Trudy's Diary Read online

  She was a bit relieved to find she wasn’t alone--she didn’t like to be the only one in the office, especially on the weekend, because the entire building was practically deserted. The only people around were the facilities people who worked in the building lobby and in the basement offices. Having watched one too many horror movies as a teenager, Daisy harbored a fear of the dark and of being alone in an otherwise empty space. She hurried toward her office and closed the door behind her.

  A moment later she had the flash drive in her hand. Slipping it into her pocket, she opened her office door and stepped into the hallway just as a shuffling noise came from the direction of Mark John’s office. Or perhaps it was the other direction, from Jude’s office. Daisy couldn’t tell. She glanced over her shoulder and walked straight into the water cooler in the hallway. It teetered in its base, making loud gurgling noises as large bubbles rose to the surface of the water inside. She reached for the water container to steady it, then heard a voice behind her.

  “Hello, Daisy.” She jumped in surprise, not recognizing the voice immediately, and whirled around to see Brian standing in the hallway outside Mark John’s office.

  “Brian! What are you doing here?” she asked breathlessly, tapping the cooler to make sure it was in place.

  “I was just leaving some books for Mark John in his office.”

  “How did you get in?” Daisy asked. She had recovered from her surprise quickly, but was curious about Brian’s unexpected appearance.

  “One of the guys who works in the lobby let me in. He’s seen me here plenty of times. He must think I work here,” Brian said with a chuckle.

  “Heh,” Daisy gave a half-hearted chuckle. “On Monday I’ll let Mark John know you were here.”

  “Oh, no need for that,” Brian replied. “I just texted him. He knows I’m here.”

  Daisy nodded and glanced toward the door. “Well, I’ve got to go. I have a load of laundry that has to go in the dryer. See you later, Brian.”

  “I’ll go with you. I mean, down in the elevator. Not back to your apartment,” he said with a laugh. Daisy smiled thinly and followed him to the front door of the suite. She trusted Brian. Didn’t she? She didn’t know him well, but her interactions with him had been harmless and his geeky reputation in the office was legendary. He is just a sweet man who misses his sister and wants to connect with his brother-in-law, Daisy thought to herself. But still, she felt better walking behind him so she could see him. He stepped out into the elevator bank and she locked the Global Human Rights door behind her, rattling the door handle to make sure it was locked. She hoped Brian was catching on to her subtle hint—that the employees of GHR cared about their security and didn’t want guests entering uninvited when the office was closed.

  They stepped into the elevator. Daisy inched toward the back corner while Brian pushed the button for the lobby. Thankfully, only the service elevators in the rear of the building weren’t monitored via video feed, so Daisy wasn’t really worried about being in one of the main elevators with Brian. The guards in the lobby could see her, so that eased her anxiety. She considered asking Brian about the chain of ownership of Trudy’s diary, but seeing him in the office had so unnerved her that she decided not to. She just wanted to get off the elevator. She glanced at Brian, who happened to look at her at the same moment. He smiled at her and whistled a nameless tune through his teeth as they descended. She was relieved when the elevator reached the main floor and dinged softly as the doors slid open. She made a motion with her hand inviting Brian to exit the elevator ahead of her, but he responded saying “Ladies first.”

  She nodded and stepped out in front of him, then pretended she was searching for something in her coat pocket while she waited for him to leave the building. She briefly considered speaking to the doorman about Brian and asking that he not be let in again while the office was closed, but then she reconsidered. If he really did have Mark John’s permission to be in the office on the weekend, it would be inappropriate of her to ask that he be barred from entering.

  Brian left the building and Daisy watched him turn left and disappear into a coffee shop up the street. She was headed in that direction, too, but something told her to go the other way. She headed to the right once she was outside the building and walked around the block. When she had walked most of the way around the block and returned to K Street, she was dismayed, but not really surprised, to see Brian standing across the street leaning against the front window of the coffee shop, his arms folded in front of him. Too late, she realized he had seen her. She picked up her pace in the direction of her apartment, trying to be discreet as she checked over her shoulder to see if he had followed her.

  He hadn’t. He was watching her walk away, but he stayed where he was in front of the shop. Daisy shuddered. Why does he make me uncomfortable all of a sudden? she wondered. He’s a nice person. A harmless history buff.

  She slowed her pace as she began to relax, scolding herself for being so timid. Back at home, she finished the laundry, fixed herself a quick lunch, and decided she deserved a reward for all she had accomplished during the morning. She sat down on the couch and opened Trudy’s diary.

  Chapter 24

  November 5, 1865- Sunday

  Mama invited Thomas and the children for supper again after church today. I noticed Thomas watching me as Mama and I prepared the food. His gaze unsettled me so, I suppose because there are rarely men in our house, except for family.

  They stayed longer than they have the other times they have come for a meal. Margaret and I watched Lady and Jesse play in the yard while Mama read the Bible to the boys inside the house and Papa talked to Thomas. I think they share many conversations about farming, but I cannot be sure because I am not invited to participate.

