Free Dead Over Heels by Charlaine Harris Page B

public were so much worse than things happening in private, and if anything had happened in the library . . . if it had come to blows between Angel and Beverly . . . in the library!
    Oh, I just hated for people to see me cry. And of course there weren’t any Kleenex in my desk drawer. A crying child had used the last one two days ago and I’d forgotten to restock. Hellfire and damnation.
    A hand appeared under my nose, a white cotton handkerchief in it. The hand dropped the handkerchief on the desk, and I swooped it up gratefully and applied it to my dripping eyes and nose.
    “Thanks, Arthur,” I said in the clogged voice that is one of the more attractive features of crying.
    “Don’t mention it,” he said. “How’d you know it was me?”
    “I remember your hands,” I said without thinking.
    I looked up in horror when I realized what I’d said, and saw that Arthur’s face was slowly flushing red, as it always had when he . . . well, when we had personal moments.
    If today got any better, I’d just spend tomorrow locked in the attic of my house. It’d be a safer place.
    Angel was standing at a discreet distance, her eyes on Beverly, who had gone back to shelving books. At the front desk, Lillian was now eyeing Arthur and me with avid curiosity. Sally was gone, and Perry was watering the large, ugly potted plant (I am not an indoor plant person) that flanked the double main doors.
    Arthur slowly returned to his normal coloring, said “Good-bye” in a rough voice, and left. The water in the plant overflowed into the large dish the pot sits in. Lillian bent down to get a book from below the counter to hand to the young man, and Angel handed me the gift-wrapped package.
    It was as if someone had changed channels on a television. Suddenly, everything was back to normal. The Beverly incident might not have happened.
    “It’s for you, for taking me to the doctor yesterday. And I don’t know what you said to Shelby, but suddenly he seems okay about this. Who’s the bitch over there?”
    “Thanks for the gift. Shelby loves you. Beverly Rillington.”
    “What’s her problem?”
    “I’ll tell you later,” I said quietly, hoping Beverly wasn’t listening. “Can I open my present now?” I tried to scrape up a smile that would pass for normal.
    “Sure,” Angel said. “Guess what I’ve got in my shopping bag.”
    Angel was being a will-o’-the-wisp today. Generally, I’d found Angel to be a very thorough, slow worker, unless you were in her professional field, martial arts and protection services. Then she was quick and lethal.
    Now, this quick, lethal woman had bought me a golden brown silk blouse that I thought was perfectly lovely.
    I told her so.
    “It looked like something you would wear,” she said shyly. “Is that the right size?”
    “Yes,” I said happily. “Thanks a lot, Angel. I hope you bought yourself something?”
    Angel looked proudly embarrassed. From her Marcus Hatfield bag she pulled a maternity T-shirt in white and blue, a white maternity blouse, and a black jumper.
    “Oh, they’re pretty. Are pants going to be a problem?”
    “Sure are,” she said, perching on the edge of my desk and refolding her purchases. “I’m too tall for all the pants and about four fifths of the dresses I tried on. This jumper’ll have to do.”
    “You need a dress soon?” I asked. I’d never known Angel to wear a dress.
    “Yes. The funeral,” she explained. “Jack Burns. You know?” And she made a graphic tumbling motion with her long thin hand, culminating in a splat on the surface of my desk.
    “When is it?”
    “Within a week. They’ll have the body back by then.”
    “And you’re going?”
    “I feel like I ought to, somehow,” Angel said. “I knew him, too. You know, besides the ticket thing.”
    I tried not to stare. “No. I didn’t know that.”
    “He had started coming to the Athletic Club in the evenings, getting on the treadmill. He knew I lived out by you.”
    “He