“What?” Sam asked warily.
“It’s encrypted with a delicate little psi-code.” Abby opened the cover with great care and studied the title page. Pleasure and a little heat illuminated her eyes.
Sam looked over her shoulder and studied the Latin. “What does it say?”
“The title translates to A Treatise on the Herbs and Flowers Most Useful in the Art of Mixing Perfumes. It’s a guide to perfume making, written by someone who obviously had a psychic talent for the craft. According to the title page, it contains some of Cleopatra’s own personal recipes. Isn’t it lovely?”
“Abby,” Sam said, “it wasn’t mailed to you.”
“Yes, I know. I told you, my mail goes through a private post office.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he said evenly. “It wasn’t mailed anywhere. There’s no postage on it. That package must have been hand-delivered.”
Abby looked up at last. Her eyes narrowed faintly. He realized he finally had her attention.
“Well, I do have a few friends,” she said tentatively. “I suppose one of them could have dropped it off.”
“Is there a note?”
“I didn’t notice one.” She looked at the wooden box. There was a small white envelope inside. “Wait, there it is.”
She put the book down and opened the envelope. She pulled out the small card inside and read the handwritten message: “Please accept this small gift as an expression of my admiration for your unique talents. I wish to commission your services with a view to acquiring a rare item that is rumored to be coming onto the market. Price is no object. There will be a generous bonus if you are successful. Regardless of your decision, the herbal is yours to keep.”
“Someone is trying to bribe you to take him on as a client,” Sam said. “And he knows where you live.”
“Oh, crap,” Abby said.
10
ICY ENERGY ELECTRIFIED THE ATMOSPHERE. ABBY KNEW THAT Sam was jacked. So was she, but in a different way. It made her uneasy to realize that a potential client had found her home address, but she could not bring herself to believe that the little herbal represented a truly dangerous threat.
“I take precautions,” Abby said, “but everyone knows that these days you can find anyone if you look hard enough. I would point out, for instance, that you found my address tonight. I don’t recall giving it to you this afternoon.”
“I had your license plate,” Sam said.
“I beg your pardon? I left my car in Anacortes when I went to see you.” Then it struck her. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, it was Dixon, wasn’t it? He made a note of my license plate when he fetched me at the marina. You used it to trace me.”
“My family takes precautions, too,” Sam said. “How many of your clients have gone to the trouble to track you down like this?”
“It’s never been much of a problem, to be honest. Everyone knows my reputation. There’s no point approaching me unless you have been referred by someone I trust. Even if someone got as far as the front door of this building, none of the doormen would let him in unless I gave my approval.”
“Mail and packages are delivered to the lobby. How did these get up here today?”
“I was supposed to be out of town for the next few days. I had a job down in Portland that I rescheduled after the blackmail threats arrived. The day doorman, Ralph, always brings up my mail and waters my plants when I’m gone. I forgot to tell him that my plans had changed.”
Sam picked up the note and read it silently. “This isn’t the same guy who is sending you the threatening notes.”
“No, I’m sure it isn’t. Whoever sent me this herbal is trying to impress me. This is a very generous gift. I could probably sell it for several thousand dollars, enough to cover my mortgage payments for a while and pay off my new furniture.”
“Are you impressed?” Sam asked softly.
She drew one finger across the elegantly hand-tooled leather cover. Hushed power locked in stasis stirred her senses.
“Oh, my, yes,” she whispered. “No one has ever given me anything like this in my whole life. The book is valuable in and of itself as an antiquarian text, but the psi-encryption makes it worth much, much more to the collectors in my market. Who knows what secrets may be hidden inside.”
Sam’s jaw hardened. “In other words, the person who sent it to you is wooing you.”
She smiled. “You could say that. Giving me this book is the equivalent of giving another woman a very nice set of diamond earrings.”
She could see that Sam did not like hearing that. She wondered why it bothered him so much. She had merely been trying to illustrate a point.
“It’s not personal,” she said quickly. “I mean, it’s not like he wants to have an affair with me or anything. He just wants me to know that he can afford my services and that he’ll pay well for them.” She touched the herbal again. “This gift also tells me that he respects my talent.”
“Don’t get any ideas about dumping me and taking him on as a client,” Sam warned. “You and I have a deal.”
She sighed. “Yep, I’m committed.”
“You don’t have to act like it’s a tragedy. That blackmailer is still out there, remember.”
“Believe me, I haven’t forgotten.”
“Can I have a look at that herbal?” Sam asked.
“Sure.” She handed it to him with some reluctance. The energy of the book was mildly intoxicating. Like an exotic perfume, she thought.
Sam opened the book with due care. “I can feel a little heat, but nothing that would warn me that it’s encrypted.”
“Whoever locked that book was very skilled with the old techniques. You probably wouldn’t notice anything at all unless you actually tried to concoct some of the recipes. Then you would find out, probably the hard way, that the perfumes you created were all off in some fashion.”
Sam looked up. “The hard way?”
“The results might vary, from foul-smelling concoctions to some that are downright poisonous. It would depend on just how serious the person who set the code was about protecting her secrets.”
“You think a woman locked this book?”
“Yes,” Abby said. She smiled. “Every psi-code is unique. It’s like a fingerprint in that it reveals a lot about the individual who set the encryption. You’ll have to take my word for it when I tell you that you do not want to re–create any of those recipes unless the code is broken first.”
“I believe you.” Sam put the book down on the desk. “What are you going to do with the herbal? Keep it?”
“No, I really can’t do that. The person who sent it was very gracious and very generous about insisting it was a gift, but I could never accept such a valuable item for services that haven’t been rendered.”
“How will you return it?” Sam asked. “You don’t know the sender.”
“I’m sure that won’t be a problem. I’ll give the book to Thaddeus Webber. He’ll find a way to return it to whoever sent it. Thaddeus has connections throughout the hot-book market. Unlike me, he works the deep end.”
“Do you think that the person who sent you the herbal is a deep-end collector?”
“Yes.” She placed the herbal carefully back into the box. “I do.”
“Think he knows you’ll arrange to return the book if you don’t accept him as a client?”
“Certainly.” She smiled. “I told you, I have a reputation in this business.”
“In other words, he didn’t take much of a risk when he gave you the herbal.”
“No. But it was a very elegant gesture, regardless.”
Sam watched her close the lid of the box. “You know, I had no idea until now how delicate business negotiations are in your world.”