Page 61 of The Librarians

“Excuse me, did you say ‘late’?” But Hagerty does not sound surprised.

“She died unexpectedly of a pulmonary embolism the year after we broke up. Everyone was shocked—but that’s life, I guess.

” Sophie shrugs—her shoulders seem to weigh a thousand pounds each.

“The point is, as much as I loved my ex, as much as it hurt to break up with her, I’d already mourned both her departure from my life and her departure from this earth. I’d moved on.

“I lost all interest in Ms. Obermann at that point. She, too, could probably tell. Before it got too awkward we went our separate ways.

“I went to get some cookies for my running group and didn’t see the location she texted me until I came out from the grocery store. It struck me as extremely odd. Was she inviting me to go over? With just that? Why would I want to?

“The whole evening was too much, one thing after another. I drove around for a while, thinking about my ex, about the different life I would have had if our relationship hadn’t fallen apart.”

Hagerty lifts a finger to stop her. “When I spoke to your daughter, she said that you told her you would discuss her father with her after she turned eighteen. She says she suspects that you might have used a sperm donor.”

Not her, but Jo-Ann.

“I have never in my life stepped into a sperm bank, Detective. My mother, may she rest in peace, would have killed me. No, my daughter, lovely and worthy an individual as she is, was conceived the old-fashioned way, in a drunken haze. Nothing so clean and clinical as a vial of disembodied sperm.”

Sophie absolutely cannot risk Hagerty demanding to know where she got the donated DNA and being unable to provide the name of the establishment.

Hagerty actually looks a bit discomfited.

“Librarians make mistakes too—as much as anyone else. My poor child will be disappointed when we have that actual conversation.” Sophie sighs—and takes advantage of the moment to make her thesis statement.

“I got a text and a location sent to me by a woman with whom I had a disappointing conversation. Next thing I knew she was dead, and people are looking for her murderer. It scared the living daylights out of me. I didn’t want to be mixed up in it.

I had absolutely no idea why anyone wanted her dead and wouldn’t have been of any help to you even if I told you everything.

So I kept my head down and hoped that without this red herring, you’d find the real killer.

Or killers. And it looks like you have.”

Hagerty pulls his lips.

Sophie flexes her toes—can the arch of a foot get a charley horse? What is Hagerty going to say? What holes will he knock in her story?

“Is your ex’s name Jo-Ann Barnes?”

Can one shudder while being completely paralyzed? Sophie does. “Yes.”

So Jeannette Obermann did use her other devices to look up Jo-Ann.

“I mean,” Sophie adds, trying for a measure of insouciance she didn’t feel, “I’ve had other exes, but Jo-Ann was the one Ms. Obermann was obsessed with.”

“Jeannette Obermann ran a number of searches. Looks like she also spent some time on Ms. Barnes’s old Facebook account, and on accounts of Ms. Barnes’s family and friends.”

Dear God. Did that woman search for Jo-Ann Barnes’s child? If she input anything that would lead Hagerty to believe Jo-Ann might have a kid on the loose somewhere—

“I suspected as much. Ms. Obermann told me she obtained a copy of Jo-Ann’s will because she wanted to know if Jo-Ann ever got married—that’s when I said to myself, nope, Sophie, this woman isn’t interested in you, she’s still in love with Jo-Ann’s ghost.”

“So you know she looked up the will?” Hagerty sounds surprised.

A bubble of optimism bursts inside Sophie’s skull.

She’s doing okay, isn’t she, striking Hagerty as completely candid?

“Ms. Obermann was nothing if not forthcoming. Too much so, if you ask me—toward the end I was backing away from her. But she didn’t deserve to die.

She was happy to be in Austin, happy for a new start.

She should’ve had the chance to enjoy her new life. ”

As she utters her formulaic and practiced words, an unexpected wave of sadness buffets her.

For Jeannette Obermann, the wellspring of stress and agitation in Sophie’s life ever since she pulled Sophie aside on Game Night.

She hopes that wherever the woman is, she saw what happened to her killers a few nights ago and derived a measure of satisfaction.

All her wistfulness evaporates the next second as Detective Hagerty says, “Ms. Claremont, it is always a mistake, a huge mistake, to lie to the police.”

Fuck, she’s done nothing but lie today.

Pain drills into her head, her heart, her stomach.

Is he going to tell her that he knows about Elise and throw the book at her for child abduction?

She didn’t even tell Elise that she was going to talk to the police again today.

Elise will expect her to be home when she comes back from school, she will expect them to have dinner together and—

“But yes, I think I see why you were not more forthcoming,” continues Hagerty, his eyes tired and defeated.

