Page 12 of Booked for Theft (Vigilante Magical Librarians #3)

TWELVE

I couldn’t help but think that few good men remained in our country, and we’d lost one of them.

Following my sweet victory, we took everyone on a tour of our condo. I couldn’t bring myself to show them the books Senator Thaddens had given me, nor did we make mention of the documents or videos we’d acquired. Several men from Mr. Hampton’s security company did a sweep of the place, finding nothing.

The closest the government goons had gotten to our home was the garage, and according to the video surveillance, they’d limited themselves to confirming our SUV wasn’t present. With luck, the beacons had led them on a merry chase before they’d learned we weren’t going to allow them to install bugs at their whim.

The next day, we headed to the cathedral and attended Senator Thaddens’s funeral within St. Patrick’s Cathedral. To my dismay, we were assigned seats near the grieving family, as I had been the one to make certain his final wishes had been honored. While President Castillo attended, unlike Senator Maybelle’s funeral, there was no infighting among the gathered politicians, and they only displayed true grief for their lost colleague.

Once again, I couldn’t help but think that few good men remained in our country, and we’d lost one of them.

As I often did when presented with a sea of grief, I stayed stoic, refusing to shed more than a few stray tears throughout the memorial. For two hours after the conclusion of the ceremony, we loitered, viewed the body, and gave Emma our condolences.

Unlike other funerals, where the memorial transitioned to the actual burial, Senator Thaddens would have a second ceremony, where he would be lowered into the ground during a quiet gathering of his family and closest friends.

Much like with Senator Maybelle’s funeral, I was given cards, although this go around, each politician made a point of meeting me personally, thanking me for my selflessness and work at the hospital. Later, I would have to thank Bradley’s mother for foisting a monster of a purse on me. Without it, I wouldn’t have been able to handle the gifts.

In the final minutes of the viewing, Emma approached, and she carried a large box. Bradley intercepted, and he grunted upon learning of its weight. Rather than maintain his pride, he put it on a nearby pew. “I’m so sorry, Emma.”

The woman smiled at my fiancé. “I am, too. These are the books Spencer wanted you to have, Janette. I hope they bring you as much joy as they brought him.”

Some of the straggler politicians glanced our way before heading towards the exit to give us some space.

“Thank you. I’ll cherish them. I just wish there was something more I could have done.”

“The pathology report came back with a confirmation of everything you had said. The cancer was malignant, aggressive, and he would have died, likely within a month or two. The heart attack spared him a great deal of suffering without any hope of recovery. And with time, it would have spread to his other organs, robbing his transplant recipients of a chance at life.”

I wanted to curse, but I controlled myself. “I hate cancer so much.”

“We all do,” she replied with a sad smile. “Your presence today comforts me more than you could ever know. Spencer would have loved to have gotten a better chance to get to know you, and I hope I can take his place on that in the future.”

“I’d love to get together.” As I’d learned the woman loved touch and hugs, I embraced her. “Still, I wish there was something I could have done.”

“I know. I appreciate that more than you could ever know. After I finish handling Spencer’s estate, I’ll be going to Italy for a while. He talked so much about where he’d gone and how beautiful it was, and I’d like to see the land that had charmed him so. It won’t bring him back, but I guess, at least for a while, I can pretend he’s with me in some way.”

I wondered how many times my heart could break for the woman. “Italy sounds beautiful.” After a moment of thought, well aware we still had a week to add reservations to the cruise ship, I inhaled to calm my nerves before asking, “Bradley and I are taking our wedding party, family, and friends on a cruise starting in late October. We’re going to Europe, where we’ll be staying for a month before sailing back to the United States. We’re scheduled to depart Europe in early January. Would you like to come with us? Bradley’s father made arrangements with the cruise line so we have first crack at the ship, so we can add you to the reservation. If you end up having a pet you want to bring along, we can accommodate most animals.”

Emma’s expression brightened, and she smiled. “Cruising is the one thing we didn’t get to do. Are you sure?”

