Chapter 8

8

Aled is super helpful. Oddly so, like he decided that was his personal brand and he was going to lean the hell into it. Trailing me through the library, he calls out to various people perusing the shelves. “Mrs. Marani, I ordered you the new Ottolenghi book. It’s at the front desk,” or “You don’t want that one, Danny—it’s not twisty enough for you. Try the Lisa Jewell instead.” And, strangely: “Mr. Timms, don’t you have an optician’s appointment in five minutes? You’ll be late!”

He chuckles, looking back at me excitedly as we enter the true crime section of the library. It’s packed with people. Disturbing. Aled announces the most helpful books by actually taking them off the shelf and dumping them into my arms.

“I don’t think I need all of these.” I try to unload the three books on missing persons back into Aled’s skinny arms, but he holds his palms out so that I can’t.

“This Jonah character you mentioned…He’s a missing person, isn’t he?”

“Well, not officially a ‘missing person.’ ”

“Can you find him?”

“No, but I don’t really know him…”

“And you say it’s literally life-or-death?”

“Well, yes. Yes it is.”

“Sounds like a missing person to me or, as they say in the biz, a misper.” He taps the spine of another book. “Oh, this one is very good. They don’t end up finding the victim, but the story is heart-wrenching. Very emotional. I did cry, but then I cry at everything. I once cried at an advertisement for bubble bath.”

He piles another three books into my arms, and while I’m usually excellent at shoving off unwanted interactions, Aled is persistent in a way I have not encountered in a while. I’m not quite sure how to respond.

When we get to the library counter, me with five big-ass books about missing persons and true crime, and one called Detecting for Dummies, Aled asks me for my library card.

“I don’t have one.”

His face crumples like I’ve just revealed he has ten days to live.

“Did you lose it?”

“Nope. I just don’t have one.”

Aled shakes his head in disbelief, handing me a form to fill in with my full name and address. “Wow. Well, this is an exciting day for you and me both. A library card is a portal, if you will, into any universe you can imagine. Oh, the adventures you will have, eh?”

“I’m not sure I’ll be coming back anytime soon.”

“You have to!” he says, tapping my details into the computer and then handing me a little plastic green card, magically printed with my name. “To return the books! That’s the trick, see? And when you do, I’ll be here with recommendations galore.” He claps his hands together. “I’ll start a list as soon as you’ve gone.”

“Okay,” I say vaguely, stacking the books into my arms and heading towards the exit. “Um, thanks…”

“You’ll be back,” Aled says in a robotic impression of the Terminator. He holds up a little stuffed owl from his desk and waves its wing as I walk away. I turn back before I leave the front door.

He’s still waving.

---

I schlep through the smoggy heat with my pile of books, and by the time I reach home, I’m sweating so much my thin white shirt has plastered itself to my skin. I shift the books over to one arm while I fiddle with my key. Getting it into the lock and twisting it the correct way without dropping the books takes every ounce of concentration I can muster. I’ve almost succeeded when suddenly the door is yanked open from the inside. I jerk forward, and the books fall from my arms, tumbling down the dusty front steps of the building.

“Nooo,” I wail gently. I glare at the opening door to see who I should blame.

Of course.

Despicable Cooper stands on the top step. He is now sans leather jacket, though the rest of his clothes are still black. He must be sweltering, but his face looks perfectly cool and calm.

“Are you going to apologise?” I hiss, heading down the steps to pick up the books that I didn’t even want.

His stubbled jaw tenses a smidge. “I didn’t know you’d be on the other side of the door, did I?” He reaches down to pick up one of the books—something called Geographic Profiling:The Essential Guide.

“Why would you yank the door open like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re angry at it!”

“It’s a heavy door, so you really have to pull it. I can’t help my natural strength.”

Is he joking right now? Seeing as I’ve never witnessed him joking, I’m gonna go with no.

“Natural strength? Wow. Congratulations to you on that. Can I get past now, please?”

Cooper’s frame blocks my entrance to the building. He doesn’t move, but frowns, picking up the top book from the pile again.

“You’re searching for someone?”

“Maybe.”

He bends his knees to squint at the spines of the other books in my pile. “That’s some hefty reading for a maybe.” He taps the bottom book with his forefinger. “That one’s not bad. The rest of them are unhelpful.”

Now it’s my turn to frown. “You’ve read them?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

He avoids the question. “Are you really trying to find someone? Who? Why?”

“Would you like me to make a written statement down at the station, Detective Cooper?”

His eyes harden again, hands up in the air. “Fine. Jesus. Good luck with it.”

I think about what Leanne said this morning. About me being rude and snippy sometimes. I didn’t think I was, but the way I just spoke to Cooper echoes back at me. Yeah. Little bit rude, definitely snippy.

“I’m trying to find my uh, ex-hookup,” I blurt. I almost said boyfriend but Cooper would know that was a massive lie on account of me never having any visitors to the building.

