Page 60 of The Librarians

The summons that Sophie has been waiting for—and dreading—comes the next day.

Jonathan and Astrid drive downtown with Sophie, all three quiet. Sophie holds on to the steering wheel in a death grip; her stomach feels as if an alien creature is clawing its way out.

She can see clearly how Jeannette Obermann must have been killed.

Perry Bathurst was not found at Twin Courtyards but at an apartment complex less than a mile to the north.

Sophie, however, is almost one hundred percent sure he had parked his rental car at Twin Courtyards, across the street from Astrid’s gated condo community.

The mercenaries, who must have planted a tracer on Perry Bathurst’s car or his person, tracked him down after Game Night to make sure that he was dead and to remove the fentanyl patch and the tracer.

Jeannette Obermann arrived back at Twin Courtyards.

And whom did she see when she got out of her car?

The nice couple who had been at the game of Clue with her that very evening.

Extremely curious person that she was, she went up to them to say, “Hey, fancy seeing you two again so soon” or “Oh my goodness, do you guys live here too?”

With Perry Bathurst’s dead body right there in the car they were all standing next to. Did she see the body? Did she have questions? Did she realize the danger she was in and turn to run?

Whatever happened, with her final bit of clarity and strength, she sent her location to the last number she texted.

And her killers, after unlocking her phone with her thumb, must have decided to leave the phone behind because it would confuse the police to see that she’d contacted someone else right before she died.

But they did drive her car elsewhere—they didn’t want her body discovered right away if the person she contacted came looking. And then they must have decided to move Perry’s body, too, just in case.

Yes, Sophie can see it all with diamond-bright clarity. And the firefight at the library—her heart still aches for her library, caught in a hail of bullets—exposed the murder weapon used on Jeannette Obermann, the tranquilizer gun with its deadly load of carfentanil.

But how will Detective Hagerty view everything?

Like Hazel, Conrad, Jonathan, and Astrid, Sophie was interviewed extensively in the wake of the firefight—but only concerning the events leading up to the entrapment.

That she’s been called in again, this time by Hagerty, means that Hagerty has obtained Jeannette Obermann’s phone records and now knows that she reached out to Sophie repeatedly right before she died.

From what she’s heard from Jonathan, Detective Shariati will receive the bulk of the credit for solving the murders of Perry Bathurst, Jeannette Obermann, and the homeless patron Manny Vasquez, used and discarded by the mercenaries.

Hagerty’s prestige in the department is further eroded due to the mistakes he made with regard to the entrapment operation, insisting on fewer officers and then letting the female accomplice leave his sight too easily.

But his weakened position makes him not less dangerous but more. If he can successfully pin Jeannette Obermann’s death on the quiet librarian, what is Sophie’s—and Elise’s—future compared to his glory and success?

A warm hand clasps around her shoulder. “Breathe, Sophie,” says Jonathan quietly.

Sophie looks up to see concrete floor and concrete pillars—they’ve arrived in the parking garage and she has scarcely any memory of the drive.

“You’ll be fine,” says Astrid from the back seat.

Sophie stares for a moment at her bright lemon manicure—Elise’s favorite, for its beaming cheerfulness. “Yes, I’ll be fine,” she concurs.

She has no choice but to outsmart Hagerty.

The interview room is cold, sparse, and smells of stale coffee. The metal desk in front of Sophie has a disconcertingly deep scratch along its right edge.

Detective Hagerty wastes no time. “Ms. Claremont, you lied to me.”

To the side, Gonzalez, his partner, looks accusingly at Sophie.

The back of Sophie’s head rings, as if she’s been hit with a baseball bat. She prays desperately that muscles at her temple will not leap—Hagerty must not sense her state of abject terror.

She lifts the corners of her lips in approximation of a sheepish smile. “I know. I’m sorry, Detective, but in my place, wouldn’t you have done the same thing?”

She can’t bring herself to bat her eyelashes, and that is probably a good thing. She would not want to disrespect the law.

“No, in your place I would have told the truth,” Hagerty says firmly. Harshly.

Is she grimacing or smiling placatingly?

She can only hope it’s the latter. “Well, Detective, I hate to bring it up, but my people have had less than stellar luck where the law is concerned—the law has always tried to bind us but has rarely attempted to serve us. Would you declare aloud and in good conscience that perfectly innocent Black people have nothing to fear from the police?”

