In the Clear (Codex Book 3) Read online

  In the Clear

  Codex #3

  Kathryn Nolan

  Copyright © 2020 Kathryn Nolan

  All Rights Reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Editing by Faith N. Erline

  Cover by Kari March

  ISBN: 978-1-945631-65-8 (ebook)

  ISBN: 978-1-945631-66-5 (paperback)

  072720

  Contents

  1. Abe

  2. Abe

  3. Sloane

  4. Abe

  5. Sloane

  6. Sloane

  7. Abe

  8. Abe

  9. Sloane

  10. Abe

  11. Sloane

  12. Sloane

  13. Abe

  14. Sloane

  15. Abe

  16. Abe

  17. Sloane

  18. Abe

  19. Abe

  20. Sloane

  21. Abe

  22. Sloane

  23. Abe

  24. Sloane

  25. Sloane

  26. Abe

  27. Sloane

  28. Abe

  29. Sloane

  30. Abe

  31. Sloane

  32. Sloane

  33. Abe

  34. Sloane

  35. Abe

  36. Abe

  37. Sloane

  38. Abe

  39. Abe

  40. Sloane

  41. Sloane

  42. Abe

  43. Sloane

  44. Sloane

  45. Abe

  46. Abe

  47. Sloane

  48. Sloane

  49. Sloane

  50. Abe

  51. Sloane

  Epilogue

  Want more from the Codex team?

  A Note from the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Hang Out With Kathryn!

  About Kathryn

  Books By Kathryn

  For Henry, Delilah, Freya, Sam, Abe and Sloane.

  Thank you for demanding I write a little story about book-loving private detectives from Philadelphia. You will live in my heart forever.

  1

  Abe

  Philadelphia, PA

  Two private detectives stood in front of me holding a cornucopia of Hawaiian shirts.

  “What is this and why?” I asked.

  Delilah deposited the clothing on my desk while Freya reached into a tote bag that said “#1 CAT MOM” and revealed sunscreen, flip-flops, and a stack of dog-eared paperbacks.

  “Clothes for your upcoming, and much-needed, vacation. Beach wear, beach shoes, and my favorite trashy beach-reads.” Freya held up a book titled Wed to the Pirate Captain. “You need this book in your life, Abe.”

  “Already read it,” I said, brow arched.

  She snorted. “What else do you need? Delilah and I have nominated ourselves to head the Abe Vacation Committee.”

  “A jacket perhaps?” I suggested. “I’ll be vacationing in London. In October.”

  “Nothing but gorgeous gray skies and a low-level continuous drizzle,” Henry said. “You’ll be getting the true London experience.”

  “A wise man once said you dress for the weather you want,” Freya said. “Throw on your sunglasses and slop on that sunscreen. You’ll feel like you’re on a tropical adventure in no time.”

  Behind her giant glasses, her green eyes were bright with good humor. I’d taught Freya Evandale at the FBI’s training academy at Quantico before she dropped out, then hired her as my first employee here at Codex because of her sheer brilliance. But that meant we’d known each other for years—she fancied herself to be my annoying, younger sister.

  “Are you really in charge of my vacation committee?” I asked Delilah. She’d moved to the desk next to Henry and was immediately buried in her notes. She and Henry were working an urgent case. Codex had been hired by the Lawrence White Library near Washington, D.C., to retrieve a stolen first-edition of The Black Stallion with an estimated worth of over twenty five thousand dollars. Using their fake-married cover, the Thornhills, they had gone undercover to gain the trust of a D.C.-area book club we suspected of having stolen the manuscript.

  Together, as the Thornhills, Henry and Delilah had an impressive close rate. People trusted married couples, and the pair had a natural charm that worked to their benefit while undercover.

  What also helped was their real-life engagement. Their wedding was a mere four months from now.

  Allowing them to continue working here after they’d confessed their romantic relationship hadn’t been a decision I’d come to lightly. We were a small office working in high-stress and sometimes dangerous situations. I’d been a federal agent with the FBI for eleven years, overseeing teams that worked in white collar crime. I’d witnessed the risk of distraction, the ways conflict in teams could lead to agents being hurt or much worse. And yet Henry and Delilah were unstoppable. Which was a strange contradiction to what I knew to be true about love and marriage—and the many ways you could be abandoned.

  “Hmmm,” Delilah hummed with the hint of a smile. “I believe Freya nominated me, although I haven’t accepted the position. I did get you those flip-flops though.”

  “An abundance of thanks.” I picked up the sandal gingerly, examining all angles of it. “Also, what help will you need from me on The Black Stallion case while I’m gone? I want you to promise me constant, daily updates. I’ll have full access to my email and will be available by phone every minute of the day.”

  “None whatsoever,” she said. “I’m guessing your last real vacation was during the Industrial Revolution?”

  “Give or take twenty-one years ago,” I said mildly.

