uncovered when you tell me who the hell you really are and why you’re lying all over the goddamn place.”
I hesitated, suddenly unsure now that I was facing admitting who I was and potentially threatening my chances of capturing Bernard on my own. My deadline hovered between us—eleven days left. All this time here, and real, juicy leads hadn’t started appearing until Abe Royal had landed in London. Actually saying the words I need your help to another person went against every fiber of my being. I didn’t need help. What I needed was information, money, and opportunity.
I looked at Abe, pictured myself receiving that check from Louisa and all the professional goodwill that could come of it. This man had information. And if I played my cards right, it could lead me to that money and opportunity.
Reaching into my purse, I removed my private investigator’s license and my own business card. Laid them on the table. He placed his license right next to mine. I picked his up, studied his official documents.
“Nice to meet you Abe Royal of Codex,” I said.
“Not new information for you though, is it?” he countered.
I stayed silent, watched his whole-body reaction to reading my own license. Fingers tight, brow furrowed. “You’re a private detective?”
His voice scraped across every nerve ending. “Sure am,” I replied.
“Sloane Argento.” Each syllable out of his mouth was curved, slow. Savored.
In my seventeen years living with them, I’d worn any number of names—until answering to a name not my own was as comfortable as an old, favorite sweater. Being Devon Atwood had felt absolutely fine, normal even. When I’d finally left my parents, I’d kept my birth name. My real one. And even though my first name was chosen by my mother and my last was all I knew of my father’s Italian heritage, it still felt like mine.
“Argento Enterprises?” He held up my business card. “This is you?”
“It’s my firm in Brooklyn,” I said. “I opened it the year after I graduated from NYU.”
Abe placed both hands on the table. “It’s nice to formally meet you, Sloane Argento. It appears I am vindicated in my assessment that you are not, in fact, a Devon.”
“And you’re no Daniel.”
“So why are you masquerading as a Sherlock Holmes enthusiast and taking members of the Society to tea?” he asked.
I tilted my head, stalling. Tapped my nails on the table. “I’ve been hired by the McMaster’s Library to find Bernard Allerton.”
The sentence plummeted between us like an anvil. Abe’s jaw tightened to the point of breaking, irritation carved into his face. “Louisa Davies hired you?”
“Officially, she’s my client,” I said. “I know she almost hired you eleven months ago, when Bernard went on the run and you met Dr. Henry Finch for the first time.”
“That I did.” His tone was brittle. “I thought she was making a mistake. Still believe she made a mistake.”
I lifted a shoulder. “I agree with you. Louisa is frustrated with Interpol and the Bureau and thinks they’re not doing enough to find him. She thought a PI could find him more quickly, and she’s willing to pay a lot of fucking money for it.”
“Color me surprised,” he drawled. “Yet you got the contract. Not me.”
“I’ve done my research on you, Mr. Royal,” I said. “Codex hasn’t been sitting idle.”
He was silent for a moment, turning the whiskey glass around on the table. “We’ve been busy, yes.”
“Louisa contacted me after the Audubon case I solved three months ago,” I explained. “For The Murphy Library in New York.”
Abe looked pleasantly surprised. “That was you?”
“Sure was.”
He cleared his throat, slid his arms back down his side. “My team talked about that case nonstop. We were impressed.”
I fought a smile at the thought of Abe Royal being impressed with me months ago, before we’d known each other, before all of this, before everything.
“Your cover, the Society, the dinners with people…?”
“Research,” I said. “Trying to meet sources that can lead me to where he’s hiding.”
“And you think he’s in London?” he asked.
“Don’t you?”
“Believe me, if I knew where that man was, I wouldn’t be sitting here,” he replied, sardonic. The hunger to catch this criminal was so fucking obvious—it was his body language, his face, the curl of his lip. From the moment I’d said Bernard, he was mere seconds away from snapping.
“Why did you come to London if you don’t think he’s here?”
“I’m here on vacation.” He shrugged.
I leaned across the table, felt that dangerous chemistry stretched taut between us. Abe’s throat