once we reached the center of the room, all four of us turned and rushed quickly through the heavy front doors.
“Let’s call a cab,” I said, beneath my breath. “Calmly.”
Nodding, Sam raised his hand as we reached the curb. Glancing back to make sure we hadn’t been followed, I called Delilah. As soon as she picked up, I said, “Get back to the hotel.”
“Done,” she said.
A cab stopped in front of us, and we climbed inside. After slamming the door and giving the driver instructions, we stared at each other.
“Is someone going to tell me what the hell is going on?” Sloane asked. Her phone rang. “Shit, it’s Humphrey.”
“Don’t answer,” I said. “You can call him tomorrow and invent an excuse.” I ducked past Sloane to find Freya and Sam open-mouthed and shell-shocked. “Tell me you heard what I heard.”
Freya and Sam exchanged a look. “I believe I heard that couple introduce themselves as Julian King and Birdie Barnes,” she said. Each word seemed heavy with the deeper implications of what this meant. I rubbed a hand across my mouth, momentarily distracted by the persistent alarm bells ringing and ringing in my head. The federal agent in me knew that all of these people coming together was no fucking coincidence.
I nodded at Sloane. “Tell her.”
Freya let out a long, shaky breath. “When Byrne and I went undercover to infiltrate that secret society, we assumed the identities of a real couple I’d been following online. We later learned they were highly skilled con artists.”
Sloane’s eyes shot up to mine at the word con artists.
“They owned a bookstore in San Francisco, and their names were Julian King and Birdie Barnes.”
“What the fuck?” Sloane said.
At the time, Freya knew Julian and Birdie to be new members of The Empty House and were beloved in the antiquity’s community. The couple bailed on attending the Antiquarian Festival—an act that ultimately allowed Sam and Freya to assume their identities.
They were never seen or heard from again.
No pictures of them existed online; no patron had ever actually met Julian or Birdie in person. At first, we assumed they were involved with Bernard. But after the case, and their disappearance, Freya’s best conclusion was they were probably con artists operating in the rare book world—buying books illegally, selling them illegally, burning bridges left and right while pretending to be on everyone’s side.
In the chaos of the arrests, Julian King and Birdie Barnes’s real names and personas had fallen to the wayside, and to my knowledge no legal actions had been taken against them.
My mental alarm bell became an air raid siren. Glimmers of what I knew I should do next bubbled up in my mind, twisting my stomach and tightening my throat.
“So what in the fresh hell are they doing here?” Freya added. “And why in the fresh hell are they using those names?”
“I haven’t a goddamn clue,” I said. “Sam?”
“Sir,” he said.
“You know what we need to do, right?”
Cowboy mission or not, if the Codex team had encountered real criminals, wanted by the FBI, we needed to actually call the FBI. I was too overloaded on adrenaline to feel much about it, although I knew I’d be disappointed later. To get so close only to bring in the big guns would potentially wound my pride forever.
“We’ll call the Deputy Director as soon as we return.”
“Wait, Sam’s dad, you mean?” Sloane asked.
“The word dad gives him a lot more credit than he deserves,” Freya said.
Sam chuckled softly. “You’re not wrong. He’ll know the nature of the FBI’s involvement with them and what we need to do.”
The cab stopped in front of the hotel. We jumped out and raced to the room, expressions a mixture of grim determination and wild excitement. I opened the hotel door to find Henry and Delilah, pacing about.
“I just made it back,” Delilah said. “What happened?”
“Julian King and Birdie Barnes were at the event tonight,” Freya said, tossing her bag onto the bed.
“Holy shit,” Henry and Delilah said in unison.
“Our thoughts exactly,” I said.
Freya dropped her head into her hands. “I cannot fucking believe it. When I heard their names, I swear to god my heart actually stopped beating.”
“I hate to say it, but it could be random,” Sam said. “We always thought they were an intermediary between illegal buyers and illegal sellers. Maybe word has gotten around in the rare book community that a major haul is being auctioned tomorrow, and it attracted the vultures.”
“Maybe,” I said. “None of this feels random, though.”