  “So you’ll be resting, rejuvenating or whatever the fuck else you do for vacation,” she said. My lips tightened, and I attempted a glower her way. She didn’t back down. After Freya, Delilah Barrett had worked at Codex the longest. A former police detective with a bloodhound’s investigative instinct, she was level-headed and cool under pressure. And could spot a lie a mile away.

  I held my palms up, placating. “Of course.”

  “What do you do on vacation?” Henry asked. “I picture you dressed in a suit, staring at your laptop and waiting for emails.”

  His depiction was eerily precise. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing. On the whole, wide swaths of free time didn’t excite me, and my hobbies were few and far between. I liked a long, hard run. A captivating book. A good glass of whiskey. A little history and culture sprinkled in. But these were activities for when work was done.

  And work was never done.

  To Henry, I said, “Sight-see. Visit historical monuments and museums. Eat at expensive restaurants. Perhaps see the opera.”

  Henry and Delilah watched me, waiting.

  “And I wait for emails on my phone, not my laptop,” I admitted. “I’m not an amateur.”

  “No, sir, you are not,” Delilah agreed. “Which luxurious hotel are you staying in?”

  I nodded at our former librarian and fellow history buff. “The Langham.”

  Henry brightened. “Perfect pick. You’ll be close to all the best things to do as a tourist. You can even get some Sherlock Holmes sight-seeing in.”

  I kept my face impassive. “Is that so?”

  “Absolutely,” he continued. “And I can give you a list of the best bookstores in the city. Bring Freya back another stack of paperbacks.”

  “Please and thank you.” Freya grinned. “And I sho
uld mention that these Hawaiian shirts I bought for you are real lady slayers.”

  “Am I to be slaying women on this trip?”

  She spread her arms wide. “What else—or who else—are you going to do on vacation?”

  I hid a smile while straightening my tie. Freya was going to start sounding like my mother soon. Or even worse, like Jeanette, my stepmom. Combined, the two maternal figures in my life were like hawks when it came to my dating life, and my lack of romantic entanglements their prey. My last serious relationship had been more than five years ago—a woman named Caroline who I’d dated for a year. My obsession with work (her words) and inability to have fun (also her words) were the death-knell for that relationship.

  It hadn’t been the first time I’d been accused by girlfriends and lovers of exhibiting a serious dearth of frivolity. And yet, like hobbies and free time, spontaneous fun was never a natural fit for me either. A string of one-night stands had been my only experience with love these past five years—and ever since founding Codex I’d had only one driving motivation in my life.

  Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Capturing Bernard Allerton no longer felt like a driving motivation but rather something more vengeful.

  Maybe I did have a problem with obsession.

  “A reminder that while my employees are off dating each other like contestants on a reality show, my personal life shall remain personal,” I finally said.

  “Dry spell, huh?” Freya shot back. She held out her palm for Delilah to high-five it.

  “The level of professionalism in this office is disintegrating at a shocking rate.” I made a show of pulling up my emails to conceal my amusement. The sudden sight of my messages, and the secret I was keeping from my team, sparked a tendril of guilt in my chest. All of this was compounded by the guilt I felt at leaving them with cases and deadlines while I’d be off—presumably—gallivanting through one of the world’s most beautiful cities.

  “Uh no,” Freya said, snapping her fingers. “Is that your inbox? It’s 5:01 p.m. Which means you’re officially on vacation.”

  “My red-eye’s not for five hours,” I said, sounding peevish. “What update do you have for me on the contract from the Allegheny Museum?”

  “I will be sharing all updates in our staff meeting with our working employees,” Freya said.

  Sam Byrne walked into the office carrying a plastic bag. “Leave him alone, Frey. He’s a workaholic in recovery, like me.”

  “In recovery seems a bit bold for a simple, ten-day vacation to London,” I said. “Where I’ll have full access to my—”

  “Email and phone the entire time,” Delilah and Freya droned in unison. “Yeah yeah, we get it,” Delilah said. “We shall be expressly disobeying those orders for the duration of the ten days.”

  Sam gave me a sympathetic smile. “It’ll be okay, Abe. The first few days will be a struggle, but once your brain lets go of the stress, you’ll be able to enjoy it, I promise.”

  Sam and Freya had just returned from a four-day vacation to Prince Edward Island. Which was one of the reasons why I’d decided to plan this trip. It was true that my last vacation had been taking my mother to Sedona when I was twenty years old.

  It was absolutely true that I’d been working long hours, catching up on cases and paperwork after Sam and Freya had infiltrated a secret society of book thieves two months ago. The publicity had led more libraries our way, which we were thrilled about. Still I was tired. Tired in a way that I hadn’t been for a while, exhaustion snapping at my heels, leaving me feeling unhinged.

  Of course, deep down I knew where this unhinged feeling sprouted from.

