The Book Thing Read Free

several books off a shelf and into a box? Why would he do that? After all, the boxes were being delivered; it’s not as if he could take them with him.
    “Tate is the clumsiest guy in the world,” Mona said with affection after he left. “A sweetheart, but just a mess.”
    “You mean, he drops stuff all the time?”
    “Drops things, mixes up orders, you name it. But Octavia dotes on him. Those dimples …”
    Tess had not picked up on the dimples, but she had a chance to see how they affected Octavia when the delivery man returned fifteen minutes later, looking sheepish.
    “Tate!” Octavia said with genuine delight.
    “I feel so stupid. One of those boxes I left—it’s for Royal Books up the block.”
    “No problem,” Octavia said. “You know I never get around to unpacking the Saturday deliveries until the store clears out late in the day.”
    He looked through the stack of boxes he had left, showed Octavia that one was addressed to Royal Books and hoisted it on his shoulder. Tess couldn’t help noticing that there wasn’t any tape on the box; the top had been folded with the overlapping flaps that people used when boxing their own possessions for a move. She ambled out in the street behind him, saw him put the box on his truck—then drive away, west and then north on Howard Street, completely bypassing Royal Books.
    He looks like someone, Tess thought. Someone I know, yet don’t know. Someone famous? He probably just resembled some actor on television.
    Back inside the bookstore, she didn’t have the heart to tell Octavia what she suspected. Octavia had practically glowed when she saw Tate. Besides, Tess had no proof. Yet.
    “So, did you see anything?” Octavia asked at day’s end.
    “Maybe. If there was anything taken today, it was from this shelf.” Tess pointed to the low one next to where the box had fallen, spilling its contents. Mona crouched on her haunches and poked at the titles. “I can’t be sure until I check our computer, but the shelf was full yesterday. I mean—there’s no Seuss and we always have Seuss.”
    “If you saw it, why didn’t you say something?” Octavia demanded, as peevish as any paying customer. “Or do something, for God’s sake.”
    “I wasn’t sure I saw anything and I didn’t want to offend … a potential customer. I’ll be back next Saturday. This is a two-person job.” Life is unfair. Tess Monaghan, toting her toddler daughter in a baby carrier, was invisible to most of the world, except for leering men who observed the baby’s chest-level position and said things like “Best seat in the house.”
    But when Crow put on the Ergo and shouldered their baby to his chest, the world melted, or at least the female half did. So he stood in the bookstore the next Saturday morning, trying to be polite to the cooing women around him, even as he waited to see if he would observe something similar to what Tess had seen the week before. Once again, Tate arrived when story hour was in full swing, six boxes on his hand truck.
    No dropped box, Crow reported via text.
    Damn, Tess thought. Maybe he was smart enough to vary the days, despite Mona’s conviction that the thefts had been concentrated on Saturdays. Maybe she was deluded, maybe —
    Her phone pinged again. Taking one box with him. Says it was on cart by mistake. I didn’t see anything, tho. He’s good.
    Tess was on her bike, which she had decided was her best bet for following someone in North Baltimore on a Saturday. A delivery guy, even an off-brand one working the weekends, had to make frequent stops, right? She counted on being able to keep up with him. And she did, as he moved through his route, although she almost ran down Walking Man near the Baltimore Museum of Art. Still, she was flying along, watching him unload boxes at stop after stop until she realized the flaw in her plan: How could she know which box was the box from the Children’s Bookstore?
    She sighed, resigned to donating yet another