Chapter 18
Eighteen
following afternoon. The place had a closed feel, lights off in both wings, the carrels empty, the vast central room submerged
in chilly blue shadows.
The Special Collection was dark and desolate. When he looked around, Arthur thought it was obvious that books were missing.
The shelves seemed less densely packed, hardcovers tipped against one another. It was probably just his imagination.
The steel cabinet that held the most valuable books stood three inches off the ground on feet sculpted to look like reptilian
talons. The lock was a nineteenth-century beauty, crafted in the shape of a heart as big as a man’s hand. The key slid into
it with a smooth, oiled click and it sprang open with a snap.
Rows of ancient books bound in worn pebbled leather crowded the cabinet’s three shelves. The volume he needed was on the middle
shelf, preserved inside a large, handsome Solander box. Arthur pulled out the box, tugged on a blue silk ribbon to open the
clamshell case, and there it was: the Crane journal. He had been possessed by the morbid idea that it would look like the
Necronomicon in The Evil Dead, a book bound in wrinkled flesh, with a tormented face bulging from the front cover. But it was merely an oversize leather
volume like any other, saddle-colored, worn and nicked with age.
He removed it from the box and returned the empty clamshell to the shelf.
On a cursory glance, the book might not be missed.
He pushed the door of the safe shut and refastened the lock.
He knew of only three keys that could open the safe, and he knew who had each.
Mr. Meckfessel, the head librarian, had the original.
One of the two dupes was with campus security.
The other was with him: one of only three Black kids at Rackham college, and the only student whose mother was serving time for murder.
Sooner or later, the book would be discovered missing, and they wouldn’t have to scratch their heads for long to figure out
who had taken it. It was only a matter of time.