“Maybe they had pedal confusion—like, they stepped on the gas instead of the brake,” Paula said. She was balancing her plate on her knee as she nibbled on Ms. Cole’s herbed zucchini-ricotta flatbread.
“How do you figure?” Beth asked. “And even if they did, wouldn’t they have figured it out in time to stop before they almost took out Charlie as well?”
“That’s a solid point,” Mary said. She clutched baby Josie close, and Lindsey knew she was thinking it could have been her crossing the street with the baby.
The thought made Lindsey’s heart clutch in her chest. She glanced at her cell phone. It had been less than an hour since the incident, and they were all in the crafternoon room, eating while they discussed the hit-and-run. Both the book and the craft for the day were forgotten.
“I hope they catch the driver and throw the book at him,” Ms. Cole said. “There is absolutely no excuse for such reckless behavior in the center of town. What if it had been after school? So many children come here to wait for their parents to pick them up. It could have been devastating.”
It was one of the few times Lindsey could remember being in complete agreement with her cantankerous staff person. It was horrible that Theresa had been hit, certainly, but it could have been so much worse. Theresa could have been killed.
Given that the driver had almost taken out Charlie as well, Lindsey didn’t think the driver had planned to hit Theresa. She was a popular tennis coach who had lived in Briar Creek for most of her life. There was no reason to think she’d be a target for malice.
In fact, Theresa was well regarded in town. She had recently gotten engaged to Larry Milstein, Liza’s father, who owned a franchise of furniture stores up and down the East Coast. Larry had gobs of money, and he was more than happy to spend it on the petite tennis coach who had captured his heart. They were an outgoing couple in the community of Briar Creek, using Larry’s wealth to fund loads of programs for schools and seniors and any other philanthropic venture that caught his eye. Considering their background, Lindsey couldn’t think of anyone who had a grudge against Theresa or Larry, and neither could any of the crafternooners.
“Maybe the driver was drunk,” Violet suggested. “Could be he was passing out at the wheel and had no idea that he hit Theresa and almost took out Charlie.”
Everyone glanced at Nancy. Charlie had gone home when they came back to the library. He was still a little shook up, and Lindsey noticed as he walked away that he stayed well away from the edge of the curb. She did not blame him a bit.
“I’m with Ms. Cole,” Nancy said. “I hope they catch whoever did this and cut his license into tiny little bits. Poor Theresa, how is she supposed to coach now? And Charlie, what if—”
She stopped talking and lifted her spoon to her lips, taking a big mouthful of the gazpacho Ms. Cole had made for their meeting. Lindsey followed her lead. The gazpacho was cold and smooth and perfectly seasoned. She glanced at Ms. Cole and found her staring into her own bowl, looking forlorn. Lindsey knew that Ms. Cole, who had lived here most of her life, was likely struggling with the events of the day.
Lindsey suspected Ms. Cole was thinking what they all were. That if something as horrible as a hit-and-run could happen in broad daylight in the center of town . . . well, was the town they all knew and loved as safe as they’d once thought? The past several years had brought several murders to light, one of which had been over twenty years old, but this sort of aggression in the middle of the day made the small village lose even more of its humanity. When a person wasn’t even safe crossing the street, things had changed and not for the better.
“This is excellent, Ms. Cole,” Lindsey said. “Really delicious.”
“Thank you.” Ms. Cole smoothed one hand over her teal blue skirt. The compliment seemed to shake her out of her moroseness, which was what Lindsey had intended.
The lemon was known for dressing monochromatically, as if assured that if she wore all blue or green or red, all the pieces of her outfit would match. It made for some interesting wardrobe combinations, such as today’s teal blue skirt and periwinkle blue blouse paired with navy blue pumps. It was one of the oddities that made Ms. Cole her own true self, like shushing and badgering patrons for their overdue materials. Still, she was here and she was participating. A year ago, Lindsey never would have believed it.
“Poor Larry,” Mary said. “I can’t imagine how he felt when he got the call from Liza that Theresa had been hit by a car.”
“He suffered so much when his first wife passed away,” Nancy said. “We belonged to the same bereavement group for a while.”
“He’s a widower?” Lindsey asked. “I didn’t know that. I don’t know why, but I assumed he was divorced.”
“That’s because of his television ads,” Beth said. “They are so obnoxious. On an unconscious level, you probably assumed he was divorced because, really, who could live with a guy like that? He’s handsome and all, but he’s always yelling about low, lower, lowest prices on sofas, sleepers, recliners, blah, blah, blah. I lunge for the mute button every time one of his ads comes on.”
