“I have no idea,” said Rinn. God, why didn’t they have electronic records? Or a Square machine? Those devices just hooked up to a phone and swipe swipe—you had a business.

Rinn’s mask of polite friendliness fell as she thought about all the hours she wasted calling the credit card companies and taking imprints of credit cards and logging her transactions with a paper receipt. She felt a little bit like crying.

Why was Archer Hunt Junior doing this to them? Making them jump through so many hoops just to do the bare minimum of their job. Hoops that nobody else’d had to jump through for twenty years. Rinn had to talk to someone. Anyone. AJ? Imogen? Maybe Imogen since she dealt with inventory. “And that concludes our tour.”

Maya gave her a strange look. “But. We just did a tour of the YA bookshelf and the cash register. Isn’t there more to the store? Like that whole upstairs section?”

“Nope, that’s it, that’s all that you need to know,” said Rinn, desperate for this torture to be over so that she could go and find Imogen.

“Isn’t there like a famous bank vault filled with crime novels somewhere in here?” Maya turned around both ways, trying to see if she could spy the room over her shoulder.

Of course Maya would pick up on Rinn’s favorite part of the entire store. “You’re right. It’s upstairs, on the left. Absolutely incredible. I swear I’m not just doing this because you’re not Brock, but I have to go do something. Right now.”

Rinn ran off before she could hear Maya’s response.

Imogen was in the cookbook section of the store, reshelving books and talking to that woman with the collection of designer scarves.

Rinn called out to her. “Imogen. I need you for a second.”

Imogen, holding a black book that she was possibly about to shelve, looked half-sick and half-relieved.

It wasn’t Rinn’s primary objective, but she had to ask again, “Are you okay?”

Imogen shook her head, like she was clearing water out of her ears. “Yeah. I’m all right.”

“I’ve got to ask you a question,” said Rinn. “It’s about inventory.”

Imogen’s face scrunched up with concern. “You’re the second person to ask me about that today.”

“Who else asked?”

Imogen shrugged. “Daniella, actually. It was before I’d found out about Eli. I thought she was trying to cover her tracks, but maybe she was just trying to figure out that shipment that turned out to be all those fake shoes that he’d ordered.”

“Did she say she knew anything, anything else, about the inventory?”

Imogen shook her head. “No, where is this going? We all know the store is closing. Why are you tracking down inventory?”

“I’ve just. I’ve got a suspicion here.”