“Should you be handling that without gloves?” he asked. “Why is it out of the case?”
“I think I found something strange. I need your help.”
She explained about the plug, saying that she’d noticed it was sticking out and that it had fallen off when she lifted the walking stick. Just a white lie. At least she’d stopped herself from examining it alone.
By the time she’d finished speaking, Claude was practically salivating. “What do we do?”
“We should bring it downstairs, to Mr. Babenko. He might have the tools to get it out without damaging the paper or the cane.”
As they walked down the three flights of stairs, Sadie gathered up her courage. “Claude, I want to apologize about the way I behaved, after the Christmas party. I was rude to you, and I’m sorry about that.”
There, she’d said it. She waited as Claude absorbed the change in the air between them, the sudden intimacy her words had created. He cleared his throat. “And I’m sorry to have lashed out at you like that. We were both worried about the collection, and under pressure. But it wasn’t very nice. I’m sorry.”
“Can we be friends?” She snuck a glance at him.
“I’d like that very much.”
At that, a weight lifted from Sadie that she didn’t realize she’d been carrying. How silly she’d been to not have had this conversation back in January, but she was learning. Learning how to be clear, to express what she was thinking without worrying it was wrong or stupid. To take up space and not apologize for it.
In the basement, Mr. Babenko approached the project with a careful enthusiasm, finding a pair of tweezers with rubber tips that wouldn’t tear the paper.
“What if it’s just an old shopping list?” joked Claude.
“I wouldn’t put it past her,” said Sadie. “Laura Lyons, getting the last laugh.”
The paper slipped out, and as Sadie held her breath, Mr. Babenko gently unrolled it, placing weights at each corner to hold it flat. The paper had turned yellow but wasn’t cracked, and Sadie recognized Laura Lyons’s signature at the bottom. This was no shopping list.
The note was filled with tiny handwriting, and dated not long before Laura’s death.
A valuable book by Poe sits in a dark, unused dumbwaiter in the superintendent’s apartment of the New York Public Library. Although my husband took the blame before killing himself, the true thief was my son. I will do anything I can to protect him, so while my boy is alive, I will never tell a soul. Yet I can’t bear the thought of it being lost forever, and I write this to try to absolve some of my terrible guilt at keeping such a secret. This has been weighing on me deeply. I hope one day the truth will come out, and the book will be rescued.
So Laura Lyons’s son—Sadie’s uncle, Harry—had been the culprit back in 1914, not Sadie’s grandfather. In the note, Laura explained that it had all begun when Harry burned his father’s manuscript, a book that he’d been writing for years, but that it was all ultimately her fault, that her own actions had initiated a cascade of tragedies.
The burning book. Not a rare manuscript, an unpublished one.
While my boy is alive, I will never tell a soul, Laura had written.
But Sadie’s uncle Harry had died of typhoid in his teens. At least, that’s what Pearl had told Sadie and Lonnie. Or had Laura lied to her daughter in order to make a clean break prior to their move overseas? Sadie’s head spun.
“We have to include this in the exhibit,” said Claude. “Is it too late?”
“It’s definitely too late for the catalog,” said Sadie.
“What if we include an insert, like they do in theater playbills when there’s an understudy?”
Sadie snapped her fingers. “Great idea. Bring these back upstairs and get them safely in the display case. I’ll work on the language for the insert when I’m back.”
“Where are you going?”
“To find some answers.”
The exhibit opened with a bang, with glowing write-ups in all the national newspapers and even a segment on 60 Minutes, where Sadie spoke of the importance of the books and, with Dr. Hooper’s permission, the backstory of the thefts and Sadie’s personal connection to Laura Lyons. It was a juicy story, so juicy that even Dr. Hooper didn’t mind the exposure, not with lines out the door to view the exhibit every day, and new donors offering to support the collection every week. Sadie explained to Lesley Stahl that in a way, the robbery had made the books come alive, become part of our current conversation, instead of remaining inanimate, historical archives. Stahl seemed to really like that.
At the opening-night reception, Sadie took a break from accepting congratulations from her colleagues and hung back in a corner, observing the crowd. In the center of the room, Dr. Hooper was guiding several board members through the exhibit, while nearby, Lonnie, LuAnn, and Valentina stared into the case containing Laura Lyons’s cane, as Lonnie animatedly explained the story of the secret hiding place to Valentina, whose eyes were huge.
“Hey there.”
She turned to see Nick in the doorway, holding two glasses of champagne in his hands. He was dressed in a black suit with a sea-blue tie that matched his eyes. “Care to join me?”
She followed him out into the hallway, where waiters were passing trays of food to the guests who had assembled in the McGraw Rotunda.
Nick handed her a glass and pointed up to the mural on the ceiling. “Who’s the tough guy with the sparkler?”
“That would be Prometheus, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mankind.”
“Brave soul.”
“Zeus didn’t think so. He punished him big-time. Chained him to a rock, ordered a bird to eat his liver, that kind of thing.”
He cringed. “Glad the painter decided to skip that half of the story. Not sure I could stomach it.”
“Probably wouldn’t go over very well with the library’s visitors, either. Not exactly the message we want to get across.”
“Although it might deter future book thieves.”
“Good point.”
Nick cocked his head toward the exhibit hall. “I saw Dr. Hooper earlier and he was practically levitating, he was so giddy. You’ve done it, Sadie.”
“It was a team effort. Including you, of course.”
They locked eyes, and neither looked away.
Sadie considered her choices. She could put him off, the way she’d done with Claude, and stay safe from harm. Or she could take a leap and pursue him, allow herself to be pursued, and possibly end up hurt and betrayed. Laura Lyons had taken the risk with Amelia Potter. After losing so much more than Sadie had, she’d been able to open up and love someone again. Sadie was certain she could, too. Her future was in her hands, a book yet to be written. How she chose to fill its pages was entirely up to her.
“Sadie, tomorrow night, at the Village Vanguard, there’s a—”
“Yes. I’d love to.”
He laughed. “Don’t you want to know what it is?”
“Whatever it is, there will be music and you. A winning combination.”
“We are a winning combination, Sadie. Don’t forget that.” His face was lit up from within, boyish, and Sadie’s heart swelled. She wished she had a camera to capture his expression. He stepped closer. “We’ll have a good time, I promise. By the way, how is your follow-up research going, into Robin’s past?”
She’d described, in vague terms, her hunt to uncover Robin’s connection to the library, but wasn’t ready to disclose anything just yet. She’d fill him in once she had the proof she was seeking. “I’m close, I’m sure.”
Just then, Dr. Hooper and the other guests spilled into the rotunda, and a spoon was clinked on a champagne glass. Sadie and Nick stood side by side, arms touching, as the speeches began.