"A Murder In Milburn", Book 3: Death In The Library (10 page)

“I am, but…”

In the dark, she felt a presence creep behind her. She swung around, and two hands emerged, pushing her down the stairs. She screamed, as she tumbled down, the phone slipping from her grasp and crashing somewhere beneath.

After that, all was dark.

*****

Chapter 13

“Nora!”
 

Nora blinked. Her throat felt dry, and there was a sharp pain in her shoulder. She tried to open her eyes, but the light made her feel dizzy, and she felt safer keeping them closed.

“Nora! She’s awake!”

Slowly, she opened her eyes. At first, there was an impression of white light all around. In a few seconds, Nora realized that she was in the hospital.

“Robert. Grant…” As memories began to filter through, Nora felt panic seize her throat. “There’s a body! A body!”

“Everyone’s all right. Why don’t you relax? Doctor! Doctor! We need to sedate her.”

After that, she fell asleep again.

The second time she woke, things were better.

Harvey was sitting on a chair near her bed, his head thrown back, legs sprawling, and a slight stubble shadowing his face. As she awoke, almost instinctively, he did too. He sprang up and interlocked his fingers through hers.

She put a hand on his cheek and gently rubbed it. “Harvey, you look terrible. Haven’t you slept all night?”

“
I
look terrible?” Harvey laughed. “Boy, you’re one to talk. Nora. Oh my sweet, idiotic Nora.” He leaned down and rained kisses on her face.

“Hey.” Nora wiggled happily. “Hey now.”

He paused, looking deep into her eyes. “What I’m going to do,” he said, “Is build a very fancy apartment with a tunnel entrance to your diner, then lock you up so you’re never able to put yourself in danger again.”

“Is that a very practical plan?”

“It’s not a very ethical plan either, but you’re forcing me to consider it.” Harvey kissed her softly. Nora shifted, and grimaced as pain shot through her shoulder.
 

“Are you in pain? Shall I call the doctor?”

“I’m all right. I’d rather talk to you,” Nora said. “What happened?”

“I’ve been asked not to talk to you about it till the sheriff is here,” Harvey said with a frown. “Also, the doctor wants to check up on you first.” He moved away, but Nora caught his hand, restraining him.

“Are they all right? Grant and Robert?”

Harvey’s face turned sad for a split-second before he pulled a mask of blankness over it. “Let me call the doctor,” he said.

Dr. Neil entered, and took his time fussing over her, examining both her head and her shoulder.

“Luck,” he said. “An inch here or there, and you’d be dead. Sheer luck has saved you, Nora Newberry. Well, sheer luck and a loving boyfriend.”

“Harvey?” Nora was surprised. “Harvey saved me?”

Harvey frowned at the doctor, and Dr. Neil shrugged. “I suppose we better call the sheriff here. He’s asked us to notify him as soon as you awake. He was here half the night guarding your door, poor fellow. We sent him away at dawn to get some sleep.”

Touched, Nora said, “That was nice of him.”

“He worries about his friends,” Dr. Neil said.

“Get him here fast, please,” Nora said. “Harvey’s refusing to answer my questions till I’ve spoken to Sean, and I’ll go quite crazy if they aren’t answered soon.”

“All right,” Harvey said. “We’ll have him here in ten minutes, but only if you’re good and eat everything on your plate for breakfast.”

“Why, Harvey!” Dr. Neil laughed. “You didn’t strike me as a mother hen before this. She’s fine. You can stop being panicked now.”

“I’m sure he wasn’t panicked,” Nora joked. “Mildly relieved, perhaps.”

“Totally relieved,” Harvey said. “No woman, no cry, after all.”

“You know, the song originally is telling a woman not to cry,” Nora said. “It’s been misinterpreted a lot.”

“Well, I’ve got rounds,” Dr. Neil said. “I’ll leave you two alone to discuss Bob Marley.”

He pointedly shut the door behind him.

