Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHRIS

"So, the thing is, Ms. Dorian, I'm not really sure I qualify for a library card," I said as she held open the library's thick walnut door. "I don't actually live here. We're just staying at the campground temporarily. So…"

"Learning is a lifelong endeavor, Mr. Sunday," she said firmly. She peered at me over the top of her glasses. "And there's no better way to learn than to read, is there?"

"Uh… well, no, that's true," I agreed. "It's just… I don't have ID or an address."

"You leave that to me," she whispered to me as she led me past a sitting area with comfortable couches and chairs to the circulation desk. The building was hushed and quiet this early in the day, but the silence held all kinds of happy potential. Dust motes floated in the sunlight streaming through the window, making the polished wood shelves that ringed the room positively gleam. "The upside of being known around O'Leary as Dragon Dorian is that no one in town will question me." She shot me a wink.

I laughed out loud before clapping a hand to my mouth to muffle it, and she smiled her approval.

"Now," she said, turning on her computer. "Name… Chris Sunday."

I nodded.

"Address… we'll use the campground for now," Ms. Dorian went on. "And date of birth?"

I mumbled out the date.

"Hmm." She tilted her head to look at me. "You know, I'd never have picked you for a Virgo. You have real Libra energy."

"Right?" I pressed a hand to my chest. "That's what I've always thought, too. Not that there's anything wrong with being a Virgo, but it makes people think I'm a certain way, and I'm really not."

"Mmhmm. It'll take me just a second to print your card and get your holder ready. Feel free to explore on your own if you'd like. Or if you'd like me to show you around, I could?—"

"Actually." I licked my lips. "You mentioned the other day that you had a… um… computer lab?" I said the last words in a guilty whisper, half expecting a SWAT team led by Reed Sunday to come bursting through the doors and stop me.

Instead, when the door opened, a tall, grumpy-looking man came in, towed by a pair of exuberant toddlers.

"Gideon," Ms. Dorian said calmly. She assessed the children, who quieted and straightened under her watchful stare. "Harrison. Harper. Good morning."

"G'mornin'," the little ones singsonged.

The man glanced around the space, looking a bit overwhelmed. "The kids wanted to pick out some stories. Er… bedtime stories. About firefighters? Liam's usually the library dad in our family, but he's out of town."

"Certainly." She folded her hands on her desk. "And I trust we won't have a repeat of the unfortunate magic marker incident that occurred last time you were here… will we, Harrison?"

"N-no?" The little boy glanced up at his father, who lifted an eyebrow. "No," he repeated.

"And Harper, will we tear pages?"

"No," the girl said firmly.

"Excellent." Ms. Dorian smiled warmly and stood. "Let's head up to the children's section, and I'll help you find some books." She held out a hand to each child. To me, she called over her shoulder, "Computer lab is down in the basement, Chris. Let me know if you need help."

I stared at her for a long moment. I thought I understood why some people called her The Dragon… but I also low-key thought I'd just gotten a glimpse of what Reed Sunday might have become if he'd gone to librarian school instead of the secret agent academy.

I didn't think he or Ms. Dorian would appreciate the comparison, though.

I made my way downstairs, flipping on the lights as I went. Down here, the air was a little musty, but the place was neat as a pin. One half of the space was subdivided into a couple of private meeting rooms, each of which was outfitted with a large table and a stack of folding chairs. This half of the space held a tiny kitchenette with a water dispenser and minifridge and a dozen small cubicles set in two rows of six. Each cubicle contained a desktop computer that had seen at least a decade of life, along with a rickety rolling chair.

I walked all the way to the back of the room and pulled out the chair.

Did I feel a bit guilty that I hadn't been entirely up- front with Reed about what I wanted to do at the library? Maybe. A little.

But I needed to know things. Things about my family. Things that affected me. And despite how understanding Reed had been this morning, despite how much I honestly liked his protectiveness—good gosh, it was the hottest thing in the world—I wouldn't ask permission for things I, a competent adult human, knew weren't dangerous. I didn't want to live that way anymore.

Reed could trust me to make good choices. I would trust him to respect them.

All of which sounded pretty hecking dramatic, especially since the results that came up when I googled my uncle's name were… well, boring.

