Freya leaned forward, adjusting her glasses. “And if Julian and Birdie’s bid hadn’t been the winning one?”
Abe knocked his knuckles against the wall of mugshots. “Then James would have worked with Peter Markham to steal the papers that night. Plan A, Plan B. Unfortunately for Eudora, she was used as cover for all of it.”
“Wait,” I said, smiling. “You mean Eudora didn’t really know a thing?”
Abe tilted his head. “Not exactly. It looks like Bernard used her to protect him. The plan she thought she was helping to execute was a fake one.”
“Well, no shit,” I said, astounded. “What did Eudora think was going to happen?”
“She thought Bernard was orchestrating a theft and that the Sherlock Society would ultimately get the stolen papers. She thought she would be getting them that entire time. When Bernard told her he was concerned for his safety—because you and I were following him—he sent Eudora after us.”
“In the form of guards and muggings and fires, I’m guessing,” I said.
Abe nodded. “Exactly. A guard took that picture of us, and Peter wrote a threatening note on it. The guards tried to mug us and attacked us outside the cocktail bar. They followed us; they lit our rooms on fire. Eudora did it without question because it’s Bernard. And because she wanted those papers just as badly. It’s why she told anyone within earshot that the Society would absolutely not be bidding on them. When they eventually ended up stolen, she didn’t want the Society to look suspicious.”
Delilah stared at Eudora’s picture. “How did Bernard know you were in London in the first place? That’s what I can’t figure out. If you approached Eudora as Daniel Fitzpatrick, why would she have reason to suspect you?”
Abe swiped his thumb across his lip—looking even more pleased. “The day after I met Sloane, I visited Eudora at 221B Baker Street. I gave her the code.”
“Reichenbach Falls?” Freya said.
“Yep,” he said. “Gave her the code and asked her to get a message to Bernard. That I might have special access to those papers if he was interested. Eudora, in her confession, told agents that when she reported this conversation to Bernard, he asked to review the security camera footage from her office.”
“Oh my god,” Freya said. “So he saw you on camera?”
“He saw Henry Finch’s private detective boss in Eudora’s office, using a fake name but a real code word,” Sam said. “He was right to be alarmed.”
Bernard’s picture remained on the wall.
“What are you thinking, Henry?” Abe asked.
Henry sighed. “Greed has always been Bernard’s vulnerability. And Arthur Conan Doyle his obsession. The combination of the two caused him to finally make a real, human mistake. Bernard’s fatal flaw will always be that he doesn’t believe he’s done anything wrong.”
Abe stared at the picture for a minute. “The best news is that based on the strength of the evidence against him, Bernard will spend the rest of his life in prison. And many, many of these other criminals will be joining him. Including several from the Sherlock Society.”
“What about Humphrey?” Delilah asked. “Any word on Bernard’s whimsical best friend?”
“Humphrey and Reggie are innocent of Bernard’s crimes,” I said. “And visiting Abe and me in Philly in a few months.”
Freya slammed her hands down on the table. “We are going out. All of us. And getting absolutely drunk.”
Four of us said, “In.”
Abe, with a friendly eye roll, finally said, “I’m sure I’ll make an appearance.”
“And the extra good news is that Humphrey is the new president of the Sherlock Society of Civilized Scholars,” I added. He’d called us afterward, thanked Abe and me again for opening his eyes to Bernard’s deceit. And promised that he remained an unstoppable force of valiant passion, even as he was still mending his broken heart.
“One last bit of news,” Sam said. “My father heard this from an Interpol source. Bernard has been engaged in serious letter writing with the one person who’s been contacting him regularly. Victoria Whitney.”
Delilah shook her head with a smirk on her face. “Unbelievable. You’ve got to hand it to Victoria. She’s never stopped being herself.”
“And she’s never stopped loving Bernard,” Henry said.
There was a long pause—everyone taking in the abundance of good news, sifting through it. A sense of peace settled over me. Happiness. Completeness.
“Welcome to the team, Sloane,” Freya said. “We got the worst guy yet. All the rest should be gravy.”
Abe chuckled. Straightened his tie. “I always told this team that Bernard wasn’t our purview. That our purview were the books, and books alone. And they are our main priority at the end of the day. Our main priority and the best one.” He paused, studied us. “But I’m so proud we caught him. And so proud to call you my family.”
Abe looked at me and I nodded, understanding him completely. Recognizing the strength it took him to reach out, be accepted, to expose himself to be a man with a big, open heart after all.
“Gone soft,” Freya teased. “Told ya.”
“It’s true,” he said.
“We can choose our own families,” I said. Held Abe’s gaze. “For me, that’s all of you.”
“Those Hawaiian shirts did help after all.” Freya sighed dreamily. “Because we got you, Sloane.”
I squeezed her hand, too overcome to say anything else.
“Every single one of us came to this place surviving a kind of betrayal,” Delilah said. “We were all searching for a place that would become a home.”
Home. I understood that word now. My parents had ripped it from me at an early age. And now another con artist—Bernard Allerton—had helped deliver me to Abe, this family, this new life. I stared at his mug shot one last time. Bernard was just a man who believed the world needed villains.
Codex was a team dedicated to the opposite.
Abe’s phone rang, which generally signaled a new case. Sam and Freya leaned forward in excitement. Delilah flipped open her notebook. Henry straightened his glasses with a knowing grin.
“What happens next?” I asked Abe.
His smile was full of promises. “We get the damn book back.”
Epilogue
ABE
My new priority in life was making my three-month-old daughter squeal with laughter.
Ruby and I had spent the better part of an hour on the rug, playing peek-a-boo, a game she never seemed to tire of. Every time I held my finger toward her, she gripped it, held tight, while staring at me with the same luminous eyes her mother had.
My heart had seen its last fortress. If Sloane had dismantled those bricks with her vulnerable beauty and endless charm, then Ruby was ensuring I was stripped bare for the world to see, every day. Soft didn’t even come close.
I scooped up my still-laughing daughter—whose curly hair was just like Sloane’s—and stretched out on the couch with her to nap. Ruby still fit perfectly on my chest, and as I rubbed circles into her small back, her steady, sleepy breathing calmed me.