twenty-two
We stay at the library for two full login sessions, trying just about every search query we can think of, falling down rabbit hole after rabbit hole of useless information. Jeremy and I take turns at the computer, while Pam just sits tensely on the edge of her chair like she’s about to spring up at the first sign of danger. Her nervous energy is making me nervous, so I try to ignore her as much as possible and just focus on the task at hand.
We’re about to begin our third login session when Pam taps me on the shoulder. “We should leave now,” she whispers.
“Not yet,” I say. I’m frustrated by the fact that we’ve been here for over an hour and haven’t learned anything beyond what we learned within the first five minutes.
“No.” There’s an underlying tension in Pam’s voice beyond what she’s been exhibiting so far. “I mean, we have to leave now. Someone’s looking for us.”
“Oh, no way,” says Jeremy mockingly. “That’s definitely not the reason we’ve been sitting here this whole time looking up stuff about--”
Pam reaches over and clasps a hand over Jeremy’s mouth. “You don’t get it!” she hisses. “I mean they’re here! Now!”
A man around my parents’ age is strolling through the library, hands in his pockets as he casually sweeps his gaze up and down and around the room. He definitely seems to be looking for something.
I bend my head down and pretend to be typing something into the computer, even though now all I’m doing is whispering to Pam. “How do you know?” I ask her.
“He’s looking for us.”
“He could be looking for anyone or anything.”
“But there’s another guy with him, over on the other side of the room. They came in together but are looking around separately.”
Jeremy scoffs. “That’s what people do at libraries. They come in together, and then they split up and look for whatever books they’re each interested in.”
“But they’re looking at all the people.”
I chance lifting my head up and looking at the man Pam first pointed out. She’s right. He’s paying no attention to any of the shelves he’s passing, but rather darting his eyes quickly to each person in the room, then averting his gaze. It’s the kind of thing I never would have noticed if it hadn’t been pointed out to me.
It still doesn’t mean anything, though. “There are a lot of reasons he could be doing that,” I tell Pam. “The world doesn’t revolve around us.”
I roll my eyes at Jeremy, trying to include him in my exasperation at Pam’s paranoia, but he’s suddenly frowning. “A cop just came in the side door.”
I glance over at the side door, behind the section advertising HOT NEW READS!, and my heart stops. Not just one, but three police officers are entering the library.
“It’s still really unlikely they’re here for us,” I whisper. “Right?”
Jeremy grimaces. “I mean… yeah, it’s unlikely, but there is a Missing Child Alert out for you. What if someone here saw you and called the cops?”
I don’t like to think that I’m the reason three cops just showed up at the library. “What should we do? Should we leave?”
“I don’t know.”
The three of us hover there in indecision, looking up as much as we dare to keep our eyes on where the cops are going. One of them starts walking briskly forward, and the man who Pam pointed out as suspicious picks up his pace. He ducks into the bathroom right before the cop reaches the point where he would’ve seen him.
“That was interesting,” Jeremy murmurs under his breath. “How did he know the cop was about to see him?”
“Does this mean that those guys are the reason the cops are here, and not us?” I wonder out loud.
“It’s all connected,” Pam maintains. “Those guys were looking for us. Maybe they’re bad guys from Dermott, and that’s why the police are after them.”
I want Jeremy to tell Pam she’s blowing all of this out of proportion. Not everything is about Dermott, because hardly anyone even knows about Dermott. Our Web searches just proved that. I want him to speak up and say this is ridiculous and we have nothing to worry about.
But instead he says, jaw tensed, “Let’s go.”
My stomach clenches. If Jeremy’s worried, then I’m worried.
“It’ll be easy,” says Jeremy. “We’ll just get up and walk out that door.” He’s gesturing to the front door, which is about thirty feet away from us in the opposite direction of the cops. It should be a piece of cake to just get up and leave the library. But I feel like the instant we stand up, the cops’ attention will be drawn right to us.
