Chapter 5 - Seven Missing Volumes Changed the Story
The police arrived twenty minutes later.
I gave them Mike’s backpack, the service-vestibule packing tape, and a photograph of the reconstructed drawing.
I also gave them Celeste’s license plate and Blaine’s information.
Blaine did not try to leave.
That interested me.
He was angry.
Defensive.
Humiliated after what happened in the study.
But he wasn’t acting like a man preparing to disappear.
Celeste was.
The house manager confirmed seeing Celeste leave through the kitchen garage moments after I carried Hadley into the morning room.
She had taken her car.
No suitcase.
No coat.
Just her handbag and keys.
She was going somewhere she thought mattered immediately.
One officer began checking the property.
Another took Blaine into a separate room.
I stayed with Hadley.
“What happened yesterday?” I asked her.
She twisted one of the cream ribbons on her dress.
“Mike was mad.”
“At Celeste?”
She nodded.
“Why?”
“He said she was stealing Grandma’s books.”
My throat tightened.
Mike still called the collection “Grandma’s books,” even though my wife had been gone for four years.
“What happened after he said that?”
Hadley thought carefully.
“Blaine came in.”
“Here?”
“Yes.”
“Did he touch Mike?”
“No.”
“Did Celeste?”
Hadley shook her head.
That mattered.
“Then how did Mike leave?”
“She said Grandpa wanted him to go somewhere.”
I stared at her.
“What somewhere?”
“She didn’t say.”
“Did Mike believe her?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he told me she was lying.”
Hadley’s lower lip trembled.
“He said, ‘If I don’t come back, finish the picture.’”
I took her hand.
“You did exactly what he asked.”
She looked toward the scraps.
Then said one more thing.
“Celeste said she only needed him gone until tonight.”
Tonight.
Not forever.
Not an abduction planned months in advance.
A temporary removal tied to a deadline.
I looked back at the seven substituted books.
If Celeste and Blaine had been swapping originals for replicas, there was probably a sale or transfer scheduled.
And The Lantern Boy was missing.
Maybe Mike had disrupted the final shipment.
Maybe Celeste needed him out of the house only long enough to finish it.
I glanced at the afternoon sun cutting across the study floor.
Whatever was supposed to happen tonight had not happened yet.
That meant Mike might still be close.
May you like
And so might the books.
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