“Oh.” The pitch of his voice rises and it rankles me that he seems surprised. I could hypothetically have had a hookup. Yes, not a single man apart from Jonah has ever shown an interest in me, but Cooper doesn’t know that. For all he knows, I could be hooking up all over this town.

I huff. “You’re not the only one having, you know, saucy liaisons in this building!”

“Saucy liaisons?”

“Yeah. But unlike you, I just stuck with one. He’s called Jonah and he is great; very good looking, super smart. Dreamy eyes…” I smile to myself, getting lost for a moment.

Cooper arches a single brow. “Is that so?”

“Yeah, it is so. We, er, we hooked up all over this town.”

Oh god.

My cheeks flame.

“And now he’s ghosting you?” Cooper nods slowly, as if to say of course that’s what would be happening. “And you want to find out why he’s ghosting you?”

God, this guy is insufferable. “Actually, Columbo…” I trail off. I have no idea how to complete that sentence. I can’t exactly say I’m trying to find the potential love of my life who I met for five minutes during death and who I now have to kiss in order to avoid death once more. I spot Leanne waving at me from the window of the pharmacy over the road. The poster in the window beside her is advertising STD medication. “I…I gave him chlamydia,” I finish.

Why did I say that? Why did that come out of my mouth? To Cooper’s credit, his expression remains neutral.

“I’ve not got it anymore, obviously,” I add quickly. “I’ve been treated. I’m fully in the clear where my, you know, is concerned. Clean as a whistle, in fact. But…you know. I have a duty to inform Jonah.”

Cooper nods. “Quite.”

“Yes. Quite.”

I want to slide away into a puddle, slip into an underground drain, never to be seen or heard from again. Take me now, Merritt.

As soon as I get upstairs to my apartment, I run into the bathroom to see if I am indeed as red-faced as I suspect. I truly am. I am a highly pigmented Cadmium Red. Jeez, Delphie.

I head to my bedroom, completely strip off, and sit cross-legged on the floor in front of my tower fan. I take a deep breath and open the first of the books that Aled gave me.

I push away the surge of mortification that runs through me each time I think of what I just said to Cooper.

It’s time to focus.

---

Two hours later, and while I am versed in every possible method of hiding a body and even how one might evade police capture, I am even more clueless about how to locate Jonah than I was this morning.

I open up my laptop again and google “Jonah T London.” The sheer volume of results is just as overwhelming as the last five times I searched “Jonah T London.” I click onto a LinkedIn profile for a Jonah Tanner. It belongs to a man in his fifties who lives in Tucson, Arizona, and is passionate about microfinance. Not my soulmate. Then I click onto a Jonah Tyburn, who is also in London. He is not the man I’m looking for because he is, in fact, a fifteen-year-old boy looking for someone to play Fortnite with. Not my soulmate. I click through a bunch of other Jonahs, but there are so many of them, and none of them is the perfect man I met in Evermore.

I shove my laptop away and knead my temples. Then I close my eyes and allow myself to picture Jonah’s face again. How bright and twinkling his blue eyes were. How he looked at me as though he saw what I’ve sometimes suspected was there whenever I examined my reflection with kindness: pale but reasonably unblemished skin and honest hazel eyes. A nose that’s a little big, but straight and classical looking in the right light. A soft and welcoming body, with thighs that are strong and thick and hips that curve outwards in a way that could be considered sexy.

I’m jolted out of my thoughts by my TV, which suddenly switches itself on. I gasp and search for the remote, only to see it lying innocently on my bedside table. An episode of Schitt’s Creek starts to play with subtitles. My jaw drops; the subtitles on the screen are written in a hot-pink cursive font, displayed bang in the middle of the screen, obscuring the actors’ faces. I read.

Whatever you’re doing doesn’t seem to be bearing much fruit, Delpherina. You might want to get a little help.

“I’m fine. I don’t need help,” I call into the air as the subtitles fizz into a brand-new paragraph.

If you say so. Just trying to be useful. It’s quiet around here today and I’ve read the whole of Emily Henry’s backlist plus reread the entire Bridgerton series. I had a spare moment, so I thought I’d offer assistance. No probs if it’s not needed! No skin off my nose!

“You could tell me where Jonah lives,” I try.

I stare at the screen and wait for a reply. But instead of a new set of subtitles, the TV simply switches itself back off. Of course. Merritt handing me an address would be no fun for her real-life romance novel, and that’s clearly all that interests her.

“Where are you, Jonah?”I mutter to myself. I picture him in Evermore and try hard to remember if there were any useful clues from our brief interaction. His T-shirt was plain, no logo. He mentioned London in general, but no specifics besides how magical he thought it was. I didn’t really get the measure of what kind of job he had, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was something impressive like a doctor, or a fireman…And while the thought of that is pleasing on a base aesthetic level, it does not transfer into an actionable plan.

I spend another hour dashing off online messages to every photoless Jonah T. I can find on the internet before concluding that Merritt was right.

I totally need help.