  It was late in the afternoon when Thomas and the children left. They live in town right now, while Thomas is building a small house on a homestead about five miles from here. I would like to see the house when it is finished. I would think it will take Thomas a long time to build it himself. When Papa built our house my uncles and brothers helped. It is a small house and it was built quickly. With winter coming, I don’t know if Thomas will be able to finish the house before the snow begins to fall. It will be starting soon.

  Just before he left, Thomas asked me if I would like to accompany him and the children to a gathering at the church next Saturday afternoon. Papa and Mama had both given their consent already, so I told him I would like to go with him. I am very much looking forward to our outing.

  * * *

  T

  Chapter 25

  Daisy smiled as she finished the entry in Trudy’s diary. She was enormously pleased that a romance seemed to be budding between Trudy and Thomas and she couldn’t wait to read the next entry. She resisted the urge to flip to the back of the diary to see how it ended. It was just like reading a novel.

  While she worked that afternoon on the research materials she had obtained from the flash drive, the thought of seeing Brian at the office was never far from her mind. Again she debated with herself whether to call Mark John and tell him about the incident, but she decided not to call. After all, Brian and Mark John were family and it was not Daisy’s place to be tattling on Brian.

  Her mind wandered while she was trying to work. Why had Brian been waiting across the street from the office, watching her? Why did he watch her as she walked away from the building? Why didn’t he follow her if he was so interested in her and where she was going?

  This is silly, she chided herself. He was probably there getting a cup of coffee and he simply happened to see me walking around the block. Daisy shook her head as if to rid herself of such thoughts and continued working.

  The weekend sped by with all the housework and writing Daisy had to do. On Monday morning she was in the office, putting the finishing touches on the story she had been working on. She waited until Jude was in her office with the door closed before going into Mark John’s office to tell him of her prog
ress on the women’s history.

  She gave a peremptory knock on his office door. “Mark John, I just wanted to let you know how my research is coming along,” she said, ducking her head into his office.

  “Good,” he said, looking up from his computer. “Sit and we’ll talk.”

  She sat down in the chair opposite him and told him what direction she was planning to take for the articles on women’s history. She wanted to start with American women, as Mark John had requested, then branch out to other regions and cultures for comparison. Mark John had a list of questions that he wanted answered in her articles and it was clear she would need to do far more research.

  She told him she’d go back to the Library of Congress to take a look at their collection of old diaries, then she stood up to leave. Keeping her voice light, she said casually, “I was surprised to see Brian in here over the weekend.”

  “Brian was here?” Mark John’s head snapped up. “What was he doing?”

  Daisy shrugged. “Just dropping off some things for you to see, I guess. He said he had texted you about it.”

  “He probably thought he did,” Mark John said. “He can be a little absent-minded.” He paused. “I didn’t see anything on the conference table that he might have dropped off. Where did he leave it?”

  “I don’t know. I assumed he left it in here. He was in here when I got here.”

  Where were the books Brian had dropped off, if they weren’t in Mark John’s office?

  “What the hell did he come into my office for?” he thundered, then smacked his hand on the top of his desk. “I’ve told him if he comes into the office on the weekends to drop things off, just leave them on the table in the conference room,” he fumed. “I’ll have to remind him. My office is not public property.”

  Though his reaction was a little over the top, Daisy understood how Mark John felt. It would alarm her if she knew someone had been in her office while no one else was around. She hesitated a moment before leaving Mark John’s office, wondering if she should tell him about seeing Brian across the street several minutes after they left the building. She decided against it and returned to her office, then left for the Library of Congress a little while later.

  After doing some preliminary research in the Main Reading Room, Daisy was excited to find more diaries to read in the Rare Book reading room. The librarian brought one diary at a time so Daisy could read and take notes. The old leather-bound volumes were beautiful objects in their own right--the handwriting was old and faded, the script fancy and slanted, the animal hide covers supple and soft. No one wrote like that anymore—cursive was barely even taught in schools nowadays. Daisy was dismayed by the thought that diaries like the ones she had the privilege of reading were no longer being written. All the more reason to take care of the ones we have and to let the world know what these women from other centuries had to say about their own lives.

  The research was going well and Daisy was almost ready to start putting ideas down in outline form. She made her way back to the Main Reading Room and opened her laptop at one of the wooden desks. She was just opening a blank document to start typing when something made her look up at the gallery above, to the Plexiglass-walled alcove where tourists could gaze into the Main Reading Room without disturbing the researchers below. She was shocked by what she saw.

  Mark John was standing in the gallery with the rest of the tourists, watching Daisy work. She held his gaze for a moment, then whipped out her cell phone and texted him.

  What are you doing up there?

  She looked up again and watched as Mark John realized he had a text and pulled his phone from his pocket.

  I was in the neighborhood for a meeting and thought I’d check in.

  She grimaced. You could have just texted me.

  Mark John replied, I know, but I haven’t been to this library in a while and I wanted to have a look.

  Daisy didn’t believe him. Are you sure you weren’t just checking up on me?

