find the thief

At exactly five o’clock she shut down her computer, put on her coat, and hung her bag over her shoulder. The office was already deserted. Her colleagues had, as usual, snatched a few minutes from their work time. She hadn’t responded to their enthusiastic cries of ‘Have a nice evening!’ and ‘See you tomorrow!’ all these years, and no one expected her to now. She preferred it that way. No personal contact. The administrative work she did was simple and mind-numbing. That is, if she’d still had a mind to numb. But it paid her bills.

As on most days, she took the bus to the city center, where she quickly devoured a simple meal at a cheap restaurant. And then she began her daily mission: visiting bookstores and, if they were all closed after seven o’clock, the local public library. Only when it closed too, at ten, did she take another bus back to the small apartment she rented. She loved books, of course, but that wasn’t the real reason for her frequent quests. She was desperately searching for someone. Eight years ago, Laura de Vries had stolen a large sum of money from the owners of the small, successful company she worked for and then vanished without a trace, leaving her family behind. And she would find her! She would make sure she paid back the entire amount!

In a cluttered and dimly lit second-hand bookstore, she plopped down …