Olivia looked around her, registering fact after fact. There was not much furniture. The room was lit from a window on the west wall, casting a pool of light on the large polished desk and the imposing chair behind it. There was an easy chair with a small table and lamp, and there was a huge globe standing in one corner of the room. It hadn’t been visible from the door on Olivia’s previous visit.

Olivia wondered if the globe was Morton Goldthorpe’s idea or if some decorator had told him every man should have a globe in his library. Maybe a bit of both; it was a beautiful thing. The desk was handsome, too; cherry, she thought. The shelves on the south and north walls were stocked with books interspersed with a tennis trophy or two, some business awards, and family pictures. From those pictures, it was evident that Morton had been older than Rachel by at least ten years. He looked very proud of his wife and his children in those portraits of a time long past.

Olivia had the oddest feeling as she looked at those faces, including that of the boy who now stood before her grown into a peevish and unstable man, greedy and grasping. The couple must have been happy in those long-ago days, surely. They must have looked forward to meeting the people their children would partner up with, to loving the grandchildren that would result. How could it be that such anticipation would crash and burn so spectacularly in Lewis’s case?

Had her parents ever looked at her, counted on her to comfort their old age, to present them with the little representations that would carry their name forward?

Not my mother, Olivia thought certainly. Not even she would be capable of such hypocrisy. As for her father, who knew? He’d proved himself capable of such willful blindness that there was no telling how far he’d deceived himself.

And for the first time, in the middle of a job and in a sunny room of a mansion she’d never visit again, Olivia thought, If he’d had any balls at all, he’d have killed my mother when I told him what she’d done. I wouldn’t have had to do it myself. It was a truth that came at the worst possible moment.

“I see your father was interested in Rex Stout,” she said, almost at random. She had no idea who Rex Stout was, but there were many books with that name on them, and they were all together, and they looked old.

“He has a complete set of first editions,” Lewis said with massive indifference. “I’m trying to find a buyer for them.”

“Those are hard to come by,” Olivia said, trying to sound like she gave a shit.

“Yes.” Lewis’s limited patience was trickling away.

Olivia’s brain was telling her to cut and run, that this was a fiasco. She wondered if Barry’s was saying the same thing. There was a certain tension in the way he stood that alerted her. No such danger message had reached Tommy and Suzie, who were shuffling along the shelves, industriously looking for the fictional loaner books.

The front doorbell rang downstairs, and Lewis’s head jerked in that direction. It was a busy morning at the Goldthorpe house. Olivia heard Bertha’s plodding footsteps cross the foyer and the sound of the front door opening.

“I wonder who that can be?” Lewis said malevolently.

Tommy’s head jerked around. He said, “Suzie, honey, these are the books.” He pulled three books from a lower shelf, and Olivia could see they were a set because the bindings matched.

“The History of Geography and Judaism in Western Europe,” Suzie said. “Of course! It’s been so long since you read them.”

She was pretty convincing. Olivia almost believed Suzie spent her leisure time reading. Wait, she’d mentioned wanting to go to the library in Davy. Maybe it was true. Olivia dismissed that as irrelevant and concentrated on her job. The desk was an obvious place to search for the jewelry. Possibly it had a secret compartment, though those were usually easy to find. She looked hard at the shelves. She was sure Lewis had been all over them. Even if his sisters had already cataloged everything in the house, which she didn’t believe, Lewis would still want to run his own inventory because he was so convinced that the house was his.

“I’m surprised you’re selling such a beautiful place,” she said, and Lewis glared at her. “Not my idea,” he snapped. “My sisters want to sell the place and divide the proceeds, though I offered to buy them out.”

Not at fair market value, I’m sure, Olivia thought. But she shook her head in apparent amazement at his sisters’ inexplicable stubbornness, while she looked from the desk to the shelves. The books were all aligned on the forefront of the shelves, not pushed back against the wall, so there was plenty of room behind them. But would that be a very safe place to hide anything? Only temporarily. Hadn’t Rachel told them something else, at the séance?

The leather chair—nope. A table at its side, only a single shallow drawer. Nope. There were cabinets below the bookshelves on the north wall behind the desk. That was somewhere to look. Maybe one of the books was hollowed out?

Suddenly she had a great idea, a wonderful idea, just in time. There were two sets of feet mounting the stairs, and Detective Sterling, Bonnet Park PD, came into the room. Another man was with Sterling, and Olivia pegged him instantly as a cop.

Lewis smiled triumphantly.

Well, damn. This was not her day.

It had seemed so important to see the study for herself. Now she realized it had been stupid, though she was sure she’d identified the hiding place of Rachel’s jewelry. While she was wondering if she could possibly go unrecognized, Lewis practically precipitated himself at the detectives.

“So glad to see you, guys!” Lewis was beaming from ear to ear. “I’m delighted you came so quickly.” He pointed at the Midnight party in a dramatic way. “These people are frauds.”

“I beg your pardon,” Suzie said. She was unexpectedly fierce. “How dare you say that? We came to retrieve Tommy’s books. Fraudulent, my . . . ! We haven’t done a single thing that’s incorrect or illegal.”

If Olivia hadn’t been so busy being mad at herself, and also elated, she would have been tempted to laugh.

Barry was looking intently at the policemen. He said, “I’m sorry Mr. Goldthorpe has caused you so much trouble today. We did send a letter ahead, telling him we would be coming. He could have called our lawyer if he had an issue with our visit.” Barry looked very serious, very distressed, and not at all guilty of anything.

Olivia thought, He’s reading their minds. Follow his cues. She tried to stand a little behind Barry. She was aiming for inconspicuous but not suspicious. It was a fine line.

Detective Sterling was definitely taken aback. Maybe he’d expected guilt, embarrassment, flagrant con artists; instead, he’d gotten feisty older citizens, an indignant grandson, and a quiet sister. Versus the demonstrably unstable (but Bonnet Park citizen) Lewis Goldthorpe. So he did what Olivia figured she would have done. He played for time to evaluate the situation.

“I’m Detective Sterling and this is Detective Woodward,” Sterling said. “We’re from the Bonnet Park police. You are?”

They all introduced themselves and shook hands, just a bunch of citizens who were completely aboveboard.

Detective Sterling had no choice but to follow through. Though Olivia was no mind-reader like Barry, she could tell that he had misgivings about this whole situation. “Mr. Goldthorpe has complained about your coming here today. He maintains none of these books were loaned to his father, who’s been dead some time now. Since his mother died only recently, he’s very sensitive about strangers making claims on the estate.”

“Which I would definitely agree with,” Tommy said. “If I were saying that I’d loaned my buddy books worth a lot of dough. But these books, about the faith of our people, they are worth nothing but some sentiment, gentlemen. Sentiment. Not money. And I’ll tell you here and now, if this man here, Lewis Goldthorpe, if he tells me sincerely he’ll read these books and learn from them, I am not going to stand in his way. My Suzie and I are deeply, I say deeply, offended by these accusations, and we are leaving now, with or without my books. Calling the police, young man? Your father would be astonished at you.”