There was an old Yelp review of the Cellar— 4.6 stars, Best Gouda in Central New Jersey.

There were several write-ups from our local newspaper over the years about Danny's gardening and the awards he'd won.

There was Nonna's obituary, listing Danny and me as "survived by."

There was a mention of him sponsoring the community theater's production of Carrie: The Musical … which was kind of a crime but not the type to get you in serious trouble.

I sat back in my chair, studying the screen, and bit my lip.

On the one hand, this was a huge relief. I hated to admit it, even to myself, but the more Reed talked about Danny being a criminal like it was a given, the more I'd… well, started to wonder, even though I knew better. I did .

But on the other hand, nothing in these search results proved Danny was innocent. Nothing told me where he was or how to help him .

If this were a John Ruffian episode, there'd be some sort of clue—a combination to a bus station locker or a convenient coded message that fell out of a book. But as Reed had pointed out, that show was just the teeniest bit… fictional. In real life, Danny hadn't left me any way to trace him or even a reliable way to contact him in an emergency. The only way I even knew he was still alive was…

The postcards.

Without giving myself time to question What Would John Ruffian Do? let alone What Would Reed Sunday Most Definitely Not Want Chris Sunday To Do? I sat forward, opened another browser tab, and pulled up my Instagram.

I'd started keeping an Instagram when I moved to the Hollow so I could share it with Danny when he got home, kind of like a modern-day slideshow of my time away. Since I hadn't gotten close to any Hollowans—hadn't tried to, as I'd told Reed—I hadn't done anything very exciting, and my Instagram reflected this. There were three dozen pictures of charcuterie boards. There was a picture of a photograph—specifically, the photograph of me, Danny, and Nicky at Nicky's high school graduation that used to hang on Danny's fridge—which I'd taken and posted the day I left New Jersey, already feeling homesick. There were a few pictures of cows doing cute things. And there was a picture of the first postcard I'd received from Danny so he could see how long it had taken for it to reach me via supply plane from his remote Alaskan fishing village.

Come to think of it, this might be why I had zero followers.

I quickly scrolled back to May and located the snap of the postcard Danny had sent—a vista of a magnificent Alaskan fjord that I'd hung over my bed at Van's house. The date on the postcard, in Danny's distinctive handwriting, was April 13th, and according to the date of the post, I hadn't received the card until May 7th.

I leaned in closer, examining the familiar slashes and curls of Danny's writing.

Dear C ? —

Caught a twenty-pound salmon today! Biggest you've ever seen. I miss you and I miss my garden, but I'm having the time of my life. And don't worry for a moment—I'm protecting my heart.

Love, Uncle D.

My eyes stung a little. Gosh, I missed him.

But there were no secret messages on the card that I could discern, and I doubted Danny had expected me to randomly dip the postcard in lemon juice to reveal his hidden plea for help—or, wait, was he supposed to write the message in lemon juice? I never remembered how the trick worked, which was probably why he hadn't gone that route—so I'd arrived at another dead end.

I moved the mouse to close the image, but just as I clicked the X, I noticed the postmark on the bottom of the card—a faint and barely legible P-something, New York—for the first time.

My breath left my body in a deflating rush.

No matter how much I'd suspected (okay, fine, pretty much known) that Danny wasn't in Alaska, it still hit me funny to see the proof in black and white and brought on a surge of emotions I hadn't expected.

I was hurt. No doubt Danny had invented the Alaska trip to hide the truth so I wouldn't worry. I was sure he had the best intentions. But still, this was a lie . A big, huge lie, from a person I thought I could trust.

I was also angry. What happened to "true Fromadgio honor"? What happened to family pulling together? Had he thought I wouldn't be able to handle the truth? Had he thought I'd be too weak to help him?

But above all, I was really hecking worried. Even more worried than I had been. Because now I knew- knew that my uncle was out there somewhere, possibly right here in the state of New York, caught up in something he might not be able to get out of. Was he safe? Was he lonely? Was he taking his heart medication? Was he anxious about what might happen to him? Was he missing me and Nicky?

I knew the answer to that last one, at least. Of course he was worried. He loved Nicky and me—that was one thing I'd never doubt.

