The Syndicate (Timewaves Book 1)

by Sophie Davis

  The lampposts gave off enough light for me to see that Hadley’s eyes were a little too bright, her cheeks a little too flushed, and the grip she had on her husband’s arm a little too tight. In fact, Ernest was all that was keeping her upright.

  Champagne sloshed over the rim of the glass dangling from her free hand. As if the sudden wetness on her skin reminded Hadley that there was still alcohol to drink, she lifted the glass to her lips and drained the contents.

  “I wish I could,” I replied. Hadley’s expression immediately turned to pouty disappointment. “Gaige and I must get home. Our uncle arrived last night, and we promised him a nightcap.”

  “Oh come now, just one drink?” Hadley pressed. Then, as quickly as her mood had dipped, it swung back up and her expression brightened. “Or you can ring him and he can meet us!”

  “Splendid idea,” Ernest declared. “We need more menfolk. Your uncle, you say? Is he a military man? I would love to trade war stories with another brave soldier.”

  “I’m sorry, we really can’t tonight,” I apologized, legitimately regretful. Not just because the outing would be advantageous for the mission, but also because I genuinely wanted to hang out with these characters. “Perhaps we could get together another day this week?”

  “Yes, of course, we will have lunch. Ring me tomorrow and let me know when you’re available,” Hadley replied, her disappointment forgotten.

  “I will,” I promised.

  A horn honked, followed by a man waving a champagne bottle and calling to Hadley and Ernest from the overstuffed convertible.

  “It seems we are being summoned,” Hemingway declared.

  The three of us said a quick goodbye, and then the couple trotted over to join their friends. All of the seats in the back were already taken, with women teetering on men’s laps and clutching anything within reach to keep from falling to the floorboards.

  Ernest slid into the front seat beside the driver, while Hadley stumbled over the occupants to perch atop the back of the open-topped car. Someone handed her a bottle of champagne. She attempted to refill her glass, though more alcohol poured down the front of her dress than made it into the cup. A man passing by on the sidewalk nearly became the recipient of a bubbly shower when Hadley raised the bottle in toast to me.

  “Au revoir, Stassi!” she called, blowing me a kiss as the driver shifted into gear and the car pulled away.

  Hadley’s drunken laughter was still audible as I walked inside to say goodbye to Stein and Toklas.

  In a weird way, the joie de vivre atmosphere of the 1920s reminded me of a daytrip I’d taken into Nashville with the other work camp girls. Then, just as now, it seemed those who’d lived through the war wanted to celebrate that fact. After so much bloodshed and death, the survivors needed a constant reminder that they were still alive. The parallels made me feel a little less homesick, even though the aftermath of World War Five had never touched Branson.

  Inside the foyer, the remaining guests surrounded Stein and Toklas. I stepped to one side to wait discreetly for a break in the conversation. Like bees to honeycomb, a group of women I’d met early in the kitchen swarmed me immediately.

  “You positively must join me for dinner,” Maggie said, placing one hand lightly on my forearm to draw my attention.

  “We should take you to Madame Chanel’s boutique,” her friend interjected.

  “You will be the most fashionable woman in Baltimore, if you return with a trunk full of her designs,” a willowy brunette agreed, her voice heavy with a German accent.

  The barrage of offers for dinner and shopping dates was so overwhelming, all I could think to do was smile and nod graciously.

  Another woman even invited Gaige and me to join a house party on the Riviera in the coming weeks. Thankfully, that was when Ines swept in out of nowhere and expertly handled the situation. She gave noncommittal answers that in no way promised attendance, but were laced with enough flattery for the asker to believe I’d be delighted to join an uncle’s eighty-second birthday celebration, or visit the guillotine that had claimed Marie Antoinette’s head. In that moment, I was again grateful for our guide and her skillful deflections. Morbid curiosity aside, a blade bathed in more blood than Elizabeth Bathory held little interest for me.

