Page 17 of Booked for Theft (Vigilante Magical Librarians #3)

The three books taunted me from my desk for the rest of the day, and I wondered what mystery, treachery, or pure intentions waited within the pretty foiled paper. If luck held, perhaps we would find numerous felonies.

That thought kept me amused until it was time to go home. The books went into my purse, and I skipped to the entry, discovering a gathering of most librarians.

“It’s an itty bitty book brigade.” Because I could, I bounced to a halt, delighted that my feet handled the task without even a hint of soreness. Then, because I could, I hopped.

Everyone stared at me, and Mickey raised a brow. “What has you so hyper?”

“Nothing hurts,” I informed him.

My co-workers chuckled; Dr. Mansfield had warned everyone I might go through phases of hyperactivity over my changed situation. Sure enough, every rare now and again, something snapped in my brain, and I bounced around like I had springs in my feet. Part of me wanted to blame the books lurking in my purse, but in reality, I understood the source.

I’d lost the war with Senator Thaddens, but I might win the battles with Representative Forsythe.

While I’d done nothing wrong and couldn’t have prevented the man’s death, I had a chance of redemption, and the representative might escape the invasive treatment methods that left people a shadow of their former selves.

I understood being a shadow, and I wished it upon nobody.

“We have questions about the politician you fleeced today,” my boss announced.

“He ate food spicy enough to make me cry, so I’m assuming the peppers fried his brain and encouraged him to offer up the contents of his wallet. He likes the idea of the history program and wishes to help buy books for that section. Books from early AD are rather pricy, so we can get an excellent collection with his donations. I need permission to take the library’s bank card to my favorite bookstores with AD offerings so I can buy up interesting non-fiction titles.”

“Approved,” Mr. Tawnlen replied. “I’ll have the card drawn up for you, and I’ll get the authorizations for your preferred bookstores handled tomorrow. I’ll need the address and the store name to make sure the bank doesn’t give you trouble.”

“I’ll need the number. Knowing how much some of these books cost, the bank will be wanting to speak with me about the purchases. He was also nice enough to flag money for the insurance policy we’ll need for the books.” I shrugged, and as I wanted to get home and check out the presents I’d received, I said, “I’m going to take some of this energy home with me. You all good for this weekend?”

Everyone nodded. Satisfied we could look at the cell problems in a new way, I waved and abandoned ship before anyone could stop me, hurrying home. The walk bothered me more than normal, and I needed to resist the urge to look over my shoulder. Once I let myself into the condo, I heaved a relieved sigh. After taking my books and phone out of my purse, I put it away and searched for Bradley, discovering him plinking away at his grand piano, evidence he’d had a rough afternoon and needed to unwind.

Bradley usually waited for after dinner to toy with his piano while I struggled to decide which book I’d be reading for the evening. “Something the matter?”

“Boredom,” he confessed. “I’m so bored I could scream, so I decided I’d practice, except that’s boring me, too.”

While some people thrived working from home, I worried that Bradley needed more engagement, especially after having taken the stock market by storm and emerging a winner. “Do you need a project?”

“Yes.”

“I need more book money. Earn me every penny on the planet for use as book money.”

He burst into laughter. “I see you have barreled straight to the acceptance phase of my wealth and are diving into the enjoyment of the excess funds portion of life.”

“You can feel as guilty as you’d like over the money you earned. There is a wonderful world of felony in book format I can pursue, and I want to see how many felonies I can accumulate without getting caught.” I showed him my wrapped presents. “We sobbed in my office, Bradley. The peppers reduced us both to literal sobbing. He even finished his entire burger before seeking out mercy. I ate all of mine and used my fries to recover from the trauma. Please walk me to the burger place again tomorrow.”

My fiancé smiled. “I can manage that. Was your anxiety okay after you made it to your office?”

“I’m just worried about Representative Forsythe. It’ll take me twenty or thirty minutes at most to remove his cancer. I gave him my cell number to give to his doctor.”

“Are you feeling guilty you couldn’t save Senator Thaddens?”

I nodded.

“Why don’t I make you a tea, we’ll order in dinner, and you can eat your feelings. While we wait for dinner to arrive, we’ll look at your new books.”

“We really should learn to cook,” I muttered.

