The Library Ch. 35

Chapter Thirty-Five

Mark Waters pushed open the library door and closed it behind him. He glanced around the bathroom and saw that things had moved around a bit since the last time he had came to check on the house. He did it every 6 months or so to see if Amanda had moved in yet. Someone had been here, but he wasn't convinced it was her until he went into his bedroom and saw clothes and hi-heels on the floor. He mistakenly took Sylvia's outfit to be Amanda's.

He let a smile come across his face when he saw his favorite tie draped across the chair beside his bed. He left the bedroom and wandered into the kitchen and found a bottle of wine sitting upright that he had left for her. Someone she found in the library had given it to her for him. His long wait without her was finally coming to an end.

He didn't want to linger too long in the house and be discovered. There was no telling when she'd be coming back. Mark walked back down to the library and made the unsettling discovery that the book he needed to return to his island paradise wasn't where he had left it. He had intentionally left it beside the leather chair, next to the old desk so he could use it when needed and in such an easy place that hopefully Amanda would find it! But it wasn't there any more. She must have picked it up and somehow dodged reading where it had fallen open.

With increasing panic as the clock ticked away, Mark searched all the titles of all the books still laying on the floor, being very careful not to disturb anything, but his book was no where to be found. He finally noticed a robe on the floor in one of the aisles and quickly slung it to the side and behind him. The robe flew over his shoulder and knocked another book off of one of the shelves behind him. It fell, splayed open and as he turned to reach for it, he made the unconscious mistake of beginning to read the words of the thick book, as he touched it, he was taken to the setting inside the story. A story no place near an island paradise he had called home for almost two years!

****

The sound of high energy subsided in the house with no one to hear it when a gray, unmarked police car pulled alongside the curb and in front of Sylvia's white Durango. Both Detective Clark and Jones walked across the small yard and up to the steps of the nice, waterfront home. "Do you smell that?" LaShay asked,

"Yeah. What is it?"

"Smells like hairspray."

"No, it's ozone, like you can smell when you're around high voltage," Clark said.

"Nice, house, but I'm telling you that I couldn't get used to it at all!"

Clark banged on the front door, "I doubt anyone's home, only the friends SUV is here and the Mustang's gone."

LaShay smiled and said, "Do you have something against using door bells? Try the door again."

Clark banged on the door once more, ignoring his partners sarcasm, "The smell's almost gone," he observed.

"Yeah, you're right," she paused a second and walked around the outside of the house and looked into open windows. "I don't see any movement inside. They're gone. Want to hang around a while?"

"No, we have more files to look over at the department," he called out to her.

LaShay had walked around the side and to the back of the home. She emerged a minute later and said, "Come take a look at this."

They both walked around the back of the home and spied what would have been the backyard. Except in this case, an empty boat slip lay on the water and a slightly weathered white gazebo with a swing hung by two chains had been built just to the side of the boat slip. Clark said, "Nice view."

The view looked over the bay, and across the water, a little over three miles away on the opposite side of the bay were the hills of Driftwood stood a lighthouse on the outermost edge of land. "I take back what I said, I could live here even with the stink!" LaShay corrected.

"We need to get going, we've got things to do!"

"Steven, just chill." LaShay turned and put her arms around his neck and said, "I had a great time last night."

He slid his hands around her tight and slim waist and said, "I did too. I'm going to tell you something."

"What's that?" she asked.

"I need you. I know I can count on you, but there's something deeper between us," he cocked his head and looked into her green eyes and said, "I need you!"

"I need you too Steven, I feel it too," and she pressed her lips to his and opened her mouth when she felt his open too.

"Unit 79, acknowledge," their radio's crackled at the same time, interrupting their embrace.

They broke the kiss and pressed their foreheads together and smiled at each other. Detective Clark reached for his hand-held radio and said, "79."

"Unit 79, please report to watch command," the female voice on their radio said.

"79, 10-4." he said into it. "We've gotta go," he said to LaShay.

"Okay, but let's leave our contact card on the door so she knows we want to talk with her," she said.

"Not a bad idea," the two working partners broke their embrace and headed back to the real world of crime, mystery and no smooching on the job.

****

Amanda had returned to her rented home by the beach and changed into a pair of tight, hip hugging blue jeans without pockets on the rear. After sorting through her stacks of shoes she settled on a tan pair of double strap wedge heels. Sylvia rejected her first top selection and approved her white sporty, mid-sleeve crop top that was cut low enough to show cleavage, but also most of her wonderfully defined torso. Amanda figured she should change her navel jewelry from something big into something a little less, a basic gold capture ring was inserted and deemed appropriate.

