The Book Waitress (Book 1, The Book Waitress Series) (6 page)

“
Yes! I would
love
to
know what has you focused for
so
many hours
.
”

“Well, recently, a child’s gone missing
from the island
.
The leads are cold
except for one
.
I’ve discovered that a satanic c
ult
, The Mission,
used to operate
on this island
a long time ago. S
upposedly
, they
were shut down about
forty
years ago, but who really knows.
Other children who lived here have vanished. From what my research is telling me,
there
’s
a pattern. E
very six years a child goes missing. The fir
st case dates back
thirty six
years
.
”

“
Oh
,
my God, t
hat’s horrible
.
Have any of the children been found?
”

“
Nope,
and the police are no closer to finding out what
’s
happened
now than
they were all those years ago. I’m convinced
the cult is alive and active. I believe the kids have
been
kidnapped, trafficked,
or
sacrificed in some
satanic
ritual.
I don’t know
, but I’m convinced they’ve been u
sed somehow by this cult
.
That’s why I’m on the island.
I’m here to find out
for certain
.
I need to
discover
where they used to conduct their meetings.
I’ll be interviewing families and
stuck
in your library for a while, pouring over newspapers and anything that help
s
me figure this out before
the
current child, Zachary Michaels, disappears forever.”

“
I’ll
help any way I can at the library.
But there may be a
problem.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ve come across a mystery of my own. It involves the library
censoring information about
a murder/suicide
that took place in the basement there
many, many years ago. Documentation can be found on the internet, but not in this library.
Who’s to say if the library has everything you’ll need?
”

“Fascinating
and disturbing
. I guess they figured it would be bad publicity to keep information on it. But news is news and that’s censorship
all right
. Wow
!
W
onder what else, if anything
,
has been going on down in that basement
.”

“I’m wondering if I should tell you the rest of it.” She squinted at him as though sizing him up, evaluating wh
ether or not he could tolerate hearing what she had to say.

“Well
, you
wondering out loud is teasing my curiosity, so out with it
already
.
I
think I have a pretty
open mind.
”

She lowered her voice. “There are spirits in my department.” She paused
and waited, he supposed,
for him to react. But he really had no reacti
on as of yet
.

“Go on,” he urged.

“One
I think
is malevolent and the other
seems
sweet and helpful. I believe them to be the couple involved in the murder/suicide all those years ago. And now, I’m sure you think I’m absolut
ely off my rocker.” She stood
and walked toward the front door. “It was nice talking with you but I’m used to this routine. Thanks for the lift.
Don’t forget your bags. I’ll s
ee you at the library.”
She opened the front door
with a defeated look on her face
.

“Whoa, hold on.” He chased after her and gently
closed the door
. “First of all, don’t speak for me. I do a pretty good job of it all by myself, minus the semi-frequent hiccups. Secondly, what makes you think I don’t believe
you
? I’ve read a
nd
seen enough to know there’
s something b
eyond
this earthbound world
. There are
paranormal events that can’
t be explained so easily. So if you say there are spirits, there are spirits. I’d love to meet them. Hopefully they’ll come out to play while I’m there.”

She threw him a skeptical glance.
“I’m impressed. I didn’t take you for an open-minded
kinda
guy. My apologies.”
She sat back down
at the table and grabbed a bag
of chips. He followed.

“Accepted. You see, I’m a foster kid who grew up in a loving household of hippies. They told me to be open to everything,
but also
to ques
tion everything.” He
downed
a
handful of
chip
s
in a matter of seconds
.

“No wonder you’re a reporter. You’ve had that instinct
ingrained
in you.”

“And you,” he said. “Why do you do what you do?”

“Well, I failed at serving up food, so I tried ser
ving up books instead. It suits
me
much
bett
er since I love to read.
I love meeting the characters. It’s only real people I can’t stand.
” She twisted off the cap of a Jones soda and took a swig. The way her lips pursed around the neck spoke volumes to his groin and he fidgeted in his seat. There was something about this woman that gripped him. He couldn’t put his finger on it yet, but he decided to make it
a priority on his list of things to do
.

“You make it sound like what you do is
a no-brainer
. I’m sure th
ere’s a lot more to it than handing a person a book and putting them back on the shelves
.”

