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“And if he lies?”

“I’ll find out why.”

“You have men watching him already. You brought him to a place where you control every door.” I hug the book to my chest. “What are you going to do if he knows where Connor is?”

Andrei’s eyes move over my face. “Finding Connor comes first. I understand the difference between getting information from a man and punishing him.”

The distinction should reassure me. Instead, I wonder how often he’s had to make it.

“Have you done both?” I whisper.

“Cassie.” He touches my wrist, then lets his hand fall when I focus on it. “I won’t let my anger cost us a chance to find your brother.”

He’s answered the question he wants to answer. Before I can ask another, Birdie calls my name from the table.

“There are more books in this carton,” she says. “Harris wanted you here before we went through them.”

I return to the carton. Murphy comes away from Andrei and positions himself beside my feet. Harris photographs the first book while I place it on the table. Then I lift a paperback, open its front cover, and find only a previous owner’s name. Birdie takes the next one. We work through the top layer, making a separate pile for books we’ve checked.

Connor knew I would do this. That thought stays with me each time I turn a cover. He knew I would open the books one at a time, even if I had no reason to suspect he had left anything inside them. He came here on Monday, before he disappeared, and made a plan that depended on me behaving exactly as I always have.

Halfway through the carton, I find a hardcover with a loose jacket and a small stain on the title page. I open it, and Connor’s handwriting stops me.

Cass, if you found the empty space in my bottom desk drawer, I left it that way. I moved what was there. Keep looking.

I read it twice. Then I hand the book to Andrei because my mouth has gone dry.

“What is it?” Birdie asks, coming around the table.

“His desk drawer.” I point to the words. “Remember the clean rectangle in the dust? I thought somebody might have taken whatever was there while we went to dinner.”

Birdie reads the message, then looks up at me. “Connor moved it himself.”

“He expected me to see the space.” I think of the drawer scraping open under my hands, the cable wedged behind it, and the call I made to add the empty space to Connor’s police report. “He was in his apartment after he left these books here, or he moved the object before Monday.”

“We can’t tell which from the note,” Andrei says, studying the page. “We know he wanted you to notice it was gone.”

I take the book back. Connor wrote my name at the top of the page. In his apartment, I searched for a sign that he was alive when he left. Here, surrounded by books our grandmother would have loved to sort, I’ve found proof that he was thinking ahead and thinking of me. Neither fact tells me where he is right now.

“Why didn’t he write where he put it?” I ask.

“He may have thought the first message would tell you enough,” Birdie says.

“Enough to do what?” I read the last two words again. “Keep looking where?”

Andrei takes another book from the carton but pauses before opening it. “Connor may have thought whatever he moved was important enough to hide from the person behind the fraud. He couldn’t write down where he put it if there was a chance that person would find this book first.” He opens the cover. “We’ll check every one.”

Harris asks me to place Connor’s message on the table so he can photograph it. He photographs the cover, the page, and the book’s position among the others, then gives it back. I hold on to it while Birdie and Andrei search the remaining books. Nothing else appears inside a cover or among the first pages. We check the spines and fan through each book in case Connor tucked a loose paper farther in. An hour passes. We find a grocery receipt from three years ago, a pressed maple leaf, and someone’s old train ticket, but no further word from my brother.

I spread the two books on the oak table. In one, Connor left account numbers and Rick’s initials. In the other, he told me he moved the object from his drawer. The books give us a way to question Rick tomorrow, though I have no idea what those numbers mean. They also tell me there is more to find.

Birdie braces both hands on the table. “I hate leaving you here tonight.”

“I’ll be okay,” I tell her, closing the book Connor wrote in. “Andrei’s staying, and Cole’s outside.”

Birdie’s eyebrows rise. “Andrei’s staying? Should I call tomorrow morning, or give you until noon?”

Heat rises in my cheeks. “Birdie.”