This is a gamble. She has no idea what Hagerty will say.

His jaw moves. He frowns. But in the end, he only says, “You had nothing to fear from me .”

“But I did not know you, Detective. I only know the directive handed down from my grandmother and my mother—and my own experience living in this skin—that I should always, always have as little to do with the police as possible, especially if I’m innocent.”

Her throat burns. Her nape burns, too. But she forces herself to smile again. “I was wrong, of course. And I apologize. I’ll tell you the whole truth today, but you’ll see that the whole truth would only have sent you down a fruitless path.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

“Very well.” Sophie adjusts the cuffs of her navy blazer—she is dressed more formally than anyone else in the room.

“My daughter spoke to Ms. Obermann Saturday before last, when they happened to be both standing in front of some graphic novels.

But I never saw Jeannette Obermann until she arrived at Game Night with the third eye on her forehead.

“During the event, my attention was on my daughter—and how the evening progressed as a whole. It was as we were leaving that Ms. Obermann approached me and asked if she could have a word in private.”

If only she’d known…if only she’d agreed to Jeannette Obermann’s suggestion to talk again on a different day, then the woman would have gone home at an earlier time, missed the Russian mercenaries, and lived.

“You told me—and your daughter—that she was interested in volunteering at the library.”

“For which there is a whole process to follow, starting with an online application form. No, what Ms. Obermann expressed was a personal interest in me.”

Hagerty’s right brow lifts up half an inch. “As in…”

Sophie sits up straighter. “As in a romantic, or perhaps solely sexual, curiosity.”

Hagerty reschools his expression into one of impassivity. Sophie has the sensation that he’s restraining himself from looking her up and down. “Are you queer, Ms. Claremont?”

“I am. People might know me for years without knowing that, since dating hasn’t been a priority for me, but I’ve never misled anyone about it.”

“Then how did Ms. Obermann know? Surely she wasn’t shooting darts in the dark?”

Six feet to his left, even Gonzalez’s permanent poker face betrays a trace of interest. At least neither cop looks outright incredulous.

“I’m sure you’re aware, from your investigation, that Ms. Obermann lived for some time in Albany, New York?”

“Yes?”

“My ex-girlfriend, right after we broke up, worked for a while in Albany and, according to Ms. Obermann, joined a hobby group in which Ms. Obermann was also a member. Also according to Ms. Obermann, my ex, still not over me, showed our pictures to everyone around her.

“Now, a little bit after nine p.m. on Game Night, in the library’s parking lot, Ms. Obermann told me this. She told me how beautiful she always thought I was, how envious of my ex she’d been, and how she would have given me the moon and the stars, if only I’d been hers.”

Sophie feels queasy—she’s twisted the truth into a Mobius strip.

“I haven’t dated much in recent years. To have an attractive woman tell me that from a glimpse of my photos almost two decades ago she remembered me to this day and wanted nothing more than a chance to get to know me better—it was dizzying, frankly.

“But I had a slight problem—my daughter was still with me. I wanted Ms. Obermann to keep telling me how dazzling I was, but I also needed to get Elise home. And I, not being a woman who had a regular nightlife—or any kind of nightlife—had zero idea what places—other than McDonald’s—would be open after nine.

So I asked Ms. Obermann if she could meet me back at the library after I dropped my kid home.

The library is my turf. I know it’s safe.

And if push came to shove, we could always go inside.

“She agreed. I rushed home and rushed back. We met again in front of the library—it was all extremely promising. Unfortunately, as she kept talking, I started to have a sinking feeling that it wasn’t me she was interested in. The one she couldn’t forget was my ex.”

Detective Hagerty, who has never jotted down a single word on the occasions he interviewed Sophie, now opens the notebook in front of him on the desk.

It’s full of writing. But before Sophie can make out any of the upside-down words, he closes it again and looks back at her, expectantly and with great severity.

Sophie’s heart rattles, an overworked machine about to jolt apart.

Under the desk she grips her fingers. Her words emerge slower, more cautious, as if they too are afraid.

“I’ll grant you this. My ex was a remarkable woman—she was also impossible to live with, you know the sort.

I was willing to leave the comfort of my home at what I considered a late hour to be adored and worshiped, but I wasn’t there so Ms. Obermann could feel closer to my late ex. ”