The Footprints Upstairs

The sound above them was not loud. That was what made it frightening.

A floorboard gave a soft complaint, followed by the faint scrape of something being moved across the library’s tile. Ava stood at the bottom of the basement stairs, one hand gripping the railing, while Dot Vance killed the bare bulb overhead.

In the dark, the library seemed to draw a breath.

“Could be the furnace,” Dot whispered.

“The furnace doesn’t wear boots.”

Another step crossed the floor above them. Slow. Deliberate. Whoever it was knew the building well enough not to hurry.

Dot reached into her coat and produced a ring of keys. “There’s a back stairway through the old periodicals room.”

“You have a back stairway?”

“I have worked here since before your mother learned to lie convincingly.”

Ava almost asked what that meant, but the question belonged to another night. She followed Dot between the archive boxes, past shelves of discarded encyclopedias and Christmas decorations, until they reached a narrow wooden door concealed behind a stack of folding chairs.

The stairs rose into darkness. At the top, Dot eased the door open by an inch.

The library’s main room lay beneath the streetlamps’ blue glow. Snow pressed against the tall windows. A figure in a dark parka stood behind the circulation desk, leaning over the cardboard box Helen had used to hide her records.

Ava recognized the posture before she recognized the face.

Nick Cordero looked older than she remembered, though not as old as the fifteen years between them. His beard had gone gray along the jaw. He was holding a folder in one hand and staring at the papers inside it as if they had accused him personally.

Dot’s fingers tightened around Ava’s wrist.

Nick turned. His eyes found them in the doorway.

For a moment, nobody moved.

Then he shoved the folder into his coat and ran.

Ava reached the main room first. She vaulted the low gate around the desk, knocking a chair sideways, and chased him toward the front doors. Nick slammed through them into the snow. Cold air struck her face. By the time she reached the sidewalk, he was already cutting between the library and the shuttered hardware store.

His boots left a clear trail in the fresh snow.

Ava followed for half a block, slipping once and catching herself against a brick wall. The trail crossed Main Street, passed the darkened bakery, and vanished where a plow had churned the snow into gray ridges. She stood there, breathing hard, staring at the empty alley.

Behind her, Dot called her name.

“You want to explain why my oldest friend just robbed your mother’s archive?” Ava asked when Dot caught up.

“He didn’t rob it.”

“He took a folder.”

“That’s not the same thing in Frosthaven.”

Ava laughed once, without humor. “It is everywhere else.”

Back inside, they examined the box. Nothing appeared missing at first. Helen’s clippings remained in their careful stacks. Her handwritten notes were still bound with blue thread. The map of Harlow barn lay beneath a newspaper from 2011, its inked lines running from the barn’s foundation to a square marked under the eastern floor.

But one page had been removed from the middle of Helen’s notebook. The torn edge was fresh.

Dot sat heavily in the nearest chair. “Nick was there that night.”

“I know.”

“He told the police he left before Belinda did.”

“He was sixteen.”

“He was old enough to know a lie when he told one.”

Ava unfolded the map. Near the barn’s northern wall, Helen had written a single word: MARLOW.

“Who’s Marlow?” Ava asked.

Dot looked toward the windows. “A name, maybe. Or a road. There used to be a Marlow farm north of the county line.”

“Used to be?”

“The family moved after the factory closed. Sold the place to a church property group.”

“Which church?”

Dot gave her a tired look. “You already know.”

The First Covenant Church stood three blocks away, its steeple lit from below like a finger pointed at heaven. Pastor Tom Greer had been at the visitation that afternoon, speaking softly beside Helen’s casket. Martha Bell had stood with him, one hand resting on his arm.

Ava looked down at the missing page.

“Why would Nick come here tonight?”

“Because he knew Helen was dead.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“It may be the only one you get.”

Ava gathered the papers and tucked them into her satchel. “I’m going to Harlow barn.”

“Tonight?”

“Before whoever sent Nick decides to go there himself.”

Dot rose. “The sheriff will stop you.”

“Then I won’t tell him.”

At the library door, Ava noticed a dark fleck caught in the latch. She pinched it free. It was a strand of red wool, bright against her glove.

For fifteen years, Belinda Bell’s missing red glove had existed only in Helen’s notes and the town’s half-memory. Ava held the fiber beneath the streetlamp.

It was wet with melted snow.

Outside, somewhere beyond the buildings, a truck engine turned over. Ava looked toward the sound and saw headlights swing briefly across the road, then disappear toward the north edge of town.

Toward Harlow barn.

Someone was already there.