From there, they went to Sylvia's home and let her change out of her black cat suit and into something cooler for the day, a white loose and flirty short dress that fell a few inches above her knees. She too changed out of her spike heeled boots and into a less obnoxious pair of sling back espadrilles, they too had a wedge heel. The two of them separately were easy head turners, but together they were jaw droppers.

Once inside the mall Sylvia insisted on finding the right pair of thumb rings for her friend. "Just gold bands?" Amanda asked as they walked into a jewelry store on the first level of the Driftwood Mall.

"Yeah, you don't want to go with a stone setting for a thumb ring, it looks wrong!" Sylvia walked around the counter of the jewelry store and found what she was describing to her friend. "Here! Come over here."

Amanda drifted into the view of the glass case that Sylvia was pointing into. A well dressed man in a suit and tie approached the two girls and asked, "Can I help you find what you're looking for?"

Sylvia said, "How about that one?" pointing to a gold braided men's wedding band. The store employee opened the glass case and removed the ring and placed it on a pad in front of Sylvia. She picked it up and said, "Hmm, I don't think so. Too fancy. How about the plain gold one next to it?"

"Do you know what size it needs to be?" he asked.

"She's right there," pointing to Amanda.

He gave Amanda a smile and a good once over and turned back to Sylvia, "You do realize you're looking in the men's ring case, don't you?"

"Yup. How about you measure both of her thumbs and that way we'll know what size to get!"

It took less than five minutes to determine the size of both of her thumbs. In that time, Sylvia had selected the two identical rings. Both were just plain 14 karat yellow gold, and 7 mm wide. The salesman redirected Sylvia's attention to the identical ladies rings and said, "If you buy the men's version of the ring, we'd have to resize them, and that would take mostly a week. But we have her size in the ladies bands, and they are identical. Would you want those instead?"

Sylvia handed back the men's rings and inspected the ladies version of the same ring, slipping each one over the top of the long red thumb nail on each of Amanda's hands. Sylvia asked Amanda, "Okay with you?"

"Fine with me, as long as I don't have to wear the price tags too!"

The salesman said, "I think I can handle that for you." Amanda slipped off both of the rings and he took a small pair of scissors and removed the tags off of both rings and handed them back to her. From under the counter he produced a sales receipt book and began writing the numbers and prices off of the tag from each ring. He looked at both of the ladies and said, "Who gets the bad news?"

Amanda said, "I do."

"No, you don't! This is my gift," Sylvia announced.

The salesman pulled out a calculator and said, "That will be $479.13 with tax."

Sylvia's eyes went wide and began fumbling in her purse for her credit card, but Amanda had hers out much quicker. "Thanks Sylvia, but I think you've forgotten my recent windfall," she said in a cheerful tone to her embarrassed friend.

"Can I get lunch instead?"

"That you can do!" Amanda said and slipped the new rings on each of her thumbs.

The salesman finished writing the receipt and gave Amanda a credit card receipt to sign. After taking her copy and putting it into her checkbook the salesman said, "Thank you ladies for shopping with us today. If there's anything else I can get for either of you, please take my card." He slid a business card across the glass case top toward each of them. "Oh, and by the way, may I ask a question?"

Amanda and Sylvia looked at each other and shrugged. They both looked back at him and Sylvia said, "Sure."

"Are the thumb rings a fashion statement or something else?"

Amanda looked at him with a twinkle in her eye and a broad smile, "What would 'something else' be?"

"Ahh, let me say this delicately. . . . A sexual preference?"

She smiled broadly and said, "Well, not exactly a preference yet, but I'd say it's getting there!"

The salesman smiled back at the two ladies and said, "Please, be sure to call me. . . . Anytime."

Both of the girls looked at each other briefly again and Sylvia asked Amanda, "We're not in the library this time, right?"

"Right."

"Oh thank goodness!" She turned to the salesman and said, "We'll be sure to do that," and they both quickly walked out of the jewelry store.

"Sylvia! How often has that happened to you?"

"Oh, maybe a few times. Usually it's a little more subtle. A guy, who's not gay, will pull his thumb ring out of his pocket and put it on and stroke it a few times like he's stroking himself, to get the attention of the girl."

"And if he's gay?" Amanda asked.

"They usually wear their ring all the time. At least the ones, who know the game do it that way. But I've never been hit on verbally like that before!"

Amanda stopped walking and said, "My dear Sylvia, possessor of infinite wisdom of which I come humbly to beseech thee to enlighten me further. . . . What else do you know that I don't know?" she asked in an exaggerated dramatic fashion.

"Tongue piercings?"

"Let me guess, you have an oral fixation, or should it be an oral sex fixation?" Amanda asked.

"You're on the right track, but that particular one went away a couple of years ago. Too many people thought it looked cool so they got the piercing but didn't have the 'skills' as they say."

