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It was several long seconds before the king answered. “See that it is done.”
One
San Francisco, California
Present day
Sam and Remi Fargo weaved their way around the tourists crowding the sidewalk. Once they were through the green pagoda-style gateway of Chinatown, the throng much thinner, Remi checked the map on her cell phone. “I have a feeling we took a wrong turn somewhere.”
“To that restaurant,” Sam replied, removing his revered panama hat. “A tourist trap, if I ever saw one.”
She glanced at her husband, watching as he ran his fingers through his sun-streaked brown hair. He stood over a head taller than Remi, with broad shoulders and an athletic build. “I didn’t hear you complaining when they brought out the moo shu pork.”
“Where did we go wrong?”
“Ordering the Mongolian beef. Definitely a mistake.”
“On the map, Remi.”
She zoomed in, reading the streets. “Perhaps the shortcut through Chinatown wasn’t so short.”
“Maybe if you’d at least tell me where we’re going, I could help?”
“It’s the only part of this trip,” Remi said, “that’s my surprise for you. You haven’t even shared what you have planned.”
“For a reason.” Sam put on his hat, and Remi linked her arm through his while they walked. He’d arranged this trip because their last adventure to the Solomon Islands had not been the hoped-for quiet vacation they’d planned. “I promise you nothing but rest, relaxation, and a week of no one trying to kill us.”
“A whole week of downtime,” she said, sidling closer to him as a cloud drifted over the sun, taking with it all the warmth of the early-September afternoon. “Have we had anything like that in a while?”
“Not that I can remember.”
“There it is,” she said, spying the bookstore. The flaking gold-leafed lettering in the window read Pickering’s Used & Rare Books. “Just to show how very much I appreciate you traipsing all this way with me, I won’t make you come in.” Remi was being facetious. Sam’s late father, a NASA engineer, had collected rare books, and Sam, also an engineer, had inherited that same passion.
He eyed the bookstore, then his wife. “What sort of husband would I be if something happened to you in there?”
“Dangerous things, books.”
“Look what they did to your brain.”
The pair crossed the street to the bookstore. A Siamese cat, resting on a stack of volumes in the window, looked up in disdain when a bell tinkled as Sam opened the door for Remi. The place smelled of musk and old paper, and Remi scanned the shelves, at first seeing nothing but used hardcovers and current paperbacks. She hid her disappointment from Sam, hoping they hadn’t made the trip for nothing.
A gray-haired man, wearing gold spectacles, wandered in from the back, wiping his hands on a dusty cloth. He saw them and smiled. “May I help you find something?”
Sam’s phone rang. He took it from his pocket, telling Remi, “I’ll take it outside.”
“Perfect, since this was meant to be a surprise.”
He stepped out, and Remi waited until the door closed firmly behind him before turning to the proprietor. “Mr. Pickering?”
He nodded.
“I was told you had
a copy of The History of Pyrates and Privateers.”
His smile faltered for the barest of instances. “Of course. Right over here.”
Pickering led her to a shelf where several identical volumes of Pyrates and Privateers sat. And while they were clearly reproductions, their faux gold-tooled leather binding gave them the appearance of something that might be found in a library centuries before.