Chapter Seven #2
Silence greeted her, and then that look, the one that she recognized from their time together. He was measuring his words, weighing what he would tell her. Deciding which parts of himself he was going to share and keep away from her.
Margo had met Luke during grad school. Eight years her senior, he’d been using his art degree as a stepping stone for his law enforcement career, where he specialized in art theft.
Luke’s job had always been off-limits. At the time, he was working in law enforcement, in art crime, often on cases for Interpol.
He didn’t talk about what he did, didn’t bring his professional stresses home to her, didn’t discuss how difficult his day had been over dinner.
That didn’t mean it didn’t affect them, though, that she hadn’t learned to read her husband’s moods, that she wasn’t aware when he was utterly consumed by a criminal he was trying to catch.
Smuggling and stealing art was often tied into larger criminal enterprises, and Luke regularly saw the worst sides of humanity in the work he did.
In their marriage, it had meant that there was always a wall between them.
There was a side of Luke she knew well—the husband who would watch television with her late at night in bed, the husband who loved heading down to the pub on the weekend, the one who could make her dizzy with his kisses.
But beyond that there was a stranger, a man who lived in a world of secrets and danger that left her fretting for his safety on the nights he didn’t come home.
It had been a long time since she had felt like she belonged with another person, as though she was part of something that encompassed herself.
Her parents’ divorce when she was ten had left her feeling as though she existed in a state of limbo.
She was a remnant of a past family they both had rejected, a holdover that didn’t quite fit in the new lives they carved for themselves.
Maybe that was why she had fallen for Luke so quickly, so gratefully, even though she hadn’t been looking for it, even though she hadn’t known what to do with him, with a marriage, once she had it.
She’d sort of figured she’d apply the same “fake it till you make it” approach to marriage that she’d clung to in business.
She’d underestimated how complicated the emotional aspect would be.
A year into their marriage, Luke had asked her if she thought they should start trying for a baby, and she had burst into laughter at the ridiculousness of the notion.
There was no way she was ready to add another thing onto her plate when she was already struggling to maintain the responsibilities she had.
He hadn’t found it as macabrely funny as she had, didn’t understand how she viewed herself as chasing a life that was just out of reach.
His friends and peers were older than she was, had already established themselves in their careers and were now focusing on their families.
She was playing catch-up. And when she’d pointed out that his dangerous job and unpredictable lifestyle weren’t conducive to raising a child, their arguments devolved until the barbs became more pointed and indelible.
Margo took out her phone and clicked on the text message Greer had sent her, pulling up the grainy photo.
She showed it to Luke.
He studied the image for a beat, his gaze hooded, and then he glanced back at her.
“Where did you get this?”
“Why were you at the bookstore?” she countered.
“I was picking out a book on naval history for my dad,” he replied, his voice completely deadpan.
“Nice try.”
“My dad likes books on naval history.”
“Why were you there?” she persisted.
“Who sent you the photo?”
Margo crossed her arms over her chest, resisting the urge to tap her right foot as Luke had once pointed out that she did when they fought. That was the trouble with them: they could read each other far too easily, knew each other’s tells.
“A client did,” Margo replied. “Let me guess—you were there for work. Someone hired you to track a book for them, and you went there because you knew he was the person to see when trying to source a rare book.”
Because you learned that from me.
After months of fighting over having kids and how they would juggle that with their careers, and the fact that they didn’t have the “village” everyone said they needed, Luke had suggested that if his job was the problem, perhaps he should change careers.
With his background in art, the connections he’d built, the knack he had for tracking items, it had seemed only natural that they go into business together.
After all, if she was worried about building her business and them raising a family, working together could help them with the balance.
In theory, it had sounded good. And in reality, they’d both been desperate to fix what was beginning to seem irrevocably broken. But it hadn’t been the solution they’d both craved. Instead, it had accelerated everything.
Luke hadn’t found the same enjoyment in sourcing antiques and other items that she had, and even though he’d never mentioned it, even as he pretended he was happy with the choice he’d made, she could tell that he regretted it, that he missed the thrill of his old job.
