are bigger than this,” Louisa said, tapping my contract. “So if you hit the deadline on this contract and you haven’t found him, I have no problem hiring the next private detective on my list. Time is of the absolute essence here.”
I managed a tiny smile. “I understand. This is a business. It’s not about ego. It’s about catching a very bad guy.”
It was very much about ego for me, though. Ego and money. Argento Enterprises was still young—and had only a single person on staff. Me, which was my absolute preference. Putting myself through college and clawing my way up through the quicksand of my past had incurred debt and loans and bills that desperately needed to be paid.
The pay—and the prestige—of this contract was beyond my wildest fucking dreams. And if, like Louisa had explained, both Interpol and the FBI couldn’t catch this guy, I sure as hell would. The feeling of revenge—of catching manipulative thieves in the act—was utterly satisfying. There was a delicious crunch to it that fulfilled my deepest cravings.
“Since I’m here, I wanted to ask you a few questions about…” I checked the name one more time. “—your former employee, Dr. Henry Finch? I’ve been researching Henry and his possibility of being a suspect, given he was Bernard’s assistant for ten years. Seems an interesting coincidence that he’s now a private detective too.”
More than coincidence actually. I’d been pulling through background checks and employment records for any person who’d worked closely with Bernard, and the existence of Henry sent an air-raid siren through my investigative instincts.
The fact that an accomplished rare book librarian had turned PI? It didn’t add up. And anything that didn’t add up was a goddamn clue. Yesterday, I’d stumbled upon a picture of Henry and Bernard together in the mountain of paperwork Louisa had relinquished to me. It was an award ceremony from years ago. Bernard and Henry were posed together, holding a plaque. Bernard was a white man in his seventies with a distinguished-looking mustache. His eyes betrayed a clever intelligence, his body language depicted frailty.
Next to him stood Henry Finch—a handsome black man in a tailored suit and square-rimmed glasses. I knew he had a doctorate degree in Library Science, had lived across Europe, and was fluent in four languages. Wouldn’t Bernard use an assistant to steal for him or cover his tracks? And what would compel such an accomplished academic to throw away his degrees to work at a small detective firm?
“You’ve been looking into Henry Finch?” she asked.
“Of course,” I replied.
Louisa was shaking her head. “It’s not what you think. In November of last year, Henry Finch came to me in the middle of the night with a story many in this community did not want to believe. He’d become suspicious of Bernard, had been gathering evidence and watching him for more than a month. Henry confronted Bernard, told him he was going to the authorities, ran to me after Bernard threatened to forge his signature on documents that made Henry complicit in his crimes.”
Ah. Really, Bernard was too obvious. “Henry was his backup fall guy.”
“It appears so,” she said.
I looked back down at the picture—at the enthusiasm shining through Henry’s smile. Did Bernard take advantage of this man’s devotion for ten years? The thought was stomach-churning.
“I didn’t believe Henry’s story at the time,” Louisa said. “It’s hard to imagine now, but Henry could have been telling me the Easter Bunny existed for how outrageous his story was. I didn’t report Bernard. I did hire a firm called Codex to recover the stolen book that had precipitated everything.”
I cocked my head. “That’s the firm Henry works for now.”
They were located in Philadelphia, well-known and respected. The owner was a man named Abraham Royal.
“It’s how Henry got involved,” Louisa explained, with pursed lips. “Abe Royal hired him out from under me.”
This Abe sounded like a smart man. “And Henry’s officially been cleared of all suspicion?”
“Absolutely, he has,” Louisa said. “If I’d listened to him, called the authorities sooner…” she trailed off. “Every second counts, and we lost a lot of seconds while I buried my head in the sand.”
I sat back, re-crossed my legs. I was in an every second counts frame of mind too, since I had only twelve days left to catch this guy and no solid leads. Yet I was hesitant to let the Henry Finch angle go, given how little I had to grasp onto.
“You have to convince yourself the world is fracturing