“Not on a day like today. You look like you might actually start crying on me, so I’m going to provide spicy food so if you do start crying, you can blame our meal. When you’re ready to cry, you will. Until then, I’ll provide cover and an excuse.” Bradley got up, scooted his bench back into place, and herded me towards the dining room. “Before you worry, Ajani and the kittens are taking a nap in the new dog bed I got for them earlier today. They had a busy afternoon running around the condo like lunatics.”

“Did they have help running around?”

Ajani would do sketchy things for some time with the laser pointer.

“I absolutely did encourage them. I decided to take a mental health day after getting back from lunch. It did me a world of good. I got bored enough I actually want to see about furthering my empire so I can buy you more books. As I’ve determined you love antique fiction books, I logged into your computer and bought every single one I could get my hands on before I went to play the piano. I managed to locate five hundred titles online, so they’re all legal fare.”

Legal reading material from the distant past would be an entertaining endeavor, and I wondered what we might discover that the government hadn’t censored. The longer I thought about it, the more I wanted to know about who censored what and why.

Knowledge would prove our greatest weapon and our deadliest enemy. Unless we ferreted out the right information, we had no chance of besting our adversary. The clues Senator Thaddens had left behind might be our salvation.

It might also, if we failed to put everything together properly, prove to be our undoing.

If we screwed anything up, I had no doubt the government would make us disappear. The only questions would be where, when, and how.

Once in the dining room, I sat and went to work unwrapping the books. The first was Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, a title I recognized from the censorship list from the library. Copies still existed, but they came few and far between.

Most paper copies of the title had been destroyed sometime during the transition from AD to MR. I whistled, my eyes wide. “Did you know it’s a felony to have a digital copy of this book, Bradley?”

He shook his head. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“It’s a dystopian novel, the sort of fiction that authors concocted, often born from conspiracy theories, about governments and societies gone horrifically wrong. I’ve always wanted to read the books on the censor list. The library’s list seemed like the ultimate guide to interesting titles, and this one seemed particularly interesting. There aren’t many fiction books that are felonies to possess digital copies.”

“Not print copies?”

I shook my head. “The felony list is only for digital copies. They’re easy to mass produce, and most books from this era are ancient—at least four hundred years old ancient. I’ll have to look when they made having these books a felony. I just recognize them from the list. I’m now required to check the list before making any purchases.”

I loved acquisitions, but the banned book list would drive me insane.

My thoughts led me back to the politician I’d spent lunch with. Where had Representative Forsythe gotten the book? Why would he put it in my hands? “This is priceless, Bradley.”

“Are you sure having that isn’t a felony?”

“It’s only a felony if I reproduce, transmit, photograph, or digitize it in any fashion. It’s also a felony to sell it. But it’s not a felony to own it or give it away,” I assured him. Placing the book on the paper, I went to my office to retrieve my book gloves, grabbing a pair for Bradley, too. Once my hands were appropriately covered, I gingerly opened the book, amazed the binding had survived through the centuries.

Representative Forsythe had tucked a note into the front of the book, which informed me that Brave New World had planted dark seeds in a madman’s mind, and that I might learn something if I took the time to read the book.

I handed over the note. “Make sure that gets put into the wall, please.”

He read over the note, nodded, and set the paper aside. “Perhaps you should check through the book for any additional notes.”

I did as told but found nothing. “It seems he expects me to read and use my brain. I do not mind this assignment. I’ll read it on Thursday night.” I checked the back of the book, reading the summary. “Oh. It’s about a perfect society where everyone has a set position and role in life. It claims that happiness is a priority but it comes at the cost of many things.” The ending of the description captured my attention. “It seems to be a fictional exploration of the human condition.”

“That’s what the government is aiming to do—to create what they feel is the perfect society. That’s quite unsettling, and I can understand why it might be a felony to spread the book around. It might make people think about what is going on.”

I nodded my agreement, set the book aside, and picked up the next title, which was much thinner in comparison. Tearing off the paper, I revealed a copy of a book called Number the Stars by Lois Lowry. Much like Brave New World , the book had a spot on the government’s list of literary felonies.

I’d never understood why.

I flipped it over and checked the summary, and it didn’t take me long to figure out how such a title might spark fear in tyrants and dictators. In the story, a ten year old girl became critical to rescue thousands of Jewish people, smuggling them out of Denmark so they could escape to Sweden, dodging death at the hands of a tyrannical dictator.

