Page 58 of The Lonely Hearts Book Club

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” I said, but without much conviction. Octavia’s tone might have been light and her mood buoyant, but I felt pretty sure she meant every word. In her world, murder was a small price to pay for library funding. “When he dropped off the money, did he say anything specific about me?”

“To be honest, I wasn’t paying close attention. There were too many dollar signs in my eyes.” She paused. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“I’m mostly just thinking aloud. But if I let him into my book club and end up at the bottom of a lake, make sure you pass this conversation along to the police, okay?”

She laughed to show her appreciation for my joke, but I was only half-kidding. The truth was a man in my position had very little to offer someone like Nigel Carthage.

Or, since honesty was the order of the day, very little to offer the world as a whole.

***

The attempted murder happened sooner than I expected.

I was halfway across the park leading out of the library when a dark figure barreled out of the tree line and hightailed it straight for me. Granted, it was only five o’clock, so the sun still hung well above the lake. Also this late in the summer, every family within a fifty-mile radius was out for an evening stroll, so there were plenty of witnesses around.

But the figure was big. And fast. I panicked, okay?

“My skin bruises easily!” I cried, throwing up my hand to shield the delicate bones of my face.

“Does it?” the figure asked as it came to a halt in front of me. He paused. “Taking vitamin C is supposed to help. Shouldn’t a nurse know that?”

I brought my hand down, that gruff, friendly voice suddenly registering. “Greg? What are you doing here?”

“Jogging,” he said as though it were the most natural thing in the world—which, considering how many other people were frolicking about in athleisure, itwas. The only thing odd about this scenario was me. “Maisey told me where you work, so I thought I’d cruise by. Is that okay?”

“That depends… Is this about your grandfather?” Now that my life was secured for another day, I was more than happy to chat, but not if it meant dragging Arthur McLachlan kicking and screaming into the conversation. I tilted my head in a gesture for Greg to follow me to my car. He shoved his hands as deep into his pockets as they could go and followed, slowing to match his steps to mine.

“Um…”

Great. Itwasabout Arthur.

I bit back a sigh. “Before you ask, no, I don’t think he’s going to keel over and die anytime in the next week. But if you’re worried about him, I suggest you strong-arm him to anactualdoctor. There’s only so much I can do in a book club meeting before he picks up on it.”

Greg shook his head. “No, it’s not that.” He colored slightly and added, “I mean, Idocare that he’s not going to die—and I appreciate you saying so—but I wanted to ask you about her. The girl. The woman.”

He said this last bit as though rushing through a tunnel.Her. The girl. The woman.

“You mean Sloane?”

He hunched his shoulders as though trying to match his stature to mine. “Yeah. You know her well, right?”

I wasn’t sure how detailed he wanted me to get—or how detailed Sloane would appreciate me being—so I deflected.

“She’ll take good care of him,” I said, “if that’s what you’re worried about. I know she doesn’t look like much of a match for your grandfather, but they’ve been doing that whole cat-and-dog thing for a while now. I think they like it.”

His grunt indicated that he’d come to a similar conclusion on his own, so I kept going.

“Until Arthur’s collapse, it was all in good fun. We even had a secret scoreboard up in the break room to keep track of which one of them was winning. But that last day…” I let my voice trail off and shook my head. I’d never seen Sloane as shaken up as she’d been after Arthur’s attack. “Let’s just say he popped off some pretty awful things. Like,cruelthings.”

Greg nodded as though that made perfect sense. “Yeah, he would.”

“Would he?”

“Knowing Grandpa? Absolutely.” Greg’s shoulders suddenly seemed less broad than they had before, as if they were getting tired of holding everything up. “The day he was rushed to the hospital was the anniversary of my grandmother’s death.”

I released a long whistle. That explained an awful lot about what I’d witnessed in the library—not an angry old man lashing out, but asadangry old man lashing out. No wonder why we’d all been cowering in fear.

“If it helps, I’m pretty sure Sloane’s forgiven him,” I offered.