Дэвид Балдаччи - The Collectors

“Absolutely,” Reuben bellowed. He grabbed Caleb around the shoulders. “What the hell would we do without you to tease?”

“Caleb, how did you come to be abducted?” Stone asked curiously.

Caleb quickly explained about the man calling himself William Foxworth. “He said he had books for me to look at, and then the next thing I know, I’m unconscious.”

“Foxworth, that was the name he used?” Stone asked.

“Yes, it was on his library card, so he would’ve had to show some ID to get it.”

“Undoubtedly not his real name. At least we got a look at him.”

“What do we do now?” Annabelle asked.

“What I still don’t understand is how the chemical wash was put in the books,” Milton said. “Albert Trent works on the intelligence committee staff. He gets the secrets somehow and then passes them on to whom? And how do they end up in books at the reading room where Jewell English and presumably Norman Janklow see and write them down using their special glasses?”

While they were all mulling those questions, Stone used his cell phone to check in with Alex Ford. They were still looking for Trent, but Ford advised Stone and the others to pull back from the chase. “No sense in putting yourselves in more danger,” he said. “You’ve done enough.”

After Stone had told them that, Caleb said, “So where do we go? Home?”

Stone shook his head. “The Library of Congress is near here. I want to go there.”

Caleb wanted to know why.

“Because that’s where this all started, and a library is always a good place to get answers.”

Caleb was able to get them into the library but not the reading room because it was closed on Saturday. Wandering the halls, Stone said to the others, “What confuses me most of all is the timing of events.” He paused, marshaling his thoughts. “Jewell English came to the reading room two days ago, and the highlights were in the Beadle book. Later that night, when we had the book, the highlights vanished. That is a very tight time frame.”

Caleb said, “It is amazing, really, because most books in the vault sit unread for years, even decades. The highlighting would have to go on the letters, and Jewell would have to be contacted to come in with the name of the book to ask for. Then, like you said, that very same day the highlights disappear.”

Stone stopped walking and leaned against a marble banister. “Yet how could they be so sure the timing would work? You wouldn’t want the wash to remain on the pages very long in case the police got their hands on them. Indeed, if we’d acted a little sooner, we might have gotten the book to the FBI before the chemical evaporated. So logically, the highlighting had to have taken place close to the time English came in.”

Caleb said, “I’d been in and out of the vaults before Jewell came in that day. I didn’t see anyone in there other than some of the staff, and none stayed longer than ten or fifteen minutes. That wouldn’t have been nearly long enough to highlight all those letters. And they couldn’t have done it anywhere else, because that would require them taking the book home.” He jerked. “Wait a minute. If any of the staff had taken it home, I can check that. They’d have to fill out the four-part call slip. Come on! The reading room’s closed, but I can check from another place.”

He led them to the library’s main reference desk, talked to the woman there for a few moments and then stepped behind the counter, logged on the computer and started typing. A minute later he looked disappointed. “No Beadles have been checked out. In fact, no books at all have been checked out by library personnel in over four months.”

While they all were standing there, Rachel Jeffries walked by. She was the conservator Caleb had brought the Beadle dime novel containing the highlights to for repair.

She said, “Oh, hello, Caleb, I didn’t think you came in on weekends anymore.”

“Hi, Rachel, just doing some research.”

“I’m trying to catch up on some backlog at conservation. I popped over here to meet with someone on a project I’m doing. Oh, while I have you, I wanted to let you know that the Beadle you gave me to work on had just recently been returned to the vault after repairs.”

“What?” Caleb said, stunned.

“It had some back cover damage and a few loose pages. When I looked up its conservation history, I was really surprised because, like I said, it had just been brought back to the vault. Any idea how it was damaged again?”

“When exactly had it been brought back to the vault?” Caleb asked, ignoring her question.

“Why, the day before you gave it to me.”

“Rachel, hang on a minute.” Caleb started tapping on the computer keyboard again. He was looking for how many Beadles had been sent to conservation in the recent past. His answer came back quickly as the software churned through the data.

“Thirty-six Beadles repaired over the last two years,” he said to the others. Next he checked the records for books Jewell English and Norman Janklow had requested, together with all books that had gone to the conservation department over the last six months. He found that Jewell English had requested 70 percent of the Beadles that had been repaired in the last six months. And she’d requested them on the exact day they had come back from conservation. He found a similar pattern for Norman Janklow.

He told the others the results of his search. “The Beadles require a lot of preservation work because they were so cheaply made.”

Stone, whose mind had raced ahead of the others, looked at Rachel Jeffries. “Can you tell us which conservator repaired that particular Beadle?”

“Oh, sure, it was Monty Chambers.”

Stone and the others started running down the long corridor.

Caleb called back over his shoulder, “Rachel, I love you.”

She immediately blushed but managed to say, “Caleb, you know I’m married. But maybe we can have a drink sometime.”

“Do you know where Chambers lives?” Stone asked Caleb as they ran out onto the street.

Caleb nodded. “It’s actually not too far from here.” They hailed two cabs and sped off. Fifteen minutes later the cabs slowed as they turned onto a quiet residential street lined with old row houses that were in good repair. Each had a small square of front yard enclosed by two-foot-high wrought-iron railings.

“This area looks familiar for some reason,” Stone said.

“There are a lot of neighborhoods just like this one around here,” Caleb explained.

They climbed out of the cabs, and Caleb led them up to one of the homes. The brick was painted blue and the shutters were coal black. Flowers sat in pots on the windowsill.

“You’ve been here before, obviously,” Stone said, and Caleb nodded.

“Monty has a workshop at home where he repairs books freelance. I’ve referred several people to him. He’s even repaired a couple of my books. I can’t believe he’d be mixed up in something like this. He’s the best conservator LOC has, been there for decades.”

“Everyone has their price, and a conservator would be the perfect person to doctor the books,” Stone remarked, looking cautiously at the front of the house. “I doubt that he’s hanging around here, but you never know. Reuben and I will knock on the door while you all stay back.”

The knock prompted no response. Stone glanced around. There was no one on the street. “Give me some cover, Reuben,” he said.

Reuben turned around and placed his wide body between Stone and the street. A minute later the lock clicked open. Stone went in first, followed by Reuben. The main floor revealed nothing of interest. The furniture was old, but hardly antique, the pictures on the walls were prints, the refrigerator had some old takeout in it, the dishwasher was empty. The two bedrooms upstairs yielded little of interest. Some slacks, shirts and jackets hung in one closet, underwear and socks in the small bureau. The bathroom held the usual items, though Stone picked up a couple objects with a puzzled look. The medicine cabinet held the typical assortment of prescriptions and toiletries. They found nothing that might indicate where Chambers had gone.