Page 99 of The Librarians

Noises arise on Hazel’s side—it sounds like she’s taking off a jacket in a small, confined space. Is she in a parked car?

“Has Jonathan told you, by some chance, that I’m a widow?”

“No, he hasn’t.”

But Hazel did, tonight, when they were all at Jonathan’s house.

“And I’m so, so sorry,” Astrid hastens to add.

Hazel is silent for close to ten seconds. “The police raided our apartment in April, looking for evidence of financial crime. They arrived at midnight and didn’t leave until well after sunrise. It was while they were there that my mom came by and told me that my husband died in a small plane crash off the coast of Scotland.

“It always felt like too much of a convenient coincidence for him to perish just as he was wanted by the law. I don’t think I was ever fully convinced of his death. And part of the reason I moved to Austin—not a huge part, but still, it figured into it—was that I thought here, where nobody knows us, he’d find it easier to approach me.

“I wanted to see him face-to-face one more time; I wanted some kind of closure. But with everything that’s happened, now I’m terrified of that possibility, even as—even as it begins to feel more and more inevitable.”

It takes Astrid a moment to realize that her fingers are hooked tightly around the edge of a ceramic pot—this is not at all what she expected to hear. “Oh, Hazel,” she murmurs, to cover for the fact that she’s completely lost her place in the script.

“You’re right,” says Hazel’s disembodied voice, “I actually do feel alittle better now that I’ve said it aloud, now that I’m no longer turning it over in my personal dark cave like Gollum under the Misty Mountains.”

What happened? Why is Hazel telling all this to Astrid? Astrid pushes her snake plant a few inches to the side and picks up her phone. “And it’s not inevitable, Hazel. That your husband might be alive is only a possibility, and not a very likely one. It’s fear that’s making you think like this.”

“I hope you’re right. More than anything else, I would love to be worried over nothing.”

Astrid brings her phone closer to her lips, as if that will somehow help Hazel. “Would you—would you like to talk this over in person? Sometime after work this week?”

“Yes, I would. I’m going to call my hacker friend in Singapore and see if she can find out anything that might either put my mind at ease or confirm my suspicions. And then I’ll dump it all on you. So thank you in advance, Astrid.”

“What are friends for?” says Astrid, something she has waited eons to say. “Good luck and don’t stay up too late.”

“Thanks. Good night.”

“Wait!” Astrid cries.

“Yes?”

Astrid rubs her temple—the tiny vein beneath her skin jumps madly. “Hazel, have you thought about what you are going to do if we do find your husband?”

“I don’t know,” says Hazel, her voice taut yet heavy. “I used to imagine that I’d listen to his excuses in great silence, passing judgment without ever uttering a word. But now—now I’m just afraid.”

Chapter Twenty-seven

Astrid’s house

Tuesday night

After Hazel leaves for the library, Astrid and Sophie exchange a look, and then reach for the cheese board at almost the same time.

“Swedish cheese?” Sophie asks, scraping some Hushållsost onto an almond flour cracker.

“Yep, from IKEA,” Astrid answers.

They burst out laughing, but their mirth quickly subsides into a choked cackle. Sophie shoves the cheese and cracker into her mouth; Astrid does the same with a piece of salami, chewing nervously.

When they have calmed themselves down some by demolishing half of everything on the cheese board, Sophie asks to see more of Astrid’s fonts. As it turns out, she is perfectly knowledgeable about typography, and they discuss x-height and kerning like two old friends reminiscing over childhood memories.

So much so that Astrid is startled when her phone beeps. It’s Hazel, messaging their three-person text group.

Inside the library. All good. It’s a bit creepy but doesn’t really bother me.