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His eyes were focused on me, not glancing around, not seeking someone more interesting. I enjoyed the attention.Although in the back of my mind I was aware of Connor, moving easily through the room, exchanging greetings with everyone. “Josie tells me you’re from Boston. What brings you our way?”
    I told Butch about vacationing on the Outer Banks when I was a kid. How much I’d always loved it. I said I was bored with my job at the Harvard Library and wanted to make a change. I’d come here to get away, to spend time with my favorite aunt and uncle in my favorite place in all the world. To have space and time and the support to make some decisions about the direction I wanted my life to take.
    I didn’t think this was the time or the place to go into the
real
reason I’d fled Massachusetts so abruptly.
    The day after I arrived, I told Butch, Aunt Ellen had invited her best and oldest friend to tea, knowing full well that Bertie had long been searching for an assistant librarian for the Lighthouse Library. Not even realizing I was undergoing a job interview, by the time tea ended, I had an offer of employment. Just for the summer, to begin. If it worked out, it could become permanent.
    Only, I hastened to add, because of my qualifications and experience. I didn’t mention how Bertie had touched my hand when she left and said that she didn’t really give a fig for my master’s degree. It was the passion for books and the obvious joy I found in reading that I expressed with every word I spoke that convinced her I’d be perfect for the Lighthouse Library. And that the Lighthouse Library would be perfect for me.
    “Speaking of which,” I said. “Bertie was planningsome sort of big announcement at eight. It’s well past that now, isn’t it?”
    Butch glanced around the room. He was tall enough that he could see over everyone’s heads. “I don’t see her. Maybe she’s getting ready.”
    At that very moment a piercing yell filled the room. Then came a solid thud on the floor over our heads. People stopped talking, looked up, faces full of confusion.
    The thud was followed by a moment of silence, broken only by Charles screaming to be released, the soft music, and the sound of wind rattling the windows and pushing against the solid, round walls of the lighthouse.
    After a moment’s hesitation, Mrs. Peterson’s voice rang throughout the room. “Primrose, on the other hand, is such an advanced reader that I fear the school library simply can’t rise to her level. Of course, we’d love to send her to a
better
school, but until that happens, Ronald honey, I’m hoping you . . .”
    Then we heard a piercing scream and a cry of “He’s dead!”

Chapter 3
    W e all stood rooted to our spots, mouths open in surprise and shock, looking at one another as though waiting for someone to tell us what was going on.
    Everyone except for Butch. He was halfway across the room, sprinting for the back stairs, before I’d had time to close my mouth.
    Without conscious thought, I ran after him. My first thought had been for
Sense and Sensibility
,
Emma
,
Pride and Prejudice
, and Jane Austen’s equally wonderful but lesser-known books. Had someone slipped into the party in an attempt to steal them? Were they now being carried through the damp mist by a scoundrel with no knowledge of the proper care of old papers and nineteenth-century binding?
    The scream had sounded like a woman’s, and I’d noticed that Bertie was no longer attempting to calm herself behind Toni Morrison’s works. Was she heroically fighting off the thief?
    As I ran, I glanced around me. Josie was frozen in the act of arranging the few remaining cookies andsquares on the buffet table. Aunt Ellen held a tray of dirty plates and glasses. People began murmuring questions to each other.
    Connor fell into step behind me. “Where does that staircase lead?”
    “The private collection.”
    Ronald abandoned Mrs. Peterson in midsentence. He strode into the