Some Like It Hawk(51)

The teens slouched out, and I gave silent thanks once again that Ms. Ellie was so fierce about keeping our lives and library business separate. Left to my own devices, I might not have resisted the kids’ guilt trip.

“I don’t see why you keep the library open till eleven anyway,” I said.

“We only do it on the days when we don’t open till noon,” she said. “I enjoy sleeping in a couple of mornings a week. I assume you’re here for the Steering Committee meeting.”

“I’m here for the pizza,” I said. “If the rest of you can manage to have a Steering Committee meeting before I fall asleep with my face in the pepperoni, I will happily participate.”

Ms. Ellie shook her head, but she cleared a space on the large central table and set down some paper plates and a stack of pizza boxes from Luigi’s. I helped myself and took one of the semicircle of armchairs facing the table.

“Iced tea?” Ms. Ellie asked.

“Please.”

“Did Michael tell you about the vermin we shooed away today?” she asked over her shoulder as she headed for the small refrigerator behind the checkout desk.

“Vermin? What kind of vermin?” I glanced at my feet, half-expecting to see something crawling around them.

“Relax,” she said. “Two-legged vermin, and they’re gone now. Two men who claimed they’d been sent to do an assessment of the house.”

“Sent? By whom?”

“That’s what I asked, and they tried to put me off with some vague answer about government business. Which means, of course, that the Evil Lender sent them. They didn’t have any kind of paperwork—none they’d show me, anyway—so I sent them on their way with a few sharp words. As did Michael when they knocked on your front door. And to think I once described that boy as mild-mannered.”

She chuckled. I managed a slight smile, but my stomach clenched.

“What do you think they were really here for?” I asked.

“Who knows?” She set a glass of iced tea carefully in a coaster on the table beside me and patted my arm. “Psychological warfare, no doubt. But wanting to buy your property doesn’t give them the right to send out assessors. And if they don’t know that, I’m sure your lawyer will enlighten them.”

“I should tell Festus about them.” I reached for my cell phone.

“I already did. He said he’ll deal with it. Eat your pizza while it’s hot.”

Fortunately, she hurried off to do something else without noticing that I wasn’t following orders. The news about the so-called assessors had unsettled my stomach. Was it just an accident that they showed up today of all days? Cousin Festus regularly assured us that he was very optimistic about foiling Evil Lender’s plot to appropriate our land for their golf course and condominium project. But I wanted more than optimism—I wanted certainty. What if the Evil Lender knew something Festus didn’t? What if—

No sense borrowing trouble. Festus said he’d handle it. And if he couldn’t—well, we’d worry about that when it happened.

I took several deep breaths and several sips of tea and waited for my stomach to settle. I was biting into a slice of pepperoni and sausage thin crust when Dad bustled in.

“Ah! Pizza!” he exclaimed. “Of course I shouldn’t.”

I didn’t even try to argue.

“Nice,” he said. I wasn’t sure if he was referring to the pizza or the library, which he was studying as if he hadn’t seen it before. Well, he probably hadn’t since Randall’s company had installed the new lighting Mother had donated—elegant mission-style wall and table lamps whose amber shades cast a warm glow over everything. Dad was leaning back in his armchair, craning his neck to see the ceiling.

“Beautiful.” Definitely the room, not the pizza. “Of course, you’re going to need massive quantities of books to fill it.”

Not the first time he’d said this. I suspected he was plotting huge expenditures at the Caerphilly Book Nook and all his favorite new and used bookstores once the library was ours again. In fact, I only hoped he waited until then.

“We have massive quantities, remember?” I said. “In boxes, in the attic.”

“Not this massive,” he said.

“I’d rather wait until we unpack them before we start planning on deliberately adding to the herd,” I said. “They breed in captivity, you know—I’m sure when we open up the boxes we’ll have books we don’t even remember owning. And when we finally do get the library back, it could be the one moment in my lifetime and Michael’s when we actually have enough shelves for all our books. We want to savor that.”