“
Of course, there’s cataloging and purchasing. I need to be a jack of all trades. I need to know a little about a lot. But mostly, on a daily basis, I’m serving up books to patrons and collecting them back when they’re done with them. I’m a book waitress
, Derek
.
Nothing more, nothing less.
”

“Don’t sell yourself short. Knowing a little about a lot can be a very useful tool. In fact, I bet it comes in very handy.”

“
I do have a strange ability to remember everything I see on a page.
It
’s
been rather useful on occasion,
if I’m to be honest
. Holy crap! Look at the time.” She leapt from her chair and ran out of the kitchen. He heard what could only be described as an elephant stampede, and guessed she’d raced upstairs.

“I’ve gotta get ready for work!”
she shouted from afar.

“Why don’t I drive you there?” he called after her. “It would shorten your commute
by a couple minutes
and give us a chance to talk more.”
He wandered into the living room
, meandered
around,
inspecting
all the knickknacks that lay about.
He looked at himself in an old mirror and puckered his face.
He’d forgotten to slick back his unruly hair this morning.
Raking fingers through his
mess of waves,
he did his best to make himself look a
little less
disheveled.

A few moments later, the elephants descended upon the living room.
Camille shuffled over to him.
“Sounds like a plan
, Stan. Thanks.”

“All set?”

“Not yet. Can’t find my hairpin.
It flew out as I ran upstairs
. I may just have to wear it in a ponytail today. Hopefully Nancy won’t be angry. Something tells me I won’t like her when she’s angry.”

“How very Hulk
-
ish
of you to say
so
.”

“Yeah, well, comic books are reading, too.
Ah, there it is!
”
She scooted over to the bottom st
ep and picked up the rogue pin.

He put his hands up in surrender.
“
You
’ll
get
no argument from me
.
Funny, I didn’t tak
e you for a comic fan.
”

“We’re surprising each other it seems today.”
She laughed lightly.

She twisted her long golden ringlets into a severe rope and secured it closely to her head
.
Maybe she’
ll
let me unpin it someday soon.
Shame all that hair has to be hidden away.

“Shame…
.
”
he murmured.

“What’s a shame?”

“Oh, nothing. Nothing.
”
Deflect! Deflect!
“
Are you ready to go?”

“Let me grab an apple and the chips. You might as well go start the car.”

“Got it.” As he lumbered out the front door, he allowed pure mortification to wash over him. He had it bad for her, and his fantasy of what he’d like to do with her
had almost been revealed
. How stupid could a man be? Sliding into his
seat
,
it finally dawned on him what attracted him so to her. Besides having the sexiest hair he’d ever seen, she had a quirky personality that
h
e admired.
Her humor warped as much as his. One day soon, he’d get up
the nerve to ask her on a date.

Chapter Five

Camille arrived at her post to find stacks and stacks of books waiting to be cataloged and shelved. Nancy
, in her authoritative, evil witchy way,
ordered her to have
them all done during her shift
or she’d have to stay late
. Not quite sure how she would manage to complete that task along with everything else
demanded by the Queen B
in
her allotted
timeframe, she took a deep breath, walked the stacks once,
checked on the people at the tables and computers,
and settled in at her desk for the onerous work.

“Oh,
Betina
, care to help me today?” She chuckled and shook her head. Nancy clearly had a chip on her shoulder against
her
,
and if she could succeed in her tasks today, maybe she could knock it off.

***

“Excuse me, Camille?”
Derek stood before her looking like a schoolboy approaching his favorite teacher.
U
nfamiliar warmth wound its way throughout her body. Happin
ess. That’s what she’d call it. Maybe a bit of a crush forming on her part, even.
S
he looked up and smiled.

“Yes?”

“I’ve been at this for three hours now. I need your help.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” She wheeled her chair back and walked over to the counter. “What’s the question?”

He leaned in as best he could over the counter and whispered, “I’m trying to
pinpoint
the whereabouts of
the Mission’s
meetings.
It’s real slim pickings in these newspapers. I’m afraid you may have been right earlier about folks here censoring what we have access to.
I
did fi
nd one line in an old paper that said something about finding incriminating evidence in the basement of Oliver House.
What the heck is Oliver House?”

“Oh, that’s easy. This is Oliver House, or used to be, anyway. That was before
the government bought it at auction and turned it into a municipal building. A few years after that, the township outgrew the space and bought another, leaving this very one here to be turned into the library the people needed and had
demanded
be opened
for
years.”

“How do you do that?”
H
e gave her an incredulous look.