  In an unexpected contradiction to our intel about the introverted Andre Rosenthal, the writer stopped at our group on his way out to brush kisses on both my cheeks and hug me goodbye. The embrace was awkward, like one you give an aunt that bathes in mothballs and joint cream, but I still found it touching. The simple gesture brought such guilt that I held on for a few beats longer than socially acceptable. None of my targets in the past were as likeable as Rosenthal, and I felt a shame I’d never before experienced on a run. Using him for profit sat with me about as well as a toddler on a sugar high.

  Rosenthal’s exit provided the perfect opportunity for me to make my own goodbyes to the group of women inexplicably interested in becoming my new best friends.

  I wasn’t the only person waiting for an audience with Stein and Toklas, though. I darted in front of several other guests—rudeness be damned, I had places to go and shops to burgle—and reached the hostesses just as a slim man in a well-worn sport coat bid them adieu.

  “Americans,” I heard someone behind me grumble.

  The formidable women were speaking to each other in hushed tones as I approached. I caught Stein rolling her eyes.

  “I apologize for interrupting,” I began. “I just wanted to thank you again for inviting my brother and me this evening. It was a privilege to be here.”

  “Sorry about old Dopher, he wasn’t too fond of the comments on his novel tonight,” Stein replied, gesturing to the departing man. “I hope we did not keep you.”

  “Not at all,” I said with a wave of my hand. “I just didn’t want to leave without expressing my gratitude.”

  “We were happy to have you. Do come back next week,” Stein invited. Her wide, welcoming smile was a laughable contrast to Toklas’s scowl. “Your brother is going to bring me a short story to look over. I have to admit, I am quite curious.”

  “Me, too,” I replied, stifling a surprised laugh. I couldn’t imagine Gaige as a writer, much less one who warranted the opinions of Gertrude Stein. This was going to be interesting.

  Ines broke away from the group and joined me in thanking the hostesses.

  “Gertrude, Alice, a pleasure as always,” she told them. To me, she said, “I do believe Jacque is waiting for us with the car. And poor Gaige is in the courtyard, stuck in an utterly tedious conversation with Vincent. He fancies himself a great artist, and seems to believe your brother is the benefactor he has been waiting for.”

  We said a final goodbye to Stein and Toklas, and then Ines took my arm and led me outside.

  Gaige was indeed in the courtyard, talking excitedly with a group of men who were keenly interested in whatever he was saying. If I had to guess, it looked like an animated, very Gaige-like retelling of his experiences at the Préfecture de police de Paris. Looking as dapper as I’d ever seen him, with one hand tucked into the front pocket of his tailored suit pants and the other waving wildly about, my partner fit right in with the other men of the time.

  Gaige waved me over, but I gave him a subtle head shake and smile in response, pointing to where Jacque stood beside our car idling at the curb. After handshakes and lots of back clapping, he caught up with Ines and me just as the driver was opening the backdoor for us.

  “That went shockingly well. You were both quite the hits,” Ines remarked, once we were settled into the seats and on our way.

  “Don’t sound so surprised,” I said, with a healthy dose of dry sarcasm.

  “Ignore her, Ines,” Gaige chimed in, poking me in the ribs. “Stassi doesn’t always play well with others.”

  Ines’s tinkling laughter filled the car briefly before she eyed me with curiosity.

  “Not that it is any of my business, but why did you refuse Hadley’s invitat
ion for drinks?” she asked.

  Gaige and I exchanged glances. Our late-night plans weren’t exactly a secret. Nonetheless, through unspoken agreement, we’d neglected to inform Ines of our plans for a felonious after-party.

  The alchemist lit a cigarette and took a long, languid drag.

  “Does it have anything to do with the toolkits Cyrus requisitioned from customs earlier?” she asked as she exhaled.

  “Nothing gets by you, Ines,” I replied.

  “Well, whatever your plans, promise to be careful, won’t you? I simply cannot abide another visit to that horrid préfecture.” Ines paused and stared me dead in the eye. “This city is full of men I would gladly lose sleep to spend the evening with, but that bore of an inspector is not one of them. I am sure you would agree, Stassi. Perhaps Charles DuPree is on your list?”

  Yep, nothing got by Ines.

