Page 38 of One Wicked Secret
While Daniel rooted around in the water, wetting his shirt up to his shoulder and finally touching the sludgy bottom, Rothley glanced heavenward and tossed the coin into the pond.
Had he asked for proof Justin was alive? Had he begged for the return of a love he’d lost years ago?
Daniel was thinking about his own wish—to earn his wife’s forgiveness and trust—when stones shifted beneath his touch. His fingertips grazed something else. Something soft. A book.
Elsa rushed to help him as he lifted it out of the water with care. “You found it!” She was on her knees, catching the saturated pages that were nothing but a mass of pulp. The weak string couldn’t hold the weight, and the paper broke free from the brown leather board.
“Even if we dry it out, the ink will have leached away.”Elsa placed the clumpy mass on the ground beside her. “It’s fair to assume this isn’t a clue to anything.”
Daniel studied the decaying board. The faded ex-libris inside was barely intact, but he could make out a faint outline of an image.
“Was this your mother’s book?” He handed Elsa the board, though her eyes moved to where his sodden shirt clung to his bicep. “You said her ex-libris was an open tome and quill.”
“It was the open tome in the books I borrowed, but some had an older design, a fox beneath an oak tree.” She looked at the ex-libris. “This might be that design. It’s hard to tell.”
Someone had covered the plate with varnish, enough to offer weak protection from the elements, though the image was hard to distinguish. If it wasn’t a clue, why would her father not fish it out when her mother first lost it?
“You said your father knelt before the memorial stone,” Rothley interjected, gripping the trowel, ready to dig. “Can you show me where?”
Elsa pushed to her feet and approached the obelisk. “I’d never seen my father kneel before. He said memorials were for the living, not the dead. A place one came to seek answers.”
Daniel stood and dried his arm on his trousers, cursing his stupidity. Their estrangement might have been avoided if he’d spoken to Elsa initially.
“Sink the crook into the ground and see if you hit something solid.” Daniel removed the lantern and handed Rothley the metal rod. “It will prevent us from digging up the entire area.”
“Try here,” Elsa said, watching Rothley plunge the rod into the grass and the damp earth below.
On the fifth attempt, a faintthunkhad them all gasping.
Rothley fell to his knees, digging a neat patch of grass and moving the turf aside before driving the trowel deeper. “There’s something here. Something metal. A box.”
Seconds later, Rothley held the box in his dirty hands. The metal was dark with age, its surface mottled and corroded.
Elsa brushed loose soil off the lid. “The hinges are rusty. Use the trowel to prise the box open.”
A simple twist of the trowel popped the lid. Wrapped tightly in layers of muslin and oilskin cloth, the small blue book was perfectly preserved.
“That’s the book my father had in the hothouse. The one he hid in his pocket. Though now I think about it, he did a poor job of disguising the action.”
Heart pounding, he suggested taking it back to the house. “We’ll examine it in the privacy of the library.” The creak of a branch and the timely hoot of an owl added to the tension. “Anyone could be watching us out here.”
Daniel silently cursed as they hurried back to the house.
He had spent months lying through his teeth. Months poring over records and shadowing Jacob Tyler’s business associates. Months sleeping alone, aching for the warmth of his wife’s body beside him.
He deserved Elsa’s spite.
He’d ruined everything.
One conversation had brought the answers they needed. Or so he thought until they reached the library and Elsa opened her father’s book under the lantern’s light.
The excitement in her eyes died. “I don’t understand.” Her frown deepened as she skimmed through the leaves. “Why would he bury a book with blank pages? Why would the killer blackmail Magnus for this?”
“May I see it?” Daniel failed to hide the sudden surge of panic. The book was the only lead they had. A quick scan of the first page confirmed it wasn’t blank. “There’s a list of ten novels written on the opening page. Along with the cryptic wordstake the quill, leave the fox.”
While Rothley ground his teeth in annoyance, Elsa shrugged. “ExcludingThe Romance of the Forest, they were my mother’s favourite books.The Italianwas amongst the volumes stolen from The Grange.”
“Are the other nine novels here?” Rothley said.
