Wild Ride: A Changing Gears Novel Read Free Page B

numerate them correctly.
    If there was a phrase that made her cringe, it was the young mother telling her child to “put that book back where you found it.” In her experience, kids who grabbed books at random weren’t ready for the finer points of Dewey decimal.
    It wasn’t a big library, but she was proud of how many resources she could offer the people of this small town. There were two computers with Internet access, plus books for all ages, which she updated twice a year. She’d be able to offer an extra hundred dollars’ worth, thanks to Mr. Forbes, she thought, as she strolled down passed Antiques and stepped around the end to the next aisle.
    Art and Artists.
    Where she stopped in her tracks and slapped her hand over her mouth.
This morning, there were no stray cloths or bottles of cleaning solution littering the library.
    There was a man lying face down on the floor.
    For a stunned second or two she simply stood and stared. His feet were toward her, so the first thing she noticed was black shoes with crepe soles. He wore navy slacks and a navy windbreaker. His neck was ruddy and his thick hair more salt than pepper. His arms were on either side of his head, almost as though he were about to do a push-up. A heavy gold ring with a dark red stone adorned the ring finger of his right hand.
    She noted all this in the instant it took her to realize that something was wrong. Very wrong.
    Her first thought, that a homeless guy had somehow sneaked in and slept here all night, she quickly dismissed when she saw the decent clothes, crisp lines of a recent hair cut and the ring. In the next instant, her skin turned clammy. He looked awfully still and he slept without a sound.
And what was that smell?
    Dropping to her knees beside him, she put a trembling hand to his shoulder and squeezed. “Sir?”
    No response.
    Nausea rose, but still she managed to put two fingers to his neck in search of a pulse, only to draw them back with a helpless moan. His flesh was as cold as marble and almost as stiff. There was no pulse that she could detect.
    For the first time she understood the term stone, cold dead. She crouched over the man, scrubbing the fingers that had touched him against her thigh.
Help.
She had to get help. There was a phone in her office, but she wasn’t near brave enough to hang around having a close-up encounter with a corpse while she waited for the police. She’d run next door and get Tom or the chief. They’d know what to do.
    Run being the operative word.
    She took off at a sprint. She barreled through the library, rounding the corner so fast she put out a hand to hang onto an end cap and knocked Interior Decorating for Beginners, Third Edition, onto the floor.
It was an indication of her level of panic that she didn’t even consider pausing to re-shelve the book sprawled untidily on the floor, but kept running.
    Only to smack into something warm and hard.
    That grabbed her.
    She screamed, horror-movie visions of psycho killers overcoming her common sense. Strong arms tightened, and she bucked and struggled wildly. Kicking, scratching, squirming—fright lending her supernatural strength.
Her fist connected with flesh in a satisfyingly deep jab. Immediately, the arms released her.
    “Ow! Alex! It’s me. Duncan Forbes. Hey, what’s wrong?”
    The voice. She knew the voice. As the words penetrated the veil of terror covering her senses, she stopped struggling and drew a breath, focusing on the strong, rugged planes of the face in front of her. She’d think about how foolish she’d acted later. For now, even a book defacer was a comforting presence in comparison to a psychotic murderer.
    “He’s dead,” she said in a small voice, pointing, ashamed to note that her entire arm trembled.
    “Dead? Who’s dead?”
    “The man. On the floor. Between Crafts and Art and Artists: 690 to 861.”
Duncan Forbes didn’t look all that shocked by her explanation. He had, she realized, eyes that had seen everything,