  “WHAT THE FRACKING frack?” Gaige hissed, the curse words leaving his pursed lips on a small, white puff of air. “What’s wrong with this damned thing?” Remembering too late that our boss had decided to join us on this excursion, my partner glanced over his shoulder guiltily and muttered a sheepish apology for his use of foul language. “Sorry, Cyrus.”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s user error,” I suggested helpfully.

  Under different circumstances, the situation might have been funny. But at two o’clock in the morning, with the temperature hovering somewhere just north of freezing, I couldn’t find any amusement in Gaige’s shortcomings. Even with the state-of-the-art lock picking set from customs, my partner couldn’t seem to disengage the relatively archaic deadbolt on Shakespeare and Company’s front door.

  “I’ve got this,” Gaige declared. “Just give me a minute.”

  “We don’t have a minute,” I muttered, trying to keep my agitation to a minimum.

  Our position on the sidewalk in front of a closed bookstore left us completely exposed and vulnerable to nosy insomniacs looking for late-night entertainment. Thanks to our night vision contacts, also courtesy of customs, Gaige wasn’t using a flashlight, which would’ve drawn even more attention to our shady business dealings.

  In Gaige’s defense, having our boss staring over his shoulder had to be intimidating. Cyrus was retired from running, and no longer mentored newbies during the apprenticeship year, so this was the first time either Gaige or me had been on a mission with him.

  Declining our boss’s offer to assist with the search of Shakespeare and Company had not been an option. Even if it had been, Gaige and I needed all of the help we could get. Locating a single a book hidden in an overcrowded bookstore was going to be as difficult as finding a specific grain of sand on the beaches of Branson, so three sets of eyes were definitely better than two. Though if Gaige didn’t get that door open soon, three butts were going to be sitting in hard plastic chairs down at the police station instead of two.

  “I’m usually so good at this,” Gaige groaned, going in for a fifth attempt.

  I caught Cyrus’s gaze over Gaige’s head and rolled my eyes. My boss’s lips twitched as he fought a smirk.

  “Keep telling yourself that,” I shot back, careful to keep my volume low. “Your turn is over sweetie, and you get an A for effort. Now move over, let me try.”

  With a grumble, Gaige handed me the lock-picking tools. I removed my black leather gloves and blew warm air onto my fingers to restore blood flow, then set to work.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Cyrus interrupted, just as I was about to slide the flat metal piece into the lock. He gripped the door handle in one gloved hand and twisted. A soft click sounded, then the door swung inward, emitting a rickety creak.

  “Ladies first.” Cyrus gestured to the open doorway. I crossed the threshold into the bookstore, followed closely by Gaige.

  “How’d you do that?” my partner demanded, annoyed.

  “Magic,” Cyrus deadpanned. “Now, do either of you have a starting point? Or are you just hoping the manuscript will jump off of the shelves and bite you in the ass?”

  “The second one,” I replied sheepishly.

  “Wonderful, the hope-we-get-lucky method of investigating—my favorite.” Cyrus’s tone was dry as the Sahara. He ran a gloved hand over his salt-and-pepper hair as he surveyed the overflowing shelves and worn furniture. “Okay, why don’t we divide the store into thirds? Stassi, you start with Adventure, Children’s Books, and Classics,” he instructed, gesturing to the signs hanging above the various bookcases. “Gaige, Horror, Literature, and Mystery. I’ll take Romance, Thrillers, and Travel. When you finish with your assigned sections, start in on one of the remaining ones.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” answered Gaige, giving our boss a cheeky two-finger salute.

  From the pouch at my waist, I withdrew a pair of white, cotton artifact gloves. Sliding them on to my frozen fingers, I set to work. This was the first time I’d used the night vision contacts. They felt very foreign in my eyes and I kept blinking, as if that would help me adjust to the new, odd sensation. Even stranger than the feel of them, was the greenish glow they cast over everything.

  The search was tedious, made more so by the fact that we didn’t know exactly what we were looking for. Going into this, I’d assumed a handwritten manuscript would be easily identifiable, that it was just a matter of locating Rosenthal’s hiding place. Not so much. Every other book I pulled from the shelf was handwritten. Even those that were typed often had handwritten missives in the margins.