“Let’s go one at a time,” I suggest. “Pam, maybe you can go first, since there’s no chance of anyone recognizing you?”
Pam nods and gets up--shakily, I notice. She starts walking toward the door, but before she gets too close, one of the officers calls out, “Excuse me, miss!”
Pam ignores him and continues walking, but the officer who called out calls out again and starts walking toward her. “Miss, I just want to ask you a question. Have you seen--”
Pam bolts out the door like a horse being released onto a racetrack. The cop stares in stunned silence for a moment, then follows her.
Jeremy and I exchange horrified glances. What are we supposed to do now? If we go after Pam and the cop, we risk exposing ourselves. But if we don’t… there are so many possibilities of what could happen, and I’m terrified of all of them.
The two remaining police officers have spread apart, one of them almost disappeared around a corner, the other walking right toward the computer section--the section we’re in. I gulp. The best way to get him to not talk to us is to pretend we’re already deep in conversation. “So, do you think we got enough information about the Aztecs?” I ask Jeremy in a normal-volume voice, standing up.
He looks confused for about half a second before catching on. “I think so. That stuff about the human sacrificing was kind of creepy, huh?” He stands up too, and together we start walking toward the exit.
“Yeah, totally. I sure wouldn’t have wanted to live back then.” I really hope our conversation doesn’t sound as fake as it feels to me.
“Yeah. They had it rough.” We’re halfway to the door now. So far, so good…
“Excuse me! You two!” The cop is calling after us, but we continue to pretend to be engrossed in our lame conversation about the Aztecs--which is difficult because I don’t actually know anything about the Aztecs--and keep walking toward the door.
I hear his feet behind us, catching up to us. Then I hear another set of feet, hurriedly approaching. And an out-of-breath unfamiliar voice saying, “Officer, please, I need your help!”
All of the footsteps stop. We make it to the door unencumbered.
We step outside. I feel myself squinting hard because the sun is so bright. I turn to the right and bump into someone.
A hand reaches out and steadies me. “Ah, just who I was looking for,” a man’s voice says.
I look up and feel my pulse falter. It’s the suspicious man from the library. The one who was last seen ducking into the bathroom to avoid being seen by the cops. The one Pam said was looking for us.
We’re about to begin our third login session when Pam taps me on the shoulder. “We should leave now,” she whispers.
“Not yet,” I say. I’m frustrated by the fact that we’ve been here for over an hour and haven’t learned anything beyond what we learned within the first five minutes.
“No.” There’s an underlying tension in Pam’s voice beyond what she’s been exhibiting so far. “I mean, we have to leave now. Someone’s looking for us.”
“Oh, no way,” says Jeremy mockingly. “That’s definitely not the reason we’ve been sitting here this whole time looking up stuff about--”
Pam reaches over and clasps a hand over Jeremy’s mouth. “You don’t get it!” she hisses. “I mean they’re here! Now!”
A man around my parents’ age is strolling through the library, hands in his pockets as he casually sweeps his gaze up and down and around the room. He definitely seems to be looking for something.
I bend my head down and pretend to be typing something into the computer, even though now all I’m doing is whispering to Pam. “How do you know?” I ask her.
“He’s looking for us.”
“He could be looking for anyone or anything.”
“But there’s another guy with him, over on the other side of the room. They came in together but are looking around separately.”
Jeremy scoffs. “That’s what people do at libraries. They come in together, and then they split up and look for whatever books they’re each interested in.”
“But they’re looking at all the people.”
I chance lifting my head up and looking at the man Pam first pointed out. She’s right. He’s paying no attention to any of the shelves he’s passing, but rather darting his eyes quickly to each person in the room, then averting his gaze. It’s the kind of thing I never would have noticed if it hadn’t been pointed out to me.
It still doesn’t mean anything, though. “There are a lot of reasons he could be doing that,” I tell Pam. “The world doesn’t revolve around us.”
I roll my eyes at Jeremy, trying to include him in my exasperation at Pam’s paranoia, but he’s suddenly frowning. “A cop just came in the side door.”
