Grim Shadows (Roaring Twenties #2)(33)

“Better than ‘awful,’ I suppose. I’ll take it.”

Mildly self-conscious, she glanced around the back parking lot. Empty but for three cars belonging to security guards. “If the guards question us, let me do the talking this time,” she said. “No more crazy stories of domestic abuse and pregnancy.”

“If you insist. Now, what’s the plan? Where do you think the map’s hidden?”

She retrieved a set of keys from her coat pocket. “Right under my father’s nose. Come on. Let’s see if I’m right.”

Shadows greeted them inside the office entrance. The guards concentrated their patrol on the museum proper, only occasionally making a pass through the administrative offices. Hadley would rather avoid them completely, so best to work quickly. She led Lowe directly to her father’s office and closed the door behind them.

“You didn’t recognize anything my mother said in regards to the location of the map?” she asked, switching on her father’s desk lamp.

“Sounded like bad poetry.”

“I suppose that depends on your tastes. Father used to give my mother books for every occasion—birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas. Expensive books. First editions. And they’re right over here.” She headed to one of the bookshelves on the far side of his office, near the door that connected to hers. “He said they were an investment, that he was giving her the pleasure of the words as well as something that would increase in value over time. But I remember hearing her tell my nanny that though Father may have given them to her, they were really more for him. Not that he’s a lover of poetry, mind you. He’s just a collector.”

“These here?” Lowe’s gaze darted over the shelves. “Must be a hundred or more. They survived the Great Fire?”

“My family home was just west of the fire line. We were lucky.”

“We were in the Fillmore District at the time, so us, too.” Lowe frowned. “You’re certain your mother was referring to lines of published poetry?”

“My parents might’ve only been collectors of books, but I’ve probably read every volume in this room at least once.”

“I read a lot in Egypt,” he said. “Mostly The Argosy and Weird Tales.”

“Pulp magazines don’t count as reading.”

“What a little snob you are,” he said, slanting narrowed eyes her way. His smile told her he was teasing, but maybe he had a point.

“Regardless,” she said. “If you’d read something with an actual spine, you might’ve figured this out. Because my mother said we could find the map in ‘Seine’s cold quays, in the fields of gazing grain, on night’s Plutonian Shore, and on a painted ship.’ I recognize at least two of those lines. ‘Plutonian Shore’ is from ‘The Raven.’”

“Edgar Allan Poe.”

“Very good. I suppose Berkeley didn’t completely fail you,” she murmured, scanning the shelves in front of them.

“There,” Lowe said, pointing to the highest shelf. “Help me move this out of the way.”

Together they dragged the wingback chair in which her father smoked cigars across the floor. Once it was out of the way, Lowe’s impressive height gave him access to the top shelf. The tips of his fingers tugged out a volume. It was Poe, all right. He thumbed through it, once, twice. Tipped it sideways and fluttered it around to see if anything fell out of its pages. Nothing.

“Give it to me,” she said. “Maybe there’s a clue on the page with that line.” She surveyed the index and found the poem. “I don’t see anything.”

He leaned over her shoulder to scan the pages with her, and she caught the scent of his leather coat—the scent she’d breathed in on the motorcycle when her cheek was against his back. Her pulse increased. “No marking,” he noted. “No corner turned down.” She felt his gaze shift to her face a moment before his fingers followed. “You’re wilted.”

“Pardon?”

“Your lily.” Heat spread over her neck as he slid the flower out from its pin. “Bedraggled by the ride, I’m afraid. Shame. Still smells nice.”

“Yes, well, nothing lasts forever.” Her hand patted the space where the flower had been. “Unless it’s been properly preserved, of course.”

“A mummy joke?”

She smiled to herself. “Please focus on the task at hand. I’d prefer to avoid the guards.”

“Well, the map’s not here. Maybe we’re looking in the wrong volume. Did your mother own two Poe books?”

She shook her head, fighting the disappointment unfurling in her chest. “Just this one.”

“Let’s try another verse, then. What was the other one you recognized?”

“On ‘a painted ship upon a painted ocean.’”

“Sounds very familiar,” Lowe mumbled.

“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.”

“Ah-ha! I saw Coleridge . . . there. Let me reshelve the Poe.” He reached to slip the book back into place, then halted. “Hold on.”

“What?”

“This feels odd.”

ELEVEN

LOWE FLIPPED THE POE book over to study the leather cover. “I can’t be sure. How attached to your mother’s books are you?”