The Mysteries of Megan Glen

Secret Book Club: 3

“You know him?” Sam asked, lowering the gun he held.

I nodded, almost embarrassed. “He gave me a ride here; he’s staying with my family till he goes to college. Oh for crying out loud, you can stop aiming at him with your guns; he’s not a murder.”

“He’s trespassing on a crime scene,” the annoying cop from earlier stated. She held on tightly to her gun.

“I’ll get rid of him,” I snapped in reply, making them put away their guns. I turned to face the terrified Danny. “Can you not follow a set of simple instructions? You’re breaking the law right now.”

He shook his head, his eyes still wide. “You were taking a long time. What are you doing in here anyways?”

“Sorry, I can’t tell you, it’s confidential information, top secret,” I stated. “Now get out so I can work without having to worry about my ride getting shot or carted off to the jail.”

Danny’s mouth fell open in surprise. “So you can work? You work with the cops?”

“Okay, really? You need to-” I stopped myself in the middle of telling him to get out. “Hey, you think like a criminal. Why would someone trash a house so much just to steal something?”

He blinked, shocked, and everyone else in the room turned their stares from him to me. “Um, they wanted something specific, I guess... I’ll go back to the car.”

I grabbed his arm. “No, you could be helpful.”

“Megan, he’s not allowed on the crime scene,” Sam reminded me, glancing at the other cops, many of whom looked scornful.

I waved him away. “Neither am I, technically. Besides, this won’t take long and he could be useful, definitely more so than any of you- sitting around on your computers.”

“We’re running the DNA scan for the shoes and doorknob,” the conceited cop from earlier said snidely.

“And it’s about time you did. Danny, if you were the robber, why would you go through the bookshelf, looking for something to steal?” As I talked, I let my eyes wander the room, piecing it together. A stack of books was next to the bookshelf, piled neatly whereas most are thrown around. That backed up my earlier theory about the person being invited in.

Danny frowned, looking over the practically empty bookcase. “Maybe they were looking for a certain book?”

“No, are you kidding? They could go to the library for that; they were looking for something hidden in a book or the bookshelf. Come on, I thought you were smarter than that.”

Sam joined us, his brow furrowed. “How do you know that? The whole house is a mess.”

“But this bookshelf was looked through thoroughly; this has something to do with books… Maybe they were looking for a certain book that all of the victims had. Or maybe…” A smile crossed my face and my tone became resolute. “They were leaving a message. Danny, what’s the same about all the books on the shelf?”

He looked over at me uncertainly and I gestured for him to proceed quickly. He looked back at the books and realized the same thing I had. “They’re all mystery.”

“Exactly! They were leaving a message. Sam, what books were left at the other houses?” Oh, why couldn’t I have joined this case earlier?

Sam shrugged; his brown eyes looking over the bookshelf, embarrassed he hadn’t noticed the trend. “I don’t know; we didn’t look. I’ll go get the pictures.”

I nodded and grabbed my notebook, writing the titles down in order. Then I flipped through the pages of each book, looking for some sort of note or message. A few pages were dog-tagged, but they were from the owners, it was easy to tell by the state of said pages that they were the reader’s favorites. They were rumpled and stained, not something the culprit would have bothered with.