A powerlessness shuddered through my entire body. I hadn’t considered anything past my confrontation with Bernard—because deep down, I’d hoped to be either wrong or witness to a tearful confession and a promise to change.
So stupid.
“This is bigger than you,” he continued. He stared at me, pinning me to the spot. The air crackled. How could I ever have thought this man was weak and frail? “And I know you have student loan debt from your many advanced degrees. I know how little librarians make when they’re first starting out.” He shook his head dramatically. “Poor Henry, living far away from his family in England, trying to make some extra money to pay the bills.”
Bernard’s face was blank, chilling, as he lied.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I croaked.
“I’m reminding you of the story I’ll be glad to tell the police, should you do what I believe you are about to do.”
“None of that is true, and you know it.” I reached for my phone, prepared to call the police anyway and give them everything I had on my boss. I expected to see him panic, but my move only seemed to strengthen that bizarre smile.
“Henry, in the ten years we’ve known each other, have I ever led you astray? Professionally-speaking?” he asked, crossing his ankle over one knee.
“No,” I replied, my voice a wispy thread now.
“So, listen to me when I tell you that what you think you uncovered is happening throughout our industry in record numbers,” he said softly. “We have a very special occupation, Henry, with very special access. The works we are responsible for are an expensive commodity.”
I leaned forward, matching his tone. “The works we are responsible for belong to the public and should be free for anyone to see.”
“Five million dollars,” he replied.
I shook my head, picked up my phone again.
“Five million dollars is what I expect to receive from the Tamerlane. There’s a reason why I have four houses in four countries, Henry. The travel, the thrill, the excitement, all the bloody money.” He was grinning wildly now, practically vibrating. “You have two intriguing options this evening. You can call the police—and I will provide them with all of those signed letters you forged before selling off the library’s books.” Bernard held up one finger, then a second. “Or you and I can sell this book together.”
My mind blazed with thoughts of piles and piles of money. Five million dollars was an amount I couldn’t truly comprehend. Not once in my entire career had I ever considered simply taking one of the rare manuscripts I was responsible for. It was as if Bernard had suddenly developed the ability to control my mind—showing me images and desires I’d never once entertained.
My thumb hesitated on my phone, lulled by the siren song of millions of dollars.
“Did you really intend on being a librarian your entire life?” he prodded.
But I refused to answer him, even as the growing restlessness I’d felt this past year tugged at his words. A restlessness I hadn’t quite known what to do with—this sudden need for adventure was shaped so differently from my other passions. I’d left Philadelphia for England to complete my PhD in Library Science at the University of Oxford working at various libraries throughout Europe before securing the job with Bernard at the McMasters Library. So this recent agitation didn’t entirely make sense to me because I’d just spent the past ten years traveling through famous cities and handling some of the rarest manuscripts in the entire world.
“Suit yourself, then,” he finally sighed. “It’s only truly a crime if you get caught.”
I took in the man in front of me—famous in his own right, rich as sin, a celebrated philanthropist. A beloved academic.
That sense of powerlessness reared back, but I shook my head, standing up. Bernard didn’t control my mind.
And he couldn’t control what I was about to do. “I don’t care what you say,” I said harshly. “I’m going to the police now. And I’m calling Louisa.” She was the president of our board. And now I was cursing my own cowardice with not going to her first, cursing the respect I’d carried for Bernard Allerton that had apparently been blinding me for years.
With a smirk, he reached beneath the table, as if pressing something.
His phone rang—a shrill explosion of sound in the hushed room. Someone knocked on his door.
“Enter,” he called to the space behind me. Then he answered his phone with a casual, “Good evening, Louisa. We were just talking about you.”
Goosebumps broke out over my skin.
Bernard’s sharp gaze narrowed past my shoulders. He crooked his finger, and the skin on the back of my neck prickled.
“Oh,” he said—and even I could hear the mock sympathy. “I am so sorry to hear that. How absolutely awful.” I strained to listen, then stopped when I turned and was confronted with a scowling bodyguard that towered over me.
Since when did Bernard have bodyguards?
“Louisa,” I said loudly, hoping she could hear me over the phone, “Bernard has taken the—”
He tapped the paper—the forged document that implicated me in the theft of a book so rare only fifty copies existed in the world.
With a growl, I reached forward to grab it.
The guard stopped me.
Bernard wagged his finger like I was a petulant child. Fury, anger, shame, guilt—all of it welled up inside of me, causing my fists to clench and my vision to darken.
But Bernard was smug and safe with the guard looming behind him.
“So, you’re saying our intern just discovered the Tamerlane is missing?” Bernard said. My mind leapt with this new information. I started to back away, toward the door, toward whatever decision I was going to make next. “Louisa, I hate to jump to conclusions, but this kind of theft usually starts with the staff. The lower staff.”
I was awestruck at how deeply off the rails this confrontation had gone.
In the middle of the room, Bernard Allerton stood like a newly crowned king, surrounded by his many books, a decadent fire roaring behind him.
“Yes, I know,” he said soothingly into the phone, “it is horrible when we discover how few people in this world we can truly trust.”
He arched his brow again and held up the forgery.
And I turned on my heel and ran.
2
Henry
Louisa believed I was a liar.
I’d called her as I left Bernard’s flat, barely able to form a coherent sentence. She ordered me to meet her at the library. It was past midnight, and the library glowed with an almost eerie light. I was used to the tranquility of its quiet hallways—but without any patrons, the absence of sound felt menacing.
In her office, I found Louisa frantically digging in a top desk drawer. Pens, rubber bands, sticky notes went flying.
I rubbed the back of my neck as I caught my breath, attempted to pull together the threads of my bizarre tale. As she sifted through desk drawers, nodding along, I confessed my first suspicions of Bernard that had begun a month earlier, tracing them all the way to tonight’s confrontation at his dinner party: the forged letters, his smug confession. Even as I told the story, it felt like it belonged to another person, another life.