Scarlett pushed through the doors into the back offices of the library. Normally, she’d respect the quiet space, but right now she wanted to scream like a banshee—whatever it took to make sure she was heard.
Why would Mrs. Caputo have told everyone she quit? It just didn’t make any sense.
The librarian’s door was firmly closed, but Scarlett stormed straight through without knocking. If the old woman had been spreading rumors—or worse—than she didn’t deserve this polite precaution from Scarlett.
“Scarlett, what are you doing here?” Mrs. Caputo asked from her place behind the desk without a single trace of guilt on her withered face.
“What are you doing while I’m not here?” Scarlett demanded, noticing now a third person sat in the office with them. She seemed familiar, though Scarlett couldn’t quite place her.
“Ms. Cole, have a seat,” the woman said as she rose and offered up her own chair.
Scarlett recoiled from the woman as she reached her hand toward her in greeting. “Who are you, and how do you know me?”
Mrs. Caputo cleared her throat and stated, “This is Vanessa Price. She’s head of the budgetary committee.”
Vanessa Price, of course. That’s where Scarlett had seen her overdone, fake mask of a face—all over the sides of buses and newspaper ads. She’d only been elected fairly recently, but was apparently already very concerned with the goings-on at the library.
Scarlett gave a tight nod toward the politician, then turned back to her former supervisor and demanded an answer to her original inquiry. “Why would JoAnn Marples say that I quit?”
Mrs. Caputo mumbled something incoherent and shifted her gaze toward Mrs. Price, who wasted no time in providing an answer of her own.
“Because, my dear, you did.”
Oh, Scarlett was growing to hate this woman more by the second. Thankfully, she had voted for the other guy. “What? That’s ridiculous! I never—”
“You never left your job without first obtaining the proper clearance?” Vanessa Price lowered herself to the desk and took a seat on the polished mahogany as if this was just some quaint conversation over morning tea.
At least Scarlett was taller than the other two women now. That gave her a little more confidence as she shouted, “But she gave me clearance! It was her idea!” She jabbed an angry finger at Mrs. Caputo, who simply frowned and looked to Mrs. Price.
“Now, now. We both know that she doesn’t have that kind of authority. After all, this is a government-funded entity.”
“But I didn’t quit! I’m coming back in April. After the—”
“After the race?” The politician gave a phony chuckle. “More than one full year after you last reported to work? Nobody gets year-long sabbaticals, dear. Not even me.”
“Okay then,” Scarlett said, finally taking a seat. “I guess I’m coming back now.”
It was now that Mrs. Caputo found her voice again, only to say, “Actually, you’ve already been fired for failure to report to work. We tried sending a notice, but it seems we didn’t have your correct forwarding address.”
“This is insane! You could have just called me. My cell number’s the same. And I never would have left, if I didn’t think— if she hadn’t—Ugh!”
Vanessa Price nodded as she listened and gave Scarlett a pitying look. “I understand that you’re frustrated, but it’s really for the best. We’ve had to scale the budget way back this year. Even poor Mrs. Caputo had to delay her retirement. We couldn’t support the full staff’s salaries anyway.”
This was going from bad to worse in a hurry. Would Scarlett go to jail if she decked a politician in the face? Would it be worth it, anyway?
“What budget cuts are you talking about? The library is a pillar of the community. No one would dare steal money from it, especially not some newbie politician who needs to keep her ratings up if she wants to see another term.”
“Yes, well…” Vanessa’s expression turned cold. “My constituents are quite happy with the new tourism initiative, regardless of what you may think.”
“Tourism? You are seriously putting tourism over education? Over knowledge?” This was a bad dream. It had to be. Who would come after the library? Who would let them?
Mrs. Price was quick with an answer. “Not just me, the full board. We’ve had quite the opportunity with this whole Billionaire Bucket List story. It’s like a perfectly packaged gift that fell right into our laps. The whole country has their eyes on Anchorage now. We’d be fools not to grab onto that brass ring while it presented itself.”
“Billionaire…?” Her words trailed off. She knew exactly who and what was meant.
“Yes, Henry Mitchell, III. You know him, don’t you? After all, he’s your competitor.”
“I…”
Mrs. Caputo rose from her chair and motioned toward the still open door. “You’re about done here, don’t you think, Scarlett?”
Scarlett looked from her former supervisor to her local congresswoman. Both wore hideous jack-o-lantern smiles.
“Yes, I think Mrs. Caputo has a point here,” Vanessa said, now also motioning toward the door. “After all, it was you who decided to leave a perfectly stable government job in order to chase dogs around in the snow.”
Scarlett couldn’t fight back the burning tears that formed in her eyes. She didn’t even care about keeping up appearances anymore. This hurt—deeply. “How could you talk about it like that? You act like you want what’s best for this city, and then you make fun of one of our greatest pastimes?”
Vanessa smirked and rolled her eyes. “Stop being so dramatic. I’m only teasing.”
“You’ll never get away with this. Too many people care about the library to see you cut it apart for profit, and if nobody else will fight this, I will,” she vowed.
“Okay, Scooby Doo. Go drive off in your little Mystery Machine now and stop meddling. The elected officials have already decided what’s best for this city, and it no longer has anything to do with you.”
“We’ll see about that,” Scarlett said before slamming the door behind her.