Now Reynolds-Walsh Acquisitions was as dead as their marriage, their two businesses as divorced as they were.
Last she’d heard—after all, their corner of the market was a relatively small one—he’d opened a successful investigations firm.
For as hard as he worked, as smart as he was, she’d be lying if she said that it hadn’t stung a bit to see his company’s swanky address in Westminster.
She’d looked up his website online in a moment of weakness and recognized that he likely had bypassed many of the early business growing pains that had plagued her, given the capital he’d started with courtesy of the family trust that had always provided him a safety net she’d never had.
“Why were you there?” Luke countered. “Was it personal or business?”
“I took on a new client this week. He’s an intermediary, and his boss wants me to acquire a book for him.
A rare book.” She leveled him with a look.
“I think it’s the same book you were hired to find.
I confess—I’m a little confused, though.
I heard you were mainly doing private investigations these days, fraud investigations for insurance companies, isn’t it? ”
His eyes widened slightly, surprised perhaps by the realization that she’d followed his career.
“My company handles several types of investigative work.”
“Including finding rare books?”
He hesitated. “Not typically, no.”
“Then why were you there tonight?” Margo pressed him.
“I was helping out a colleague.”
She waited for him to elaborate, but infuriatingly, he didn’t.
“Mr. Thornton spoke to me before he died—while he was lying there dying.” Margo swallowed. “He told me to be careful. He said, ‘They want the book,’ or at least I think he did. I told the police, but I could tell they thought I was overreacting. I wasn’t—I wasn’t in the best state of mind.”
“Margo.” He said her name like an epithet. “Were you hired to find A Time for Forgetting ?”
Her heart pounded. “Yes.”
He swore. “Who is your client?”
“I’m not going to tell you that. Not unless you tell me who hired you.”
“No one hired me. You’re right—I don’t do that kind of work anymore. It didn’t suit me, but I suspect you knew that while we worked together.”
She did.
“One of the investigators who works for me was hired to find it. He had a personal relationship with the client, and so while it was a bit out of his normal depths, he agreed to do it as a favor. But he was hospitalized unexpectedly—gallbladder—and I took it over.” He hesitated as though he was choosing his words very, very carefully.
“I heard he was trying to find a book, and given my time working with you—I thought I would be well positioned to help. I’d just finished a forgery job, so I had a few free days. It seemed simple enough.”
“I thought the same thing,” Margo admitted. “How much trouble could a book be?”
“Exactly.”
And now a man was dead.
“So, you went to see Mr. Thornton?” Luke asked.
“Yes. Yesterday. He told me someone had already been in his shop asking him about the same book. He had a file on his research so far; not much, but he was going to share it with me. That wasn’t you or one of your people, though, was it?”
Luke shook his head. “And you were meeting tonight so that Mr. Thornton could tell you what he had found?”
“Yes.”
“Did he tell you anything about the person?”
She gave him the basic description Mr. Thornton had shared with her. “Does that sound like your client?” Margo asked him.
“We haven’t met in person. All the correspondence has been online. But my client is a woman.” He studied her for a moment. “Do you think it was your client?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so, though. All our communication has been through an intermediary. It doesn’t make sense to me that my client would hire me and then undermine me.”
“Did you get the impression that Thornton was afraid or had been threatened?” Luke asked.
“No. Not at all. If anything, he seemed interested in the mystery of why there was so much interest in this book suddenly. He was in good spirits when I saw him. He gave me a book to read.”
“Did he have any enemies?” Luke asked.
“I don’t think so. I saw him yesterday and he didn’t mention any; then again, we weren’t that close. If there was a problem, he might not have told me. We were professional associates.”
“You were more than that—you were friends. It was obvious that he cared about you.”
She struggled to push past the lump in her throat. “He was a kind man. I respected him a great deal.”
“I know,” Luke replied, the gentleness in his voice nearly too much to bear.
Margo glanced down at her feet, too embarrassed to meet his gaze lest he see the tears brimming in her eyes.