“We’d love to have you,” I confirmed. “Bradley? Can you do the reservation on your phone?”

“I can.” Bradley got out his new toy, tapped at the screen, and got all the information he needed from Emma, including everything required for tax purposes. “What’s your phone number? I’ll text your copy of the tax receipt.”

Within five minutes, she was added to the group, and I could only hope she understood she had a way out of the United States if she wanted it.

With luck, none of us would need to make use of the out, but I held little faith in that.

“Seriously, thank you both. I had little to look forward to, and this truly helps.”

I’d been in her shoes, and I could only hope she found more reasons to hold on when tempted to let go. “Do you like horses?”

A hint of the joyful woman I’d met in her home appeared. “I’ve always loved them since I was a little girl, but with Spencer’s responsibilities, we were always afraid of committing to having them.”

“If you decide you want a horse or two, there is a stable on board the cruise ship, and I think we can fit two more horses.” I glanced at Bradley, hoping I’d remembered that correctly. “Is that right?”

“There are quite a few stable openings left. It’s a specialty cruise ship designed for transporting animals for those wishing to go on horseback riding tours with their own animals. If you want to bring a pair of horses, I can adjust the booking. Janette’s parents are getting involved with horse rescue, and they have open stalls if you don’t have the space for a stable, although it’s a bit of a hike to get to them from where you live.”

“We actually have a stable and pasture on our property, we just hadn’t been using them. You know what? I think I’ll take you up on that. Do you think two horses is a good number to start with? There’s a girl down the street from me that loves horses and wishes she could have them, but money is an issue. I bet she’d help with the manual labor in exchange for a chance to ride.” Emma dug her phone out of her purse, and she went to work on the device. “Spencer would have loved this whole mess of an idea.”

“I think two horses would be wonderful, and we can add them to the booking and send over all of the health requirements for the cruise,” Bradley said with a smile. “I’ll keep in touch, and we’ll talk about everything you need to join us in being crazy horse owners. And we can go riding before the cruise, too. There are a bunch of nice trails we can take horses on between here and Maryland. We can meet in the middle.”

“Seriously, I can’t thank you enough.”

“We all need something to look forward to, especially in moments of grief,” my fiancé replied. “I’m just glad we could help, even a little.”

The instant we made it home, Bradley set down the box of books, turned on classical music, and went to work examining everything in search of bugs. Within thirty seconds, he found one, but not in the way he expected.

Emma had smashed it to the point it was barely recognizable, every chip and component broken and rendered harmless. The device came with a note, and the words cut me deep.

Even after her husband’s death, the government watched her, and it reminded her of a lion poised to strike, crouched and ready to tear into her flesh.

Then, tucked within the pages of every volume, were folded sheets of paper, which proved to be printed photographs of sensitive documentation the government likely wanted destroyed—or had already been destroyed.

“It’s clean of functioning tracking devices,” he announced, revealing a set of six more destroyed units.

“Shit,” I whispered, staring at the destroyed devices with wide eyes. “This is so much worse than I thought.”

“And the government knows the trackers have been taken offline, much like they know we removed the trackers on your SUV. And unlike you, she doesn’t have the excuse of marrying the son of a security specialist. We clean our vehicles as a part of our routine, and they know there’s no point in trying to spy inside our home at this point. We’ve both learned how to check for bugs, and we do so daily. The government is only testing us to see if we’re remaining diligent. They might try to eliminate her for removing the bugs.”

“With luck, they’ll assume it’s a consequence of grief.” I eyed the collection of devices, marveling over how thorough she’d been with disabling them. “I like how she sent that message, though. She’s quite done with bullshit right now.”

“And she has a lot of reasons to resent the system. Hopefully, since she isn’t active in politics, they’ll let it go and she’ll be able to live a normal life. Well, as normal a life as someone who has been under the thumb of the government for so long.”

