Page 28 of Keeping Secrets

"Great. I hope you love them."

"I’m really excited. They look right up my alley, thank you."

"You know," Ali said to both of them, glancing up from her computer, "we have a book club here every Thursday night. We read a lot of modern literary fiction, a new book every week."

"That many?" the patron said.

"Isn’t it usually a book a month?" Keely asked.

"Yep." Ali grinned. "This is a next-level book club. You can always skip a week if you don’t have time, but yeah, we read a book a week. It’s awesome."

"What’s this week’s book?" the girl on the other side of the counter asked.

"There’s a list up there on the bulletin board," Ali said, pointing to the corkboard mounted near the front door. "So you can see which books are coming up and decide which weeks you might like to come to."

"That’s so cool."

"Maybe I’ll see you there," Keely said as she scanned first the library card and then the books. "Either way, I’d love to hear what you think of these."

"I’ll report back." The girl gave them a playful salute and marched off with the books in her arms.

"I love this job," Ali said with a sigh.

The day ended with more tedious work, shelving and dusting and sweeping. Still, it was better than any job Keely had worked so far in her life. She was grateful for the easy camaraderie she already felt with both the library staff and its patrons.

As she went through the rote tasks of cleaning the library before closing, her mind drifted to that prep work that she needed to do when she got home. In addition to the ice cream cakes, she had agreed to make a few different kinds of appetizers for the big event. She would have plenty of time the day of to make everything before the fundraiser that evening, but she knew that she would sleep better that night if she got most of the prep work done in advance. That way, if something went wrong, she wouldn’t be down to the last second on time.

She had never cooked or baked for an event of this size, and she didn’t want to fail her new friends. In some ways, it felt like her initiation not only into Pelican Point but into the world of being a full-fledged adult. She was determined to get things right.

CHAPTER 9

Travis was a mess of nerves. It felt like his blood was trying to vibrate through his skin. He’d started the day with coffee to make up for a sleepless night, which only caused his anxiety to ratchet up quicker than usual. And given the degree of his anxiety ever since the incident, that was no small thing.

He had made it through his first trivia night without making a complete mess of things, and Scot was going to see a doctor in a few days. In every way that mattered, his life was going well.

Everything except for the constantly looming threat of arrest and incarceration.

He was supposed to meet Rachel today. And to add one anxiety to another, today was also the Community Property Renovations fundraiser.

He had promised Nat that he would go, and a part of him wanted to make an appearance, to make believe that he still had the idyllic Pelican Point life that he once had.

Another part of him said that he had fulfilled his obligation by simply purchasing a ticket, and it would be better to steer clear. He didn’t want to ruin things for Keely or for their friends by bringing his weird, anxious energy into what was both a celebration and a concerted effort to attract new donors to a local charity.

More and more lately, he felt at risk of ruining anything and anyone that he interacted with. He worried constantly about how Keely would react if she found out that he had killed her ex-boyfriend, how Scot would cope if he were sent to jail, what his friends thought of this sudden shift in his personality…

Not that any of his so-called friends had asked him about this new omnipresent anxiety that tainted his every interaction. They were all busy with their own lives. They had jobs and charitable works and significant others.

He was a side character. An afterthought.

And it was better that way. That way, if his crimes did catch up with him, it wouldn’t create a terrible hole in anyone’s life. His friends would move on unscathed, Scot would hire someone (or several someones) to replace him, and Pelican Point would be fundamentally unchanged.

Sometimes he considered drastic measures to put an end to his constant worry.

He could turn himself in, putting his trust in the justice system, and plead self-defense. But even if it worked, he’d be putting himself at the mercy of the man who’d met up with Adam that night.

Better to fly to Thailand, get a job bartending at a hostel in paradise somewhere, start over.

He shook his head and re-focused. The combination of exhaustion and caffeine was scrambling his thoughts. He was working on yet another new task that Scot had transferred into his care, overseeing the hours and paychecks for each employee, and he kept doing each bit of math three times over to make sure that he didn’t make a mistake.