CHAPTER 37 - Molly

CHAPTER 37MollyHAYES IS UPSET. I CAN TELL AS SOON AS I WALK THROUGH THE BOOKSTORE door. He’s sorting a box next to the front register, and there’s a line between his eyebrows that he gets when he’s thinking or brooding over something.“Hey,” I say. He looks up, gives me something between a smirk and a smile.“You’re early,” he says.“Yeah. I couldn’t sleep. So I decided to get ready for the day and come in.”He nods. “Are you okay, Molly?”“Yes. I’m fine,” I say with as much conviction as I can muster. “How’s Alice?”“She says she’s fine.” He slams a book on the HOLD shelf behind him. “I never should’ve let her go yesterday.”My heart hammers. My fault. “I didn’t know anything like that was going to happen, Hayes. I wouldn’t have taken her up there if I’d thought . . . It was supposed to be just routine. Detective Myers said they just wanted to look through the house. Nothing bad was supposed to happen.”Hayes straightens, looks at me, his eyes soften. “Sorry. I know this has got to be hard on you.” He comes out from behind the counter and wraps me in his arms. I relax against his shoulder.I take a deep breath and sniff back tears. “I’m so sorry,” I mumble.“Look, I don’t blame you. How would you know they were going to find that woman buried by the river?”I pull away and wipe my eyes on a tissue. “It’s all so surreal.”“Do they have any theories?”“I have no idea, but I think Jay is a suspect.” I manage a disgusted laugh. “But what are they going to do, arrest a dead man?” Tears start to flow again at my own flippant words. Hayes rubs my back.“Why don’t you go check on Alice. She’s in my office doing her schoolwork.”“Yeah. Okay. I’ll go dry my face first.” I glance around the store. “Then I’ll get busy.”* * *The bookstore closes at eight o’clock on Friday in the winter, and I usually work until six. Hayes has left to take Alice to the hobby store to get supplies for a school project and is coming back to close, so Sharon and I are the only ones here. It has been slow all day. We’ve had a steady snowfall, and all the shops on the square have been quiet.Just as darkness descends like a heavy blanket, we finally have a customer. A tall man, thirty-something, with a shaved head and a three-day stubble, asks Sharon for help finding a book in the literature section. I’m standing at the register, still lost in thoughts of Jay and Annalise Robb, and trying not to think of my caller.Sharon, her thick red cardigan gaping around her middle, huffs back to the counter. “Can you go help him?” She glances toward the back of the store. “I left my reading glasses at home, and I’m having a devil of a time.” She leans heavily on the counter, bends over, and searches through the odds and ends on a shelf below it. “I thought I had another pair here someplace.”I head back to where the man peruses the stacks. “May I help you?”He straightens and smiles. “Just found it,” he says. I notice a paperback copy of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in his hand. “I haven’t read it since senior year high school.” He holds the book up. “Didn’t finish it back then, so thought I’d give it another go.”I nod. “It’s a good one,” I say, and turn to head back to the register.“Wait. This is a quaint little place.” He glances around.“Yes. It is.” For some reason, I feel unnerved here behind the shelves with this stranger. Lately, I’m assessing every man I see, wondering if he’s my caller. Is he lurking nearby, following me, not content to torment me over the phone? I shiver and step away, but the stranger steps with me.“I’m from out of town,” he says. “Do you have a children’s section?”“Yes. Of course. Second floor.” I wrap my arms around my stomach, desperate to get away, yet not wanting to seem rude or paranoid.“I’m visiting my brother, and I didn’t think to bring my niece a gift. What kind of uncle would I be if I showed up empty-handed?” He smiles again. Friendly, almost flirting.He has a backpack slung over his shoulder, wears a leather jacket and skinny jeans. For some reason, I get a reporter vibe, and I can’t bring myself to escort him upstairs. I just want to get back to the relative safety of the counter.“We have a great selection of kids’ books. Let me know if you need help,” I say, and walk away.Sharon has taken a pair of reading glasses off a display stand near the front and has them perched on her nose, tag and all. “That’s better,” she says. “Oh, Molly. Would you go down to the basement?” She holds out a list. “Hayes said these came in, and he put them down there out of the way. He wanted me to sort them out, but . . .” She twists her leg back and forth. “My knee’s killing me.” She blows out a breath. “I can’t take those stairs today. You mind?”I don’t want to go down there. She and Hayes know that. They think I’m claustrophobic. That’s what I’ve told them, and my excuse has worked since the basement is a small space with a low ceiling. Hayes always goes himself or has Sharon go down there. Now I’m stuck.“Oh, come on,” Sharon says. “Leave the door open and the lights on, Molly. I’d do it myself, but my knee . . .”I grab the list. “Fine.” At least I’ll put some space between me and the man.“When you finish, why don’t you go ahead and go home?” she calls after me. “We both don’t need to be here.”I make my way to the basement door. It’s old, like everything else in the building, and creaks as I open it. I flip the light on and shiver as cold musty air floats up and surrounds me.You’ve got this, Molly. It’s only the bookstore.I start down and hear the man talking with Sharon behind me in the distance. My footfalls echo on the wooden stairs, and I take them slowly, one at a time. There are no windows down here, just boxes stacked everywhere and a large table in the center of the room. It’s just the bookstore, I repeat in a whisper. I square my shoulders and make my way to the books piled on the table and set the list down. I get to work, concentrating on the task at hand, keeping my mind on the books.I’m nearly through the pile when suddenly the lights go out and the basement plunges into darkness. Fear ripples through my chest, and I grab the edge of the table, holding on in a death grip. The basement door slams shut, and the floor above me creaks as someone walks overhead. Why would Sharon turn the lights out on me? Maybe we lost power. Maybe the snowfall.My heart starts to hammer, and my palms perspire. I take a deep, wavering breath and try to feel my way slowly to where the staircase should be, sweat gathering under my arms, my breath catching in my throat. I never should have come down here.Just when I’m starting to panic that I’ll never find the stairs, I bang my shin painfully against the first step.“Sharon!” I climb on my hands and knees up the stairs, my pulse beating in my ears, fear coursing through my veins. I can’t breathe. I think I hear him behind me. I hear him scuttling in the darkness. A gust of cold air hits the back of my neck as I rush up the stairs.I reach the top step, clamber to standing, and grab the doorknob, twist, but it holds fast. It’s locked. I choke on my tears and beat against the door with my fists. It’s like a flashback, a nightmare. I’m locked in, and there’s no escape.Finally, the door flies open, and Hayes is standing silhouetted against the light behind him.“Molly!”I nearly jump into his arms, shaking.“What the hell happened?” He brushes my damp hair off my face. “What were you doing down there? Sharon said you went home.” He walks me to the counter and hands me his water bottle.Alice comes out of the office. “What happened?”My pulse eases down, and I feel foolish. They’re both looking at me, concern all over their faces. “I don’t know. I got locked down there somehow.” I try to stifle my tears. “Panic attack, I guess.”Hayes hugs me, and I take a deep breath against his sweater.“After all you’ve been through,” he says, “no wonder you got scared.”I peep over his shoulder and out the plate-glass front window. The man with the Frankenstein book is standing across the road under a streetlight looking up at the store.