Deputy Director Andrew Byrne and I had always had a contentious relationship. At the Bureau, we’d butted heads often, and when I’d left to start Codex, he’d made his disdain apparent and very public. The man’s lack of respect for private investigators was well-documented, and having to involve him in The Empty House case had been a pissing contest I hadn’t enjoyed. The man despised when I was right, and I’d never admit the few times he’d been. Stealing his son from the Bureau to work for Codex had been the final nail in the coffin for our working relationship.
Sam stood, on the phone, shaking his head and speaking quietly. Freya was perched on the table where Sloane sat—they were both watching Sam carefully. Delilah paced along with me, while Henry sat in the chair with his arms crossed, thoughtful.
“Hey,” I said to Henry. “Anything at the bookstore?”
“Nope,” he said. “It was dark, the sign indicated they were closed for the night. Nothing sparked a memory, unfortunately.”
“Okay,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Good work though. We’ll keep Peter on the back burner.”
Sam’s voice on the phone grew louder, drawing my attention. “Yes, sir,” Sam was saying—and handing the phone to me.
I put the phone on speaker again so the whole team could listen in. “Hello, Andrew,” I said.
“Abraham,” came the curt response.
Nostrils flaring, I caught Freya’s dramatic eye roll. “My team and I are working a case in London right now, and we believe may have stumbled upon two persons of interest in The Empty House case.”
“Who?” Icy but professional.
“Julian King and Birdie Barnes,” I said.
There was another long pause—sounds of a door closing. “And what are American private investigators doing in London?”
I looked at Sam, who nodded at me. “Looking for Bernard Allerton.”
The name hung heavily in the tense air—I had five people watching me while attempting to discern what the hell we did next.
“To be clear, you and your entire team are in London searching for one of the FBI’s most wanted men?” Andrew repeated.
“Yes,” I said.
The seconds ticked by—slow, dramatic. And then the Deputy Director of the FBI cleared his throat. “So you must have received my email?”
40
Sloane
“I’m sorry, what did you say?” Abe asked, looking truly astonished. Sam was on his feet, striding toward the sound of his father’s voice on the phone.
“The confidential email,” Andrew Byrne said. “The one with the reports. You must have gotten it?”
Sam snatched the phone up. “Dad.”
I saw Freya’s face soften. So did Abe’s.
“Yes, Sam?”
“What did you do?”
“I merely sent an anonymous email to your supervisor letting him know my thoughts on where Bernard Allerton might be,” he said. “We are all familiar with the various shortcomings, shall we say, of the Bureau. At times.”
Abe and Sam stared at each other. “And what would you like us to do with this information?”
“I believe you know,” the Deputy Director said. “Or I wouldn’t have sent it.”
Tension radiated from Sam’s posture. Every person in the room looked suspended mid-action—breathing fast, bodies bent forward. “And you sent it to Abe and not to me?”
The room filled with sounds of rustling paper and Andrew clearing his throat. “My decision had no bearing on your abilities, Samuel. It’s less suspicious for an email to end up in a former colleague’s inbox than in my own son’s. And I assumed Abe would take swift action with the information and involve you immediately.”
Sam shot a wry smile at his supervisor. “He did involve us. Although not immediately.”
Abe held out his palms in apology, his own smile tugging at his lips. “I’ll be apologizing for the next decade.”
Sam re-focused on the phone call. “Then do you know why Julian King and Birdie Barnes might be in London, flashing their names around at a private auction?”
“Julian and Birdie weren’t ever a focus on any investigation,” Andrew said. “I was in a meeting last week, reviewing the testimony of the members we arrested. Because you and Freya assumed their identity, The Empty House members all believe they were part of a wide-scale federal sting operation. Julian and Birdie, in their minds, never actually existed as real booksellers. The Empty House members believe Julian and Birdie were two undercover FBI agents, working them over for a case the whole time, even online.”
Sam turned to stare at Freya, who was chewing on her lip. “I guess…” she started. “Shit, I guess that makes sense, though.”
“From a Bureau perspective,” Andrew continued, “We don’t have any records of Julian and Birdie’s existence—not the store, not any sales, nothing.”
Abe paced, hand on the back of his neck. “Is that why they’re comfortable using those names out here, in London?”
“Well, the only people who think they might be criminals are the eleven members of The Empty House, and they’re all about to start their prison sentences,” Freya said. “To people in London, would they have any idea who they were?”
I’d never actually interacted with Julian and Birdie, but if they were anything like my parents, they lived their lives with a strong sense of self-preservation and an even stronger sense of confidence. A confidence that could absolutely put them at risk of being caught.
“If they’re real con artists,” I said. “And they feel like their con is still intact, they’ll keep it intact for as long as they can. Sounds like they were on the run well before Freya and Sam co-opted their identities. I read through the media reports on the case. Codex was mentioned but not the names Sam and Freya used while undercover.” I crossed my arms across my chest, trying to keep my voice light. “Your typical con artist is part psychopath, part narcissist. They have no conscience. And it means they have a grandiose sense of self. Both of these traits make it likely that Julian and Birdie see no fault in being here in London. If they’re here to con their way into owning the Doyle papers, they believe to their core they have every right to be here.”
A few seconds of silence followed.
“I think you’re fucking right,” Freya said. We exchanged a tiny smile. Providing even the smallest insight to this team felt important in a way I couldn’t name yet.
“I think you’re right too,” Henry said. “And I think the world of book thieves is too small, and Bernard’s role too powerful, for the appearance of Julian and Birdie to be random. Because Bernard is the biggest narcissist of them all. He snaps his fingers, and every single thief comes running.”
“Abraham.” The Deputy Director’s voice cut through our conversation like a medieval gong.
“Yes?” Abe asked, weary. He was distracted. I could see his brain working to pull together the final threads.
“Are you close?”
We all knew what he meant.