I scrolled forward a bit to the family picture throwback I'd posted in July. The picture was ten years old, but I remembered that day like it was yesterday. Nicky, long-haired and slender in his cap and gown, me with my glasses glinting in the sun, Danny standing between us with one arm slung around Nicky's waist and the other over my shoulders since I hadn't made even a modest attempt at a growth spurt until I was seventeen. All of us were cheesing at the camera.

Three very different people, but a family. A unit, I'd thought.

Danny had raised Nicky and me as brothers after Nicky's mom—Danny's wife's sister—and her husband were killed in a car accident. Danny and Nicky had been close because they both liked guns and girls and football. Danny and I had been close because we'd both loved Nonna and the Cellar. And Nicky and I… well, losing our parents was about the only thing we had in common, and he was impatient and sometimes rude to me because I was a hard person to like, but I'd tried extra hard to keep the peace between us, and it had all worked out .

At least until Danny had gotten sick last winter and decided to close the Cellar. Because while I'd been seriously hecking disappointed, Nicky had been angry . He'd yelled all kinds of things about how the family business was the only job he'd ever wanted, and how the only reason Danny hadn't given the business to Nicky was because of my feelings, and how I'd always thought I was better than him because I was a "true Fromadgio" by blood… which wasn't true, and also not what Danny meant when he said a "true Fromadgio."

But instead of talking things out, Danny had let Nicky storm off and made me promise not to contact him while Danny was gone. "I know you want to heal things, but promise me you'll let him cool down first, Christoforo. Give him time and space. When I get home, we'll all talk, and things will be back to normal. You'll see."

Now, though, I wondered if I'd be happy if things went back to exactly the way they'd been before.

Because after being around a whole town full of people who really liked me—who appreciated me for who I was, like Gina back at Trickster's Roadhouse had said—I was starting to think my issue with Nicky wasn't about me being unlikeable but about something deeper. Something he and I would both need to work on.

And after spending over a week with a man who protected people as his job but had been willing to listen this morning and accept that I needed respect and autonomy as much as I needed safety, I really wanted my uncle to give me the same respect. No more secrets. No more lies.

But before I could get to work on either of those relationships, I needed to figure out what was going on with Danny and get him home safely… I just didn't know how. Requesting information from the Division hadn't worked yet, and I couldn't exactly call Danny up when the people protecting him would have confiscated his cell phone for his protection. But maybe… maybe… wherever Danny was, he had access to a library with a computer, too.

I gnawed at my lip for a moment, then opened another browser tab and brought up my email account.

Dear Uncle Danny,

I'm not in Vermont anymore, but you might already know that. I can't tell you where I am or else the person protecting me would lose his mind—and not in the cute way he loses his mind when John Ruffian does something I think is heroic and he thinks is "utterly unbelievable, by which I mean I literally cannot believe it Chris, because no portion of this man's actions is based in reality"—but in a very serious, shouty way. But I want you to know I'm okay. In fact… I'm doing great . So please don't worry, okay?

I don't know what's going on, and I really wish you'd told me the truth before you left. I wouldn't have been angry, no matter what it was. I would have tried to understand because that's what family does. I would have helped you.

I still want to help you.

If you get this message, please write back and let me know how you are and what I can do to help, okay?

I love you,

Chris

I sent the email, then closed the browser, making sure to delete my search history because I'd seen enough John Ruffian—and heard enough Reed Sunday—to know how important that was. Then, I made my way upstairs.

I felt surprisingly good . Lighter, kind of. Stronger, too.

I still didn't know what was going on with Danny, obviously, but it felt good to do something because I'd hated doing nothing .

Upstairs, an envelope was propped on Ms. Dorian's desk with "Chris" written on the outside in pink highlighter, and when I opened the envelope and saw my new library card emblazoned with CHRIS SUNDAY in bold, black letters, I felt even better.

Gosh, I liked that name. And I really liked the person I'd become now that I had it. Chris Sunday felt like a person who took risks. Who made things happen and didn't ask for permission. Who told people who he was and what he wanted—well, sometimes. Who was never confused with Christine Pritchard, the high school teacher, or Chris Marin, the mechanic. Who made out with the hottest man in the universe right in the middle of O'Leary on a random Tuesday morning and only blushed the littlest—seriously, just the tiniest—bit.