  Of course.

  With that, Mark John frowned at her and stepped aside, out of her sight, so that other people could crowd into the alcove to get a look at the world-famous reading room. She put her phone down and tried to concentrate on the outline in front of her, but she found that her fingers wouldn’t type. She was convinced Mark John had come to the library specifically to check up on her. This was becoming a worrisome habit of his, and one she found invasive and upsetting. She was a professional and intended to be treated as such. She didn’t need him babysitting her—she was capable of doing her job well without supervision. She wondered briefly if he behaved the same way with Jude. It would be hard to tell, because Jude was normally in the office and he could easily check up on her in the normal course of his day. Daisy vowed to discuss the issue with him first thing the next morning.

  But the next morning Mark John wasn’t in the office. Jude was perturbed, asking the receptionist at least every fifteen minutes if she had heard from him. She tried calling his cell, his house, and even Brian, to no avail. He finally came into the office around noon, looking bedraggled and wan. Daisy was in her office when he arrived, but she knew he was there because of the commotion Jude caused over his appearance.

  “Mark John! Are you all right? What on earth happened to you? We’ve been so worried.”

  Daisy rolled her eyes. She hadn’t been at all worried about Mark John and felt Jude’s concern was overblown. Mark John passed her office followed closely by Jude, and they both ignored Daisy. When they were in his office they shut the door and though Daisy strained her ears to hear what they were talking about, she couldn’t hear anything. She had an idea that Mark John was listening to a litany of complaints from Jude about his unexcused absence from her sight.

  They were holed up in his office for almost an hour. When Jude emerged, she heaved a deep breath and stalked past Daisy’s office without a word. Daisy didn’t know what was going on with Mark John, but she still intended to speak to him about his suspicious appearance yesterday at the Library of Congress. She knocked on his office door.

  “Mark John, I’d like to speak to you if you have a minute,” she said when he called for her to come in.

  “What is it, Daisy?” he asked, running both hands over his face.

  “If you’d rather wait…” she offered, feeling suddenly that he might actually be having a personal crisis. Maybe the police had learned something new about Fiona’s murder...

  “No, I don’t want to wait.” I see he’s just as pleasant as always, thought Daisy.

  “I was wondering if there was any particular reason you were at the library yesterday when I was working. I suppose I just want to make sure that you think I’m doing a good job and that you don’t feel the need to be checking up on my work habits.”

  He glared at her for a moment, then his face softened. “I’m sorry if you felt that way. I was in the neighborhood for lunch and I thought I’d go have a look at the library.” So was it a meeting or lunch? Daisy wondered. Maybe both. Maybe she had seized upon a trivial discrepancy in his stories and there was nothing to it.

  “That’s fine. I just don’t want you to think I can’t be trusted to get my assignments done.”

  “Of course I believe you can get your assignments done, Daisy,” he replied in a tired voice. “Now if you don’t mind, I have some phone calls I need to make.” Daisy took the hint and left.

  She was fuming when she got back to her desk. She didn’t believe for a minute that he trusted her to get her work done. The Library of Congress was a time-consuming detour even if he had had a meeting—or lunch—in the area, and she had a feeling he was there solely to make sure she was working.

  Then a thought occurred to her. Had Jude been putting ideas into his ear, suggesting that Daisy couldn’t be relied upon to do her work like a professional? That sounded like the sort of thing Jude might do. But then again, why would Jude do such a thing? She had asked Daisy for help finding the person who killed Fiona--surely she would
n’t be attempting to sabotage Daisy’s job. Besides that, Jude had already proven herself the jealous type, and she wasn’t likely to suggest to Mark John that he spend more time keeping an eye on Daisy.

  Daisy was developing a tension headache by the time she left work. She called Grover and asked him to come over to her apartment for dinner. He accepted, so she stopped at the grocery store on the way home to pick up the things she needed to make a quick meal for the two of them. She felt the need to vent about work, but she also wanted to know if the police had contacted him again about Walt.

  He arrived a little while later with a box containing two pieces of cheesecake. “I hope whatever we’re having pairs well with this,” he said with a grin. “It was left over from the party Saturday night.”

  “Perfect. We’re having BLTs and tomato soup,” she replied.

  Grover sprawled out on the couch while he waited for her. He had picked up Trudy’s diary on the end table when she walked into the living room.

  “Don’t touch that!” she yelled.

  He gave a start and dropped the diary where it had been and put his hands up. “What did I do?”

  “You can’t touch that without gloves,” she scolded. “That’s the diary I was telling you about. It’s very old and it doesn’t belong to me and if something happens to it I’m in big trouble. My boss already thinks I can’t be trusted.”

  “What?” Grover exclaimed. “Why not?”

  “Who knows?” Daisy answered with a sigh. “He showed up at the library where I was working yesterday and I saw him watching me in the reading room.”

  “Sounds like a creep,” Grover offered.

  “I don’t think he’s a creep. I just think he doesn’t believe I can do the job.”