The government had been unable to erase World War II, but they’d done their best to curtail the horror and blind people to what our government did.

Such books could plant seeds—the kind of seeds that resisted corrupt governments. With wide eyes, I handed the book over to Bradley, who put on the gloves before taking it.

After reading the description, he whistled. “I think I’ll read this one while you tackle Brave New World , then we’ll switch.”

“That sounds like a plan. Check it for notes while I open the last one.”

I tore off the paper to reveal a copy of Schindler’s Ark by Thomas Keneally. Puzzled, I grabbed my phone, checked the acquisitions list, and found a book of a similar title and same author. Like Brave New World , Schindler’s List had an entry on the felony list.

Schindler’s Ark was not listed. I narrowed my eyes and reviewed the rules, determining that the book title and author needed to be an exact match to be pursued in a court of law.

I could create a copy of Schindler’s Ark and distribute it—assuming they were the same book. Unfortunately, the rules, such as they were, made it difficult to check. I tapped on the entry on the banned book list to pull up the publisher information before checking the copyright page.

The book had the same publication year but had been printed in the United Kingdom rather than the United States.

Representative Forsythe had presented me with a treasure, one that I could weaponize if brave and clever enough. I checked the description of the book to discover it was about a man who’d worked behind the scenes to save the lives of Polish Jews during World War II, risking life and liberty to do so. Unlike the protagonist of Number the Stars , Oscar Schindler had belonged to the party murdering innocents in a genocide the United States wished it could erase so it could repeat history.

Like the other books, I found a sheet of paper inside. While Bradley checked Number the Stars , I flipped through Schindler’s Ark , discovering a series of ten pages hidden within. The first note proved to be the one that would change everything for us.

I stared in disbelief at the nugget of knowledge smuggled within the pages of a book President Castillo had deemed to only be worth fifty dollars at most.

“Bradley,” I whispered, afraid of raising my voice in case someone might hear us despite our precautions.

“Is there a problem?”

“According to this, the government hasn’t destroyed Senator Maybelle’s campaign information. It’s being stored in a warehouse—and if this note is accurate, it’s not a secure warehouse. It’s one of those small rental places off in the bush.” I plugged the town name into my phone to pull up a map, and rather than leave a trail that might point investigators at the warehouse, I panned around until I found the street before zooming in for a look at the street. “It’s one of those small storage places meant for one or two clients at a time. You know the kind. They’re the eyesores that look like they’re abandoned but people pay to store stuff in them, usually a small business with overflow of inventory.”

Once upon a time, Bradley’s father had done security operations for such places, and he still held some contracts, although he’d moved on to do better—and more profitable—security gigs. I reread the note several times, marveling over the risks Representative Forsythe took in an effort to bring down the government hellbent on reducing the population of Americans and eliminating those who might stand in their way. I passed the paper over to Bradley before checking the rest of his notes.

The remaining pages formed a list, and I recognized one of the names, an assassinated politician. Then, with a growing sense of horror, the list continued with the men and women within the military capable of committing the crime along with their dates of deaths and burial locations.

Had our government used the military to assassinate politicians, removing those who might, in some fashion or another, make a stand against tyranny? Sickened at the mere thought of the whole thing being a government operation, including a coverup, I gave Bradley the sheets. “This is worse than horrific.”

Bradley’s eyes narrowed, and after a few minutes of reviewing the intel, he sighed. “This explains so much. The little inconsistencies between the killings. The sloppiness of Senator Maybelle’s assassination—the weird botches. The fact we couldn’t figure out certain elements no matter how hard we looked. There would be no chance in hell we could solve this without this information. We were looking for a group of vigilantes.”

“Not the government ordering the military to clean house.”

Muttering curses, Bradley set the pages down. “And that means if we want to put an end to this, we have to clean out the government and bring the military under the control of someone else. They’ll just continue the assassinations otherwise. Exposing it will just mean we’ll be assassinated next.”

“And if we find out the truth, the cell would be in the line of fire.” I wrinkled my nose. “They want us, as a cell, to pin the blame on anyone other than the military.”

“And it explains why the FBI started assigning us to other task groups—anything other than the killed politicians. Someone in the FBI either knows or suspects it’s a government job.”

“And they’re protecting us?” I eyed Bradley. “Wouldn’t it just be easier to let us take the fall?”

