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Back The Silence of the Library Save as PDF
Chapters (50)
  1. COVER
  2. PRAISE FOR TITLES BY MIRANDA JAMES
  3. ALSO BY MIRANDA JAMES
  4. TITLE PAGE
  5. COPYRIGHT
  6. DEDICATION
  7. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  8. ONE
  9. TWO
  10. THREE
  11. FOUR
  12. FIVE
  13. SIX
  14. SEVEN
  15. EIGHT
  16. NINE
  17. TEN
  18. ELEVEN
  19. TWELVE
  20. THIRTEEN
  21. FOURTEEN
  22. FIFTEEN
  23. SIXTEEN
  24. SEVENTEEN
  25. EIGHTEEN
  26. NINETEEN
  27. TWENTY
  28. TWENTY-ONE
  29. TWENTY-TWO
  30. TWENTY-THREE
  31. TWENTY-FOUR
  32. TWENTY-FIVE
  33. TWENTY-SIX
  34. TWENTY-SEVEN
  35. TWENTY-EIGHT
  36. TWENTY-NINE
  37. THIRTY
  38. THIRTY-ONE
  39. THIRTY-TWO
  40. THIRTY-THREE
  41. THIRTY-FOUR
  42. THIRTY-FIVE
  43. THIRTY-SIX
  44. THIRTY-SEVEN
  45. THIRTY-EIGHT
  46. THIRTY-NINE
  47. FORTY
  48. AFTERWORD
  49. LETTER TO THE READER
  50. SPECIAL EXCERPT FROM BLESS HER DEAD LITTLE HEART

“And to make sure I didn’t take anything myself.” Melba smiled. “Far as I could tell, none of Carrie’s jewelry or valuables was missing. She didn’t believe in having a lot of knickknacks around anyway, and that made things a lot easier. She didn’t have much jewelry that was valuable, either, and the two pieces she did have are probably in her safety-deposit box in the bank.”

“Then I suppose you can rule out robbery as a motive,” I said to Kanesha.

“There was something missing,” Melba said before Kanesha could respond to my statement. “I doubt anybody else would consider it valuable, but I know to Carrie it surely was.”

Was it one of her books? I wondered.

“What was it then?” Kanesha asked.

“I thought I better have a look through Carrie’s files,” Melba said. “I wasn’t as interested in those kids’ books as she was, even though I read some of them when I was a kid myself. But I knew how important all that stuff was to Carrie. Anyway, I had heard her talk often enough about that Mrs. Cartwright. Carrie sure did an awful lot of research on that woman.” She paused to sip at her coffee and stare into space for a moment.

Sometimes Melba took a long time to get to the point, and this was obviously going to be one of those times. I was ready to poke her, and I’m sure Kanesha felt as impatient as I did, waiting for Melba to say what she had to say. I suspected she did it on purpose, but she would never admit it.

“Does that mean some of Mrs. Taylor’s files are missing?” Kanesha asked, a slight edge to her tone.

Melba nodded. “Yes, ma’am, they sure are. She had just about a whole file drawer on Mrs. Cartwright. I should know, because she showed it to me often enough.” There was a catch in her voice, and for a moment I thought she might break down. Funny how those little quirks of a friend’s personality could hit you when they were gone, things that annoyed you when they were alive, but now didn’t seem all that bad. I knew how Melba probably felt right then.

Kanesha must have sensed it, too, because she didn’t press Melba to continue.

After a heavy sigh and another sip of coffee, Melba went on. “When I checked that drawer, it was about one-third empty. There was no sign of that stuff anywhere else in the house, so whoever killed her took it.”

THIRTY

“Was there something really valuable in those files?” Kanesha asked.