Page 23 of Witch and Tell

Wanda’s gaze skipped to the bookshelf, the window, and my desk before landing back on me. “It’s simply that I want what’s best for Wilfred.”

“That’s laudable. I’m glad we agree. What we may not agree on is whatbestmeans. While I’m librarian,bestat the library means that mothers can choose books for their children without our commentary on their choices.” I softened my voice. “You understand that, don’t you, Wanda?”

As if agreeing, Rodney nudged my ankle with his silky nose.

A stiff smile spread across her face. It looked almost painful. “Perhaps it would be better if I didn’t volunteer here.”

“If that’s how you feel about it, perhaps you’re right,” I said.

Wanda opened the door, then turned once more toward me. “Goodbye, Josie. You, too, Rodney.”

Chapter Fourteen

On my lunch break, I called Lalena. “Do you have a second?” I asked.

“I have a tarot card reading for Dylan in ten minutes. Why?” she asked.

I pictured Lalena setting out the tarot cards on her linoleum-topped kitchen table. All through high school, Dylan had been our intern, and he’d charmed patrons in his vintage suits, culled from his dead grandfather’s closet, and his regular references to Cary Grant films. Now he was preparing for college. I hadn’t known he was into divination, but the movieI’m No Angel, with Mae West and Cary Grant, featured a fortune teller. That might have persuaded him to give it a try.

“It’s about Ian,” I said. “Have you heard from him?”

“No. What do you know?” she asked quickly.

“I have an idea, that’s all. Can you call me when you’re finished with Dylan?” I didn’t want to say anything that could further upset, or mistakenly hearten, her until I had better information.

An hour later, instead of calling, Lalena turned up at the library in person. “What did you want to tell me about Ian?” she asked, breathless from hurrying up the hill.

I was in the conservatory, cleaning up after a midday meeting of the crochet club, an offshoot of the knitting club formed when a faction of knitters disagreed about the superiority of knitting over crochet, an argument that had devolved into unflattering comments about one another’s stitching abilities and yarn choices. In my two years in Wilfred, I’d seen the crochet club rise and fall three times as members fought and made up. Soon the knitting club would be whole again.

“Have a seat.” I lifted a few snips of rose-colored wool from a chair. “You haven’t heard from Ian at all, right? No missed calls? Nothing?”

Eyes wide, she shook her head. “No. I told you so.”

Once again I remembered Ian’s body on the atrium floor. Lalena caught me glancing toward the doorway to the atrium, and she followed my gaze, an eyebrow raised. I hoped what I’d seen hadn’t been real, maybe a misplaced vision of what had happened to him. I turned to her.

“And you’re certain he’s gone, not that you’ve simply missed him somehow.”

Despite her obvious pain, Lalena was losing patience with me. “He’s gone. We’d never gone a day with out talking, and now it’s been almost a week. Besides that….” As her words trailed off, she examined the floor.

I stooped to pick up a stray piece of yarn near where she stared. “Besides that, what?”

“I broke into his trailer.”

I stood suddenly. “Say that again?”

“Don’t get so high and mighty. You’ve broken into a few places.”

Lalena was right, and she’d even helped me once. I’d only done it under life-or-death circumstances, however. I was beginning to wonder if Ian’s disappearance counted. “He wasn’t there.” Buffy and Thor’s surveillance had proven that much.

“I knew he wasn’t there. I wanted to see if he’d left any sort of clue.” Her voice caught. “The milk carton was on the counter, like you said. I put it away.”

It was undoubtedly sour by now, but Lalena had prob ably wanted some way to feel she was doing something productive. “Could you tell if he’d packed a suitcase?”

“Not really. I don’t even know if he owns a suitcase. His wheelchair wasn’t there, of course, and his bed hadn’t been slept in.” She twisted her hands. “His coffee cup and cereal bowl were in the sink. It was like he dropped everything after breakfast and never came home.”

Again, I urged Lalena to sit, and I took the chair next to hers. “Anything else?”

“He’d taken his medication with him,” she said. “Because of his injury, he takes blood thinners.”