“Only if their goal is to have us fall. But what if the military doesn’t want to be involved with these assassinations any more than we do? How better to keep potential troublemakers safe than distract? If we don’t find the truth, we stay safe.”

“But the politicians know.” I gestured at the list. “And he’s hiding the list of murderers and murder victims in a book about a vigilante rescuing those being targeted by genocide.”

“That part is as eloquent as it is brilliant. If we read between the lines, Forsythe wants to be like Oscar Schindler.”

I frowned, wondering how he’d known the protagonist’s name. “Explain yourself right this instant, Bradley Hampton!”

“I’ve read that book,” he informed me in a solemn tone.

My eyes widened. “You’ve read this book? But how? And you were eyeing me over a little literary felony?”

“My mother owns a paper copy of Schindler’s List .”

I gasped. “She does not!”

“She does.”

“And I never got to see it?”

“Janette, if you saw my mother’s felony book collection, you’d never leave her private study. She would be unable to get rid of you. She got them from the Library of Congress when she worked there. Librarians were permitted to take one box of banned books a day for a three week period under the condition they were not sold or distributed to the public.” Bradley sighed. “She told me about that part after we got back from Washington. I knew she owned banned books, but I hadn’t really cared where she’d gotten them from. While the librarians and all cleared out one box of banned books each, my mother ended up with most of them. The others were afraid of the potential consequences. My mother’s private study has well over a thousand banned books in it. Schindler’s List is just one of them.”

“The Library of Congress purged their AD fiction titles from the banned book list?” I asked, barely able to believe the government would go so far.

“And they were stupid enough to let librarians make off with the titles as long as they agreed to never sell or distribute them.” Bradley frowned. “Or they understood librarians wouldn’t be doing anything questionable with the books; all the librarians there are heavily vetted.”

“That didn’t stop the rest of the librarians from giving the books to your mother,” I pointed out.

“They didn’t want their heads on the chopping block.”

“How big were the boxes?”

“The rule was one per librarian, and someone had to be able to carry it out without help from a cart. My mother hired a rather strong man to carry all the boxes out, and she filled each box at the front desk, where he was authorized to go. My mother used larger moving boxes, which weighed approximately eighty pounds each when filled with books. She tipped the mover well, as he showed up for three weeks and hauled out one box of books per librarian. Dad had some of his security people handle the moving of the books. I think there are over three thousand employees there, and she said she worked with thirty-five of them every day for the three weeks. They all worked for three weeks straight to get as many of the books out as possible. I’m sure the other staffers pillaged from the banned book section as well. My mother definitely got the lion’s share of the plunder, though. She didn’t tell me how many books were destroyed. I was afraid to ask.”

“Her private study is not large enough for that many books,” I pointed out.

“The main library is absolutely loaded with the books. You know the second row of books that irritated you because you never remembered to check the digital list of what we have?”

I scowled. “Those are all literary felony titles?”

“Every last one of them. There are tens upon tens of thousands of books in there, all of them are a felony if they were to be digitized or sold.” Bradley grinned at me. “My mother is so proud of her collection.”

With good reason. “So, if we wanted to do a research project, we’d invade your mother’s library and start pulling down relevant titles. Does it include non-fiction?”

“She has everything she could get her hands on. And honestly, I suspect she received most of the books from the purge of the Library of Congress. We had random boxes showing up at home for months after the purge. I’m pretty sure she has the entire collection magically preserved, too.”

I shuddered at the thought of that bill. “We could have done our search at your parents’ place the whole time?”

“She doesn’t have any voter guides or anything like that. If the Library of Congress had them, those were destroyed so they’d never be found. Your idea to hunt in old bookstores was a good one. And since the government likely believes all copies of those records were destroyed, it’s not on the felony list, is it?”

“They’re not,” I confirmed. “They aren’t even on the state or local lists.”

“So there you have it. I mean, it didn’t occur to me to ask my mother. It should have.” He laid out the papers I’d located within Schindler’s Ark . “We now know more about who did the killings and what happened to the killers. But why would the government stage this? Why not just make them quietly disappear?”

“They want to keep the other politicians in check,” I guessed. “How better to keep them following their script than to convince them they’ll die if they don’t? What we need to do is figure out how these people left their set script.”

“Which means we need to go pay that warehouse a visit and get as much information as we can—and we need to do it in such a way where the government doesn’t believe we’re involved.”

