I peeked around the archway. The room was empty and silent. Then I noticed the door to the storeroom was wide open, and strong hands seized me from behind, pinning my arms.
“Where are those books?” a male voice hissed in my ear.
“What books? This store is full of them, you know!”
The man spun me around and slammed me against the wall, bouncing my head off the Dennis Lehane co-op poster.
“The books!”
The intruder’s voice was raspy, like he was trying to disguise it. I felt my blood pumping, my vision fade to red.
Calm down, doll.
Jack was here. I wasn’t alone. I clung to that thought like a dinghy to an anchor in a category Four.
Trust me, sweetheart. I’ll walk you through this.
“How?” I mentally demanded.
Take inventory. What’s in front of you?
I blew out a held breath, tried to memorize details. The intruder was taller than me by at least a head and had broad shoulders. He wore a black denim jacket and a black woolly cap pulled down over his face like a hood.
It wasn’t a tailored ski mask, I realized. This was a do-it-yourself job with just two eye slits ragged and askew. I couldn’t see any other part of his face, so I tried to make out his eye color, but the man was wearing tinted glasses beneath his mask. The effect was impressively scary. He wore gloves and his grip was painfully tight.
The man shook me. “You know what I’m talking about, lady. I want the old books. The valuable ones.”
I knew he meant the Phelps editions and immediately wondered if this was the same man who threw Peter Chesley down the stairs and murdered Rene Montour on a deserted stretch of road. If it was, what would he do to me?
Play Amish, Jack advised.
“What?”
Surrender. Play up the shivers. Pretend to cooperate. But be ready to clock the yancy when you glim an opening—
“Huh?”
Just do what I say.
The intruder shook me again. “Answer me. Show me the books or I’ll hurt you. I mean it.”
The Lone Ranger here isn’t expecting you to fight. You’re gonna wallop him good where and when I tell you—
“No, Jack! I can’t do that! He’s too big! I can’t—”
You can. You’re going to sock this yegg in the nose, okay? Take him to fist city then run to the front door. All you have to do is throw the bolt and you’re outside. Dollars to donuts, he won’t follow you.
“Okay, okay…I’ll try.”
I went limp in the man’s grip, spoke in a frightened voice. “The books you want…They’re by the register.”
I felt his grip loosen. “Where?” he demanded, not nearly as stridently as before.
Use your wing, doll. Point them out.
I did as Jack commanded. To my surprise, when I moved my right arm to point, the intruder actually let go of it. I lifted my arm higher. My eyes never left the bump in the middle of his mask.
“The books are over—”
Clobber him!
I swung around with my fist and pounded the intruder right in the nose. The blow hurt me, so I didn’t need to hear the startled howl to know it hurt the stranger.
Yelling a string of obscenities, the man stumbled backward and away from me.
Scram out, Penelope! Run!
I bolted out of the events room and through the store. I was nearly halfway to the front door before I heard his heavy footsteps coming up behind me. To slow him down, I pushed the four-foot corrugate display of P. D. James’s latest title into the man’s path. The display was packed with frontlist hardcovers. He crashed right into it. Books flew everywhere.
Nice move, sister!
“Thank god it wasn’t her paperback edition!”
I kept on running until I slammed into the front door with enough force to ring the chime. I twisted the bolt, flung the door open, and hit the sidewalk yelling my head off for help!
I heard the squeal of tires on pavement, the sound of doors opening. Someone grabbed me, and I found myself looking into the startled face of Officer Eddie Franzetti.
I sagged with relief.
I’d known Eddie since I was a little girl. He’d been a close friend of my late brother’s back in high school, before Pete had lost his life drag racing to impress a local beauty queen.
“Penelope! Calm down.” He peeled off his sunglasses, pushed back his uniform hat. “What happened?”
“A burglar! In the store…”
“Anyone else in there?”
“No…just the intruder. Sadie’s out.”
Eddie glanced at his partner and jerked his head in the direction of Buy the Book. Bill “Bull” McCoy drew his weapon and cautiously peered through the front door.
“I need to back up my partner,” Eddie gently explained. “Can you stay here?” I hugged myself and nodded.
Eddie joined his partner, and I watched them both enter the store. Feeling as if curious stares were on my back, I turned to find that a crowd had congregated around the police cruiser. Eddie appeared in the store’s doorway a moment later.
“Pen,” he called.
Apparently, the store was empty. No sign of the intruder.
Still nervous, I walked back in and gave Eddie and his partner the rundown on what had happened. They listened, Eddie taking notes. I showed them where I left my lunch, the knocked-over display, the scattered hardcovers. I showed them the marks on my arms, fast darkening into bruises, and told them what the man had been after. They asked to see the old books, and we double-checked the Phelps editions. None were missing.
“He must have broken in through the back door,” I told them. “The one leading into the storeroom.”
“We checked that out already,” said Bill McCoy. “And there’s a problem with that theory.”
Eddie and his partner took me back to the storeroom and showed me the door. There were no signs of forced entry. Stranger still, the back door was locked.
“Could he have picked the lock?” I asked.
Eddie shrugged. “Anything’s possible. But why lock it again when you leave?”
“You claim you closed for lunch,” Officer McCoy said in a barely civil tone. “Did you set the burglar alarm?”
“No,” I replied sheepishly.
McCoy scowled and glanced at his partner. Eddie shifted uncomfortably. “I’ll put in a report,” he said. “But with nothing stolen, we can only file trespassing and assault charges—and that’s if we catch this guy.”
I thanked the men for their trouble and promised to set the alarm next time—which I did, as soon as they both left. I then spent the rest of my lunch hour in a daze. When Sadie returned to the store, she found the BACK IN ONE HOUR sign still hanging on the door, and me on the floor, picking up the books I’d scattered in my wild flight. I told her what had happened, from the beginning, leaving out the ghost’s part in coaching my escape.
The fact that the back door was locked, and not forced open, puzzled us both.
I offered another theory. “Is it possible that an early customer came in and hid back there, lying in wait until I was alone?”
Sadie shook her head. “The only customer I had was Mr. Van Riij, and he came and went before business hours. Then you returned from the school and I headed off to church.”
“And I saw only two shoppers—both of them were women.”
“The only way through that storeroom door is with a key.” I looked down and rattled the keys dangling from my belt. “Mine is right here.”
“I have my key, too,” said Sadie. “And I’m sure the store key is behind the counter.”