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The bookstore sat on the corner of Thread Lane and Thimble Drive in the town of Button.
Lou’s gaze traveled up to the windows along the second floor that looked out from the apartment. Her new home. As much as she wanted to investigate that space, Louisa felt a pull to start in the bookshop.
The white cat asleep in the carrier was deaf—as some white cats are—and had a habit of sleeping through exciting moments—as many cats do.
She’d loved Button Books ever since the first time she’d visited the small Washington town a decade earlier, when her best friend had first moved here.
“One day, it’ll be just you and me, reading our lives away, LouLou,” he’d said to her over and over throughout the years, so much so that it felt like a recording she could replay anytime in her mind. “I did it, Ben,” Lou whispered. “I just wish you were here.” Her voice broke. She pressed her lips together.
Willow, much like Ben, was loud and commanding—some might even say stubborn.
“Honest three,” Willow said into Lou’s hair, repeating the phrase they’d used for decades to elicit a candid emotional check-in. “Overwhelmed. Hopeful. Hungry,”
The man locked eyes with her, rushing forward. He was tall, thin, and wore a beautiful navy suit under a long coat. His hair was a light brown and was slicked back, like he belonged in the nineteen twenties. A crease around the crown of his head told her he had been wearing a hat until recently. Small red marks on either side of his nose told the
same story about a pair of glasses. His movements were erratic and his posture rigid. In one hand, he grasped at what appeared to be a single book page. His other fist was closed, but Lou couldn’t see if he held anything in that palm.
“Is Diana Moon Glampers running my life or what?”
Diana Moon Glampers? The Handicapper General from Kurt Vonnegut’s short story, Harrison Bergeron?
His right hand tapped out a staccato rhythm on the tabletop with a brass dimple key. She recognized the type of key as soon as she saw the smooth edges.
“No bell,” she said after a moment. Weird … unless he went out the back.
Slumped against the back wall of her building was the man who’d visited her shop yesterday.
The truth was, thinking about Ben was one of the things that made her the happiest—even if it ironically happened to be the thing that also made her the saddest.
“The man is sitting up, slumped against the back of the bookshop. It looks like he’s resting.”
Lou had found Ben sitting in the same way.
Willow had always had a short fuse, but it had become almost nonexistent since James announced he was leaving her for one of his employees at the local bank. The only things that calmed Willow down were being in a garden and spending time with her horse—a horse Easton constantly complained about, hence the root of their unceasing strife.
“Your mention of Kimberly Collins worries me. It sounds like she might be into something bad here, and I’d hate for you to get dragged into it. If I were you, I’d purchase a security system with cameras.”
“The man out there was murdered?” Willow asked, giving a blunt voice to Lou’s thoughts. Easton nodded curtly. “As of right now, we’re treating this as a homicide.”
The mystery man had been quite upset when he’d rushed into her shop. Had someone been chasing him? What kind of trouble could he have been in?
George’s Technology Emporium smelled like hot plastic and ramen noodles.
“Lou and George. Don’t we make a pair? What’s your story? My parents were really into classic literature. Middlemarch. You know it?”
“The dead man in the alley.” Willow motioned to the other side of the building. “All the tags had been cut out of that fancy suit of his.”
“Someone went in and snipped out the label at the back of the collar and the ones on the inside pockets.”
“In order to know that his suit labels would be enough to identify him, they had to have known him well.”
The size and texture of the page made it obvious that it had been taken from a book. She sucked in a sharp inhale. “The man who I found dead in the alley this morning was carrying a book page in his hand when he rushed in yesterday. He sat at this table.”
On one side, notes were scrawled upon the page in pen.
Harriet - Anne of Green Gables Gerald - The Catcher in the Rye, Asimov? Tonya - Stephen King? Bethany - The Wizard of Oz Jessamyn - Olivia Queen? Turning over the page, there was a standard dedication centered in the blank space. Charlie, in the Queen household, you’ll always be king. - Olivia
“Olivia Queen was one of my authors,” she said, then tore her gaze away from the page to meet Noah’s eyes. “That’s what I did in New York. I was an editor. Olivia was the first author I discovered.”
“She called him Chuck, rarely Charles, and never Charlie.” Lou cut the air with her hand. “This can’t be real.” Confusion roiled around Lou, like steam bubbling off
But an icy fear dripped down her spine as she focused on the black-and-white
and-white night-vision feed her phone projected. A person dressed in dark colors, wearing a hood and a knit cap pulled low over their forehead, snuck toward her back door.
the most important thing was that Lou got a warm, fuzzy feeling as she entered, just like she used to when she visited this shop as a customer during her trips to visit Willow.
Unlike the other houses lined up in neighborhoods, this home was alone on a wooded plot of land. It was unkempt and dilapidated, appearing to be uninhabited.
just as Lou felt hot tears stream down her cheeks, she heard something that made her swipe them away. A small meow had come from the bush to Lou’s right.
“I'm Kathleen. Lovely to meet you.”
“You’re a vet?” she asked, eyeing his white lab coat with Dr. Ramero stitched above the breast pocket. “I thought you owned the quilt shop.” She motioned toward Material Girls. “And installed security systems in people’s businesses.”
This is my primary job. My family owns the quilt shop and I help from time to time.
“I mean, the man had to be involved in the book business somehow, don’t you think?” Lou asked. “Why do you?” Willow asked back. “He mentioned that Kurt Vonnegut short story, for one. There was also that page he left behind with all of those literary titles jotted down on the back. He was looking for Kimberly for another, so that’s what makes me think he’s in the bookstore business.” Lou
Just put that detail-oriented mind of yours to use figuring out the identity of the man in the alley. I’m sure once he has that information, Easton can’t mess it up too badly from there.”
“If I’m finding out who he was, you’re going to help me.”
There’s a weird used bookstore in Brine, so we could stop there on the way back if we strike out. Kirk has mostly big box bookstores like Barnes and Noble.”
He wore slacks, a crisp cotton button-up shirt, black-rimmed glasses, and a gray fedora. Although there were vast differences between him and the man in the alley, the poor police sketch they had set in front of them looked exactly like this man.
Her insinuation that there could be more people who not only dressed like him but also held the same job was an affront to his hard-fought individualism.
In the city, things were almost always open. If you needed something in the middle of the night, there was a place to find it. Out here, you could hardly find a shop that stayed open past five.
It was a flyer for a Lakeside County book swap.
“This might be another place we could ask around about our mystery man.” Lou pointed to the bright pink paper pinned to the corkboard.
She stared at the shredded remains of two paperback books sitting in the middle of the bookshop. In the center of the chaos, an orange kitten slept soundly, his paws tucked under his small, destructive body.
then they all jumped when someone knocked on the front window. Four out of the five cats rocketed into the air and then scattered.
