Page 31 of The Librarians

How much time has passed? Where is her phone? At least wherever it is, it cannot ring on her person and betray her whereabouts.

She begins to count. Is there any use to her hiding? If the intruder finds her phone and her car keys, they will know that she has to be here somewhere.

But seconds pass—she counts past one hundred, two hundred, three hundred. When the count hits three thousand she decides that she’s been in the attic long enough.

No one attacks her as she descends the ladder.

Nor is anyone waiting for her outside the utility room.

The condo is silent. Standing with her back against the utility room door, she realizes that, as she didn’t change out of her pants, her car keys are in her pocket.

And her phone—she remembers now—she forgot the device inside the center console of her car.

She meant to go and retrieve it after dinner, but it was chilly and she’d parked some distance away because the neighbors were having a party.

So she didn’t bother in the end—the phone isn’t visible to passersby and she could do without it for the night.

Did the intruder, finding no phone, no key, a still-made bed, and her car not anywhere nearby, conclude that she wasn’t home after all?

Her head spins at the thought of her lucky escape.

But why was there an intruder in the first place?

She begins to shake again.

Hazel wakes up at four in the morning—or what would be five if daylight saving time hadn’t ended two hours ago.

She doesn’t feel well rested but jittery and overbuzzed, as if someone hooked her up to a coffee IV overnight.

Conrad. Walls of books. Spaghetti Bolognese. The jar of ticket stubs. Bumper stickers. Ryan’s car. Ryan’s car that he said had been driven by Conrad on Game Night.

Does she believe Ryan? She is not at peak confidence on her ability to judge men.

But Ryan’s response to her questions was one of reciprocal curiosity: He wanted to find out—and not in a sinister way—where and how she might have seen his car.

She’d even say he was a little surprised when she abruptly abandoned her quest.

As for the invitation to dinner, now that the event is in the rearview mirror, her sense is that while he did want to meet her, it was probably just as much an excuse to see Jonathan in a plausibly deniable way.

True, he didn’t look at Jonathan the way Jonathan looked at him.

But she, the third wheel, very much felt the undercurrents beneath the general amiability of their conduct.

If she absolutely must give a yes-or-no answer, then yes, she believes Ryan about Conrad’s possession of the black Audi on Game Night.

Does it matter where Conrad was that night? People are free to park at an ordinary branch library at nine p.m. on a Tuesday night, twelve, fifteen miles from home, aren’t they?

Obviously it matters to her.

Hazel flings aside the covers. Vaguely, she understands that she is applying a very different standard to Conrad.

Forty-five minutes after the library closed on Game Night, Sophie was there in the parking lot, talking to Jeannette Obermann—and Hazel is more than happy to consider a dozen other possibilities that do not involve Sophie being culpable in the death of another.

Yet with Conrad, she cannot shy away from the worst possibilities. If he had anything to do with…anything at all—already she feels like the Hindenburg , about to crash to the ground engulfed in flames.

She grabs her laptop and heads downstairs to the breakfast table—her room is beginning to feel claustrophobic.

Almost twelve years ago, at this very table, she slumped over her breakfast while Nainai tapped on her giant tablet. She was trying to convince herself that she wasn’t hurting, merely sulking, a rich little girl denied her latest favorite toy, who failed to sail into Miami as he said he would.

But why couldn’t she breathe?

She made herself sit straight and take a bite of the H-E-B hash brown patties that had been a childhood favorite. What are you looking at, Nainai?

Nainai gave her a long look, then said cheerfully, I’m finding out how much my neighbors pay in property tax—you’re too young to understand how much fun this is.

She smiled in spite of herself. You can do that?

I think you always could, answered Nainai, if you were willing to schlep down to county offices. But now it’s all online. And I never knew Deb’s last name—you know, the nice woman across the street—but now I do.

So there is a way to find out, from public records, the identity of the homeowner. And Hazel needs Conrad’s full name before she can begin to learn anything useful about him.

It does not take her long to discover that the county’s appraisal office has that information. The name that comes up when she types in last night’s address, however, is An-Nian Lo.

Is that Conrad’s legal name? It’s not uncommon for Asians abroad—or in Singapore, for that matter—to use a Western name in daily life instead of their official name.

