Free Checked Out by Elaine Viets Page B

Garden. Helen suddenly remembered what had been nagging at her. “Maybe you have a snake in the grass,” she said. “When I apologized for ruining the books, Blair said,
We couldn’t have used them anyway. They were infested with silverfish.
”
    “I heard that,” Alexa said.
    “How did she know the books had silverfish?” Helen said. “That box was abandoned at the employee entrance. I took an early lunch, came back and found it. Did anyone else go out that entrance?”
    “I don’t think so,” she said. “Our lunch hours start at noon and we’ve been busy.”
    “Blair left that snake there for me,” Helen said.
    “You’re upset, Helen,” Alexa said. “I admit Blair wasn’t very welcoming, but she wouldn’t try to harm you.”
    “Murder me,” Helen said. “You can die from snake venom.”
    “Blair wouldn’t do that,” Alexa said. “The Friends of the Library are valuable contributors to our library. We need them and we need Blair. I admit she can be difficult, but a killer? Never.”
    The library director absently tugged on her distinctive lock of white hair. Alexa looked so distressed, Helen said, “You know her better than I do.”
    I have a ghost to find, she thought. I’ll be extra careful around Blair, that’s all.
    There was a knock on the door and a tall, thin woman with lank gray-blond hair poked her head in. “Alexa, may I speak with you, please?” she said.
    “Ah, Lisa,” Alexa said. “Helen Hawthorne, meet Lisa Jackson Hamilton, president of our library board. Helen is our new volunteer, Lisa.”
    Alexa’s smile seems forced, Helen thought. Is it the strain of finding that snake, or is Lisa another difficult person?
    “Pleased to meet you,” Lisa said, and held out a bony white hand with short, polish-free nails.
    Lisa looked like a certain kind of old-money type Helen had seen in St. Louis. She was thin and faded, with fine bones and an aristocratic air. At twenty, she would have been dazzling, with a creamy complexion and pale shining hair. Three generations ago, her debutante portrait would have graced the family drawing room.
    Lisa had aged, but it was more than that. Something had sucked out her spirit and left this lifeless shell with the no-color hair.
    Helen stood up to greet her. “I’ll go back to work so you two can talk,” she said.
    “No, no, I’d like you to stay,” Lisa said. “I’ll need your participation, too, tonight.”
    “Tonight?” Alexa said. “What’s tonight?” She sounded suspicious.
    Yep, Helen thought. Lisa is definitely a thorn in the director’s side.
    “I want to hold a séance to contact the ghost of Flora Portland,” Lisa said.
    Alexa frowned.
    “I know you believe the library isn’t haunted,” Lisa said quickly, “but I disagree. I can feel Flora’s essence in this building. She is troubled and restless.”
    Alexa’s jaw was clenched. Helen fought to keep hers from dropping. Lisa didn’t look like a flake. She was a fiftysomething woman in a well-cut lavender suit.
    “Hear me out,” Lisa said softly, quickly. “The séance won’t cost the library anything. I have a sensitive medium. Melisandra is volunteering her services. I need the people who are here today to form the circle to communicate with Flora. I need you, of course, Alexa, and the new janitor, Jared.”
    “Jared?” Alexa said. One word seemed to be all she could manage.
    “He worked for the Kingsleys and they were friends of the Portlands.”
    “Jared didn’t know Flora Portland and he’s angry that Davis Kingsley didn’t give him a more generous bequest.”
    “Even better,” Lisa said. “Spirits are attracted to strong emotions. I’ll need Blair because she’s head of the Friends of the Library, and you, too, Helen. You have a good aura.”
    “I do?” Helen said.
    “I can see it pulsing. It’s a lovely shade of indigo,” Lisa said. “You are a person of honesty, inner peace and love.”
    Good thing she wasn’t around when I was bashing