I picked up one of the hidden sheets, reading it over to discover it was a summary sheet of the upcoming debates, complete with a guide on what was to pass and fail. I whistled before handing it over. “It’s likely trapped to prevent anyone from sharing directly, but if we can get three or four different copies to figure out how they’re modified, we might be able to take this to the media, Bradley.”

“What we really need to get is the government’s primary original, the one that hasn’t been adjusted.”

“I highly doubt that’s going to be possible, Bradley. That’s probably being kept at the White House, the Pentagon, or some other fancy government building.”

He sighed. “I know. And we’d have to get a conspirator on the inside to get the copy. But that’s the only way we’re going to get down to the bottom of this.”

“Unless we are somehow able to get to where they’re keeping all the copies,” I muttered. “If we’re going to be targeting the originals, we may as well target the whole lot.”

“I doubt we could even if we wanted to, unless they’re cocky and bold enough to be putting them on unsecured servers. That’s not going to be happening. The government can’t afford for these documents to be leaked.”

“I wonder if the government has been thorough about the removal of files from deceased politicians,” I muttered. “Emma was clearly able to access her husband’s files, and she stole the stuff she thought was important to get them to us.”

Bradley pressed his finger to his lips and put everything back into the box before carrying it to our dining room. “Let’s continue this discussion away from the door. Even with the music on, I’d rather not risk it.”

“Good call.” I emptied the box, sorted the books by age, donned a pair of gloves to prevent damage to the oldest of the books, and began the tedious process of checking between every page for more sheets. My efforts bore fruit in a hurry, and I marveled over how much Emma had hidden away. Most of the books were ancient, with the youngest of them having been printed in 1826 AD. The eldest, which hadn’t been used to hide anything, was the prayer book he’d told me about, the crowned jewel of his collection.

“What’s wrong?” Bradley asked.

“We talked about this when I saw him. It was his oldest piece, and he got it from a charity auction. It’s a priceless treasure. A gospel of some sort, I think? Or a prayer book. It’s in a different language.”

“He knew you would take care of it, and Emma likely isn’t as much of a fan of old books as you are—she didn’t seem to have any issues with letting the collection go. Or if she did, she felt the value of the information she passed to us was worth more than the books.”

I could believe that. “I feel like we’re spinning our wheels with no hope of gaining traction. We know what the government is trying to accomplish, but we’ve been tied to the tracks with no hope of stopping the oncoming train.”

“It’ll be all right. I’m sure Emma had a reason for hiding these sheets in the books.”

“Or Senator Thaddens did. Or they had decided to do this together. She would have had to get the files from somewhere if she did it after his death.” I sighed, continuing my search through the pages. One sheet of paper, yellowed with age, caught my attention. I unfolded it, realizing I held a half of a page of a newspaper, with the date intact on the upper corner.

The headline indicated changes to daylight savings, something that had been abolished before the establishment of the MR calendar. I’d only learned about it due to studying world history. Puzzled, I began to read.

Three paragraphs in, I spotted why Senator Thaddens might hide the article within an old book.

According to the newspaper article, as part of the change removing daylight savings, the government would begin implementing slight changes to time zones, which in turn would adjust the time and dates in some regions. There was no mention of the MR calendar, but there was a date the changes would occur: March 14, 2106.

“Your eyes got quite wide. What are you reading, Janette?”

“Do we know what year was the last time daylight savings happened?”

“Sure, it happened in 127 MR.”

I handed over the scrap of newspaper. “Why would Senator Thaddens have a newspaper scrap mentioning the effective date in AD in these books? Or why would Emma put it in?”

“Because Senator Thaddens walked the path we’re trying to walk, and he was ahead of us. Do you know what this scrap of newspaper is?”

“A felony?” I guessed.

He nodded. “That’s exactly what it is. It’s the reference we need to understand when in AD history the government began its takeover in earnest. Also, this is disturbing. I hadn’t really thought about how long ago that was. I only know because my father used it as an example on how a major government regulation change can cause significant problems in the security business.”