Harvey stepped up again, his eyes glimmering dangerously. “When I think of how brutal I was the last time we talked…” He held her face in his hands delicately, as if he were afraid to apply to much pressure. “Nora. Please don’t do this again. Please don’t tear my heart out the way you did last night. When I saw you lying alone in the dark, I think I went mad. I didn’t know what to do, or what to think. I was afraid to think, really. If there was the slightest of chances I was going to lose you, I think I’d have gone mad. Promise me, promise me you’ll never do anything this dangerous again.”

But Nora couldn’t do that.
 

Harvey saw it in her eyes. He saw it in the set of her lips as she didn’t reply.

“Nothing’s changed, has it?” he asked. “You nearly died yesterday and you’re fine with that.”

“I’m fine now,” Nora said. “Barely a scrape.”

“Your arm is going to need a cast for the next fifteen days,” Harvey said. “You’re incredibly lucky the damage wasn’t permanent. As for your head, you probably have a concussion.”

“So now’s not the time to be yelling at me, is it?” Nora asked, giving him a sweet smile.

“Nora, I can’t take this,” Harvey said. “I just can’t.”

“Last night, you gave me a choice,” Nora said. “I could be your girlfriend, or I could investigate.”

“Yes.”

“That wasn’t very fair,” Nora said. “ I’m trying to do good here. Please don’t stop me.”

“I’ll always stop you from putting yourself in danger,” Harvey said. “If that isn’t acceptable, I don’t know how we can survive, you and I.”

Nora didn’t have an answer for that.

The door opened, and Sean walked in. His girlfriend Karen was by his side, with a bouquet tucked under her arm. She presented it to Nora, and spent some time asking about her health, before kissing Sean and leaving.

“So,” Sean said. He gave Harvey a look. “Harvey, if you’d step outside for a few minutes?”

Harvey nodded, squeezed Nora’s hand, and left.

“Nora. You feeling all right? Will you be able to answer a few questions?”

Nora nodded.

She spent the next ten minutes describing the events of the night before as closely as possible. Sean nodded along, taking notes as she spoke. When she was done, she asked, “Any more you need from me?”

“Not right now,” Sean said. “I just want to say, don’t do things like this again.”

“Not you too,” Nora groaned.

“Well, at least take a weapon or a kung-fu champion with you,” Sean said.
 

“I need to know if Grant and Robert are all right,” Nora said, ignoring his last statement. “Can you finally tell me?”

“I didn’t want the shock to contaminate your memories of last night,” Sean said. “I’m afraid I have bad news, Nora.”

Nora felt a pit widen in her stomach. “What is it?”

“Robert has disappeared,” Sean said. “Well, we haven’t found him yet, but we will soon enough.”

“And Grant?”

“Grant suffered a blow to the back of the head,” Sean said. “Someone dropped a heavy book on him from one storey up. He’s in a coma now.”

Nora nodded. “Any chance he’ll…”

“The doctors give him a 50-50 shot at survival,” Sean said. “So, again, last night’s meeting was all Robert’s idea?”

“Yes.”

“He’s the one who bought you and Grant there?”

“Yes.”

“Pretty open and shut then, wouldn’t you say?” Sean asked. “If we’re lucky, we’ll get a confession out of him. Otherwise, I feel like we have gathered enough evidence against him.”

“I still can’t believe he did it.”

“No?” Sean raised an eyebrow. “Why? Instinct?”

“Not instinct… I just feel like… he’s a smart man. He would have done a better job of it if he wanted to murder three people.”

“Desperation can make people do increasingly stupid things,” Sean said. “When you back someone into a corner, they aren’t thinking rationally. They’re looking to escape any way they can.”

“So that’s what you think it was all about? A desperate measure to escape?”

“Looks that way to me,” Sean said. “When we catch him, we’ll find out.”

“Will you catch him?”

