with pictures of Bernard and red string connecting the dots.
Frozen on her laptop screen was a black-and-white picture of Bernard at an awards ceremony. Next to him, looking young and fresh-faced, was Henry.
My chest actually hurt, looking at this picture and knowing the future that awaited Henry—how deeply betrayed he’d feel, how scared, how utterly taken aback when the crimes hidden within his vocation were fully exposed to him.
If Bernard merely pretended to value libraries and antique books, Henry was the complete opposite. He was so devoted to the preservation of literature it was ingrained in his very soul.
I knew what I had to do now.
“You were right to be pissed at me the other night,” I said slowly. Sloane only tilted her head. Still silent. “I did withhold information that could help you find Bernard. Or at least narrow the search down to a two-mile radius. Potentially. And I saw you looking at my Codex files in my room.”
Now she was reacting, her whole body going taut. “You have a lot of extra years of information-gathering that I don’t have. Won’t have, given my deadline.”
“Ten years, actually.”
Her lips parted. “You’ve been tracking Bernard for ten years?”
I didn’t answer right away, because if I didn’t jump now, I wasn’t going to. “I’ll let you in. Let you have access to everything. Fill in the missing pieces you can’t.”
“The catch?”
An hour earlier, I’d been dreaming of this woman stripping for me. A woman who was technically my firm’s competition and more than a decade younger than me. A woman who’d enchanted me from the very first second I’d laid eyes on her—and who would remain a distracting, dazzling temptation for as long as she was in my presence.
This was potentially the worst idea I’d ever had.
“When we capture Bernard, I want to be the one to fucking do it.”
19
Abe
Our complimentary tea arrived. It sat untouched as Sloane and I squared off again in her hotel room. I was still seated in the chair by the dresser—barefoot, in sweatpants and a worn Quantico sweatshirt.
She faced me in her chair, elbows on her knees. Serious, focused, enthralled. Her posture was without her usual sultry teasing. Instead she appeared solely interested in catching the same man I was.
My cock noticed, of course. My cock responded to her sultry teasing as much as it was responding to her investigative interests.
“Explain what you mean when you say you want to ‘be the one to do it,’” she said. “Because I’m not ditching my contract for your vendetta.”
“The contract is yours. In fact, any money you get from Louisa for catching Bernard would be yours too. I only want to be in the room, whatever room it is, when he’s found.”
Her eyes searched mine, concerned. “I have an objection to not paying you if we partner on this.”
“Why?” I asked.
“It’s…” She rubbed her palms together. “It feels manipulative. Like I’m using you to get what I want. I don’t want you to feel like I conned you into this.”
There was an emotional emphasis on the words “conned you into this.” I frowned. “You wouldn’t be. Besides, it’s not like Codex is here. You’re not sub-contracting with a firm of detectives. I’m just a civilian who desperately wants Bernard to be punished for his crimes.”
She sat back, assessed me further, like I was a file of open case notes she wasn’t quite sure about yet. “If we go after Bernard together, you won’t fly your team out here?”
“No.” I spoke firmly through the guilt. “My agents are working cases right now with critical deadlines. And I can’t risk flying them all the way to London when we have no legal right to be here, no contract, no client.”
Henry and Delilah had disobeyed my express orders the night they recovered the missing Copernicus from Victoria Whitney’s mansion. Freya and Sam broke into an historic academic building in Philadelphia without telling me. We had all kept things from each other in the past—this would now be one of them.
“Only the two of us is complicated enough,” Sloane said. “And if our target is the auction, that’s only three days away.”
I was soothed by her logic.
“As long as I still get the credit, and as long as I’m standing right beside you, I’m comfortable with you being in the room.”
I swallowed, felt my pride’s response at sharing the moment with Sloane. “What… what can you offer me if we partner together?”
She bit her lip, rubbed her palms together again, but slowly