  “Anyone finding anything?” Gaige called after what felt like forever. Glancing at the synchronized timepiece on my wrist—yet another goody from the customs toolkit—I saw that it had only been an hour.

  “Yes, Gaige, I found it. I figured keeping it a secret would be a laugh,” I said dryly, reaching for the next book on the shelf.

  “Bite me,” came Gaige’s eloquent reply from across the room.

  “Now, children, play nice,” muttered Cyrus, sounding somehow both bored and amused.

  Exhausted and annoyed, I snapped closed the edition of Peter Rabbit in my hands and replaced it on the shelf. I’d finished with my sections, and was no closer to finding Blue’s Canyon than I had been when we entered the store.

  “This is going to take all night,” I proclaimed. “We need a better system.”

  Cyrus turned from a shelf of travel books, a hardback copy of Alistair’s Guide to London open in his hands. He arched an eyebrow. “Do you have a suggestion?”

  I blew out a breath. “No,” I admitted, gesturing helplessly around the store. “But there has to be a better way to do this.”

  Cyrus replaced the guidebook and gave me his full attention.

  “You both spoke with Beach, correct? Something she said made you believe part of the manuscript is here. What was it?”

  Gaige was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of a bookcase of mystery novels. He’d been thumbing through a thick book with a tattered rust-colored cover, but looked up when Cyrus started asking questions.

  “I don’t remember exactly. She told us that Rosenthal comes in here to write on a regular basis. We asked her about his habit of hiding sections of his manuscripts until he was ready to submit them for publication. Then I flat out asked whether any of his work was hidden here,” Gaige replied.

  “Subtle,” Cyrus remarked.

  “Effective,” Gaige volleyed. “Beach tried to be coy, but she definitely knows there is a piece of a manuscript in this store. She might even know where.”

  “Exactly,” I said, realization dawning. “She does know where, she has to. Otherwise, she might accidentally sell it to someone.”

  “Should we go wake her up for a little midnight interrogation?” Gaige asked me doubtfully.

  I rolled my eyes. “No, of course not. But think about it—she wouldn’t want to risk selling the manuscript—”

  “You already said that,” Gaige interjected.

  “—and she wouldn’t want to risk someone walking off with it,” I continued, ignoring my
partner’s snarky comment. “So it’s not going to be on one of these shelves.”

  “Stassi’s right,” Cyrus chimed in. “Beach would want to keep it in a controlled environment, like—”

  “Behind the register,” Gaige and I finished in unison.

  Since I was closest, I reached the sales counter first. Gaige and Cyrus joined me a moment later. I started with the shelves beneath the register. Beach was organized, with accounting and sales ledgers, handwritten receipts for the past few months, inventory lists, and reminder notes to herself arranged in boxes and folders.

  “Nothing,” I declared, feeling defeated. I’d been so sure the manuscript would be there. “What about the back of store?”

  “No need,” Gaige replied, sounding distracted.

  He and Cyrus were standing beside me, searching the books Beach kept on a small two-tiered shelving unit behind the sales counter. Gaige was holding a leatherbound book, smaller than the one we’d seen Rosenthal writing in at the café, but similar in style. He held it up to show us. The front cover was blank, save one word embossed in gold calligraphy: Book.

  “Well that’s specific” I said of the title. “Are you sure?” I stepped closer to my partner as he flipped the cover open to reveal the precise penmanship inside. Sure enough, the handwriting matched the examples Eisenhower had shown us of Rosenthal’s works.

  Cyrus crowded in on Gaige’s other side, staring over his shoulder to read the words along with us. My partner ran his gloved fingers over the words written on the otherwise blank title page: Blue’s Canyon. Gaige turned the page, and read the first line of text aloud: Serena was exceptionally lovely when she stood before the window, the golden halo created by the sun’s morning rays giving her the appearance of an angel sent from the heavens.

  “Look, there.” Cyrus pointed to the bottom right corner, where a “1” was scrawled. The number on the next page was “2”. “This must be the first section of the manuscript. Flip to the end,” he instructed.