“Oh yes.” Sean laughed. “We definitely will. There’s no way he can escape the manhunt.”

“He was in Guyana until recently,” Nora said. “What if he crosses the border somehow?”

“How’s he going to get all the way to the border?” Sean laughed. “No, he’s done for, Nora.”

The door opened again, and a very upset looking Tina walked in, with Sam right behind her.

“Nora!” She hugged Nora tightly, and let go when Nora let out a little whimper of pain.

“Sorry,” Tina said. “I was worried to death. Honestly Nora, you had no business putting yourself into--”

“If you use the word danger, I’ll throw something,” Nora said. “I’ve heard that enough times today.”

“For good reason,” Tina scolded. “Now have you had anything to eat?”

“Harvey tried to make me eat the hospital’s food but I refused,” Nora said.

“Good, I bought you some spinach and swiss cheese quiche,” Tina said. “That’ll make you feel better.”
 

Nora brightened.

“I got more good news, too,” Tina said. “I guess we could use it, in these troubled times.”

“What’s that?”

“We just got done with Selena’s funeral,” Sam said, “And Tina and I were talking about what she would have liked.”

“Well?”

“Selena would have liked us to go on,” Sam said. “She would have liked us to
celebrate
instead of mourning. To move forward.”

“Sam told me today that you and I should open the diner next month like we planned,” Tina said with a big smile. “What do you think of that?”

Nora’s smile froze.

What did she think of that? She should feel delighted.
 

Instead, she just felt numb.

Tina seemed to read her mind. “It’s all right,” she said. “I know you’re scared. I am too. But trust me, it’s the right thing to do.”

“It’s the one happy thing in this mess,” Sam said. “It’s the one thing that’s keeping me going through the days.”

“Sam’s so excited he’s been helping out with some of the decor,” Tina said. “We’ve even planned a karaoke party for the opening.”

“It’s what we need,” Sam said.

Nora nodded. “I agree,” she said.
 

“Another benefit is that you’ll be working too hard on the diner to snoop around.” Tina grinned.

“That occurred to me.” Nora smiled.

“There’s not much snooping to be done anymore anyway,” Sean said. He shut his notebook heavily. “I’m guessing that this whole thing will be done in two days.”

“So it’s definitely Robert?” Sam asked.
 

Sean smiled. “You know I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation,” he said. But he nodded his head yes.
 

“Get him, Sean,” Sam said. “Get him soon and end this nightmare for us.”

Nora stayed silent, but she wondered if no one but her had doubts about it all. The front door of the library was wide open when she had crept down the stairs, she remembered that clearly. Why? Who had come in? More importantly, if these attacks were linked to Selena’s death, how did the murderer know they were there?

She remembered arguing with Harvey about going to the library. She remembered waving to the mayor and his wife. There were only three people who knew she was at the library. Unless Robert and Grant had told someone. Which seemed unlikely.

“How did I get saved?” Nora asked suddenly. “No one explained that clearly to me.”

“Harvey says that he was worried when you decided to go to the library,” Sean said. “He followed you, and parked outside. When he heard you scream, he rushed in to help. He saved you from your assailant.”

But the door was already open when I was attacked. Nora thought, confused.

*****

Chapter 14

Dr. Neil insisted on keeping Nora a day longer to check for concussions, and Nora had to spend all that day in bed, quite impatient. She was allowed to visit Grant for half an hour in the morning. His room was filled with flowers and beeping machines, while Grant himself lay on the bed, looking frail with gauze covering most of his forehead. Nora held his hand, watched for signs of recovery, but he was still comatose when she left.

When she was discharged, her arm was still placed in a splint. Harvey drove her home, and later that day, drove her to Selena’s memorial.

Grant and May had done a wonderful job on short notice. The memorial was near the town fountain, with a slideshow of Selena’s photos appearing on a makeshift screen. The fountain itself had a large framed photo of Selena, with flowers and candles from all around it.