“Please still consider this a solemn warning to cooperate with the law in the future. You are fortunate that the woman you knew as Ayesha Khan has confessed to the killing of Jeannette Obermann—or at least pointed the finger at her dead partner. If the entrapment hadn’t worked the other night, you’d be in a world of trouble now. ”

But she isn’t. And he won’t look any deeper into this. And she and Elise will remain a family.

Sophie’s head rings again, this time because it has been brushed by the wings of an angel.

She starts to bawl right in front of Detective Hagerty.

Sophie manages to pull herself together enough after a couple of minutes to shake hands with the detectives and thank them for their understanding. Then she ducks into the nearest restroom and bawls for another quarter hour.

She doesn’t remember crying like this since Elise was two. She also doesn’t remember ever crying from so much relief and happiness.

She texts Jonathan and Astrid and joins them for a stroll on the boardwalk along Town Lake, the chill of the November day dispelled by the sun shining high in the sky. But after she reaches home, sitting alone in an empty house, she feels unsettled again.

At four thirty, Elise bursts through the door. “We’ve got a huge package. What did you order, Mom?”

Without waiting for an answer, she hauls a large box to their dining table and cuts it open. “Omigod, these are the other two games by Monte Unlimited! You know, the designer behind Trails to Table . Did you buy these, Mom? Did we win the lottery?

“Oh wait, there’s a gift message. It’s from Conrad—is that Miss Hazel’s boyfriend? He says he’s a huge fan of Monte Unlimited and loves to share their games. Did you tell him that I’m a die-hard stan? This is so lit, Mom. Mom—”

Elise finally glances at Sophie, still stuck to the couch. She abandons her new favorite games and comes over. “Mom, you okay? You look kind of peaky.”

Sophie leaps up and hugs her so hard she might have bruised a couple of Elise’s ribs. “Oh, Elise. We’re going to be okay now. We’re finally going to be okay.”

Elise pulls back. “What’s the matter, Mom?”

Sophie cups her face. “I have to tell you something, sweetie. I mean, I have to tell you a lot of things. I was hoping to wait a little longer, but it’s past time that you’re prepared for certain eventualities. You’re smart, you’re mature—”

Elise takes hold of Sophie’s elbows. “Mom, calm down.”

What? But Sophie is perfectly cool and collected. She is—

Her fingers are shaking against Elise’s soft cheeks.

Elise shrugs off her backpack and tosses it onto the couch. It lands with a solid whump . She goes into the kitchen and puts a cup of water into the microwave.

Sophie slowly sinks back down to the couch. She stares at her still trembling fingers—she had no idea she was so worked up.

Elise returns from the kitchen with a cup of chamomile tea, sets the mug on the coffee table, and sits down next to Sophie. “Mom, I have something to tell you.”

Sophie is instantly on high alert. “What? Did something happen at school?”

“No, school is fine—Ana Maria is going to run for class president next year and I’ll handle her campaign, but that’s not what I need to talk to you about.”

“What is it, then?”

Elise, the straightest of straight shooters, hesitates, then clears her throat awkwardly. “Were you—were you going to tell me about Jo-Ann?”

Is there a kind of bomb that explodes and sucks up all the sound in the vicinity? Elise’s lips are still moving, but Sophie can’t hear a thing.

How? How does Elise know? Did Detective Hagerty—or, God forbid, Jeannette Obermann—somehow get to Elise—

“—heart attack and we all thought she wasn’t going to make it? Well, she probably thought the exact same thing.”

“Wait. What?” Sophie’s voice is as thin as a needle in her own ears. “Are you talking about Grandma ?”

“Yeah, five years ago when she had that scare. We flew up to Chicago. The next day you had to run some errands and it was just her and me in the hospital.”

“She—”

Sophie can’t believe it. Aubrey Claremont promised Sophie—swore—that she would carry her secret to the grave!

Elise grips Sophie’s hands; Sophie belatedly realizes that she is shaking again. But Elise’s hands are warm and steady, her gaze solemn and mature. “I don’t blame her, Mom. I don’t blame Grandma.”

“I do! You were eleven. You were—”

“I was becoming spoiled. And I was definitely taking you for granted. Grandma could see that I was going to drive you up a wall when I became a teenager—”

“Still!”

She’d tried so hard to give Elise the kind of upbringing Jo-Ann would have wanted for her child. And that did not include making her face the pain of being an orphan alone or instilling in her the constant fear that child protective services might show up at her door.