“Don’t think too harshly about him—he’s a self-made man,” Violet said. “I remember reading about him in the New York Times. He grew up in the projects in the Bronx and worked his way up from furniture deliveryman to owner of the company with no education, just a lot of hustle. He’s never had it easy.”
“Besides, you can’t be judging him when you married a man who dresses up like Thomas the Tank Engine for a living,” Mary teased.
“That’s different,” Beth protested. “Aidan is a children’s librarian like me. We pull out all the stops to get kids reading.”
“Mary’s just joking,” Lindsey said. “Although, that one time when Aidan came into the library dressed as the Headless Horseman from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, he scared the bologna out of me.”
Beth laughed and nodded. “Headless is not his best look. And yet, still not as scary as when Milstein promoted his furniture store by dressing up as a hot dog and jogging around the bases at Fenway. I heard he paid a hundred thousand dollars to shoot that ad in the ballpark.”
“Yeah, and then there’s the one where he was posing with the beluga whales at the Mystic Aquarium,” Paula said. “I swear it looked like the whale was swim-dancing while Milstein played his ukulele, which in all fairness was not as painful as it could have been.”
“Oh, I love those whales,” Beth said. “They always look like they’re smiling.”
“Don’t forget the ad where he looks like he is parasailing in New York Harbor,” Nancy said. “And still he was yelling about low, lower, lowest prices, and then the phony shark jumps up and swallows him.”
“I thought it was pretty funny in a campy sort of way,” Paula said. Nancy gave her a look. “Or not.”
“You’re right. His personality is larger than life,” Lindsey said. She had never met Larry Milstein, but she knew the mayor of Briar Creek cleared his calendar whenever Larry called. “Milstein’s is the biggest furniture retailer on the East Coast. It seems to me other people in the same business might not be as fond of him as we are. He might have made some enemies along the way.”
She felt everyone turn to stare at her, even baby Josie, who puckered her mouth and made a smacking noise. She could feel the concern, the worry, the anxiety pouring off her friends in waves.
“I’m just theorizing,” she said. “You know, acknowledging the possibility that if someone had a beef with him, they might have tried to hurt him by going after his fiancée.”
“But you’re not planning to start investigating something that was probably just a hideous traffic accident, right?” Nancy asked.
“Right, absolutely,” Lindsey agreed. They were still staring. “So, what did you all think of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn? Did you like the protagonist, Francie Nolan?”
She took a big bite of her herbed ricotta bread and glanced around the room while she chewed. They all continued to stare.
“What?” Lindsey asked. “Do I have something in my teeth?”
Paula shook her head. “You are the worst liar ever. You know you’re not going to let the incident rest until you know for sure that it actually was an accident.”
“Which Emma will determine by the end of the day, no doubt,” Violet said. She gave Lindsey a stern look as if daring her to argue. Lindsey had no intention of doing so.
Beth glanced from Lindsey to the others and said, “I really enjoyed reading about Francie getting her education in the book. I felt like it sent such a positive message about the value of learning.”
Now all the heads in the room swiveled toward her.
“I’m sorry. Are we not discussing the book?” she asked.
“Of course we are,” Mary said. “On the off chance that the hit-and-run wasn’t an accident, I don’t think we need to remind Lindsey that my brother, Sully, would be devastated if anything happened to her, do we?”
Lindsey swallowed the mouthful of bread. It went down hard. “Have you been practicing the guilt-trip thing in anticipation of Josie, or does it just come naturally when you become a mom, like a superpower when you’ve been zapped by lightning?”
“Pretty sure it just comes,” Mary said. “How’d I do? Did it work?”
“Yes,” Lindsey said. “I promise I will stay away from the whole rotten mess with the car and Theresa and let the police figure it out.”
She noticed half of the room gave her side-eye, while the other half seemed to believe her. Fine. Whatever. She wasn’t going to get involved. Really, she wasn’t. It’s not like the car or the driver had anything to do with her or the library. She was just a concerned citizen. That was all. Really.
Three days after the accident, and there was still no news about the car or who had been driving it. Larry Milstein had been seen in the police station, yelling in his auctioneer’s voice about wanting the driver responsible apprehended and locked up. Chief Plewicki had done her best to calm him down, but there was no appeasing him. In an uncharacteristically aggressive move, he threatened to have her job if she didn’t arrest someone and soon.