She taps on the function that lets her search the same address year by year. An-Nian Lo has owned the property only for the last few years. Before that, as far back as the online tax records go—which isn’t very far, only six years—the house belonged to someone named Romy Lonstein.

Typing An-Nian Lo in the search bar returns no meaningful matches, especially when restricted to Texas. But when Hazel looks up Romy Lonstein, she finds out that Romy Lonstein died of an apparent overdose in that lovely house at age thirty-seven.

She bore a slight resemblance to Conrad—could they have been related? Hazel digs further into her life. Her poetic obituary gives scant biographical data, but thankfully someone commenting on the memorial post on her long-abandoned Facebook account directs mourners to her Tumblr.

The worst thing about being a fuckup , Romy Lonstein wrote there eight years ago, is that I feel overwhelmingly guilty about being a fuckup.

I’m Jewish and Asian. I’m supposed to be a striver, a clear-eyed success, practical and levelheaded.

Yet with all the resources available to me, all the help I’ve had over the years, it’s arduous for me just to breathe.

Okay, part Asian, confirmed.

A photograph of a single candle on a cupcake. This is for you, Aunt Ana?s, one of the few who haven’t abandoned me. Happy birthday. I wish I had a fraction of your grace, fortitude, and aplomb.

As Hazel spelunks further and further back in time in Romy Lonstein’s posts, she becomes convinced that the woman scrubbed her account at various points: There are multiple references to romantic disappointments, but never any photo evidence.

So Hazel is surprised when, with very few posts left, she comes across an image of a shirtless man. He’s shot from the back, against a setting sun, his spine a deep channel in a lean, strong torso.

My little cousin Conrad is all grown up now and can take his big cousin Romy sailing. Where did the time go? I remember when I used to hold him in my arms and call him “my baby”!

Conrad! On Madeira he mentioned a cousin. Can Hazel take this as sufficient evidence that Conrad is indeed An-Nian Lo?

But she already looked up An-Nian Lo and found nothing useful.

On a hunch Hazel searches for Ana?s Lo , and up pops an article from Tatler Hong Kong dated a year ago.

Legendary Taiwanese entrepreneur and style icon Ana?s Lo marries Hayden Cheng, son of Hong Kong hotel tycoon Soo-yat Cheng

Ana?s Lo, who needs no introduction in these pages, tied the knot with filmmaker Hayden Cheng on the 9th of September.

His feature-length works have premiered at such venues as the Cannes and Toronto International Film Festivals.

The two have known each other for more than thirty years, having met as students studying abroad in the UK.

Hayden Cheng, in his speech at the wedding, poked fun at himself.

“When I met Nian Jie (Elder Sister Nian, the appellation by which Ana?s Lo is often affectionately referred, both in the media and by her friends and associates), I was a shy, awkward young man.

I was gobsmacked by her presence, her beauty, and her competence—and I was completely intimidated.

I only dared hang around the edge of her circle, hoping she would notice me.

She did. She was very kind to me but dated more confident men.

“When our paths crossed again five years ago, I was gobsmacked anew. I was no longer a young man, but I remained shy and awkward. This time, however, I screwed up the courage and asked her out. Best decision I’ve ever made.

Nian Jie, thank you for coming to dinner that night.

Thank you for coming to other dates. Thank you for allowing me into your life and thank you for agreeing to be part of my life forever and always.

I hope you’ll never get tired of me telling you that I am the luckiest man alive, because I plan to tell you that a lot in the coming years. ”

Cheng’s daughters from his previous marriage and Lo’s son from her previous marriage all spoke at the wedding. Cheng was married for seven years to cinematographer Francine Tam. Lo was briefly hitched to French diplomat and businessman Hubert de Villiers.

Hazel lurches out of her chair. De Villiers.

Romy Lonstein could have had other aunts and uncles. Her cousin Conrad isn’t necessarily her aunt Ana?s’s child.

But what if he is? What if his surname is de Villiers?

For a moment her mind is as blank as a wiped whiteboard, all information gone. And then she remembers: Wikidata. Astrid’s searches.

She somehow pulls up the company registration page Astrid was looking at yesterday. This time, she sees that there are various tabs at the top. One such tab leads her to a pdf of incorporation papers.

And on those, where full names are required, under Heneage Pericles Bathurst is Valerian Conrad de Clausonne de Villiers .