Beautiful Villain

“Yeah,” Ted continues. “Plus, after I married Marcy, he felt like he could trust me more.”

“You dad

didn’t trust you before you got married?”

That seems…weird.

I don’t consider myself to be any sort of relationship expert, but the idea that someone wouldn’t trust you until you were married seemed really bizarre.

Suddenly, the bells above the library door jingle and a woman walks in. I know exactly who she is even though I doubt she knows my name: Marcy, Ted’s beautiful wife. She’s tall and lanky with a long coat that stretches down to her ankles. That’s saying something considering how tall and lovely she is. She has high heels on and with the way she’s dressed, she’s almost as tall as Ted.

Almost.

“Darling, there you are,” she says. “What’s the hold-up?”

“I’m waiting for an Internet password,” he says, looking over at me.

Funny.

This is the first I’m hearing him ask for one.

I wonder what a guy like Ted needs to use public Internet for, but whatever.

“Do you think you could speed things up?” Marcy asks me. She presses her bright red lips together. The color doesn’t look bad, but I kind of wish it did. “We’re in a little bit of a hurry.”

“Of course,” I say. I generate a password on the computer, write it down for Ted, and hand it over. “This gives you 55 minutes of computer time. If you need more, please let me know.”

“Thanks,” Ted says, and turns to go sit down at one of the computers. I expect Marcy to go with him, but she stops and turns to me first.

“Do I know you from somewhere?”

“Yeah, here,” I say.

“No, that’s not it,” she reaches for one of her bright pink hoop earrings and strokes it with her fingers. I don’t know how anyone could wear hoops that big. They’re practically big enough to be bracelets, but that’s always been Marcy’s style. Ever since we were in high school, she’s loved things that were loud and beautiful, and earrings have always been something she’s been known for.

I shrug noncommittally and pointedly ignore her as I start working on something on the computer. Apparently, Marcy doesn’t like this, though, because she frowns and starts talking again.

“Pity this place is so small,” she says, looking around. “It’s kind of dingy, too.”

I cringe, but don’t react. I know that’s what she’s going for. Marcy has always been a little bit of a bully. She was a brat in high school and she’s kind of a brat now. Oh, she was never really one of the popular girls. It was more like she was always on the edge of being popular. She did her best, but nobody really liked her all that much. I’m sure she thinks it was because people were just bullying her, but the truth is that Marcy has always had a bit of a mean streak.

Instead of speaking, I type something on the computer and then look up at her.

“Excuse me, I need to make a phone call,” I say. I lift the receiver to the phone and dial up another library. Instantly, the phone starts to ring, and when one of the librarians picks up, I start talking. “Hello! This is Finley from the Kurlin City Library.”

Marcy’s eyes practically glaze over and she starts walking away. The real question is how long can I keep the other librarian talking without having a valid reason for the call? That’s what I want to know.

“I was wondering if you happen to have a copy of the new Devon Taylor book? The one about the robots? You do?”

Somehow, I bluff my way through a conversation and end up asking for recommendations for some of my non-existent patrons. By the time I hang up the phone five minutes later, both Ted and Marcy are gone, and relief washes over me.

What the hell was with them?

Why did they come into the library?

It’s then that I notice Ted didn’t sign out of his computer. The way the library desktops are designed is that when you log off of a desktop, it clears your browser history and the Internet cache. Since he didn’t log off, I can see exactly what he was looking up.

Maybe it’s wrong to spy, but curiosity gets the best of me and I go over to the computer and pull up the Chrome browser. I look at the history and when I see what he was looking at, I suddenly feel sick.