I bowed my head and sighed. “Right. If we leak everything from Senator Maybelle’s campaign, and it does show the government’s treachery, it’s a lot harder to pin it on someone if the government can’t figure out who raided the warehouse. But how did this oversight happen?”

“You would have to ask the person in charge of the documents. My guess is simple: the person in charge is either dead or expecting to die, so information that shouldn’t be spread around is being spread around—and the person ‘forgot’ to move the documents out of the warehouse.” Bradley eyed the paper with the address. “I’ll lure Dad over and show him this. If anyone can help us pull this off without getting caught, it’s him.”

“That means we need to act quickly.”

My fiancé nodded his agreement. “Ideally, we’ll handle it this weekend, preferably in the middle of the night, quietly until we start lighting fires.”

“Start lighting fires?” I squealed. “We’re stealing stuff, not burning it down!”

He laughed at me. “We don’t want the government to realize we’ve stolen the stuff until it has been fully distributed to all news outlets. We need them to be completely blindsided. As such, I have an idea.”

In Bradley’s hands, ideas were dangerous and more than a little terrifying. I stared at him with wide eyes. “But we’ve only been talking about this for a few minutes.”

“I’ve had the idea for a while, but I haven’t had a chance to implement it, as getting to the original documentation is simply impossible right now. But my idea can be implemented for a warehouse hit. It will involve some magic, an idea of how many file boxes we’ll be carting off, and a general idea of what sort of papers are in it. We’ll take a truck loaded with preprinted documents to the warehouse. We will empty the file boxes in the warehouse, load everything into the truck, and fill the boxes with our documentation, which will be doused with an accelerant. It will be obvious that the arson was done deliberately, but it will appear as though somebody just wanted to watch the building burn, as the boxes will still be there, and there will be papers within them. We will be setting the boxes up with small stacks of paper to create air holes so the papers all burn—and we’ll be lighting the fires in such a way where all the boxes burn sufficiently to hide the fact papers were crinkled and otherwise put into the boxes in such a way they’ll properly burn.”

I admired his cunning. “But how are we going to prevent people like you from exposing us?”

“We’ll do the entire process fully disguised, and we’ll be imprinting the scene with the same sort of illusionary magic the killers have been using on the victims. We can’t see through that, so if we use the same sort of trickery, they won’t be able to see through it, either. And if we’re the ones scanning, we won’t be able to see what we did for the same reason. The illusions block our abilities. That’s part of what makes them so dangerous.” Bradley’s smile possessed a predatory edge. “If that warehouse has the documentation we need to prove the government’s misdeeds, then we grab the papers, burn the place down in such a fashion where the government believes it’s just a bunch of pyromaniacs getting a hit of fire, sort through everything, and send copies to all media outlets in the country and abroad. That will be my job. I’ll have to make use of illusions and general trickery to send the files through a public computer to a large list of media folks.”

“That sounds dangerous.”

“I’ll be careful—and I’ll have Ren and Dad help with the project to make sure that we don’t have issues. Or we’ll do something particularly tricky and find someone who wants to leave the country and have them go to the public computers to distribute the information before heading off. That would be the safest, and it would make the government feel we aren’t involved. That’s going to be important.”

I nodded, aware if we screwed anything up, we might both die as a result. I checked the map again, eyeballing the warehouse. “That might work. The warehouse isn’t really near anything. It’s possible to burn the whole building down without it spreading. It has a large parking lot, and it’s in an industrial area. There’s a closed gas station right next door, but I doubt it’s been used in at least ten years. If it burns, I doubt it’ll be a big deal.”

“Unless there is still fuel in the tanks.”

“If there’s fuel in the tanks, someone didn’t do their job closing it down properly. It’s a risk we’ll have to accept.”

“Or we check if there’s fuel in the tanks, rig it to go off, and have the fire spread to the warehouse.”

I considered the map. “If the gas station were to go up in an inferno, it’s close enough to the warehouse that it might go up, too. I mean, it’s right next door. The only thing separating them is a tiny stretch of parking lot so people could access the car wash.”

“We could always add fuel to the tanks while under illusions, then light the whole thing up and take the warehouse out that way. If we use the same fuel we put into the gas station, then they might not think anything of the accelerant being present in the warehouse. It could be a part of the explosion.”

“Gas fumes are explosive,” I murmured.

