CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER TWO

Lex rounded the corner into the main room and quickly crossed it to stand at Montgomery’s side, slipping behind the counter. Just as she had predicted from the sound of his voice, her boss looked harassed and frazzled, staring at the new customer and blinking through his glasses.

“Well,” Montgomery was saying, making little nervous gestures with his hands, “it’s not quite ready for sale, not ready. I have things to prepare, authenticity checks, yes, and then the matter of, er…”

“Look,” the stranger said, drawing himself up. He was tall, with a shock of dark hair that hung into his eyes. Those eyes were mysterious, too: he looked quite youthful in his straight bearing, clear skin, clean-shaven chin, and clean-cut clothes, but his eyes were creased as if they belonged to a much older man. “I know you’re just trying to make excuses, Monty. Everyone around here knows you’ve got the book, all right? And don’t give me any authenticity nonsense. You’re far too savvy a trader to have made a purchase of that size without verifying it first.”

Montgomery mumbled something under his breath, which may, for all Lex was able to make out, simply have been an unintelligible noise.

“Here it is,” the stranger said, taking a wallet out of his back pocket and holding it up. It was bristling with bills, barely able to remain closed around the bulk of them. “I’m going to make you an offer. All right, Monty? Are you listening? The offer is fifty thousand dollars.”

Montgomery’s mouth opened and closed once, and then he seemed to regain his composure, which was admirable, because Lex could only stand there frozen in shock. Had she heard that correctly? Fifty

thousand

?

“Mr. Sloane,” Montgomery began, and Lex realized, as she might have earlier, that the two of them knew each other. “I do appreciate your offer. It’s very generous. I don’t think you have fifty thousand dollars in your wallet, however, however.”

“No, you’re quite right,” Sloane said, tapping the offending article on the counter. “But I do have enough for a sizeable down payment, which ought to be enough to reserve the book while I go fetch the rest. I can do it all in cash, you know. Very useful for your books.”

Montgomery looked at the wallet and then back up again. Lex, beside him, saw that under the counter he was gripping onto the edge of one of the shelves so tightly that his knuckles were white. It was no wonder; the amount he was being offered was absurd. And, it occurred to Lex, she didn’t even know which book Sloane was trying to buy. He just kept calling it “the” book, as if it was the only one that mattered.

At that price, maybe it was.

And, putting two and two together, Lex realized that such a valuable book might well be couriered in the dead of night for safety reasons, and to throw off anyone who might want to intercept its delivery.

“Mr. Sloane,” Montgomery said carefully, and Lex could see the effort he was taking to maintain his composure. “Again, I appreciate your offer. But I’m afraid I’m going to have to decline, decline.”

Lex stared at Montgomery in renewed shock. She was only just getting over the offer itself, and now to know that he had turned it down…? The only possible reason she could imagine for his dissent would be that the offer was too low, but then why not suggest another price? And why had he been so reluctant to talk about the book with Sloane in the first place? Questions swirled around her head, but she couldn’t ask them out loud—not until they were alone.

Sloane stared at Montgomery with a similar kind of expression on his face, as if he also couldn’t quite believe that Montgomery would turn him down. He had clearly been expecting a positive response, and for a moment it seemed that he had nothing to say.

“Well,” he said, a little stiffly. “I suppose you have your reasons.”

“I do, I do,” Montgomery acknowledged, without actually stating what they were.

“Then I don’t suppose there’s anything further to say. Good day, Montgomery,” Sloane said, turning and heading for the door. On the threshold he paused and turned his head over his shoulder. “For now, at least.”

With those ominous words, he was gone, disappearing into the hall. A moment later, the sound of the bell chiming merrily announced his departure, and Lex immediately turned to Montgomery with full curiosity.

“What book was he trying to buy?” Lex asked, eager to know. “I wasn’t aware we had something so valuable in stock!”

Montgomery shot her a sideways glance. “Well, we have a number of valuable items in the storage room upstairs,” he said, referring to the heavy, locked iron door which sealed off his vault. Lex had never been allowed behind it, and not for want of asking. “It’s simply an old and rare book which falls into Mr. Sloane’s chosen subject area. I’m not surprised that he wanted it, but I simply couldn’t sell.”

“Was it the price?” Lex asked. “Is it worth more than that? Really?”

Montgomery began to busy himself with a book from the pile that was yet to be put away, fiddling with something on the cover. “I didn’t like to sell it to him,” he said. “Some things are difficult to valuate, but I do know Mr. Sloane, and I made the decision not lightly, not lightly.”

“Why didn’t you want to sell to him?” Lex picked up another book from the pile and followed Montgomery as he went into the Shipping Room, where the preloved classics were to be filed away. “Who is he?”

“He’s a book collector,” Montgomery said, his voice turning gruffer as he waved a dismissive hand. “He’s not from around here. I didn’t think it wise to trust someone like that with the book.”

“Trust him?” Lex repeated. What an odd turn of phrase. The books in the store were commodities, bought and sold—most of them worth only a little more than anything you would find in a normal bookstore, and quite a portion substantially less. How important did a book have to be before you considered whether or not you could “trust” the buyer with it?

“Miss Blair, I’ve an appointment out of town, out of town,” Montgomery announced suddenly, putting the book he’d been carrying down on a haphazard shelf and quickly walking toward the main entrance of the store. “Do keep things ticking over while I’m gone, what, what. See you tomorrow!”

“Montgomery, I’m not in tomorrow!” Before Lex could spin around and ask him again to explain himself, he was gone, the bells tinkling with a little more ferocity than usual at the speed of his exit. She had no idea if he’d even heard her last comment or remembered that she’d taken the day off to spend with her mother. She was alone in the store—except, of course, for a cat that apparently didn’t like her today—and no closer to getting any of the answers she had been looking for.

Lex sighed in frustration, snatching up the book that Montgomery had misplaced and checking the details before filing it in the correct place. She was getting a little sick of all of the questions she had around here—almost none of which ever seemed to yield any answers. Forget about Sloane not being trusted with a book; she, it appeared, was not to be trusted with anything, or so it seemed with the way that Montgomery treated her.

The unusual stock that the store carried. Talk of bad luck spells, curses, and dangerous books. Rivals willing to go so far as to kill one another over rare book finds. The locked storeroom upstairs, and whatever it was about the contents that was so mysterious as to prevent Montgomery from allowing her in. Even Montgomery’s reputation in Incanton, which seemed to consist of talk of how odd and eccentric he was—and while he was indeed odd and eccentric, it always seemed to go so much further than Lex was aware of. All of it kept adding up, and Lex was nowhere closer to understanding any of it.

It might have been bearable, except for the fact that Lex knew her father had been here before his disappearance. He had known Mrs. Sanderson, an elderly woman who lived in the town and who had apparently taken quite a harsh view of him for being nosy. He had brought Lex here, at least once, for ice cream by the shore.

And when there were so many other mysteries tied up in the place where her dad had been before he vanished, Lex couldn’t help but feel that there was some kind of link—and that someone, quite possibly Montgomery, was very keen that she never find it out.

But that only made her all the more determined to get to the bottom of things—and she wasn’t going to let Montgomery’s avoidance stop her.

She was meeting Noah tonight—a thought that filled her with giddy nerves as it always seemed to. He would help her get to the bottom of this.

She would find out the answers, somehow—and with help, it would be a lot easier.