Page 60 of His Talisman

I dropped three, golf-ball sized parcels into the hole. I watched them bounce downwards and vanish rapidly. If they burst too early, I had no way to tell.

The screwed-up paper bundles contained little bomblets of my counterfeit glitter mixed into food coloring inside a piece of plastic wrap from the picnic.

I took off like a startled rabbit on crack, running from the ridge toward the beach, along the path I’d mapped out as my best route. As I ran, I noticed my pink fingers. The dye had leaked everywhere as I handled it. My fingers were an extreme fluoro pink, as if I were a bank robber caught in the blast of exploding money. Maybe it would wash out? What if it didn’t? Would the chef tell on me?

I reached the sand and ran the last distance, wading out and hurling myself into the sea. By the time I reached the board I’d left floating in the rock-strewn area above the tunnel, I was exhausted. For over two minutes, I had to cling to the board regaining my breath.

“A slight miscalculation. Dammit, Charity girl.” I hiccup-giggled at myself.

The stuff might take ages to filter out anyway, if it ever did, if it even could.

When I felt as if I could stay down there long enough, I upended myself and kicked for the tunnel entry. There, I waited and waited. With no diving watch, I had to guess my time underwater. A large school of fish dawdled past, obscuring the hole.

I peered into the tunnel, wishing I at least had a mask. No redness showed in the water. I’d have to surface and come down again. Disappointing, but then this was the least scientific an experiment could be.

I pushed off from the sand with one foot, glimpsed a glint of silver, and ducked back to the hole, mouth trailing a few bubbles.

Yes!A silver tail of torn glitter, and a few other specks of it, were being drawn out by a sudden current.

I headed for the surface then lay draped over the board, rocking in the mild waves. What had I proved? That the hole connected. So it was possible there was an air pocket I could reach but was it certain? No. Absolutely not.

My breath-holding was improving. That part I was sure of. Not enough, however. Not anything like enough. I’d easily drown in there. I needed much more practice.

I drove back to the house and the library tower feeling strangely let down by fate, but unsure why. Tomorrow, Cassius and Doctor Romanus would return. What had I learned? Not much at all. I had names that led nowhere. Unless that finger bone was from some missing lost girl, last seen in the presence of a villainous, machete-wielding doctor, we had nothing. I liked the doctor, despite his sadism. If anything, I liked him because of his sadism and dominant ways. He was an honest sadist, and I applauded those, even when they threatened to use safety pins on my nipples.

The thought of that, of safety pins going there, being threaded in while I watched,hellzit was enough to make my downstairs department all squirmy.Bad girl is me.

But,but-but-but, if he was killing girls…I needed to know this. I was fairly sure I had an allergy to serial killers.

The library and the Inner Sanctum, there, my goals for tonight were settled. At least I couldn’t drown in a library.

What if I were wrong, and I were caught? I was hedging my bets here. If the key access was too easy to solve, I was meant to go there, but if he was a killer…I wasn’t?

My fingers were strangling the wheel and I made myself calm. Do the mantra.

Breathe.One. Two. Three.Imagine you’re on a deserted island… Uh. No.

Crap, crappitty, crap.

Life was serving me up problems that were turning my brain into a crumbled pretzel.

17

CHARITY

I hadn’t come in here without thought. I’d made a plan and carried it through, followed all the steps. Inigo could not possibly be on duty in the library all night, and so my plan began at midnight.

One. Go to the library floor with my phone and wearing those quiet, rubbery shoes made for walking on rocks in the water. Kind of the doctor to leave me them.

Two. Remove the most promising keys from inside the frame.

Three. Try those keys in the door to the Inner Sanctum. I’d done that and key number two with the pretty gold swirly base had worked in the lock. If there were security cams, they were invisible.

Four. Go up the stairs, also quietly.

Five. Look for evidence of nefarious activity.

The stairs continued upward after the sanctum floor but the metal door across that part looked rusted and barely used.

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