The Magic Library Mysteries Collection: The Complete Series, Books 1-3

by Hillary Avis

  Everyone made mistakes. If the catalog of errors in the attic didn’t have Elaine’s name in it, then she’d know for sure that Elaine wasn’t anywhere in the library.

  She jogged upstairs and pulled down the ladder. Using her phone as a flashlight, she located the “K” drawer of the card catalog and riffled through it. There it was. Her name—Kirkpatrick, Elaine.

  Thank the library.

  Allison could hardly believe it. She slid down the ladder, leaving the attic hatch open, and took the stairs two and three at a time in her impatience to get to the bottom. She grabbed the magic pen out of the kitchen cutlery drawer where she was keeping it with the chopsticks, and, after extracting both the Burglaries and Homicides books from the box, sat down and carefully printed “Crisp, Dara and Timothy” in the table of contents of the latter. Then she opened Burglaries to the final chapter, the one full of her own crude, green block printing, and began to copy what she’d written there into Elaine’s memory, word-for-word.

  It felt delicious, writing the murder exactly as it appeared in the confession. Allison was careful to include every detail she’d put into Kara’s memory, plus added a hefty dose of guilt that she hoped would gnaw at Elaine every second of the day. She placed the last period with satisfaction and sat back in her chair.

  The chapter was finished. Tomorrow, Elaine would fail the polygraph and go to jail for the rest of her life.

  It was done.

  Epilogue

  Two weeks later

  “How’s he doing?” Allison murmured under her breath, nodding at Zack as he unlocked the front door of Elaine’s apartment a few yards down the hall. She’d driven her new—well, new-to-her—car up to Portland to help Zack and Emily pack up Elaine’s things and now, standing in the pleasantly peach hallway on the sixth floor of the retirement community, she felt her first pang of guilt at putting Elaine away for life. Zack looked—well, he looked tired, even from the back.

  “Please, let’s not talk about it today. This is hard enough as it is.” Emily gave a small, sad shrug and followed Zack into the apartment, dragging a stack of flat moving boxes behind her. Allison grabbed the last few that were leaned up against the wall and joined her inside.

  Elaine’s apartment was tasteful and elegant. Almost everything in the small open space was a shade of cream, from the kitchen cabinets to the sofa, but a milieu of textures—velvet pillows, chunky knit throws, fluffy shag carpet, capiz-shell light fixtures—kept it from feeling flat and sterile. Allison could imagine being friends with the woman who lived here, if she didn’t already know the dark bitterness hiding beneath the surface.

  Emily thrust a packing tape dispenser into her hands. “Here, make some boxes.” Then to Zack, she added, “I’ll take the bedroom if you want to do the kitchen.”

  Zack nodded silently, accepted the first box that Allison taped together, and began emptying the pots and pans from a lower cupboard into it. Emily tapped her foot impatiently until Allison had assembled two more. Then she grabbed them and swiftly moved into the bedroom, where the sounds of drawers rolling open and shut filtered out as she started packing up a dresser.

  Allison couldn’t help darting glances at Zack in the kitchen while she taped the rest of the boxes. He was somber and focused as he used a Sharpie to label a full box and then folded the flaps closed. Allison hurried to bring him an empty one from her growing pile.

  “I’m sorry you have to deal with this,” Allison ventured. “The whole thing is terrible.”

  He gave her a tight smile, his gaze distant and vague. “It’s not your fault my mom’s in jail.”

  It was, kind of. Or at least, she’d made sure it happened. She reached out to squeeze his arm. “Well, once all this stuff is in storage, you won’t have to think about it too much. The wedding will be a good distraction.”

  He snapped to attention, the vague look in his eyes evaporating. “Oh, I don’t need distraction. I need to get her out. There’s no way I’m letting some small-town cop bully her into a life sentence just because she made one mistake.”

  Murder, a mistake? Or did he mean locking someone in a basement? Allison opened her mouth to ask, but before she could say anything, Emily poked her head out of the bedroom.

