“It’s great, but I want something with words this time. Not pictures.”
“Huh. Hold on.” He disappeared again, coming back a few minutes later with a small stack of books. “These were just about to go in the safe. Take a look and if you see something you like, I can check with the seller.”
“Check with the seller?”
“These are quite rare. Just arrived from London.”
Sadie sorted through the books. The top two were first editions but not by noted authors.
Then she got to the third and froze. The Scarlet Letter.
Willing herself to remain calm, she lifted the cover and flipped through it, pausing slightly on page ninety-seven. There it was, the mark for the New York Public Library. Whoever had taken it either hadn’t known about the mark or hadn’t yet had a chance to remove it.
This was the first edition, the one stolen from the Berg Collection. In her hands.
“Never read this one,” she said. “It’s pretty, with the cover.” She put it to one side and went through the other two. She immediately recognized the familiar stationer’s ring-back notebook. She opened it up, carefully, and her heart leaped at the sight of Woolf’s scrawled cursive, the lines rising up to the right, the date written in the margin.
“How much for these three?” She included one of the lesser books, to throw off the scent.
The man scratched his cheek. “I’ll have to ask the seller. What did you say your name was again?”
“Elaine, is that you?” For some inexplicable reason, Mr. Adriano chose now to come forward, arms wide, pulling Sadie into a hug.
“Sure is.” She went along with the charade, giving him a hard look at the same time. Why was he getting in the way?
“It’s been too long. Of course I’d run into you today. I have something fabulous to show you, come here for a moment.”
“Will you excuse me, please?” Sadie gave an apologetic smile to the clerk and let Mr. Adriano drag her to the front of the shop, out of sight of the desk.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
“Say you’ll come back tomorrow to make the sale.”
It would be like leaving her children behind, if she had children. They were in her hand; it was just a matter of taking them. And wouldn’t Dr. Hooper be pleased? She’d be sure to get the permanent curator job at that point, no question. She’d be a hero, all problems solved. “I can’t leave the books behind.”
Mr. Adriano practically snapped at her. “You have to. The bookstore owner will want cash, since they’re hot. Do you have enough on you?”
She hadn’t thought of that. “Then what do we do?”
“Say you’ll come back tomorrow. We’ll bring some cops and make an arrest.”
“We have to wait a whole day?”
“Yes. Now go and let the man know.”
Still, it had been worth it. At the very least, they knew where the books were.
She walked back, chin lifted. “Chuck, I’ll be back tomorrow. Can you let the seller know that I’m interested in these three books?” She pointed to them, her finger lingering on the Woolf diary. “My name is Elaine Edmundson, and I simply must have them.”
“I will, but I must ask you a favor.”
She waited, worried.
“My regular customers would be very upset to learn that I didn’t let them in on my latest acquisitions. Which means you’ll need to be discreet about where you found them.”
“Oh, I can be discreet, Chuck. Don’t you worry about a thing.”
She watched, itching with irritation, as he gathered up the stack in his hands.
So close. She was so close.
* * *
“How long do we have to wait?”
Although the day was cool, Sadie was sweating in one of LuAnn’s cashmere sweaters, her chosen outfit for the sting operation. She and Mr. Adriano had met in a coffee shop across from the bookstore, and together they watched from the window, looking out for the unmarked car that meant that backup had arrived and they could go meet Chuck and rescue the books from captivity.
“However long it takes,” said Mr. Adriano. “It’s not as if recovering stolen books is on the top of their to-do list.”
“It should be.” Sadie took a sip of coffee. The bitter taste made her stomach churn, or maybe that was just her nerves. “Once we do recover the books, what next?” They’d already alerted Dr. Hooper to the success of the operation, and she could tell he was as excited as she was at the possibility of recovery.
“We’ll find out from this Chuck guy who the seller is, and follow the trail from there.”
“Do you think it’s an employee of the library?”
She was trying to be vague, but Mr. Adriano picked up on her inference. “You mean Claude Racine?”
“I suppose so. He was the only other person with access. Until they revoked it, of course.” In fact, Sadie had deliberately kept the news of the sting from Claude, per the director’s instructions, which made him even more of a suspect, in Sadie’s opinion.
“How well do you know this Claude guy?”
“Too well.” The coffee had started working its way into her bloodstream, and she felt a bolt of energy. “As I mentioned, we dated, briefly, earlier this year.”
“Huh.” Mr. Adriano raised one eyebrow, like he didn’t believe her. The nerve.
“It was a brief affair. I called it off. It’s too difficult when you’re working together.”
She still remembered their kiss, at that Christmas party. They’d stood in a small hallway off of the room where the festivities were raging inside. That evening, Claude had put his hand on the back of her neck and drawn her to him, and she’d closed her eyes and enjoyed the sensation of his mouth on hers. It was a little too wet for her liking, but that was fine. It felt so good to be wanted again, after so many years. He’d laughed then, and she’d pulled back, ready to be offended, but he’d pulled her close again, this time sending his hand roving up to her breast.
“Lovely,” he’d said.
A group from the genealogy division had spilled out of the room and they’d pulled apart. Even though she and Claude hadn’t spoken of the kiss after he returned from his vacation, she was certain that every comment between them, under Marlene’s watchful eye, had been fraught. But then she’d spotted him in the hallway with the young page and, soon after, come upon the Surviving Spinsterhood book, which reminded her that her life was just fine as it was.