Page 89 of The Librarians

Chapter Twenty-four

Tuesday

Two evenings later

Astrid bites her lower lip as she turns the key. She feels sick, the way she did the last time she ran the Cap10K, one of the hundreds of runners in costume so that Austin could go on being weird, except the day was too hot and she was all lightheaded and dehydrated inside her foam-and-polyester armadillo suit.

Come on, she implores herself,you already slept in your own bed for the past two nights, so it’s not as if you’re walking in for the first time after you hid from the intruder.

But what they will be attempting tonight…

Astrid casts a glance over her shoulder. Behind her, Sophie is opening and clenching her left hand. Hazel looks grave but calm—as calm as the eye of a storm.

They both nod at Astrid. Now Astrid has no choice but to open the door to her condo. “Come on in.”

In her own ears, her voice quavers, like a guitar string plucked too hard.

Sophie’s attention immediately goes to the five sixteen-by-twenty-inch framed blackboards on the two walls around the dining table. “But that is gorgeous lettering, Astrid! Are those your own fonts? I don’t recognize them—and I window-shop fonts all the time.”

Some of the boards are occupied by a large single letter—a particularly swishy capitalY, a capitalTthat looks like it’s built of steel beams—but a couple of other boards have whole lowercase alphabets written out, one in an angular script font, another a rotund, friendly sans serif.

Sophie’s compliment makes Astrid feel as if she’s just seen the first snowdrop emerge from, well, under the snow. “I didn’t know you liked fonts,” she says, trying not to preen.

“I love fonts—always have.” Sophie turns halfway around, a rueful expression on her face. “There’s too much we don’t know about each other.”

“I know,” Astrid murmurs, a pang in her heart.

“I cannot pick out Comic Sans in a lineup,” says Hazel.

Astrid pivots toward her in horror. “Comic Sans is—I’m sure calling it a crime against humanity would be too much but…”

“But it deserves to be known as the typographical equivalent of failing upward,” Sophie says authoritatively.

“Yes, omigod, yes!” Astrid cries—and high-fives Sophie.

Hazel chortles and walks over to the board that declaresLive, Laugh, Lovein a font that was Gothic horror except listless, practically comatose—Astrid wrote the slogan after Perry’s desertion in spring.

“At least I can tell that this combination of text and font is ironic,” Hazel says, tracing a finger over the firstL, which is melting into a puddle of despair.

The relief and camaraderie Astrid feels at the discussion of fonts evaporate and she almost has a heart attack. Is Hazel doing too much? Will she give them away? And when Hazel turns around, there is a feverish gleam in her eyes, which could denote either a wild hope or an equally untrammeled panic—and does nothing to soothe Astrid’s agitation.

Astrid pinches the back of her neck and clears her throat. “Let me get something for us to drink.”

A few minutes later, she has a bottle of red wine uncorked and a half-decent cheese board—grapes, olives, and a few slices of salami in addition to the last of the Hushållsost from her fridge—on the table.

Sophie’s glass of wine is almost full to the brim. But she doesn’t drink,only hangs on to its stem, her thumb pressed hard into her knuckles. “So…you said you need our help, Hazel?”

Hazel takes a swig of her club soda—the ice cubes in her glass clink loudly. “I do. You know that I’m a widow.”

“I still can’t believe it,” says Sophie.

Hazel’s lips curve into the sort of smile women give when they want to reassure those around them that things are all right, an expression more determined than sanguine. “The day my husband died I found out he embezzled a lot of money. Twenty million pounds, to be exact. More recently I learned that he also took three million pounds from Perry.”

“What?!” Astrid’s cry echoes sharply against the walls.

“That’s…so much money,” murmurs Sophie. “When our library was remodeled, it only cost one point eight million dollars. Twenty million pounds—how much is that in dollars?”

“Between twenty-five and twenty-six million, I’d say.”