“What was technology like back in 127 MR?”

Bradley narrowed his eyes. “Honestly, I don’t think it was much different. We have fancier phones now; the batteries can last a week. Back then, you’d be lucky to get a battery that lasted a day or two from my understanding. We haven’t made much progress in terms of technology. For the most part, we use magic instead.”

“Crippling technological developments would be a good way to prevent people from finding information like this.” I took the newspaper scrap, folded it, and returned it to the book I’d found it in before resuming my search. I found two more modern political pictures before the next newspaper scrap. A few more page flips revealed four more scraps.

When put together, it formed an entire article, which was dated as coming from January of 2125 AD.

It announced the abolishment of the original Supreme Court and the replacement of it with a similar entity with the same name. Under the new rules, the President of the United States selected all judges from any legal practitioner with a license to practice in any state.

Experience as a judge didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered other than the favor of the current president.

Worse, the changes meant that the Supreme Court judges would change without the people being aware of who made the most critical legal decisions in the country. “I guess our country died in 2125, didn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

I handed over the scraps of newspaper so he could read the article. He frowned, and after a few minutes, he sighed. “On the large scale, I think you’re right. This article is another felony. I’m pretty sure our government destroyed all evidence of this from our modern knowledge.”

“We’ve been frogs in cool water, except the water isn’t cool anymore. It’s boiling—and it’s been boiling for a long time,” I whispered.

“Several hundred years of boiling, yes. Worse, we’ve stagnated as a society. Perhaps we need to look at this from a different angle. How long has our society been like this?”

“It isn’t just us. It’s global. If it wasn’t global, Dr. Castor would have mentioned more differences. I don’t know about Senator Thaddens, but we should find out tomorrow night.”

“Everyone expects us to be engaging in bedroom activities. In reality, we’ll be huddled at our dining table, listening to the wishes of a dead man, who is leaving his last wishes in our hands. In some ways, that’s even more of a responsibility than what we’ve already sworn to do.” Bradley handed the newspaper scraps back. “We should hide all of this in the wall.”

I nodded, and I retrieved the other newspaper scrap before resuming my hunt. The book contained the pieces for three more articles, all of them somehow involving the timeline for the deterioration of the United States with the few events shared by both calendars. “But why would he keep this?”

“To be ignorant of the past is to be doomed to repeat it,” Bradley replied, taking his time reading over the articles. “I suspect Senator Thaddens wanted a better understanding of what the government does and why it’s doing it. And to do that, we need to go all the way to the beginning. What wasn’t destroyed by the government has been lost to time. Something that happened four hundred years ago just doesn’t feel relevant to us now.”

“Except it is.” I went back to the first of the articles, marveling over how a scrap of paper had survived for so long. “What sort of magic is preserving these?”

“That I can’t tell you. After so long, all of these should be nothing more than dust. Someone must have started preserving them long before they fell into Senator Thaddens’s hands. But who?”

“And why.” I resisted the urge to scream my frustration. “We’re never going to get around to stealing anything like Dr. Castor wants if we can’t make any actual progress .”

“But we are making progress. We’re getting a better understanding of what needs to change in order to help everyone get out of this alive. And that we’re worried about getting as many of our people out of this alive is all the reason I need to pursue this. And it’s selfish to worry about our friends and family first, but I can afford to get them overseas. I can’t afford to evacuate an entire nation of people.”

No, he couldn’t. Only the wealthiest could, and those people ran the government. “You’re among the wealthiest that isn’t involved in politics. Your parents, too.”

“And we’re the exact type of people the governments want to monitor because we are just wealthy enough to cause problems. But as long as we maintain the illusion that we’re growing our independent wealth without any actual aspirations for politics, I think we’ll be fine.”

“Bradley, you put your name in for the election. Your mother did the same to me.”

