Permanently Booked Read Free

“Jeez. Trixie has terrible handwriting, but I’m pretty sure I see the word kill here. Whoa. You think this might be some kind of threat?”
    “Of course not. Don’t be snoopy, dear.” Dorothy took the envelope from her friend and tucked it carefully in her white leather purse. “This is confidential correspondence, between Trixie and Lorella.”
    “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Summer hoisted one bulging book bag over each shoulder as they started across the steaming parking lot toward the main building. “Who’d ever bump off a librarian, anyway?”
    * * *
    The Hibiscus Pointe Library was dark and locked, but that was okay with Summer. Now she and Dorothy could get to lunch sooner. “Hello?” she called loudly, knocking on the door.
    Nope, no answer. “Oh well,” Summer said. “We can just leave the books here and come back later.” Or—maybe never. Even better.
    “That’s exactly what everyone else has been doing.” Dorothy pointed to the overflowing bags and boxes and piles of books stacked along the wall in the hallway. “I have to say, this is odd. Lorella is always here at lunchtime, in case any residents drop by.”
    “Maybe she’s over at the buffet.” Summer pulled her key card from her back pocket and slid it through the lock. The electronic key, which rarely worked anywhere in the complex, at least came in handy for jamming things open.
    “Let’s take our bags inside first, and then we can move these others in, too,” Dorothy suggested.
    “Okay, but we’ll have to work fast,” Summer said. “If we don’t get over to the courts before everyone else does, all the desserts will be gone.”
    “Really, dear.” Dorothy smiled, but Summer knew she was an equal fan of Hibiscus Pointe’s brownies. If either of them cooked, Summer would’ve asked Gregoire, the sous-chef, for the recipe.
    Dorothy flipped on the lights, which didn’t work, and Summer squinted around the small, L-shaped room in the semidarkness. It was hard to believe anyone called this place a library. Not that she’d been inside very many of them, or anything. But this one wasn’t very big, with a bunch of bookcases against the walls and a few rows of stacks to one side. It didn’t even have that weird library smell. More like cinnamon air spray.
    “Goodness, what went on in here?” Dorothy frowned. “This isn’t the way Lorella keeps things.”
    Summer took another glance around the main room. She didn’t see anything wrong. A few papers on the floor, maybe, and a couple of overturned boxes.
    The only sign of life was a pitcher filled with fresh pink roses on the librarian’s desk. Beside it, a giant dictionary lay open on a pedestal. Probably no one ever used it. An ancient-looking globe stood on a tall cabinet with tons of little drawers. The faded poster behind it said That’s All She Read.
    No wonder those fancy Hibiscus Pointe brochures didn’t show any pictures of the library. For what it cost to live here, the residents sure got ripped off.
    There weren’t even any decent magazines, unless you counted superscary health news, overpriced real estate, or crossword puzzles with all the answers written in.
    Dorothy frowned. “I’m going to check out the reading room.”
    Summer followed as far as the doorway. The reading room held two or three beat-up leather recliners and a long wooden table with mismatched chairs. That was pretty much it. A third room, just beyond it, served as the business center. It boasted two dinosaur-age computers and an equally extinct printer.
    Maybe, if anyone ever got that thing working again, she’d print a few copies of her résumé. Not that she’d updated it lately, as she hadn’t held any recent paying jobs long enough to list. Her last employer, a doctor, had ended up murdered on her first day of work. But at least she and Dorothy had solved the case.
    “Mrs. Caldwell?” Jennifer Margolis, the Resident Services director, hovered at the library door. The pretty,