Free With Every Breath by BEVERLY BIRD Page A

asking.
    They were back at the front door, the kitten in a cardboard box that Dolores had rustled out of the garage, before Maddie decided there was one more thing she wanted to know. "Dolores ..."
    "Doe," she said promptly. "Please. Everyone just calls me Aunt Doe."
    Maddie nodded slowly. "Doe, then." She had a problem with the "aunt" bit. She’d always been slow and careful about getting too cozy with people.
    "You said I stayed here with you until Aunt Susan came for me," she prompted.
    Dolores nodded. "That’s exactly right."
    "Where did I live . . . before then? I mean, when I was with my parents? Is that house still around here somewhere? I’d like to see it."
    For the first time Doe Carlson looked visibly upset Her big face flushed. "I thought you knew."
    Maddie’s heart began hammering hard again. "Knew what?"
    "You’re in it, honey. You rented it, or at least that’s what I heard. That nasty Cassie Diehl put you right back there in your old house."
    Joe Gallen roamed the narrow aisles of the library until he found the nonfiction section relegated to art. He thought that the almost-girlfriend in Jonesport had mentioned something about Madeline Brogan having published a book of her work. But maybe she was wrong, he realized, or maybe it hadn’t been widely distributed. There wasn’t anything on the shelves.
    He heard a footstep behind him and turned around. It was Flannery Reed, the librarian.
    She had been another almost-girlfriend in those dark, bitter years right after Gina. Flannery, too, had finally given up all hope of getting him to settle down.
    Now there, Joe thought, is an interesting euphemism. Not so much the settling part, but the bit about settling down . . . sinking, he thought, into some kind of fiery, unbearable hell. Even if you climbed your way out again, there was no way you were going to emerge from such a place without scars.
    He had mentioned that theory to Flannery once. From the look on her face, she still hadn’t forgiven him for it.
    She flicked her long, strawberry blond hair back over her shoulder. "Going scholarly on us, Joe?"
    "No." He looked back at the shelves again.
    "Did you want something in particular?"
    "One of Madeline Brogan’s books."
    Flannery’s face stiffened. She no longer looked pretty when he glanced back at her.
    "They’re all out," she said flatly.
    "Out?" |oe felt a kick of interest. "You mean, somebody checked them all out?"
    "That’s right."
    "How many of them were there?"
    "Three."
    "Who has them?"
    Flannery tossed her hair again and turned her back on him to return to the desk. "We don’t give out that kind of information, Chief."
    "You do now," Joe snapped, annoyed with her. Jesus, he wondered, why did everyone on Candle feel like they had to play games? Were they that unconscionably bored with their lives?
    "It’s police business," he went on, following her, "and I don’t feel like waiting two weeks until somebody gets around to returning them. So tell me who’s got them so I can go track them down."
    Flannery didn’t answer until she was seated. "You know, Joe, it’s probably a real good thing your folks are gone south. Your ma would tan your hide if she could hear how rude you got."
    He watched Flannery with a cold expression and waited. She finally gave a huffy sigh.
    "Your wife’s got one."
    "Ex-wife," he said shortly.
    "And old Angus took one. We’ll probably never see that one again, and if we do, God only knows what condition it’ll be in."
    Actually, that surprised Joe more than Gina’s acquisition of the book. If there was a new female on the island, Gina would be the first to take full stock of the competition—whether it was real or imagined. But Angus?
    "Are there words in them?" he asked. "Or just her pictures?"
    Flannery’s face colored. Joe realized she had never bothered to look at the book herself. She didn’t know.
    "Never mind. Who else?" He sure as hell wasn’t going to seek out Gina, not for this or for anything else.