John Ruffian could learn a lot from Chris Sunday, just saying.

I traced my fingertips over my name and smiled. I knew on some level that the sooner I got this mess with my uncle straightened out—which I wanted to happen ASAP, obviously—the sooner I wouldn't need protective custody, and the sooner my name, and this town, and Reed would be nothing but an amazing memory, but I refused to dwell on that… much. Everything had worked out so far, right? So I'd deal with all that when it happened, too.

I left the library and strolled down the street. The big clock in the window of the Books n' More said I had another half hour before I needed to meet Reed, and I didn't see him near his car, so I decided to stop into the bakery to thank Ash for my cupcakes… except I didn't get quite that far.

Out on the sidewalk in front of Micah's Blooms, the biggest RV I'd ever seen—the kind that looked like a huge tour bus, with a satellite dish on top and a car hauler hitched up behind—was double-parked. And on the sidewalk beside it, a man and a woman were having a spectacular argument.

"Well, I don't know where the heck to park it, do I, Bob?" A middle-aged woman sporting vibrant red hair and a pink sun visor scowled at a thin, potbellied, older-looking man wearing very short shorts and very tall black socks. " I have never claimed to be an expert in these matters. I wanted to take a cruise, like Raquel and Jerry. Let's celebrate your retirement by taking a cruise, I said. It's been twenty-two years of you focusing on business, business, business, I said, and now I want to have some fun. Didn't I say that?"

"You said it," the man agreed. The unbuttoned plaid shirt over his white T-shirt fluttered in the breeze.

"But did you agree, Bob? For once in twenty-two years, did you say, ‘Yes, Dolores, let's do what you want?' No you did not. Let's cruise on land , you said. It'll be fun , Dolores, you said. I'll take care of everything , you said." She set her hands on her hips.

The man swiped a hand over his thinning gray hair and sighed a long-suffering sigh. "Alright, Dolores, alright?—"

" Alright , he says! Alright . Is it alright, Bob? Is it really ? Because the next thing I know, you're spending a big whack of our retirement savings on a camper because it's an investment , Dolores . And think of the freedom, Dolores . And pick anywhere you wanna go, Dolores . And what did I say, Bob?"

The man shook his head and rolled his eyes to the sky like the cloud patterns were particularly fascinating.

"I said I want to visit Fanaille. I said—and I remember this specifically because you were watching your bang, bang, shoot-'em-up program at the time, and I said, ‘Bob, are you listening?' and you assured me you were—I said, ‘Bob, my angel, my beloved, my delight, what I'd truly like is to go to the bakery that did Marissa Corcoran's wedding cake. It's called Fanaille. It's out in O'Leary. And I want to stay there a week and eat every kind of cake on the menu.' And you said, ‘Mhnnmh, sounds good.' And then I said—do you remember me saying this, Bob? Because I certainly do—I said, ‘Okay, then you'd better book us a campground close by because I bet those places fill up fast in the autumn when the leaves are turning.' And you said, ‘Yeah, yeah. I'm on it, Dolores.' But were you on it, Bob? Were you ?"

I bit my lip to stifle a laugh because Bob's guilty expression suggested he had not been on it. Not even close.

"And now here we are." Dolores threw up her hands and gestured around the picturesque center of O'Leary. "We have arrived in Mecca. The cake is right there , Bob. And do we have a place to park the camper?"

"No," he muttered.

"No," she repeated triumphantly. "No, we do not. The Pickett campground is completely full, just as I predicted. And the bed-and-breakfast is full. And the hotel in Baxter is full also. And we cannot keep that beast of yours parked here for very long. So I don't know what you are going to do, Bob. I really don't. But if we'd followed my plan, we'd be in Aruba right now, sipping coconut-flavored alcoholic beverages while I worked on my tan and you pretended not to be watching ESPN on your phone. Instead, we are here." She lifted her chin imperiously. "And I am going to eat cake."

With that, she marched toward the bakery and flung the door open, setting its string of bells ringing.

And I… well, I did something Reed Sunday might never forgive me for.