Chapter Thirty-Five
Jeremy sat in his chair, too, and folded his hands on the table in front of him. “I’m afraid my sister’s right.”
“Your sister?” Addie’s mouth dropped open. “You’re British Jeremy?”
“No,” Sheila snapped. “We’re both as American as they come. But it really didn’t hurt that I easily picked up the accent when I lived there. I fit in better and it opened a lot of professional doors for me.”
Addie glanced from one to the other. “I don’t understand what this is all about. The two of you here? I just don’t get it.”
“There’s nothing to get, my friend,” Sheila sneered at her. “Remember that book you found last year in a crate, the one that made you the shining star at the British Museum? You all thought at first it was the original handwritten copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
”
Addie nodded. “I remember.” Her eyes fixed on the gun in her face. “We thought it was the one that had been stolen from the British Library warehouse a year before, when it was being prepared for shipping to be on loan to Oxford.”
“But you see, we knew better—it couldn’t have been that one.” Jeremy looked at Sheila and winked. “Because that book was safely tucked away in our possession when you made your discovery. What you may not know,” he said, leaning toward Addie, his sour breath wafting across her face, “is that my talented sister also does consulting work for the British Library and is well acquainted with their security features. She just worked her magic, and poof, it was ours.” His eyes mocked her.
“So as you can see,” Sheila said, shifting her weight onto one hip, “I became rather curious about just what it was you did discover. To everyone’s surprise, including mine, it turned out to be the second copy, also handwritten. Not the initial fifteen-thousand-word version that the library had been displaying, which of course I knew, but the twenty-seven-thousand-word copy where Carroll had added the scenes about the Cheshire Cat and the Mad Tea-Party.”
“Do you see now?” Jeremy’s brow cocked. He looked at Sheila and grunted a gasp of exasperation.
Sheila rolled her eyes at him and sighed. “What my brother is trying to say is, we know you’re not stupid.”
Addie shifted in her chair, slipped her hand into her pocket, wrapped her fingers firmly around her cell phone, and pressed what she hoped was record.
Jeremy stood up and slammed his hand on the table. Addie flinched. “There were two originals, and they make a very rare set worth tens of millions.”
Sheila urged Jeremy back with her gun hand. Addie’s eyes held fast on it as the woman thrust it in her face. “The first book is Carroll’s first edition, and then you discovered the second one. The one he’d expanded in preparation for publication—the one he had given to the real Alice, Alice Liddell, which I knew had sold at auction some ten years ago for millions to a private collector who later reported it stolen. We were in the process of tracking it down when, voilà, it fell in my lap.”
“Do you think I was the one who stole it from the collector? Is that what this is all about?”
Jeremy laughed. “No, my dearest Addie, we thought you stole it from the museum. You see, right after your discovery became big news, you went back to Boston and that second book disappeared from the museum. We thought that, like us, you had your own little side business going, and we’d be damned if you were going to take away our chance at the millions that the two-book set would bring us.”
“I must say I did wonder at the time how Miss Lily-white could have fooled me all those months. Then Jeremy reminded me what line of work your fiancé was in, and we figured the two of you were our competition.”
“But I didn’t bring anything back. It was sent to the British Library for further analysis.”
Sheila tossed her head back, laughed, and then glanced at Jeremy.
He walked to the kitchenette counter, leaned on it, and shook his head. “We know that now, but unfortunately for poor David, Sheila discovered where the book had really gone after I had already paid a little visit to your apartment.”
“What do you mean?” Addie felt the color drain from her face. She looked at Jeremy’s back, then at Sheila. “You
killed him.”
“Yes, but it wasn’t in vain. You see, as David pleaded for his life—and yours, by the way—he did share a tidbit of information with me before he gasped his last breath. He told me about a rather shady broker who might know about a third book that, if added to our collection, would make us even richer. I of course at the time still thought he was keeping the second book from me for your own purposes and eventually lost patience, but his information about this third book’s existence was rather enlightening.”
“But David didn’t know anything about the book you thought I took.”
“Yes, and his death was truly tragic, but, as you see, it served a purpose.”
Tears burned at Addie’s eyes. “Why did you have to kill him?”
“Well, he could have been competition, you know.” Jeremy studied his cuticles. “Especially since he’d discovered what we were after, and then had the lead on the third book for our little priceless set of three, instead of just the two. I couldn’t take the chance he might go out on his own and find it, causing us to lose a fortune.”
Addie heaved a heavy breath, fighting back her tears. “You mentioned a broker.” She squared her shoulders and held her head high. “Did this broker tell you I had the third book you’re looking for?”
“No, but he was well connected and had discovered someone who did have a lead on it.” He flashed a grin.
“Who?”
“Raymond James, of course.”
Addie shook her head. “That’s how he got involved in all this.”
Jeremy cracked his knuckles and brought his hands to the back of his head. “It seems a number of years ago your aunt found something during her travels and had it appraised by an old antiquities dealer who has long since passed, but the copy of the evaluation was in her files in Raymond’s office. Once Raymond shared that information with us . . . we convinced
him to work with us, and everything else came into play.”
