Alex had his sites going, so far generating mostly useless tips, and between Harper and Brian, they had called every single person they could think of. Nobody knew where Gemma was, and there really wasn’t much more that Harper could do.

So she went to work on Thursday. Brian had been reluctant to leave the house unmanned, but Harper pointed out that if Gemma came home, she probably wouldn’t leave just because nobody was there. Besides that, Harper had her cell phone on her, and Alex was sitting in the house next door, keeping watch for his girlfriend.

“Have you figured out how to kill the sirens yet?” Marcy asked when Harper sat down at the front desk of the library.

“Not yet,” Harper said.

She’d just punched in for the day, and she had to get ready to read a story to toddlers in twenty minutes. Marcy stood behind the desk, organizing the piles of recently returned books onto a cart so it would be easier for her to put them away.

“You could try holy water,” Marcy suggested, and Harper looked back at her.

“What?”

“Holy water,” Marcy repeated. “Although the sirens do love water. But it works on demons and vampires, so it should work on a couple of skinny little sirens.”

“Maybe.” Harper turned back to her desk, flipping through the calendar to see what story was scheduled for today. “But I’ll have to find them first before I try it out.”

“No luck on finding Gemma, then?” Marcy asked.

“Not yet.” Harper sighed.

“That sucks. I was hoping that since you called in yesterday, maybe you had a lead on her.”

“I have to go get ready for story time,” Harper said, eager to change the subject. “Do you know if Where the Wild Things Are is on the shelf?”

“Uh, I think so,” Marcy said. “It should be, at least.”

“Thanks.”

Harper pushed out her chair and hurried over to the children’s corner. There were already a few little kids waiting with their moms or older siblings.

This was part of the summer reading program at the library. Harper or the librarian would read a book aloud to little kids a couple times a month, acting out the voices and engaging the audience as much as possible. Since the librarian was still traveling the world on her honeymoon, that left Harper to do it.

She didn’t mind, though. In fact, she usually enjoyed interacting with the kids. It was fun getting them excited about reading, especially when they were so young. They didn’t care if it was cool or not—they just liked a good story.