  “I told you not to talk about this today!” she scolded, directing her words to Allison even though Zack had been the one speaking.

  Allison ducked her head, swallowing her slight indignation. “Sorry—I forgot. I finished the boxes. Should I take the office?” She tried not to sound too eager. Emily jerked her head once—yes—and disappeared back into the bedroom. Zack was packing up the kitchen linens now, studiously avoiding eye contact, so Allison didn’t waste any time collecting a pair of boxes from the living room and slipping through the door opposite the bedroom.

  Unlike the rest of the apartment, Elaine’s office was full of vibrant color. Against the back wall, a guest bed with a red-and-cream patchwork quilt was nestled next to a small blue bureau with millefiori glass knobs. A vase with a bouquet of wilted flowers sat on the desk under a window that had an expansive view of downtown Portland and the Willamette River. Allison hardly glanced outside, though. She was too busy searching all the desk drawers for any scrap of the memory files.

  She sifted through the pens, sticky notes, envelopes, and paperclips and even tried the back and bottoms of each drawer, looking for secret compartments, but the desk held only ordinary office supplies. When she finished the desk drawers, she tried the only other storage in the room—the closet. It was empty save for a luggage rack and a few naked hangers lined up neatly on the bar, waiting for a guest. The shelves above held extra pillows and blankets.

  She let out a frustrated sigh and pulled the pillows down, tossing them into the first box. Then, figuring she might as well make it a linens box, she stripped the bed, folding up the quilt and sheets and adding them into the box, too. She kneeled beside the bare mattress to remove the dust ruffle and her skin prickled when she noticed a few underbed storage boxes beneath the metal bed frame. They were made of sturdy cardboard and printed on the outside with a red-and-cream paisley design.

  Every hair on her body stood on end as she slid the boxes out. She cracked open the first one. It was stuffed with paper—blank paper. Well, sort of. Printed words shimmered into existence on the pages, appearing and disappearing like koi fish coming to the water’s surface, then diving deep and disappearing into the pale depths. She caught a glimpse of her own name as it rose, but just as quickly it sank back down.

  This was magic. It had to be the stolen memory paper. Now all she needed was the pages that had been torn out of the books so long ago, the ones Zack might piece together if he found them. Elaine had said there were file cabinets full—no way they’d fit under the bed. She checked the second box, just to be sure.

  To her surprise, it was full of torn pages. She picked up the page on top and began to read.

  “Paul stretched to reach the can of condensed milk and handed it down to Allison, who’d been standing on tiptoes and flailing her arms in a clumsy attempt to get it down from the top shelf. He felt a surge of satisfaction when her lips curled in a smile. One of these days, he’d work up the nerve to ask her out. Maybe after she went back to school in the fall—then it wouldn’t be weird if she said ‘no, gross, I don’t date old men.’ He didn’t think he was old—he always plucked the three gray hairs at each temple that gave away his approaching thirtieth birthday. But a twenty-two-year-old like Allison would probably cringe.”

  Allison raised her eyes from the page, her face flushed with the memory. Though it hadn’t bloomed in front of her eyes like the memories in the library books, she had her own memory of that day that brought the heat to her cheeks. She’d read in a women’s magazine that men liked it when they could reach something on a shelf, so she’d hidden the step stool that was usually in the bakery storage room in the hopes that Paul would come to her rescue.

  Embarrassing in retrospect, but it had worked. And only a d
ay or two later, she’d planted a big kiss on him one morning before they opened for customers. He didn’t wait until she went back to school to ask her out, either, because she never went back to school.

  She set the page aside and flicked through the rest of the torn pages in the box. All looked to be printed with Paul’s memories. She saw her name and Emily’s name over and over in the jumble of events. Their whole life, but out of order, as though it’d been whirled in a blender before being crammed into a box under a guest bed. Allison sat back, breathless with wonder and hope. She’d been so certain that Elaine had destroyed Paul’s pages once she learned where the pen was hidden, but for some reason, she hadn’t.

