The Lies That Bind

It was midnight when we parked the Bentley in front of the building, so I doubted we would find Naomi at work. Inspector Lee was already there, waiting with two other cops. BABA was locked up for the night, but low lights shined through the textured glass section of the door.

Sure enough, after Inspector Lee hammered her fist on the door for almost a minute, Ned lumbered over to let us in.

“Huh,” he said. “Late.”

“Yeah, go back to sleep,” Lee said.

“ ’Kay.”

Ned trundled off and Lee led the way to Naomi’s office and pushed the door open. “You’re working late, Ms. Fontaine.”

Naomi jerked and shrieked at the same time. “You scared the hell out of me! What do you want? I’m not doing anything wrong.”

“Then you won’t mind showing me what you’re working on,” Lee said. She rounded the desk and grabbed the minicomputer. I was pretty sure it was a move that wouldn’t hold up in court, but I liked it.

“You already took my work computer!” Naomi cried, trying to grab it back. “This one’s mine!”

“Looks like an Excel spreadsheet,” Lee said, and made eye contact with me as she began to read off the screen. “It’s a list of books and prices. What’s this column?” She squinted at the small screen. “Date acquired. Date purchased. Date completed.”

“We often sell our books,” Naomi whined. “It’s not a crime. The books belong to Layla. I mean, me.”

“But passing a book off as more rare or better than it really is to gain a higher price is a crime,” I said. “It’s called fraud. It’s like theft, only really worse.” Okay, I was blathering. I silently beseeched Inspector Lee to pick up the ball.

Her gaze narrowed in on Naomi. “Are you defrauding your clients, Ms. Fontaine?”

Naomi took a deep, shuddering breath. “I didn’t know it was fraud! Layla has all these people she sells books to, and they were calling me. They wanted their money. Or . . . or they wanted their books. One man came by and he was not kidding around. He threatened me, told me I’d be sorry if I didn’t comply, so I gave him the book he wanted.”

“The Oliver Twist?” I asked.

Her face was a mask of shock and pain. “He said Layla promised it to him. He said he already paid her part of the money, so I gave him the book and he gave me the rest of the money.”

She gasped. It was clear she wished she hadn’t brought up the money. But she had, and I believed her admission signified that she wasn’t cut out to be as wicked as her auntie Layla.

“What did this man look like?” Lee asked. “The one who gave you the money?”

“He was . . .” Naomi winced and looked away.

“Go ahead,” Lee coaxed.

She took a deep breath. “He was Asian.”

“Ah, my people,” Lee muttered. “So? Tall? Fat? Short? Bald?”

“Tall. Normal build.” She gazed up at Lee with a sycophantic smile. “He was really nice-looking.”

“Swell. Did you get a name?”

Eager to please now, Naomi nodded. “Mr. Soo.”

“And how much money did he give you?”

Naomi chewed her lower lip. Now I could see her brain calculating how much to tell us.

“How much money, Ms. Fontaine?” Lee repeated, softly this time, but with more deadly intent.

Naomi’s shoulders shook nervously. “Ten thousand dollars.”

“In cash?”

She nodded, clearly miserable at having to disclose the true amount.

“No wonder you could afford a new wardrobe,” I marveled.

“It’s my money,” she said defiantly. “I’m Layla’s next of kin, so her book business comes to me.”

“Book business,” I said in disgust. “Sounds more like a ring of book thieves.”

“I’m not a thief. The book belonged to me.”

“Did it?” I asked. “Or did it belong to BABA?”

“We should probably finish this up downtown,” Lee said. She signaled to the cop watching from just outside the office door and he came forward instantly.

“No,” Naomi cried, and burst into tears.

I couldn’t blame her. I was ninety-nine percent positive she was i

So if Naomi was i

Chapter 16

Defeated, Naomi stood and the cop walked her out the door. They didn’t handcuff her because she wasn’t being arrested. She was just being taken in for questioning.

Inspector Lee followed them out the door and down the hall. I was about to tag along when I realized they’d walked out without Naomi’s notebook computer.

I hesitated for a nanosecond, then picked it up to check the screen. Hey, I couldn’t help myself. The spreadsheet wasn’t extensive, but it did list at least twenty books. I located both Oliver Twist and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

No wonder Naomi had blanched when she saw me with the Sleepy Hollow. Somebody—Mr. Soo, maybe?—might’ve threatened her over that book, as well.

I noticed the second page tab at the bottom of the spreadsheet and clicked on it. It took me to a list of mostly foreign-sounding names. That made a strange sort of sense. There was a huge market for fine art and antiquarian books in Asia and the Middle East, and buyers there were willing to pay top prices for the highest-quality books.

In a separate column, Mr. Soo’s name was listed in most of the cells, while the name of a Mr. Tangorand filled the remaining spaces. The columns weren’t identified. Were they the buyers? Or brokers, maybe?

“Still investigating, my dear?”

I twitched at the sound of Derek’s voice. “Stop sneaking up on me.”

“Better me than Inspector Lee,” he whispered loudly. “Who has not left the building, by the way.”

“Okay, okay.” As I set the notebook back on the desk, I noticed the corner of a business card sticking out from under Naomi’s desk blotter.

I pulled it out, read it, and waved it in the air. “It’s Mr. Soo’s.”

Derek shook his head. “You’re impossible. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

We got into the Bentley, and instead of starting the motor, Derek watched me. I wasn’t sure why. Then he reached over and smoothed my hair back from my face, one finger skimming my cheek slowly. And I knew.

He leaned in and I met him halfway. The kiss was warm, soft, purposeful. Wonderful.

“Where would you like to go?”

I knew what he was asking. It was the moment of truth. Did I have a choice? On a semantic plane, of course I had a choice. But if you could listen to the butterflies in my stomach, they were shouting—as loudly as butterflies could shout—Yes. The jackhammers in my heart pounded out Go-Go-Go. Desire flooded my brain and my face felt flushed. So I guessed I had my answer.

“Let’s go back to your hotel.”

His eyes narrowed, then relaxed, and he smiled and kissed me again. “Thank you.”

He was thanking me? I wanted to thank him, too, but I sat silently, simply trying to breathe as he put the car in gear and drove off slowly. Was he as nervous as I was? Maybe. He was driving slower than usual.

As we pulled into the porte cochere in front of the Ritz-Carlton, two valets rushed over to open the car doors.

We walked through the lobby, hand in hand, and I felt as though every eye in the place was watching us. Could they tell what we were about to do? My throat began to dry up. I had to lick my lips and take several slow, deep breaths.

As we waited for the elevator, Derek’s cell phone rang. I wanted to scream, Don’t answer that! But I behaved myself. He pulled the phone out, clutched my hand, and walked away from the elevator doors.

“Stone,” he said into the phone.

As someone spoke to him, he wrapped his arm around me so that I was pressed against him.