The small town of Briar Creek was agog, with everyone taking sides in the Plewicki versus Milstein debate. Lindsey heard most of the details because Officer Kirkland bought his morning coffee at the bakery at the same time Lindsey did. He was rabid in his defense of his boss, and Lindsey understood that, but she also grasped the fact that Larry Milstein’s temper was mostly coming from a place of fear. People behaved badly when they were afraid.
Lindsey was sitting at the reference desk giving Ann Marie, her adult-services library assistant, a break, when Liza Milstein entered the building. The last time Lindsey had seen Liza, she had been climbing into the ambulance to ride to the hospital with her soon-to-be stepmother, so Lindsey was surprised to see her in the library, especially since it was not the usual day for her study group.
“Liza, how are you? How’s Theresa?” Lindsey gestured for Liza to take the seat beside her desk.
Liza tucked a hank of light brown hair behind her right ear. She clutched her book bag in front of her and sat down. She was wearing an oversize hooded white sweatshirt, skinny jeans, and white Converse high-tops. Lindsey wasn’t sure whether it was the same outfit as a few days ago or whether all of Liza’s clothes looked like this. Either way, she’d probably had a rough couple of days, so Lindsey wanted to put her at ease in any way she could.
“I’m fine, Ms. Norris,” Liza said. “And Theresa will be fine, eventually. I really just stopped by to thank you for taking care of her. She said you were very comforting right after she was hit.”
“Wow, she was in so much pain, I’m surprised she can remember anything about that,” Lindsey said. “Does she remember anything from right before she was struck by the car?”
“No.” Liza shook her head. “She said she didn’t even hear the car coming. She was thinking about some wedding-related detail, her flowers, I think, and the next thing she knew, she was clipped by the car and sent up into the air to land with a crunch. She says she only remembers the crunch. She doesn’t remember the car or the driver or anything else.”
“Maybe that’s a mercy,” Lindsey said. “Otherwise she might have nightmares. Although it probably doesn’t help the police very much.”
“No, Chief Plewicki was pretty disappointed when she talked to her, although she tried to hide it behind an ‘all that matters is that you’re okay’ attitude,” Liza said. “I could tell she was struggling.”
“Yeah, an eyewitness who actually saw the driver would be a big help,” Lindsey said. “Charlie Peyton tried to describe him to a sketch artist, but when he was asked specifics about the driver, he couldn’t recall the face well enough to describe him. How’s your dad doing?”
“Is that code for ‘Has he calmed down any’?” Liza asked.
Lindsey nodded.
“No, not even a little. Theresa is his whole world.”
Lindsey considered Liza’s words. From what the crafternooners had said, she knew it had been only Liza and her dad since her mother had passed. She wondered how Liza felt about her dad getting married.
“Is that weird for you to have your dad getting married?” she asked.
Liza shrugged. Not being versed in the nuances of twenty-year-old mannerisms, Lindsey wasn’t sure whether this meant she didn’t care, she did care, or she wasn’t sure.
“More weird to have him marrying my tennis coach,” she said. “Theresa has been coaching me for six years. She was always there for me, you know, when he was traveling and I needed someone to talk to about school or boys. I thought she was my friend. I didn’t realize—never mind.”
“Realize what?” Lindsey asked. “It’s okay, you can talk to me. We have librarian-patron privilege.”
Liza laughed as Lindsey had hoped she would.
“It’s dumb, but I guess there’s a part of me that wonders if Theresa was my friend at all—like, maybe she was always kind to me just to get close to my dad.”
There was a vulnerability in Liza’s eyes that made Lindsey choose her next words carefully. She didn’t want to dismiss what Liza was feeling, but she knew Theresa wasn’t the sort of person who would manipulate a young woman to get close to her father.
“That doesn’t seem like the Theresa I know,” Lindsey said.
Liza ducked her head and gave a quick nod. “You’re right. And I’d never ever want anything bad to happen to her.”
“Of course you wouldn’t,” Lindsey said. “Don’t worry. I’m sure Chief Plewicki will have a lead soon. She’s the best.”
“Sure,” Liza said. She looked doubtful, but then changed the subject and said, “I also stopped by because I was wondering if you could help me pick out some audiobooks for Theresa. She said you two liked the same sort of things, and she’s too tired to read or watch television.”
“I’d be happy to,” Lindsey said. “I imagine she’ll be stuck in bed for a bit.”
“She’s in a cast for at least two weeks and then a boot if she’s lucky,” Liza said. “It’s all so crazy. They’re supposed to get married in three weeks, and I thought they’d postpone it so Theresa could have the wedding of her dreams, you know, without a cast, but nope.”
“They’re going ahead with the wedding?”
