Burning

Chapter THREE

"Good afternoon to you too."

"I need help with something. Please."

"I was picking up on that. What's up?"

His brown eyes were bright and he reached out as if to usher her across the room. His hand froze and returned to his pocket. "Come look."

Intrigued Gabby followed his back to his usual table and stared at the immaculate collection of bullet points, highlighter and post it notes. Connor slammed a few of them closed and pushed them from her, frowning as though she were snooping. He's the one that told me to come look!

"I have some books that I can't find. Anywhere."

"Well its not organized super well in here but I'm happy to help you look."

"No- not in here. At any of the libraries- here- I printed this at the downtown location."

Gabby took the poorly screenshotted image from the library computer. "Checked out from... here. Huh. I haven't seen anyone check anything at in awhile. How many are there?"

"Ten."

"Maybe all books just say checked out from here. I doubt the librarian bothers calling to update the electronic records."

"Nope. Here." She was given another screen shot for the book he'd requested from her before. "It says this is where its located. But look- all of these are the same."

"It's by a single author?" Gabby took the stack of papers. "Why did you print so many?"

Connor looked from her to the papers. "So you'd believe me."

"Why wouldn't I-? Well let's check the ledger first."

He jogged ahead and pushed the tiny door open for her without having to shake it.

Her eyebrows raised. "It didn't even squeak."

"I put vegetable oil on the hinges."

"Are you trying to be a gentleman or just annoyed that I climb the counter usually?"

"It made a terrible sound before and was distracting. That's all." He looked at the carpet.

Gabby flipped the giant book around so he could read too as she flipped the pages. She ran her finger across a line of dates and initials that spanned into the margins. "Wow, it looks like these are probably the most popular books in the joint. Huh. What did you say they were about?"

"I didn't."

Gabby huffed. "Ok, so you expect me to help you out without letting me in on the mystery at all? This is totally weird. Nothing even comes close to the number of borrows as these."

"So can you get them?"

"If they are checked out, they're checked out. We have to wait."

"How long?"

She shrugged and realized she had no idea on the return policy. The fact was it literally was never even an issue this whole time. That was, weird. Gabby looked back at the ledger. All the books were checked in- June? That couldn't be right. She flipped the pages to see if anything was scrawled on the back margins. These had been checked out for over 6 months now- that couldn't be right.

"Gabrielle?"

"Its weird." She tapped the finger on the dates for him.

"They were all checked out the same week."

"Really?" Gabby reviewed again. He was right. Four people had checked out all 10 books last spring. A few came in two different days. This couldn't be right though. She did know Hopkins had a 2 book max rule for checking out. "Seems like the start to a great book caper. So- what are they about?"