Where the Library Hides (Secrets of the Nile #2)

by Isabel Ibañez

She shifted, met my eyes squarely. “Can I trust you?” I blinked, taken aback. “In what sense? With a secret? Yes. If you’re asking me to help you cover up a murder, then no. I don’t know you well enough for that, and I hope you’ll agree.” I blanched. “Not that I’d ever help cover up a murder, but I do hope you know what I meant, don’t you?”

Isadora straightened her spine, color flooding her cheeks. “Just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean that I’m helpless. I had my purse, and I can make do with the language.” “Your being a girl has nothing to do with anything,” Whit said through gritted teeth. “Look at my wife—if she wanted, she could make it to Paris on the back of turtle.”

Papá used to say that whenever I felt lost, it was because I wasn’t telling myself the truth. He explained, in his soft, breathy voice suitable for libraries and churches, that people were often afraid to tell themselves the truth. They would rather lie, would rather deny, would rather ignore what was right in front of them.

I leaned against the wall and crossed my ankles, fighting my amusement. It seemed my wife hadn’t informed her aunt of our matrimonial state. Well, I wouldn’t have, either. I didn’t want to have my ears ringing the whole way home from Lorena’s screeching.

“An emphatic no. I suppose now you’re going to threaten my companions again if I don’t cooperate,” I added bitterly. “It’s a weak and unimaginative human being who resorts to violence to get what they want.”

“I suppose you wouldn’t like me to shoot him?” Isadora asked in a wistful tone, stepping aside to let him through.

“Inez, you are the love of my life,” Whit roared. “I will not lose you now.”

He tried to sit up, his face bleached of all color. I helped him struggle to his feet, his soft groans piercing my heart. “I have never been shot before,” he said in a marveling tone. “I really don’t like it.”

All this time, I had known that he felt some measure of guilt for what he had done, but not enough to apologize. He had told me himself that he would do the same thing all over again. However. Now that he was bleeding, slowly dying in front of me, it was hard to be angry at him. Because somehow, I knew that if he could choose whether or not to save my life, he would jump in front of that bullet for me again. And again and again and again. He was being so inconveniently honorable.

“Inez,” he whispered. “You want to know why I saved your life? I can think of no better act to show how much I love you. This world would not be the same without you in it, and I don’t ever want to find out what that feels like. If I have to follow you across a desert, I will. If I have to jump into the Nile, again and again, I will. If I have to leap in front of a thousand bullets, I will.” He closed his eyes, breath shuddering. “I will always love you.”

He’d have a scar for the rest of his life, but he had stayed and lived. I let out an incredulous laugh and then promptly burst into tears.