  Maybe Paul would recognize himself if he read them. Maybe reading the pages would be enough to make the memories stick in his head. Not the real memory, exactly, but an echo of a memory. Somehow, she had to get this box home with her, along with the box of blank memory paper.

  She heard the refrigerator open and the murmur of Emily talking to Zack in the kitchen, and she hurriedly opened the third box. When she saw what was inside, she let out a scream and scrambled backwards, knocking into the desk chair.

  A snake.

  An instant later and Zack and Emily were both in the doorway. “What’s wrong?” Emily asked breathlessly, staring down at her on the floor.

  A giggle rose in Allison’s throat, the kind that always showed up inappropriately when she was scared or nervous. “Snake,” she croaked. She pointed at the box, which lay with its lid ajar near her feet, and realized the page with Paul’s memory was on the floor next to it. She drew her feet toward her, sliding the page along with them. She tucked it under her thigh and then covertly folded it and slipped it into her purse, hoping Zack and Emily hadn’t noticed.

  Zack stepped around her and peeked under the lid. “Oh, those are just Cleopatra’s sheds. I can’t believe Mom kept them. She was terrified of Cleo.” He pulled out the snake—actually a couple of long, dry snakeskins—and held them out toward Emily, his expression suddenly warm and alive. Emily took them admiringly.

  “Cleo was the diamondback?” Emily asked as she stroked the delicate, crispy skins. Zack nodded, and Emily added to Allison, “Zack is obsessed with snakes. He had a pet rattlesnake for a while.”

  Allison shuddered. “Is that even legal?”

  “She wasn’t a pet,” Zack said, taking the shed snakeskins from Emily and tucking them reverently back in the box. “I was rehabbing her after she got run over on the freeway. I released her a few years back.”

  Something about the way he said it caught Allison’s ear. There was a coldness to his tone that sounded so much like his mother. Dread slithered up her spine and coiled in her belly. She’d never asked what kind of snake killed Tim and Dara—because she knew. There was only one kind of venomous snake in Oregon: the diamondback rattlesnake.

  “Where did you let Cleo go?” She tried to make her question sound casual.

  “Timber Falls.” Zack looked her straight in the eye as he answered, like he was daring her to ask more questions. Allison tensed, afraid that if she broke eye contact, she’d give herself away.

  “Say ‘hi’ to her if you see her while you’re up there hiking,” Emily joked, breaking the tension.

  Allison swallowed hard, nodding. “Always good to be on a first-name basis with the top of the food chain, right?”

  “Better the predator you know than the predator you don’t,” Zack deadpanned.

  He knew. He had to know what happened in the woods that night two years ago. He straightened the lids on the underbed storage boxes and grabbed a roll of tape, unwrapping a long stretch with a shuddering screech. He taped the lids securely, then stacked the shallow boxes one on top of the other and hefted them up.

  “I’ll get these out of the way since they’re already packed. No point in putting a box inside a box, right?”

  She opened her mouth to protest, but there was nothing to say—no plausible reason to stop him as he left the apartment for the parking garage to load the boxes into the rented moving van, closing the door behind him. All her hopes walked right out the door with him.

  Emily was already busy closing up the box of linens. “This is going faster than I thought it would,” she chattered. “Did you empty the desk?”

  “No,” Allison said absentmindedly, her eyes still fixed on the front door, and Emily scooted the empty box over and dumped the top desk drawer into it. “Where’s Zack taking all of his mom’s stuff? Are you going to try and squeeze it all into your apartment?”

  Emily shook her head. “We’re putting it in storage until she gets out.”

  “If she gets out,” Allison said.

  Emily dropped two handfuls of sticky notes into the box and let out a soft sigh. “You’re not going to press charges, are you?” she asked tentatively. Allison’s hand automatically went to the side of her head, where the bruise, though healing, was still tender, and Emily winced. “I know she was wrong to hurt you, but—”

  “But she’s a murderer,” Allison said swiftly, although the instant the words came out, she doubted them. The way Zack’s eyes had glittered when he told her that he’d released the rattlesnake at Timber Falls. He wanted her to know that even though his mother was behind bars, this wasn’t over. He knew Elaine hadn’t killed Tim and Dara because he’d been the one who did it. That’s why Elaine’s memory of that night wasn’t in the Homicides book. It was his memory, not hers.

