I spent another hour in the workroom, packing up the wood press that still held the Faust text block in its grip, boxing up all the pieces and all the tools I’d need tomorrow. I borrowed a small hand dolly from Marissa and lugged everything out to my car. By the time I got home, my body was down for the count. But when I opened the door and saw my studio still in shambles, I couldn’t stand it.
I locked the door and parked the dolly next to my desk. As I removed my jacket, I caught a disturbing whiff of soy sauce.
“First things first,” I said. Checking again that my front door locks were set, I headed for the bathroom where I peeled off my broth-soaked clothing and took a long shower. I dressed in sweats and a T-shirt, satisfied that I no longer reeked of Chinese noodle bowl.
Back in the studio, I noticed the red light flashing on the phone and played back the messages. Doris Bondurant had called to offer me a job rebinding a vintage Alice in Wonderland she’d found recently. I understood it would be a test to see whether I passed muster with her. I felt a pang of sadness, knowing Abraham had been responsible for my connecting with her.
There was also a message from Robin, who called to let me know she’d bought me some cute pajamas so I would no longer embarrass her on our sleepovers. The third message was from Carl, Abraham’s lawyer, who wanted to meet and hash out my new financial condition. I made a face. I’d honestly forgotten I had a new financial condition. Not that I wasn’t grateful, you understand. I could always use more money. But it still felt odd to be the lone recipient of Abraham’s entire fortune.
I left Carl a message, putting him off for a week or two. I could only concentrate on one or two major upheavals at a time.
Grabbing a trash can and a broom, I began the cleanup. I threw away the stacks of torn and crushed endpapers, gathered my scattered tools and organized them precisely as they’d been before, picked up every spool of thread and put them back in color order in the narrow shelves I’d had built for that purpose. I rolled up the leather skins and stacks of cloth that weren’t damaged and put them back in their rightful places.
An hour later, I looked around, pleased that things were almost back to normal. I would need to order more marbled paper and a new set of glue brushes, plus two of my bone folders were missing, but that was the only real damage I found.
Except for Robin’s vase, which had been crushed to smithereens.
Despite that minimal damage, I could tell that whoever was behind all this destruction had been in an absolute rage, and that was the most frightening part of this ordeal. I just couldn’t picture anyone I knew being capable of such behavior.
I thought of Abraham’s studio up in Sonoma. Someone had gone through there in a similar fashion. But who? And what had they been looking for?
Whoever it was, they hadn’t found it, and I guessed that was why they’d struck back with violence. But at least they hadn’t destroyed my books. That would’ve been a lot more painful to me.
So whoever it was, they didn’t know me. As strange as it sounded, that was a comforting thought.
I was exhausted and nearly half-asleep when I checked the locks again, then shuffled off to my bedroom. As I reached to pull back the bedspread, something on the pillow caught my eye and I jumped back.
On my pillow was a long-stemmed red rose. It looked fresh, with dew still clinging to its outer petals. An elegant note card was placed next to the rose. Without thinking, I picked up the card and read the one-word sentiment.
“Soon.”
Chapter 17
I cried out in shock, threw the rose down and ran from the room. Shaking like crazy, I ran from room to room, checking the locks on every window and the front door. I ran up the narrow stairs that led to the rooftop garden to make sure that door was secure.
It wasn’t. The door had been jimmied open.
I started to panic. Was the killer still inside my loft? Was he hiding up on the roof? I wasn’t about to walk out there.
Summoning every ounce of courage I had, I ran down the stairs, found my cell phone and called the police.
The dispatcher said it would be about a half hour since the intruder wasn’t on-site. How the hell did she know?
And just because I’d checked the entire apartment and knew in my gut there was no one here but me, it didn’t mean I felt safe.
Soon.
What the hell did that mean? I thought of Gabriel and the last word he’d said to me earlier that day. No, I refused to believe he’d had anything to do with this. I’d known him for only an hour, but I knew in my heart he wasn’t warped enough to break into my place just to leave a rose on my pillow. Maybe to steal the Plutarch, but never-
“Oh, hell, the Plutarch!”
I grabbed my keys and ran to unlock the hall closet. In the old corset factory, this closet had housed a rope-and-pulley shelving system that moved supplies up and down between the floors. Like a dumbwaiter, I guess. Now the dumbwaiter function was disconnected and nobody would ever know about it unless they studied the building blueprints. But the metal floor panel still slid back to reveal a shallow space where I hid important papers and extra money.