Chapter 3: Curtis Lamb Explains Limestone

The county library opened at nine o'clock on Tuesdays, and it was nine-fourteen when Mara pushed through the glass door and let the cold air-conditioned dark take her. She stood for a moment in the entrance hall, letting her eyes adjust, breathing in the smell of the place — old paper, carpet shampoo, something municipal and permanent underneath both of those things, like the smell of any building that had been making quiet promises to the public for long enough that the promises had soaked into the walls.

Mrs. Dempsey was at the circulation desk. She was always at the circulation desk, and she looked up over her reading glasses at Mara with an expression that was performing normalcy hard enough to crack, which meant she had already heard about Danny, which meant it had been on the morning radio, which meant the machinery had already started turning.

"Mara," she said. Her voice had the careful softness of a woman who has not decided yet whether to offer condolences or pretend nothing had happened. "Are you looking for something specific?"