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One
Leah
Two weeks ago
It’s always quiet in the bookshop after hours. The street outside is still loud with the roar of passing cars and bursts of drunken laughter from the nearest bar, but in here, it gets nice and sleepy.
Maybe it’s antisocial of me, but this is my favorite part of a shift: dimming the welcome lights in the doorway and flipping the lock, then turning back to the maze of bookshelves. My own private wonderland.
What should I watch with dinner tonight? There’s that new drama on Netflix, or I could listen to a podcast—
A thud rattles the door, and I leap back with a shriek. A shape moves behind the glass.
My heart pounds in my throat. “…H-hello?”
I’m not opening that door. Not for a million bucks. Not while I’m all alone in this shadowy bookstore, and I’ve never thrown a punch in my freaking life, and the laughter from the bar down the street sounds extra harsh tonight. I creep closer to the front door, my hands clammy where they grip my sweater sleeves, and peer through the frosted glass window into the gloom.
A shadow moves across the door—a pale face, staring back with wild eyes.
“Gah!” I stagger back again, horrified, and dash toward the phone on the store counter. I’ve never been much of a runner, but you’d better believe I’m hustling now. I’m ready to vault clean over the new releases table.
“Please.” A man’s voice drifts through the door, deep and rough around the edges. He thumps the door again, but gentler this time. “I’m hurt. Let me in.”
Right. That’s got to be serial killer 101: make your hapless victim feel sorry for you so she opens the door willingly, then kill her gruesomely on the floor of her own bookshop. I don’t think so. We don’t have that Crime Fiction section for nothin’.
“I’m calling 911,” I yell, and it’s part warning, part an offer of help. “I’ll tell them to send an ambulance.”
“Fuck. Don’t do that.” The man lets out a string of curses, low and angry, and drops his forehead against the door. It rattles again, and I wince, creeping closer with the phone in my palm.
Why haven’t I called yet? If this man dies on my doorstep, it’s on me. I can see the headlines now:Local bookshop haunted by doorstep ghost.Business has been hard enough lately, but with a body count? Forget it.
And yet…
It makes no sense, but something about the stranger outside stills my thumb. It’s like his voice was familiar somehow, or his being here gives me deja vu. Like we’ve met before, or his coming here was always going to happen.
Spooky.
“Buddy, if you want medical help, that’s how it comes.”
“Not your buddy,” the man snarls, then cuts off with a groan. Crap, he really sounds like he’s in pain. “Got my own doctor. Let me come in and call.”
I pull a face he can’t see.
Does the mystery man sound trustworthy? Nope, not at all. All I know is I don’t want to let a stranger in the store—but I don’t want to send away a hurt person, either. Choices, choices.
What would Aunt Karen do?
My fingers tremble against the lock. “If you try any funny business, I’ll scream so loud it bursts your eardrums. And—and I’ll bash your head in with a hardback. Got it?”
A huffed laugh blurs into another groan. “Got it. Come on, open up.”
I must have lost my damn mind, because I do it: I flip the lock and swing the door open.
Huh.
The man on the stoop is tall and broad shouldered, dressed all in black with snowflakes settling on the lapels of his coat. His clothes are tailored and well made, and his dark hair and stubble are fancy—hey, maybe he could’ve offered me a million bucks after all, he looks that slick.
The stranger slumps against the door frame, eyes glittering as they stare into mine. The cold’s whistling in past him, cutting straight through my clothes.