  But it was hers now that Allison had written it that way. Allison knew she should feel guilty, but she didn’t—not really. Even if Elaine hadn’t committed murder, she’d still stolen Paul’s life away. She’d stolen Emily’s father, too. Stealing memories might not be illegal, but it should be. “She admitted to it. She belongs in jail.”

  “Zack doesn’t think so.” Emily bit her lip and went back to packing up the desk. A moment later she added, “He seems so sure. He says she’ll be out before the wedding.”

  Allison had so many things she wanted to say: Don’t believe him. Don’t trust him. Don’t marry him. But she knew that if she said those things without proof in her hands, it would only push Emily away. It would send her running to Zack’s arms—and those arms might be capable of murder.

  The sound of the front door opening meant Zack was back from the car. She couldn’t say anything to Emily now, not when he could hear. She’d find a way—a way to recover the memory paper and all the pages that had been torn out of the library. And a way to show Emily the truth about Zack, a way that she’d believe.

  Emily needed to know everything. Soon.

  Libraries & Labradors

  A Magic Library Mystery Book 3

  Hillary Avis

  Chapter 1

  Saturday

  Late afternoon sunlight bathed the gazebo in Founders Square, turning the simple oak columns gold as Allison walked across the highway toward it, shoulder-to-shoulder with Paul, careful to keep some distance between them so she didn’t accidentally take his hand out of habit. He didn’t remember their twenty-five years of marriage, but their connection was so a part of her being that she felt a magnetic pull to reach out and link her arm through his, lean her head against his shoulder.

  She glanced over at him, wondering if he ever felt the same gravity toward her. He was smiling, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners, and she bit her lip. The smile wasn’t for her. It was for someone else, the figure ahead of them who pushed up from her seat in the gazebo and leaned on her cane to better view their approach.

  As they neared, Paul raised a hand in greeting. “Michelle Crisp, is that you?”

  He recognized her. Of course he did. Allison swallowed a bead of envy, jealous that he could so easily dredge up a memory of his childhood friend, but he couldn’t remember their wedding day, their thousands of hours working together at the Ryes & Shine bakery. The whole life they’d built together.

  It wasn’t his fault. His memories of the last twenty-five years had been stolen, and, two
years after the fact, she should be used to it. But still, it stung.

  “Hi, Michelle,” she said. She turned to Paul and nodded toward the benches inside the gazebo. “Let’s sit and visit for a bit.”

  He mounted the steps eagerly, giving her a moment to admire the rear view. He’d always been a walker, whether with their dogs over the years or around the activity room at Golden Gardens, the memory care facility where he lived now, so even though he was nearing sixty, he was still in better shape than she was at forty-eight. He took a seat across from Michelle, and Allison sat next to her, opposite him.

  Paul didn’t know it, but they’d planned this.

  “Do you want to start?” Michelle asked her. Paul looked back and forth between them, his gaze lingering on Michelle’s constellations of freckles. They had been high school sweethearts, back before Allison entered the picture. Ironic that, after twenty-five years of marriage, he probably felt closer to Michelle than to his wife. He viewed Allison as an employee at the memory care facility where he lived and perhaps a family friend, but nothing more.

  “You go ahead,” Allison murmured. “He trusts you.”

  Michelle nodded curtly and fixed Paul with a frank expression. “I’ll warn you, this is going to be a lot of information all at once. Just listen and then see what you make of it when I’m done.”

  Paul’s eyebrows knit together, his jaw tensing in anticipation of what Michelle might have to say.

  Breathe. Don’t forget to breathe. Allison gripped the edge of the bench to steady herself as she waited for Michelle to begin.

  “Did you ever wonder why our parents kept us apart?” Michelle asked abruptly. “Did you ever ask them why?”

  Paul nodded slowly. “My mother said it was a family thing, but she wouldn’t say more.”