It had been disappointing his father.
His father tried again.
“Tell me what you remember.”
Eli’s fingers moved over the bent cover of the book.
“One of your men said the route changed.
He said there was trouble and you wanted me somewhere public.”
“Which man?”
“The one who was talking on the phone.”
The room seemed to narrow.
“He told me to go inside the library and wait near the children’s books.
He said someone would come for me.”
“Did he come inside with you?”
Eli shook his head.
“He watched until I went through the doors.”
“And then?”
“I waited.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
I did.
“At least twenty-three minutes,” I said.
Every face turned toward me.
I pointed toward the wall clock in the entrance hall.
“I began my closing walk at 8:24.
I passed the children’s wing once and didn’t see him.
At 8:29 I heard him behind the shelves.
The library entrance cameras will show when he came in.”
His father studied me.
“You remember the exact time?”
“I close four nights a week.
The wall clock faces the circulation desk.”
He gave a small nod.
For the first time, I could see that my ordinary habits mattered to him.
A librarian’s closing routine.
A university ID.
A security camera nobody important had considered important enough to fear.
Those details had just become evidence.
One of his men approached with a tablet.
“We reached the library manager.
Exterior cameras show the boy entering alone at 8:06.”
His father’s gaze snapped toward Eli.
“And the street?”
“They’re checking.”
The man hesitated.
“What?”
“There was a black SUV across from the library for several minutes.”
The same kind of vehicle that filled his father’s driveway.
I thought about the way Eli had stared through the rain-streaked windows while we talked.
“Did you see that vehicle leave?” I asked.
Eli nodded.
“Before Nora found me.”
His father stood.
Something had been bothering me since the phone call.
“If that man was supposed to bring Eli home,” I said, “why lie and say he was still in the car?”
His father looked at me.
“To buy time.”
“For what?”