“And if it looks like there are pyromaniacs playing with the gas station, then the government might buy what we’re selling.”

“My momma told me I’m not allowed to burn the government down,” I muttered.

He snickered. “What your momma doesn’t know won’t hurt her. I don’t think my momma wants me to burn the government down or help run it, but I am going to do what I want, Janette.”

“I really don’t think my momma wants me running the government. I will do irresponsible things with it, including up the library budget across the country and implement education programs to bring the United States back up to speed on actual history. Don’t get me started on the rest of it.”

“So, we’re agreed. We are going to be indulging in rebellion, and we will be doing a lot of things our mothers would prefer we didn’t do.”

“If your mother didn’t want me to run for office, she shouldn’t have put my name in the hat,” I replied in a solemn tone.

“My mother definitely doesn’t want me running for office, else she would have put my name in the hat. She did not. I checked to be certain. She’s concerned I might take over if given access to the Treasury.”

“If you’re given access to the Treasury, you might actually make the government profitable,” I muttered. “Mr. Midas.”

“You’re going to call me that for a while, aren’t you?”

“I could be convinced to call you something else with the appropriate bribe.” To make it clear I wanted to have tub time, relaxation, and extracurricular activities afterwards, I leered at him. “Rare books for my collection might help your cause—especially if you steal some literary felony from your mother.”

“I’m sure my mother would be happy to give you a selection of literary felony.” He gestured at my phone. “Why don’t you call and ask her?”

I did as he suggested, pressing the dial button once I found her contact and putting the device to my ear.

“Is something wrong?” his mother answered.

“Yes, there is something wrong! You got how many books from the Library of Congress, and I have none of them?”

After a startled pause, she began to laugh. “Do you want some new books for your collection?”

“Desperately. New books that don’t have an insane price tag because they’re illegal to sell but legal to give to your future daughter-in-law as a present.”

She snickered. “I’ll pack a box for you and bring them over. Are there any specific books you’d like to read?”

I considered the list of books that had made it onto the felony list. “ A Clockwork Orange sounds really interesting. I can’t figure out what it might possibly be about based on the title.”

“I have that one, but I ask that you let me borrow it from time to time to read it. I read it once every year or two.” She made a thoughtful sound. “I’ll bring over I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings for you, too.”

“Do you have a copy of Schindler’s List ?”

“I do.”

Interesting. I’d be able to confirm if the books were the same. “I’d like to read that one, but I might give it back if you’d like. I’ll even invite you to come sit in my living room and read my copy of The Stand .”

“Bradley told me you’d gotten that. I have it on my digital reader, so you won’t have to worry about anyone damaging your precious book. I’d love to see it, though. I have a list of books you’ll enjoy. I have a copy of the banned book lists from a rather long time ago, so I’ll bring all the titles I have from that list for you. You’ll enjoy seeing the overlap between what was banned in the past versus what is banned now. I’ll bring the collection of overlapping books and the rest of the list on both sides for you to enjoy. That was the first thing I did when I got my hands on the collection.”

Perfect. “We will be going out to dinner with a few politicians on Friday night, but any other day should be fine for you to visit with a present of books.”

“We’ll loiter around Manhattan if you’re going to be engaging with politicians.”

I recognized her tone: she would not take no for an answer. “You can nurse your son back to health, as we will be going to our new favorite Indian restaurant. I will be in no condition to nurse anyone back to health. I will be sobbing from the spice.”

“We’ll drive you to and from the venue, and we’ll have dinner somewhere nearby while you work magic on their wallets.”

Well, it beat trying to figure out where to park on a Friday night. “I’m accepting that offer, as it makes my life a lot easier.”

“It does.”

“Also, I’m going to need all Hamptons over here on Saturday morning, where you can meet our kittens while we discuss some of that nasty ceremony stuff nobody wants to deal with.”

“Do the kittens have names yet?”

I eyed my fiancé. “Have you named our new daughters yet?”

He shook his head.

“You can help name them if he hasn’t decided on something by Saturday.” I promised. “They are Ajani’s kittens, and they’re sleeping off a busy day of chasing the laser pointer. And you can even come up and meet them on Friday, as you’ll be providing free transportation.”

“Do you want that attorney to come with us?”

“Perhaps you should encourage the attorney and Jez to get into private trouble while you’re gone.”

