Brad Meltzer - The Inner Circle

“And we have thirty copies of To Kill a Mockingbird . But each new school year, we sell every damn one.”

Cocking her head, Clementine took a long silent look across the counter. It was the kind of look that came with its own internal calculation. “You’re not a jackass like everyone else.”

“Not true,” Beecher said, motioning to the milk crate. “I’m just buttering you up so I can lowball you on that Frankenstein paperback you’ve got there. That’s a British edition. I can get big bucks for it. Now what else you got?”

Lifting the crate, Clementine dumped and filled the counter with at least twenty other paperbacks, a few hardbacks, and a pile of used CDs including Boyz II Men, Wilson Phillips, and Color Me Badd.

“I also got this…” Clementine said, pulling out a frayed blue leather book with a heavily worn spine, torn soiled pages, and a shredded silk ribbon bookmark. “It’s not in good shape, but… it’s for sure old-1970.”

Tilting his head, Beecher read the gold lettering on the spine. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. “Good book. This your mom’s?”

“My mom hates to read. I think it’s my grandmother’s. Oh, and there’s one other problem… the cover is…” She flipped the leather book over, revealing that it was missing its front cover.

“Y’know the pages still stay together,” Beecher pointed out.

“Huh?”

“The pages… look …” he said, lifting the book by its remaining cover and dangling it in the air so all the pages spread out like a fan. “If the binding’s good, all the pages stay in place.”

“That some sorta used bookstore trick?”

“Actually, it’s from my mom. When my dad… when he passed… Reverend Lurie told her that even when one cover gets torn away from a book, as long as the other cover’s there, it’ll still hold the pages together. For me and my sisters… he said my mom was the other cover. And we were the pages.”

Clementine stood there silently, staring down at the old blue leather book.

“He was trying to make an analogy about life,” Beecher pointed out.

“I get it,” Clementine said, still studying the old volume. She was quiet for nearly a minute, resting her left elbow on the counter. Within a decade, that elbow would be covered with deep white scars from an incident she’d never tell the truth about.

“You think this copy could’ve belonged to my dad?” she finally asked.

Beecher shrugged. “Or it can just be a book.”

Clementine looked up and offered another grin at Beecher. Her widest one yet. “Y’know, my mom and I are moving to Detroit.”

“I heard.”

“Still… we should really stay in touch.”

“Yeah. Great. I’d like that,” Beecher said, feeling the excitement tighten his chest-especially as he saw Clementine reach out and slide the leather copy of Marquez’s masterpiece back into her milk crate. “Let me give you my email address,” he said.

“Email?”

“It’s this thing… it’s new and-Actually, it’s stupid. No one’ll use it.” Grabbing one of the small squares of paper that Mr. Farris would make by cutting up used, discarded sheets, Beecher quickly scribbled his mailing address and phone number. Clementine did the same.

As they exchanged sheets, Beecher did a quick tallying of her buybacks and paid out a grand total of thirty-two dollars (rounding up the last fifty cents).

“Make sure you look me up if you ever get to Michigan,” Clementine called out as she headed for the door.

“You do the same when you come back here and visit,” he called back.

And with twin genuine smiles on their faces, Beecher and Clementine waved goodbye, knowing full well they’d never see each other again.

One week from now

Chatham, Ontario

"Would you like to order, ma’am-or are you waiting for one more?” the waiter asked, leaning in to avoid embarrassment.

“I’m by myself,” the woman in the stylish chocolate brown overcoat replied as she again scanned the entrance to the outdoor cafe, which was overdecorated to look like an old Tudor-style shop from an English village square. Just outside the metal railing, as it’d been for the past twenty minutes, the only people around were the lunchtime pedestrians passing along King Street. Next to her table, the heating lamp was on full blast. It was January. In Canada. Far too cold for anyone to be sitting outside.

But for the woman in the chocolate brown overcoat, that was the point.

She could’ve come somewhere private.

A nearby hotel.

St. Andrew’s Church.

Instead, she came to the cafe.

Outside. In public. Where everyone could see her.

“How’re the fish cakes?” she asked, making prolonged eye contact with the waiter just to see if he’d recognize her.

He didn’t.

Of course he didn’t.

Her hair was long now. And blonde. But to anyone who knew her, there was no mistaking that grin.

Just like her father’s.

“Unless you have something even better than that,” Clementine Kaye said, pulling a breadstick from the basket and turning her head just enough so the pedestrians could see her.

“I think you’ll like the fish cakes,” the waiter replied, scribbling down the order.

As another wave of locals strolled past the cafe, Clementine threw a quick smile to a five-year-old girl who was walking with her mom.

Even in a week, it had gotten easier. Sure, her leg still hurt from the shooting, and her wanted-for-questioning photo was still posted across the Internet, but it was still the Internet. The world was already moving on.

Which meant she could get back to what really mattered.

Lifting her menu off the table and handing it back to the waiter, Clementine looked down at the thick manila envelope. As the waiter left, she pulled out a water-stained file folder with a familiar name typed in the upper corner. Wallace, Orson .

This was it: the unprocessed file that Beecher had tracked to the cave’s underground storage area-the original records from the night twenty-six years ago when they brought Eightball into the hospital, and the future President of the United States was treated for his broken finger. As best as Clementine could figure, this was the only proof that the future President was there that night.

But it paled next to the one priceless detail that Clementine never anticipated finding. Indeed, even with what she now knew about the Plumbers, none of it compared to the two-hundred-year-old spy network that’d been operating since the birth of the United States:

The Culper Ring.

Clementine knew all about the Culper Ring.

Including at least one person who was in it.

Above her, the heat lamp sizzled with a fresh burst of warmth. Clementine barely noticed as she looked out at the Chatham police car that pulled up along King Street.

At the traffic light, the car slowed down. The officer in the passenger seat didn’t look at her. Didn’t even see her.

But as the light blinked green and the car took off, Clementine reminded herself that there were hazards in rushing blindly.

Sure, she could go public now. She could put Tot and the Culper Ring on the front page of every newspaper and website, and then sit back and watch the world take President Wallace and Tot and toss them all in the shredder.

But that wouldn’t get Clementine what she was really after.

For so long now, she had told herself this was about her father. And it was. It always was.

But it was also about her.

And so, after nearly three decades of wondering, years of searching, six months of planning, and the next few months of healing, Clementine Kaye sat back in her seat and-in a small town in Canada, under a baking heat lamp-started thinking exactly how she’d finally get the answers she wanted.