Tess went back to the library for an evening shift because a colleague's child was ill and the room was already booked for a class on repairing clothes. She liked the smell of the building after closing time, when the public doors were locked and the lights in the reading room stayed on a few minutes longer than necessary. The place was hers in a way June's house never had been. It belonged to the city, which meant Tess could be ordinary there.
Dev knocked on the door while she was stacking chairs. He had a phone in his hand. “There's a man on the desk line asking for you. He says it's about a woman called Alma.”
The chair scraped the floor. “Did you tell him I'm here?”
“I said I would see if you could take the call. I didn't tell him where you were. He knew the event tomorrow. Said he'd seen the listing.” Dev watched her. “Should I put him through?”
“What's his name?”
“He said Owen Price.”
Tess had seen a man called Owen press Nell outside the hotel. She had not seen him with Alma. The name did not make him less frightening for having a face she could imagine. “I'll take it at this desk,” she said. “Stay nearby, please.”
Dev set the receiver down and went to the adjoining room. Tess took the line. “This is Tess.”
“Owen. You spoke to Nell today.”
“I did.”
“She said I should check with you about Alma.”
Tess held the receiver away for an instant. A class member in the next room laughed at something, the sound warm and unguarded. Nell had gone from the bakery to the channel Owen knew. Tess did not know exactly what she'd said. Owen's confidence told her enough to be careful with every answer.
“Alma has asked me to arrange nothing for you,” she said.
“That's not what I'm asking. Will you collect her after the Friday shift or will somebody from June's group do it?”
“No one is collecting Alma for a move. She has said she isn't moving.”
Owen gave a soft exhale. “You may want me to believe that, Tess. June left you the case. I know your sister handled cars. You can't expect me to miss the pattern.”
“You called my work to ask where Alma will be. I'm not discussing her schedule with you.”
“I know where she works.” He said it without raising his voice. “I'm asking if you're making things worse by hiding her.”
Tess heard the shape of Nell's lie. A false departure after a shift, with Tess given a role. She had seen the list and knew June had meant to ask her. Owen could point to the true parts of a plan that had been refused and make her refusal sound like proof she was keeping it. “There is no plan,” she said. “Do not call this number again about Alma.”
“You'll be here tomorrow. Nell said—”
Tess ended the call before he could finish. Dev appeared in the doorway, not pretending he hadn't heard her half. He asked whether she wanted the call recorded in the desk log. Tess said yes, and gave only the contact, not Alma's work details. Dev wrote the time.
“Do you want me to take you home?” he asked.
“Not yet. I need to tell the other staff what matters before someone else answers him.”
She went to the staff room with Dev. The evening supervisor, Leena, was cleaning a mug. Tess told them Owen had called for her and might come to Friday's public event. She did not ask them to keep the event open, and she did not tell them to close it. She wanted to speak to the daytime team in the morning. Tonight she asked only that they not give him Tess's movements or any details about Alma. Leena said they would note the request with the shift handover and call Tess if he rang again.
“He knows the event is public,” Dev said.
“Yes. It was public before he asked.”
Tess felt ashamed of how fiercely she wanted the event to remain hers, even while she pictured him in the room. She told herself that a public calendar was not a personal failure. Jo had mentioned the event before she recognized Nell on the phone; Nell had now made it useful to Owen.
Tess called Ren from the office. He said he would tell Alma that Owen had named a false Friday pickup and had contacted Tess at work. Tess made him repeat exactly what he would say, then heard how tired he sounded.
“I don't need to approve every word,” she said.
“I know. You asked me to repeat it.”
“June made a plan with my name in it. I'm trying to keep this one from happening behind Alma.”
“That part is fair,” Ren said. “Alma will decide what she does with it.”
Mara answered on the second ring. She was outside, judging by the traffic behind her voice. Tess told her Owen had called and named a Friday collection. “Nell told him some version of June's old plan,” Tess said. “I can't prove the words, but he knows the case, my event, and that you handled cars.”
Mara was silent. “Did he threaten you?”
“He said I was hiding Alma. It was a question that wanted an answer he could use.”
“Where are you now?”
“At work, with people. I'm going home in a minute.”
“Call me when you get there.”
Tess heard the old arrangement in the request and might have refused it on another day. “All right,” she said. “And don't ask Nell for an explanation without telling me.”
Mara's pause was brief but long enough to register. “I heard you.”
After closing, Dev walked with Tess to the bus stop. He talked about the weather until the bus came. He told her his child's school had sent a drawing of the library building, every window painted blue. Tess could see those windows from the stop. They looked less like a fortress than they had before the call. They were simply lit, and there were people inside who knew her name for reasons she had chosen.