Sheila lifted her chin and stared down her nose at Addie.
Addie stretched out her tight shoulders and glanced down at her jacket pocket. “So your plan is to find this third book that you think I have and then go back to the British Library and steal the second one, just like you did the first?”
“Sheila is a wizard with security systems.” Jeremy smirked.
Addie balled her fists. “And what happens now?”
Sheila took a step closer. “Unless you tell us where you have hidden that book . . . I’ll shoot you.”
“I have no idea what book you’re talking about. You already have the two that are worth millions. I only know about a diamond-covered box.”
Sheila’s lip curled and she glared at Jeremy. “I told you I’m tired of all this. We should have had that book months ago, and here we still are.” Her eyes narrowed, she straightened her arm, supporting her elbow with her other hand, and took steady aim at Addie.
“Wait a moment, Sheila.” Jeremy grasped her arm, securing his sister’s hand and lowering it to her side. “Let’s try one other option first. Be patient just a few minutes longer.” He headed for the bedroom. “I think I might have someone here who may convince her to talk before it comes to that.”
“Let’s hope so, or this one won’t be any use to us anymore, and . . .” Sheila raised her hand, wielding the gun in Addie’s face.
Addie rolled her wet palms on her knees and scoured the tabletop with them, her eyes fixed on Sheila.
“What’s taking so long?” Sheila glanced over her shoulder. “This is getting tiresome. Hurry up.”
Seeing that Sheila’s attention was momentarily diverted, Addie grabbed her drink and tossed it in Sheila’s face, knocking the gun out of her hand. She grabbed the lamp off the table, brandishing it over her head, and brought it down across Jeremy’s head when he bolted back into the living room.
A hot, sharp pain slammed into Addie’s right temple. She spun around. Sheila took another lunge at her, wielding the whiskey bottle from the counter. Addie ducked and rolled onto her side. Sheila grabbed her hair and jerked her violently backward, seizing Addie around the throat. She reached behind her and managed to grab hold of Sheila’s hair with both hands. With a hard yank, she pulled Sheila’s head forward and smashed her forehead into the back of hers. Sheila lost her grip. Addie lurched toward the door. It flung open and Marc, gun drawn, burst in.
“Thank God,” she panted and looked up as officers swarmed the room. One placed his knees on Sheila’s back and slapped handcuffs on her.
Marc bent over Jeremy, who attempted a weak swing in Marc’s direction. Marc dropped the weight of his body across him. “Cuff this one, too, and read him his rights.”
“Chief, I think you’d better come in here.”
An officer secured Jeremy, and Marc made his way into the bedroom. “Another one?”
“Another what?” Addie jumped to her feet and dashed for the bedroom door.
Marc grabbed her before she could get by him. “You’d better stay out here.” He gripped her shoulders. “Give my men room to work.”
“What? Why?” She swerved to the side to peer behind him.
He moved to block her view.
“Marc, who’s in there? Who is it?” She pushed him away. “Jeremy said he had someone who could make me talk.”
“Well, this guy’s not going to be doing any talking for a while. It looks like a bad blow to the head. An ambulance is on its way.”
“Roger?”
“Yeah, that’s my guess. He probably refused to cooperate with Jeremy’s next plan to convince you to talk, and Jeremy had enough playing around, tried to force him to—The paramedics are here now. Step back, we need to let them do their job. You can ID him later.” Marc shuffled her to the side.
Tears pooled in Addie’s eyes. Moments later, two paramedics wheeled a stretcher out of the door. Addie stared at Roger’s colorless face as they passed her, dark red oozing through the contrasting white gauze binding his forehead. She shuddered, thinking of Catherine.
She looked up at Marc. “Yes, it’s him. Thank God you came in when you did. Poor Roger. He could have died, too.”
“Yes, Jeremy doesn’t seem to have an issue with disposing of people to get what he wants.”
Addie shivered. “I know. And I thought he was someone I could trust.” She puffed out her cheeks, exhaling hard. “He’s probably already sold the books I sent him.” She frowned and looked up at Marc. “But . . . how did you know I was here?”
“Serena, of course.”
“Of course, but how did you know to come in?”
“When she told me this fellow Roger had come a week early and was insisting you meet him tonight, I had a gut feeling.” He shrugged and scratched the day-old stubble on his cheek.
“A gut feeling?”
“Yes, you’re not the only one who gets those. So I took a drive through the parking lot on my way home just to see if you were still here.”
“How did that tell you there was something wrong?”
“I spotted the Cayenne and the black Honda and knew something was up.”
“Thank heavens for gut instincts.”
“You can say that again.” He put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close to his side.
She laughed and gave him a quick hip-check. “Now what, partner?”
“Partner nothing. I go back to the police station and hope I can wrap all this up by morning. You—you go home.”
“Not a chance.”