“Well, hello there, pencil pusher,” she said as though we had seen each other only yesterday.

Zélie was a woman I had never quite been able to figure out. I had briefly suspected her of being my father’s lover, but from what I could remember, my mother had always liked her. When I was a student at Saint-Ex, all the students adored her—it was Zélie this, Zélie that, and they treated her as a confidante, a social worker, a voice of conscience. And Zélie used and abused her position. Always “strong when dealing with the weak and weak when dealing with the strong,” she had her favorites, and certain students—usually the more brilliant or the more extroverted—got special treatment. I remembered that she had adored my brother and sister but had never deemed me worthy of her interest. Which suited me fine; the antipathy was mutual.

“What brings you here, Thomas?”

Since the last time we had spoken, I had written a dozen novels that had been translated into twenty languages and sold millions of copies all over the world. One might think that would mean something to a librarian who had watched me grow up. Not that I was necessarily expecting a compliment, but I did think she’d offer a token sign of interest. Which did not come.

“I’d like to borrow a book,” I said.

“I need to check that your library card is still valid,” she said, acting as if she were taking me seriously.

She belabored the joke, pretending to search her computer database for a library card.

“Ah, found it! Exactly as I thought—you still have two overdue books, Distinction, by Pierre Bourdieu, and Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“I am. So, how can I help?”

“I’m looking for Stéphane Pianelli’s book.”

“He had a piece in the Manual of Journalism, published by—”

“Not that one, the one he wrote about the Vinca Rockwell case, Death and the Maiden.”

She keyed the title into the computer. “We don’t have it anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“The book was published in 2002 by a small independent press. The first edition sold out and it’s never been reprinted.”

I stared at her calmly. “How can you not have a copy?”

Zélie turned the computer screen so that I could see it; the book was not listed.

“I don’t understand. Pianelli is an alum. Surely you bought several copies when it was first published?”

She shrugged. “I suppose you think we buy several copies of your novels.”

“Just answer the question, please.”

A little embarrassed, she squirmed in her baggy sweater and took off her glasses. “The administration recently decided to remove Stéphane’s book from the shelves.”

“Why?”

“Because twenty-five years after her disappearance, that girl had become something of a cult figure among certain students at the school.”