months now. Which seemed insignificant to me. I’d suspected the famous, and beloved, librarian was not who he seemed for ten years. Thus far the strategy, from what we could piece together, was for the Bureau and Interpol to keep his name from the papers, an attempt to lull him into a false sense of security that would lead to him eventually coming out of hiding. And into a waiting pair of handcuffs. To the rest of the world, Bernard Allerton was simply on a mysterious vacation. A lie that seemed to be holding, for now.
During my long career working in white-collar crime, the most obvious truth I’d learned was that respect and wealth could conceal a bevy of wrongdoing. The wealthy could survive the scrutiny of the law using money as a shield and trust as social currency.
Bernard had all of that in spades: money, respect, trust, and intelligence.
Internally, the man was the prime suspect for orchestrating a ring of rare book thefts that had carried on for more than two decades. Bernard had been the head of the McMaster’s Library in Oxford, England, and had accumulated a lifetime of academic notoriety and international prestige. He was brilliant, charming, and well-respected by librarians, booksellers, and antiques collectors alike.
All of this had provided the shield he needed to steal some of the rarest manuscripts in the entire world and sell them to private owners for millions and millions of dollars. The net that international authorities had tossed to catch Bernard was fraying to pieces; instead of cinching tighter, it continued to allow the man to slip away.
At Codex, our two largest cases—the infiltration of The Empty House secret society, and the recovery of a rare manuscript by the astronomer Copernicus—had put Bernard Allerton directly in our sights. That, and Henry had been Bernard’s assistant for ten years before coming to work at Codex. Henry’s suspicions, and months of detailed evidence, had precipitated the man going underground.
So close, so far. As Sam handed me the file, those twinges of guilt were replaced with a surge of boiling frustration. It was my usual daily amount, and one of the main reasons why a vacation probably was a good idea. With each case we closed, with each book we recovered, with each pawn we toppled in Bernard’s pyramid of thieves, I felt us inching closer and closer to his whereabouts.
So close, so far.
“What does your contact think of those credit card charges?” I asked, idly flipping through the pages. When I was at the Bureau, I’d been reprimanded several times for obsessing over Bernard. The agency was happy to keep him on a short-list of suspicious people; they were not happy that I used an abundance of work hours diving into research holes and coming up with nothing. Until I pulled Sam to work alongside me for my last year at the Bureau. His enthusiasm for catching Bernard was the only sliver of hope I’d had during my final year.
“For what it’s worth, he believes they’re a trail of clues worth looking into. Even if they’re red herrings, I think their hope is to find out who orchestrated the card usage and press them for info,” he replied.
I thumbed through pages of blurred security footage and visual surveillance. Bernard was a master of disguise; he blended in with ease.
“Before this, our last real report of a Bernard sighting was in London,” Sam said.
His body language was loose, but his face was grave. Discerning.
“I remember,” I said slowly.
He retrieved the folder from my outstretched hand. “Good,” he said. “Just want to make sure you’re going on vacation, sir.” A pause. “Not a cowboy mission.”
“I’m no cowboy.” I stared intently at Sam despite my eyes wanting to flick to my email. It was a classic tell, and I wasn’t keen to get caught in a lie.
“If one were embarking on a one-man mission to capture a known criminal, one might want to ask for help,” he said quietly.
My heart skipped in my chest. I exhaled, slowed my body’s response. Two months ago, I’d had to sit in a car and listen while Sam and Freya were caught in a dangerous hostage situation inside The Empty House auction. Freya had a knife to her throat. Sam had several guns trained on him. When Sam had shot Roy Edwards—the man with the knife—I’d known the truest moment of terror I’d ever experienced in my life. If I’d walked into that room and seen Sam or Freya hurt,