to talk. So they called in the sheriff’s department and moved fast. It’s a big story. Eclipse gets a lot of credit for the break.”

  Which meant Mr. Clothesline had faded away without being seen, and Josh couldn’t have mentioned him to the police. There’d have been buzz if he had. Angie would have heard it and told me right away, even if it didn’t make it into the library. But Simon’s words confirmed it.

  He finally got the pad out of his pocket and clicked the bottom of his pen. “Can you find some stats for me?” He scribbled a list on his pad, then tore off the small paper and handed it to me. “You’re the best.”

  Angie, watching my face, said, “She didn’t say yes.”

  Simon frowned at her. “What?”

  “You didn’t wait for her to answer. Maybe she’s busy.”

  “Of course she’s not busy.” He turned to me, tucking the notebook back in his pocket, his dark hair falling rakishly over one eyebrow, his blue eyes unfocused. In Simon Dragosovich’s world, Harmony Wilde was always available. I sighed.

  “Of course I’ll do it.” I put the paper in my purse and handed Angie some money as I slid off the stool. “I’ll email it to you in a couple of hours.”

  “Great, thanks.” He turned back to the counter and slid his tea closer, beaming at Angie. “Hey, Memorial Day is coming up.”

  There’d been a time such a dismissal would have had me in tears. Angie knew about the crush I’d nurtured on and off since middle school and she had no interest in Simon, anyway, but a few years ago, that wouldn’t have mattered. I’d have dashed out of there with stinging eyes and a lip bleeding from my teeth cutting into it, my heart sobbing with the whys. Like, why didn’t Simon like me? Why couldn’t I just let the crush go? Why was he so freaking oblivious?

  It was a common refrain. All my relationships had stuttered to a halt before they went anywhere, and each time I revisited my unrequited “love” as if the universe had just been waiting for the right time to clear his eyes and let him see me properly.

  Then Eclipse had come to town. I’d stopped asking the questions, because they didn’t matter anymore. The world—my world—had expanded, and trials of the heart became less all-consuming. The icer was Simon’s interest in Eclipse. My secrets would have become lies and as soon as I realized what kind of damage that would do to a relationship that didn’t exist, I stopped wanting one.

  Angie waved at me as I left, but Simon didn’t even look over his shoulder. I smiled as I walked out, because this time, I didn’t even have a habit-induced squeeze of longing, and it wasn’t hard to figure out why.

  Mr. Clothesline had turned the interest level in Pilton up to eleven.

  Chapter 2
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  I didn’t usually patrol more than two or three nights a week. Fewer when there was little happening, more when I knew of some problem. But I spent every night of the next two weeks covering the town. It wasn’t completely worthless. I did stop a couple of muggers, kept a few drunks from getting into their cars, and captured Graffiti Boy a second time. But Mr. Clothesline never showed up.

  Eclipse had made the paper, getting credit for her role in the drug bust. They estimated product availability would be reduced by up to fifty percent. It made things a little quieter during those two weeks while everyone presumably scrambled to find a new supply.

  I didn’t meet the new Parsons house owner, either, but everyone I knew was talking about him.

  “You would think a landscaper would be able to clean up his own yard.” Mrs. Vrabel sniffed. She lived on Medici Street and kept close tabs on her neighbors, doing her part to uphold honored stereotype traditions.

  “His eyes!” squealed a handful of teenage girls, when they weren’t rhapsodizing about his shaggy hair, his big hands, or the earring they really should have been rolling their eyes at.

  “Gotta be crazy,” one of the construction guys said to another when they came in for the next set of Buffy DVDs for their weekly binge marathon. “Working for Ralph Jones?”