Chapter 37
thirty-seven
Once the Niagara Falls of tears have ceased and I clean up in the ladies’ room, Liam escorts me back into the ballroom, where Seamus, my brother, waits. He gives me a small wink and a wide smile.
“I heard they’re putting up this super rare book for the auction.” Seamus grins at me excitedly. “It’s one of J. R. R. Tolkien’s first editions, leather bound.”
That catches my attention. I’ve told him of my love for Tolkien’s books. My mother and I used to read them out loud to one another at night before bed.
“Oh, I love Tolkien.” I glance up at the stage, waiting for them to announce the next item.
“Katherine did too,” Liam tells me. “She always had a copy of The Hobbit in her purse wherever we went. Used to drive me crazy when she’d pull it out of nowhere. Even did it on one of our movie dates.”
“Did you take her to see an action movie?” I question curiously.
Liam grumbling under his breath tells me exactly what I need to know. My mother hated action movies of all kinds. Even ones with romance in them.
“Serves you right then.”
“Who says no to Bruce Willis?”
“I do.” Liam and Seamus gasp, feigning offense, but I just shrug a shoulder. “Just saying.”
“Blasphemy,” Seamus mutters, disappointed. “You’ll have to be disowned.”
I giggle, covering my hand with my mouth so the sound won’t travel far.
“Now, ladies and gentlemen, for our next item, we have a rare treat for you.” The auctioneer beams down at the crowd. “A rare leather bound first edition of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, first printed in 1937, which includes the original artwork by the author himself.”
Now the item definitely has my attention.
There are only six of those left in circulation in good enough condition to sell, and one of them belongs to Libby.
The book is the only thing I was able to take with me when Elias came for me.
One night, while I was crying myself to sleep, Libby crawled into my bed and told me to read her my favorite story.
So I introduced her to the world of Bilbo and the Ring of Power.
Just like I had the first time my mother read it to me, Libby falls in love, and I gifted her the books several years later for her sixteenth birthday.
“This book was generously donated by Kendra Ward, and all proceeds will go to the Society Against Sex Trafficking.” The auction announces excitedly.
Jesus, if he only knew that her husband and son practically fund the sex ring in Washington, he probably wouldn’t be as enthused.
“The bidding will start at twelve thousand dollars.”
“Fucking bitch,” I snarl under my breath. “That belonged to my mother.”
“How did Kendra Ward get it?” Seamus wonders.
“I gave it to Libby for her birthday,” I tell him. “We used to put secret messages in the pages when Elias kept us apart. We used the book as—that’s it!”
“Ava?” Liam looks over at me. “What’s wrong?”
“We need that book.”
Liam frowns. “I know it belonged to Katherine, but I can’t be spending that much money on a book for sentimental reasons, lass. I’m sorry.”
“No, you don’t understand.” I take a deep breath to steady myself.
“I read my sister’s journal when I found it, and she stated that after the raid on Elias’s house, she managed to take and hide two of his little black books.
The ones that hold all his blackmail information and accounts.
Anyone and everyone on his payroll is in those books. Including his benefactor.”
“What does this have to do with the book?” Seamus questions.
“One of the pages in her journal has a bunch of numbers I have been trying to decipher, and the first set of numbers is one, three, one, eight, nine, and two,” I tell them.
“January third, eighteen ninety-two. The year Tolkien is born. Under that is nineteen thirty-seven, the year The Hobbit was first published.”
“Still not following, lass,” Liam admits. “Why the book?”
“We used to write coded messages to one another using the book as the decryption key.” Jesus, I can’t believe I didn’t put this together sooner. “Beneath those numbers is a string of numbers that correspond to the page number, paragraph, and word in The Hobbit.”
Seamus shrugs. “So we go pick up a cheaper copy at Barnes and Noble.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” I stress. “The page numbers won’t be the same, and the message won’t be right.”
“You think the coded message is your sister telling you where the books are?” Liam asks dubiously.
“I know it is.”
“All right then, lass.” He smiles. “Let’s go buy an enormously expensive book.”