Mistaken for the Mob. Ginny Aiken

old room. He passed on, too.”

      “You’re right. I never did meet him.” His death wouldn’t hit her as hard as Audrey’s decline. “I set up his privileges as soon as I got word he was coming—I never knew he was the one moving into the bed I helped make. Then day before yesterday Marlene in Admissions called to say he’d gone into cardiac arrest and wouldn’t need books. He wasn’t dead yet, but close. I terminated him right away.”

      Dean sighed. “It’s never easy, you know.”

      Maryanne nodded and again tried to swallow the knot in her throat. “I know, and I’d better say good-night to Dad. I have to be at work early tomorrow.”

      She fought more tears—these hot and painful by comparison to her earlier tender ones—on her way back to the activities hall. As usual, a bevy of aged belles surrounded her father’s wheelchair, smiling and chatting with the unrepentant flirt. Maryanne sighed in relief. It was foolish to need the reassurance just because a sweet woman she had befriended was near the end. And yet, she did.

      She donned a bright smile and made her way through his admirers. “I’m going home now, you party animal. Some of us have to work.”

      “You work too much,” he countered. “But I won’t keep you. You need your rest. Thanks for everything, Cookie. Just don’t worry about me. I’m in my element.”

      Feminine laughter tittered around them. Maryanne swooped down for her good-night hug and kiss. Then, before she broke down and cried for real, she rushed from the building and into her car.

      She was going to miss Audrey. Just as she missed Mary Margaret Muldoon and her love of mysteries, Helmut Rheinemann’s armchair travels and Toby Matthias’s penchant for art books. She loved to serve the nursing home residents. She felt called to bring the joy of books into their often lonely and frequently pain-filled days. If only she could learn the art of detachment. Each loss broke her heart.

      Tomorrow she would order Audrey’s termination. Then she would work surrounded by sadness. And she counted on the Lord to see her through the day she had to terminate her own dad.

      Maryanne wiped her eyes with a tissue and then typed the curt e-mail first thing the next day. Terminate Audrey White. She expected a visit once Sandy Rodriguez, the card privilege clerk, downloaded that morning. The young man had learned that each message was written with a fresh batch of tears.

      She clicked the Send icon and received the message sent confirmation. Before she signed off, however, the screen went blank. “Rats.”

      The system was down. Again. The glitch, no matter how short-lived, would only make what had started out as a crummy day even worse. Since the county library system joined the information superhighway a couple of years earlier, it had become close to impossible to operate without the computers.

      She set her sad thoughts aside and reached across the desk for her correspondence folder. She might as well wade through it while the equipment stayed down. Who knew how long it would take to get things up and humming again.

      A short while later her door swung inward and two men in jeans, white shirts and navy ties, brass nameplates over their pocket, stepped in.

      “Hi,” said the shorter of the two, his brown eyes as warm as his smile. “We’re from Uni-Comp. I’m Dan Maddox, and this—” he glared at his companion “—is J.Z. Prophet. We’re here to fix the system and check the machines.”

      Surprised by that odd look, Maryanne took note of the names on the plates and stood. “Be my guests. I can’t do a thing until you do yours.”

      Dan Maddox went right to her desk, but the other man, J.Z. Prophet, stayed in the doorway, his gray eyes fixed on her.

      “Maryanne Wellborn?” he asked in a deep voice.

      “Yes, and if you’ll excuse me, I’ll leave you to your work.”

      Maryanne stepped out to the hall. What an intense man. His eyes…so cold. She shivered. With a deep breath, she regained her composure.

      But from the other side of the not-quite-closed door, she heard Maddox say, “I’m waiting for that modem card.”

      J.Z. muttered a response she didn’t quite catch.

      Maryanne’s curiosity got the better of her and she pressed up against the door frame. Holding her breath, she peered through the crack into her office.

      Long seconds crawled by, minutes…centuries. No one moved.

      Maddox turned to his partner, who still stood, statue-like, by the equipment case. “Come on, J.Z. Before the librarian gets back.”

      Gray eyes speared to the door. Maryanne froze under the impact of that icy stare. She suddenly wanted to run, take cover.

      J.Z. Prophet, a complete stranger, really, really didn’t like her.

      Why?

      TWO

      “Whatever you say, Trudy Talbot.” Maryanne tucked her work-loosened brown-and-white gingham blouse into the waistband of her dirndl skirt. “But you should have seen the look in his eyes. So tell me. What would make a computer geek look so…so scary? So disgusted? So angry?”

      The classy, prematurely gray director of the Children’s Collection shrugged. “Beats me. Maybe his wife served him eggs for breakfast when he wanted Frootie Tooties instead. Or maybe his cat presented him with a dead mouse…just before he swallowed the eggs. The adult male is beyond my comprehension. That’s why I stick to those under the age of twelve.”

      “Last time I checked, Ron Talbot was a quite adult thirty-five.”

      Trudy slicked on a coat of soft plum lip gloss and dropped the tube into her tailored black leather purse. “That doesn’t mean my husband’s any easier to understand than others of his kind.”

      Maryanne tucked her lip balm in the side pocket of her tote. “You don’t fool me. You two have been married thirteen years, you share a mortgage, car and minivan, a dog, four cats and two kids. You must have figured him out at least a little.”

      “Three.”

      “Three? Three what?”

      Trudy’s fair skin bloomed a delicate rose. “Three kids.”

      “Huh?” Maryanne glanced at her friend’s flat middle. “Oh! Really?”

      Trudy’s smile lit up the dingy bathroom in the basement of the New Camden Public Library. “Mm-hmm.”

      The two women hugged, then Maryanne held her friend at arm’s length. “That’s wonderful! And you look wonderful, too. When are you due?”

      “Sometime in mid-November.”

      “A Thanksgiving baby—how perfect.”

      “It is a perfect time to give thanks for all my blessings.” Trudy eyed Maryanne. “So much so that you ought to give it a try. Marriage and motherhood, that is.”

      “Are you crazy? You just finished telling me men are impossible to understand, and now you want me to hook up with one of them?”

      “I said they’re impossible to understand, not impossible to love and live with.” Trudy hitched the strap of her purse onto her shoulder. “Come on. I have to get back. The Thursday story-hour kids are about to get here, and we don’t want them on the loose.”

      “And I have to go see what those guys got done on my computer.”

      The two women went upstairs to the library’s main level. Trudy gave Maryanne a sideways glance. “You know Uni-Comp’s people are always great. You never know what’s going on in people’s lives. Maybe that one guy had a fight with his wife.”

      “Maybe…but he still gave me the creeps.”

      “How so?”

      Cold