"Anything else?"

"Not that I can think of on short notice. But if I come up with something, I'll let you know!."

"Thank you my dear Sylvia," Amanda said, back in her exaggerated drama voice.

"We came here to get some clothes for the new house, right? So let's get some new clothes!" It dawned on Sylvia a second later after they began walking towards nowhere in particular, "Hey, I'm sorry about the expense back there."

"Gold isn't cheap, so it didn't surprise me, but what I didn't expect was to see you turn blood red!" Amanda had put on her million dollar smile and made a small laugh at her friends expense.

"I'll make it up to you."

"Sylvia, do you know what? You already have. We should have been hanging out together a long time before these past couple of days."

Sylvia stopped walking, Amanda took a few more steps before she realized her friend wasn't with her anymore and turned to see the girl with the long black hair. Sylvia wiped the corner of her eyes and said, "Thank you. I wasn't sure what to do all that time you were waiting for word on Mark. And I know you're as curious about that library as I am, but don't let it change you. You're a sweet girl. You're smart too," she paused for a second and cleared her eyes again.

"That library isn't going to change me."

"Amanda, it already has a little bit. Don't you see it?"

"I guess not."

Sylvia walked closer to her friend and said, "Today's Wednesday, you met Kyle on Saturday night and how many different lovers have you had since Saturday night?"

"I don't know, six or seven," Amanda offered.

"Right. Girl, either you're trying to make up for lost time, or that thing is turning you into a slut!"

Amanda got upset and said, "Sylvia, I'm a slut? Come on, you shouldn't throw rocks when you live in a glass house! I'm 26 years old, I met Mark five or six years ago and I need to feel needed! I need to feel like I'm someone people want to be around. I want to feel like men are still attracted to me! I want the closeness, I've had it before, I want that feeling back! Why are you calling me a 'slut' for that?"

"Amanda, I'm a slut too," Sylvia said slowly. "I'm sorry for calling you that. But in just a few short days you have to admit things have gone from normal to crazy! I don't want to see you hurt again. Some guys, and some girls are only out for themselves and to get themselves off. I think so far, you've been lucky." Sylvia paused for a second and said, "I really don't know what to make out of who you've met and who I've met in that library. I mean, are they really real? Or are they programmed holograms? It freaks me out to think about it."

"Me too. But I really do feel the answer to Mark's disappearance is tied up there. So, call me compelled to seek it out and find the answer! But I'm going to find out one way or another," Amanda confessed. "Even if it turns me into what you'd call a 'slut'."

They both walked over to a bench in the mall and sat down. Sylvia said, "I wonder if those books are part of a program for the library system to operate with. I mean, what would happen if we took a book upstairs out of the library? Or maybe even bought a book right here in the mall and walked it downstairs and then opened it up and read it there. Would the system still make use of the data and send us there?"

"Well, there is a certain danger of walking a book up the stairs. Anytime that book is open it is, I guess the term would be 'active.' So, how would we collect the books that are on the floor and see what they are? I'm assuming that if a book is on the floor, then a trip in connection to that book has already been made."

Sylvia nodded her head and said, "It makes sense."

"The only way I can figure out how to get those books is for me to be blindfolded, and you direct me where to go to get them," Amanda said.

"Oh, come on, there's gotta be a better way than that!"

"Let me know what it is, but if I can pick the book up off the floor, close it, and put it into a bag for safe keeping to get it out of the library, we might be able to piece together where Mark went," Amanda said.

"How many books do you figure are on the floor?" Sylvia asked.

"Twenty or more."

Sylvia smiled and said, "Oh come on, you don't want to make that many trips? Where's your adventurous spirit?"

Amanda grinned and said, "Oh yeah, right, that coming from the 'Peeping Tom' of, what was it, San Fuentes! Like you should be talking about me and an adventurous spirit!" Amanda smiled at Sylvia and said, "Come on lets get some clothes. Later on I've got to get some groceries for the other house too."

Sylvia asked, "Are you going to keep renting the one by the beach?"

Amanda shrugged and said, "My lease isn't up until the end of summer, so yeah. I'll figure out what I'll do with it then, or maybe even buy it. I like the little place!"

Both girls got up and began walking again in silence. Sylvia pointed to a display window that had a sexy little black dress, similar to the one Amanda wore in Sicily. The difference, after they looked at it closer is it wasn't a dress, but a short jump suit. Amanda tried it on and liked the way it tied in the back, accentuating her small waist. The cut of the hem also accentuated her shapely legs, the price was reasonable, so that was the first clothing purchase of the day. What followed was almost a four hour marathon of trying on new shoes, panties, bras and other clothes, buying some, and putting many back. The cross words between them were over and they were as content as any two young ladies on a shopping spree could be.