“Yes, but they’ve scaled it back so that it’s just a small family gathering,” Liza said. “They planned a trip around the world, just the two of them, for their honeymoon, and neither one of them wants to give it up.”
“I can understand that,” Lindsey said. “What an adventure.”
“I think they’re crazy,” Liza said. “What’s the big deal with waiting until Theresa is well again? It’s so typical of my father. He gets something in his head, and that’s it. He’s like a big terrier—a lovable terrier, but still a terrier. I hope Theresa goes through with marrying him after all of this. He tried to move her into our house, but she was having none of it. She wants to be in her own home with all of her things, which makes total sense. You know, when you’re sick you want to be home.”
Lindsey realized she hadn’t been sick in a while, but if she was, she’d be in her new home with Sully. She wondered how that would go, since she was the sort of person who liked to be left alone when she was ill. Like totally alone, in a cave, out in the wilderness somewhere. She realized she’d never seen Sully sick. Oh, he’d been in the hospital over a year ago, when they’d gotten into a boat crash, but she’d never had to be with him twenty-four seven when he was ailing. Her last partner had been horribly needy when he was sick. Sully couldn’t be like that, could he? No, he didn’t seem the type.
“What do you think?” Liza asked.
“Huh? I’m sorry.” Lindsey forced herself back to the conversation. “My mind wandered there. What did you ask me?”
Liza held up an audiobook of the latest Ingrid Thoft title in her Fina Ludlow series.
Lindsey nodded. “A kick-butt Boston PI mystery? That will definitely take Theresa’s mind off her troubles.”
Together they gathered several more audiobooks, and Lindsey grabbed a volume of poetry by Rudy Francisco called Helium that she thought Theresa would enjoy. As she followed Liza to the self-checkout machine they had recently installed, Lindsey was filled with a sense of purpose: connecting people to words, whether listened to or read or watched. Nothing made her feel as if she was contributing to the betterment of the planet more than introducing a reader to an author’s work. As always, she was convinced she had the best job in the world.
She glanced at the stack of materials Liza was checking out. “Maybe we should have gotten Theresa some travel books.”
“Travel books?” Beth joined the conversation. “Where is she going?”
“Honeymoon trip around the world,” Liza said with an eye roll.
“Oh, honeymoons are the best,” Beth gushed.
Now Lindsey had to clamp her eyeballs into place to keep them from rolling. Beth was her very best friend in the whole wide world, and she loved her like a sister, truly, but if she had to hear about—
“Paris, tell me they are going to Paris,” Beth said.
“Oh, hey, is that the phone in my office ringing?” Lindsey craned her head. “I’d better get that. Liza, please let Theresa know we’re thinking about her, and if she needs anything, more books or whatever, be sure to let us know.”
“I will,” Liza said.
“I just got back from my honeymoon in Europe,” Beth continued as Lindsey backed away. Slowly, slowly, she was almost out of there.
Lindsey took another step back and bumped into the person standing behind her. With a small yelp and an apology at the ready, she whipped around to find Emma Plewicki standing there.
“You can’t outrun the stories from her honeymoon. I don’t know why you’re even trying.” Emma shook her head as if she couldn’t believe Lindsey had attempted to ghost out of the conversation.
“Ugh, Beth’s post-wedding honeymoon phase is going to end someday, isn’t it?” Lindsey asked.
They both glanced at Beth, who had gotten to the Eiffel Tower portion of her story. “And then he got down on one knee and proposed . . .”
Lindsey and Emma mouthed the words to me all over again to each other.
They exchanged grins.
“She will get over it someday,” Emma said. “Probably when she gets pregnant, and then it will be all about baby names and decorating the nursery and all that junk.”
“Junk?” Lindsey said.
Emma shrugged, and Lindsey had the feeling that Emma was a kindred spirit in the no-desire-for-a-baby club.
“That sounds really romantic,” Liza said. She glanced past Beth at Lindsey with a please help me sort of look that Lindsey knew she’d had on her face when hearing Beth’s wedding stories for the umpteenth time.
“We should save her,” she said to Emma.
“Agreed, but first I have some news.” Emma straightened her shoulders, looking more official than she had a moment ago.
“Is Theresa all right?” Lindsey asked. She felt her stomach drop in preparation for the worst.
“As far as I know, she’s fine,” Emma said. She blinked. “Unless you know something I don’t?”
“No, I just panicked,” Lindsey said. “Sorry. What’s up?”
“We think we have a lead on the car,” Emma said. “And I wanted to see if you could look at a video clip and verify that it’s the same one you saw.”