I glance over at the side door, behind the section advertising HOT NEW READS!, and my heart stops. Not just one, but three police officers are entering the library.
“It’s still really unlikely they’re here for us,” I whisper. “Right?”
Jeremy grimaces. “I mean… yeah, it’s unlikely, but there is a Missing Child Alert out for you. What if someone here saw you and called the cops?”
I don’t like to think that I’m the reason three cops just showed up at the library. “What should we do? Should we leave?”
“I don’t know.”
The three of us hover there in indecision, looking up as much as we dare to keep our eyes on where the cops are going. One of them starts walking briskly forward, and the man who Pam pointed out as suspicious picks up his pace. He ducks into the bathroom right before the cop reaches the point where he would’ve seen him.
“That was interesting,” Jeremy murmurs under his breath. “How did he know the cop was about to see him?”
“Does this mean that those guys are the reason the cops are here, and not us?” I wonder out loud.
“It’s all connected,” Pam maintains. “Those guys were looking for us. Maybe they’re bad guys from Dermott, and that’s why the police are after them.”
I want Jeremy to tell Pam she’s blowing all of this out of proportion. Not everything is about Dermott, because hardly anyone even knows about Dermott. Our Web searches just proved that. I want him to speak up and say this is ridiculous and we have nothing to worry about.
But instead he says, jaw tensed, “Let’s go.”
My stomach clenches. If Jeremy’s worried, then I’m worried.
“It’ll be easy,” says Jeremy. “We’ll just get up and walk out that door.” He’s gesturing to the front door, which is about thirty feet away from us in the opposite direction of the cops. It should be a piece of cake to just get up and leave the library. But I feel like the instant we stand up, the cops’ attention will be drawn right to us.
“Let’s go one at a time,” I suggest. “Pam, maybe you can go first, since there’s no chance of anyone recognizing you?”
Pam nods and gets up--shakily, I notice. She starts walking toward the door, but before she gets too close, one of the officers calls out, “Excuse me, miss!”
Pam ignores him and continues walking, but the officer who called out calls out again and starts walking toward her. “Miss, I just want to ask you a question. Have you seen--”
Pam bolts out the door like a horse being released onto a racetrack. The cop stares in stunned silence for a moment, then follows her.
Jeremy and I exchange horrified glances. What are we supposed to do now? If we go after Pam and the cop, we risk exposing ourselves. But if we don’t… there are so many possibilities of what could happen, and I’m terrified of all of them.
The two remaining police officers have spread apart, one of them almost disappeared around a corner, the other walking right toward the computer section--the section we’re in. I gulp. The best way to get him to not talk to us is to pretend we’re already deep in conversation. “So, do you think we got enough information about the Aztecs?” I ask Jeremy in a normal-volume voice, standing up.
He looks confused for about half a second before catching on. “I think so. That stuff about the human sacrificing was kind of creepy, huh?” He stands up too, and together we start walking toward the exit.
“Yeah, totally. I sure wouldn’t have wanted to live back then.” I really hope our conversation doesn’t sound as fake as it feels to me.
“Yeah. They had it rough.” We’re halfway to the door now. So far, so good…
“Excuse me! You two!” The cop is calling after us, but we continue to pretend to be engrossed in our lame conversation about the Aztecs--which is difficult because I don’t actually know anything about the Aztecs--and keep walking toward the door.
I hear his feet behind us, catching up to us. Then I hear another set of feet, hurriedly approaching. And an out-of-breath unfamiliar voice saying, “Officer, please, I need your help!”
All of the footsteps stop. We make it to the door unencumbered.
We step outside. I feel myself squinting hard because the sun is so bright. I turn to the right and bump into someone.
A hand reaches out and steadies me. “Ah, just who I was looking for,” a man’s voice says.
I look up and feel my pulse falter. It’s the suspicious man from the library. The one who was last seen ducking into the bathroom to avoid being seen by the cops. The one Pam said was looking for us.