  I felt another twinge in my chest and ignored it. I had always wanted to spend real time in London—not for the occasional business trip but for leisure. Pleasure. Culture, literature, history, good whiskey, art—London was filled with the things I wanted to enjoy whenever I had free time. It was the right pick for my “rejuvenation.”

  It just wasn’t the entire story.

  With a respectful nod to me, Sam sank into the chair next to Freya, his undercover partner. And girlfriend.

  When he didn’t think I was looking, Sam tugged on the end of her braid. She literally beamed at him. The team had recently deemed me as “going soft” because I’d allowed the four of them to pair off, romantically. Soft had nothing to do with it—I was merely a professional who recognized the loss of skills and expertise my firm would incur if these four brilliant, skilled, and talented detectives left. I didn’t relish the idea of starting over when I’d worked so damn hard to build this company from the beginning.

  “He’s snappy because he’s going to miss us,” Freya said.

  “I wouldn’t dare,” I promised. “You have my word.”

  Sam smirked and opened his bag. “I’d like you to know that this was not my idea.” Out of the bag he pulled glow sticks and body glitter.

  “For raves,” Freya said. “London has the best raves.”

  Henry was trying not to laugh, and Delilah was snorting. Sam’s shit-eating grin mirrored Freya’s.

  “The things I love the most in this world,” I said, carefully picking up the body glitter, “are being pressed against strangers in the dark while dance music annihilates my ear drums and everyone is using illegal substances.”

  “This is your going-away vacation package from your highly competent team of detectives,” Freya said. “Enjoy. I know you think of yourself as the Codex Dad or whatever—”

  “I’m nine years older than you, for fuck’s sake.”

  “—but bosses need breaks.” Her face, and tone, turned serious. “Especially good bosses, like you. Which, all joking aside, is why I’m so fucking happy you’re doing this.”

  I sighed, shifting in my chair. Her sincerity was kind but unnecessary.

  “Burnout is real,” Sam added. “You know how affected I was by it two months ago. I think—” He looked around at the team, who were all watching me with very real expressions of tenderness. “I think we were all relieved when you told us you’d booked this trip.”

  Sam had also been my student at Quantico, and we’d worked together in the FBI’s Art Theft unit before I left. His father was the Deputy Director of the FBI, and Sam had been raised in his father’s stern image.

  After a work scandal, Sam had consulted for Codex on The Empty House case—and had ended up resigning from the FBI and becoming a private detective in the process.

  Freya had a lot to do with that life-changing decision. Secretly, I’d been pleased. Freya and Sam had a notorious rivalry as trainees, though beneath their sniping I’d sensed a working partnership that was special. Deep down, I’d also suspected they were in love. I’d certainly never shared that suspicion.

  Soft.

  “You know we care about you Abe,” Delilah said. “We care a lot, actually.”

  Their earnestness and carefree kindness towards me was too much to handle—a beautifully wrapped gift I both didn’t deserve and was terrified to open.

  “Yes well…” I cleared my throat. “This is good then. I will pack these shirts and Wed to the Pirate Captain.”

  Freya and Delilah did a little cheer.

  “Now shoo,” I said, waving my hand. “Go work on something that will make us a lot of money.” I stared at my laptop as they begrudgingly headed out into our large workspace. The Codex offices were located in an historic Philadelphia carriage house. The first floor was a used bookstore, and we occupied the second.

  Sam hung back with a file folder in his hand.

  “Updates?” I asked.

  “Yes, sir, per your request,” he said. His natural tendency toward deference revealed the FBI protocol still ingrained in him. I understood it—even three years after leaving the Bureau, it was hard for me to shake over a decade of hierarchy and power struggles.

  “I spoke to my Bureau contact yesterday,” Sam said, “and he informed me that resources for continuing to search for Bernard are disappearing, at least in
the US. Enthusiasm is flagging.”

  “Sounds familiar,” I said.

  He gave a shrug. “Interpol agents have been tracking Bernard’s credit card being used in Prague and Germany, so they’ve sent a team there to do surveillance. The teams in London and Oxford have come up empty-handed. They’ve started to pull in his colleagues for questioning, but they won’t be able to maintain secrecy much longer.”

  Bernard Allerton had been on the run—and evading the authorities—for eleven months now. Which seemed insignificant to me. I’d suspected the famous, and beloved, librarian was not who he seemed for ten years. Thus far the strategy, from what we could piece together, was for the Bureau and Interpol to keep his name from the papers, an attempt to lull him into a false sense of security that would lead to him eventually coming out of hiding. And into a waiting pair of handcuffs. To the rest of the world, Bernard Allerton was simply on a mysterious vacation. A lie that seemed to be holding, for now.

  During my long career working in white-collar crime, the most obvious truth I’d learned was that respect and wealth could conceal a bevy of wrongdoing. The wealthy could survive the scrutiny of the law using money as a shield and trust as social currency.