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“Well, I gave him camping gear, just in case. But he said he wasn’t planning to rough it. Wherever he was going, he said he’d have access to a computer and the internet that couldn’t be traced back to him.”
Leilah frowned. “Anything else?”
Chelsea tugged on the end of her braid and thought. “He said something like the place he was going was somewhere he used to go when he needed peace and quiet to think.” She made an apologetic face. “Sorry, I know that’s not very helpful.”
But Leilah sat bolt upright. “Peace and quiet?”
“That’s what he said.”
She shot up from the chair and squeezed Chelsea tightly. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
Chelsea hugged her back, wide-eyed. “Uh, you’re welcome?”
“I know where he went,” Leilah explained.
“You do?”
“Yeah. I gotta go. I’ll talk to you later. You’re the best, Chels.”
She raced out of the office. Chelsea hopped down from the desk and ran after her.
“Leilah, no. You can’t go after him. It’s too dangerous.”
Leilah heard her friend’s desperate shouting behind her and picked up her pace. She had to get to D.C. or at least out of Shenandoah Falls before Jake found out what she was up to and tried to stop her.
She tore through the store and burst into the parking lot. She had Alia, her second-favorite Porsche, in gear and was squealing out of the lot by the time Chelsea burst through the shop’s front doors, still yelling for Leilah to stop.
Not a chance,Leilah thought.
She had a fast car and knew how to drive it.
5
The late morningsunlight streaming through the leaded glass windows of the Seamus McGillicuddy Archive and History Center cast a soft glow over the papers spread out in front of Ryan. The wide tree-lined street outside bustled with activity, but he focused solely on the papers spread out before him on the oak carrel’s surface.
He shook his head. He was stymied, unable to see what Cyrus Ahmadi had seen in this information. How had Ahmadi known someone was after Ryan? He flipped through the pages again. He was missing something. He ran his hands through his hair in frustration, removed his glasses, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He’d been staring at the documents for nearly two hours without a break. He was just about to get up and stretch his legs when Maggie O’Donnell popped her head into the otherwise empty room.
“Fancy a spot of tea, Ryan?” the older woman asked in a near whisper despite the fact that he was, as usual, the only visitor to the Seamus McGillicuddy Archive.
“That would be wonderful, Mrs. O’Donnell.”
“How many years have I been telling you to call me Maggie?” She smiled. “I’ll be back in a jiffy with the tea.”
Once upon a time, Ryan had felt guilty for dropping into the archives when he had no interest in or intention of studying the papers of the late seafarer Seamus McGillicuddy. But he soon realized that being the head archivist in charge of the papers of a long-dead shipping magnate was a dull job, verging on boring. So during the years Ryan had spent in DC, he and Mrs. O’Donnell had developed a friendship. Whenever he needed quiet to work without interruption or to think through a thorny problem, he’d show up at the archives. After a few hours of undisturbed concentration, he’d have tea with the lonely archivist and listen to the latest news about her grandkids, the highlights from her vacations with her husband, and her book recommendations. It was a mutually beneficial relationship.
He gathered the printouts and papers into a neat stack and turned them face down as her footsteps sounded in the hall outside the door. He carried over the chair from the next carrel. A moment later, she returned bearing a tray that held a teapot, two mugs, and an assortment of cookies.
She sat down, lifted the teapot, and poured. “It’s lovely to see you, Ryan. It’s been too long. So, tell me, are you in town for your new job?”
“More of a personal project,” he hedged. The less Maggie O’Donnell knew about the situation, the safer she’d be.
“Oh, I see. Well, whatever the reason, I’m glad you stopped in to visit.”
“How’s Timothy?”
She filled him in on her husband’s gardening endeavors and their upcoming trip to Ireland and Scotland for their fiftieth anniversary. Then she said, “What about you? Is there a young lady in the picture?”
He bit back a laugh. Maggie worried more about his love life or lack thereof than his actual mother had when she’d been alive.