While both were part of the cell and helped with our activities, after my kidnapping, Bradley’s mother had tried to keep her adopted daughter a safe distance from the nastier elements. For the most part, it worked well.

She and her attorney carried their weight on general investigations without getting their hands dirty—and neither were inclined to delve into the depths of felony, especially after Jez had developed an interest in working in software security.

“I’ll do that. They could use some time without us hovering. I’ll even remind them they have all the appropriate paperwork signed should their birth control be misplaced.” Bradley’s mother sighed. “I’m not sure where I’m going wrong with those two. They turn red when I mention birth control. I think his parents, worthless creatures that they are, have raised him to be skittish about enjoying the company of women. I don’t know why Jez is turning red. She got the talk the day she came home with us. She has him under contract. She can indulge with him all she wants.”

My eyes crossed. “Try to settle with a reminder every few weeks. They’ll figure themselves out at a pace good for them. But a quiet night where they’re not fretting about cell stuff might be good for them.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. We’ll come over Friday afternoon, so warn that son of mine we’ll be around. Try to get some sleep. I’ll put together a list of why all the books were put on the banned book list, as I’m sure the background of their exclusion from society will fascinate you.”

“Perfect. Thanks. We’ll see you Friday.” Before his mother could drag out the conversation for hours, I hung up. “When your parents come over on Friday afternoon, brief them on what we need to do and start making a plan. They can scheme while we’re fending off politicians and acquiring more books for my collection. I feel like this is the first time we might actually be getting somewhere with this investigation.”

“It’s impossible to solve a mystery when you are missing most of the puzzle pieces. It just happens we were given a bag with most of the pieces. We just have to figure out what to do with them. But if the list we were given is true, we have a major problem on our hands. It’s one thing to battle the government. The military doing the government’s dirty work is an entirely different matter.”

I thought of my precious copy of Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October , and I shook my head. “The military has always done the government’s dirty work. But think about my new Clancy book, Bradley. What if the military doesn’t want to be doing the government’s dirty work? What if those who are involved in the killings want to be found, not by the government, but by us? The whole point of that book is how a rogue naval officer and some conspirators killed a government spy so they could defect to the United States.”

Bradley frowned, and he checked his notes, pulling out one of the scraps. “Well, that might explain this, in that case.”

“What do you mean?”

“I thought it was just a red herring, but there was a scrap of paper that just says The Hunt for Red October on it. It was with the list of people in Schindler’s Ark . As you have the book already, I didn’t think it was all that important—well, I should have mentioned it, but it just didn’t seem as important as the list.”

I wondered what could be hiding within the book—and what Representative Forsythe attempted to tell me with the cryptic message. “Maybe it’ll make more sense after we read these books.”

“Maybe. But I wonder if he’s trying to hint that it really might be a good idea to get out while the getting is good.”

“Or that there are naval officers willing to betray their country among us.”

We both eyed the precious list that might help us get to the bottom of the assassinations.

After a few minutes, Bradley sighed. “Or just people in the military, period.”

I could believe that. “If the military is aware that the government is having those who are doing the hits killed, that probably isn’t sitting well with them. But the military is funded by the government and is controlled by the government. And if the government is murdering politicians for stepping out of line, the upper echelons of the military likely understand they could be next.”

Bradley lifted one of the pages listing the causes of death of all military personnel potentially involved with the killings. “Are next. There’s no ‘could be’ involved with it. If you divide the deaths by groups required to handle the killings, it certainly looks like there is a consistent pattern. The government is making the evidence disappear.”

“But who is killing the military personnel?”

My fiancé shrugged. “We’ll have to look into it. And honestly, I’ll be having my dad do a reading of these books, and I’ll try to do a reading, too. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

Staring at the books and the pieces of paper failed to result in the whole problem resolving itself. “Maybe we should just accept that we have no idea what we’re doing, how we’re going to fix this, and that we’re in way over our heads.”

“While all those things are, at least in part, true, we’ll figure it out. We know a lot more than we did yesterday. And when you think about it, all this makes a sick sort of sense. If the government wants to hold and maintain its power, it needs to remove everyone that steps out of line and tries to change the plan. And if the politicians can’t make change happen with their efforts, then why not try to get a librarian elected? But we’re fighting hundreds of years of control and forced stagnation.”

“Do you think it can be done?”

For a long time, he stared at the books. “I truly don’t know, but for better or for worse, we’re going to find out.”