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“Give me your books!” she screeched at him, her face suddenly a twisted mask of fury.

Drummond tore the corner of the page and disappeared into the shadows just as the woman moved in a blur to the place where he had stood moments before.

As he hurried away out of the park and onto the street, he saw her looking around and searching for him.

He fled, running from images that would haunt him forever, weeping in the shadows for his friends and the ghastly things the woman had done to them.

The Bookseller (1)

They met the Bookseller in the lobby bar at the Ace Hotel, just off Broadway at West Twenty-Ninth Street. Izzy had been to the bar before on a double date not long after she had first arrived in New York, and the place hadn’t changed in the intervening period. The space was large, like it had once been a bank, with broad white pillars dividing it and holding the roof high above them. Wood paneling ran around the walls and the bar was lit by table lamps and bulbs hanging high above. When Lund and Izzy entered it was early afternoon, and there was a low, comfortable hubbub of people passing the time and catching up. Izzy waited next to Lund as he searched the space with his eyes, before settling on a figure sitting in the far corner.

“Wait here,” he said.

“No,” Izzy said. Lund looked at her, assessing her, and didn’t argue. He headed toward a woman sitting by herself at one end of a leather sofa. She looked up when they drew near, and Izzy saw that she was beautiful. She had the dark skin of an African American, with large eyes and high cheekbones. She was bald, and large, colorful earrings hung from her ears. She was dressed in an expensive gray suit with a crimson blouse that was buttoned low enough to reveal cleavage and she had spectacles on a chain around her neck. She was sitting with her legs crossed and Izzy saw expensive heels on her feet, of a similar color to the blouse she was wearing. She had a cocktail on the table in front of her.

The woman looked at them for a moment. “Help you?”

“Azaki is gone,” Lund said simply.

The woman absorbed that for a moment, her lips pursing slightly. “And you are?”

“Lund,” Lund said. “I was with him.” He tossed Azaki’s phone onto the couch next to her, and her eyes flicked down to it.

“The bodyguard,” the woman said.

“A bald man shot and killed him,” Lund said.

“A bald man,” Lottie said.

“Tried to shoot me too,” Lund continued, pointing at the wound on the side of his head. “But he missed. Which is incredible given I am much bigger than Azaki.”

“Dr. Barbary,” Izzy said. “That was his name. Hugo Barbary.”

The woman sighed, and then gestured to the seats across from her. Izzy and Lund sat.

“You must be Izzy,” the woman said. She glanced at Lund, who nodded in reply.

“Yes,” Izzy said hesitantly. “How do you know?”

“You are a beautiful woman, Izzy,” the Bookseller said, ignoring the question. “You must get told that all the time.”

“Not often enough,” Izzy replied. She waved a hand over her own head while looking at the Bookseller’s scalp. “I like the bald. I could never pull that off.”

The Bookseller grinned in response. “Oh, I like you,” she said. “Which is good, because I have promised someone that I will keep you safe.”

“Who?” Izzy asked. “Who have you promised?”

“Doesn’t matter,” the woman said. “For now. You won’t have long to wait.”

“It does matter,” Izzy argued. “I want to know what’s going on.”

“All that matters is that you will be safe. That is what I asked Azaki to do, and that, I assume, is why Mr. Lund brought you to me.”

Izzy looked a question at Lund.

“It’s not the only reason we’re meeting,” Lund said to the Bookseller.

Lund removed the Book of Pain from his pocket and slid it across the table to her.