“Ah, but we’re just chasing wishes and dreams, Janette. Everyone who knows us is fully confident the last thing we would ever actually consider doing is make a run for office. For me to be your vice president? The thought is so absurd nobody is going to take it seriously.”

Life had gone sideways on me again, and I needed at least a few weeks to come to terms with everything—weeks I didn’t have. “Except for the literal millions of people we’re hoping will write our names into the ballot.”

“But if we aren’t doing anything to promote ourselves or run a campaign, then it’s the will of the universe versus any deliberate actions on our part,” he pointed out, and he returned all the newspaper scraps so I could add them to my pile of things to hide. “You check all the books for more scraps while I go through the photocopies and pictures to see if I can find anything particularly relevant. Senator Thaddens has given us a gift from the grave, one that is beyond priceless. We now have the key to the historic timeline. All we can do is hope that one of his videos he left for us indicates why he felt we needed to know. And more importantly, is Emma a hapless messenger or involved? Senator Thaddens could have put this whole thing together the night before his death when he was updating his will to make certain you received the books. And he likely knew the government would target him for attempting to defy their plan for the future.” Bradley got up and left the room, and he returned a few minutes later with envelopes, paper, and pens. “In any case, I don’t think we should involve Emma with any of our plans, in or out of the cell. She will be facing enough grief. If she needs a purpose, we’ll find one for her. It’s safer for us all this way.”

I nodded my agreement.

I wanted to trust the woman, but when we battled a government with endless wealth and ruthless inclinations, we couldn’t afford to trust anyone. If Bradley and I fell, we would fall together, leaving behind our family and friends in the dark, safe from our schemes.

We would involve them in cell matters, which would help our cause.

The rest would be our burden to bear.

“And if we go down, we go down together,” I told him.

He sighed. “Honestly, and I hate myself for saying this, but if it gets to the point where only one of us can get out, one of us should get out. Living to fight another day is important, even if it means only one of us survives. But I will insist on this much: if at all possible, we both take that cruise in October, even if it becomes apparent you might end up a resident of the White House. The days leading up to the election will be the most dangerous, and the people can’t vote for a corpse—or corpses. We both need to survive if this is to work.”

Right. The voters needed to elect us both, and we’d have to use the government’s rules against them in order to chart a new course for our country. “Right. And we also need to make certain the cell is working on the stuff the government wants us to be working on so we at least appear to be playing their game, all without a bunch of nosy librarians clueing in that things are not as they appear.” I groaned and bowed my head. “I feel like this is impossible. I should have stopped to think about this. This is insanity.”

“If you want a changed government for Christmas, you’re going to have to give it to yourself as a present, and that means playing the game. How are we going to play this game? That I’m not sure yet. But if we don’t, who will?”

I wondered how many times someone had said such a thing only to fail in the face of impossible odds and a ruthless government determined to keep its power. If Bradley was correct about the year, the government had been working on mastering its tyranny for over four hundred years, keeping us all in a holding pattern in order to maintain the society it ruled.

“How old is your antique laptop, Bradley?”

“It’s fifty years old,” he admitted. “This is part of why I think a lot of what we’re speculating might be true. Over the course of fifty years, the components for these laptops shouldn’t be readily available. But they are. They’re very similar to what is in my main laptop. The only difference is the motherboard, which has options for no wireless chips whatsoever. There’s a port for it to be plugged into a router with a cable, but that’s it. And there are even modern models that are easy enough to disable the wireless on. This is a throwback to hundreds of years ago. Tech truly hasn’t changed much at all. The only thing that has changed? The names of what we’re using, all so we are trapped in an illusion.”

“And it’s not even a magical one,” I muttered.

“It’s not,” he confirmed. “I vote we put everything away, give ourselves a break, and return to this tomorrow. At least tomorrow, there is a high probability of kittens underfoot to make the work a little more pleasant. It’ll still be painful, but at least we’ll have kittens.”

“That’s something, and at this stage, beggars can’t be choosers, so I’ll take it.”