PART I
THE THIEF
CHAPTER 1
Chicago, September 30, 2019
THE CHEST PAINS HAD STARTED THE YEAR BEFORE.
There was never a question about their source. They were stress-induced, and the doctors promised they would never kill him. Tonight’s episode was particularly distressing, though, waking him from sleep with a cool chill of night sweats. He tried to suck for air, but it was like breathing through a cocktail straw. The harder he worked to inhale, the more distraught he became. He sat up in bed and fought the fear of suffocation. History told him the episode would pass. He reached for the bottle of aspirin he kept in the nightstand drawer and placed one, along with a nitroglycerine tablet, under his tongue. After ten minutes, the muscles of his chest relaxed and his lungs were able to expand.
It was no coincidence that this most recent bout of angina coincided with the arrival of the parole board letter, which sat on his nightstand. He had spent time reading the letter before he fell to sleep. Accompanying the letter was the judge’s summons for a meeting. He grabbed the document now as he climbed from bed, his sweat-soaked shirt cold against his skin as he walked down the stairs and headed to his office. He twisted the combination lock on the safe under his desk and pulled open the door. Inside was a stack of old parole board letters, to which he added the latest.
The first parole hearing correspondence had arrived a decade before. Twice a year, the board met with his client, denying him his freedom and explaining their decision in a properly worded essay that would stand up against appeals and protests. But last year, a different document arrived. It was a lengthy review by the board chairperson, who described in rich detail how impressed the board was with his client’s progress over the years, and how his client was the very definition of “rehabilitation.” It was after reading the final sentence of that letter, which indicated the parole board’s enthusiasm for their next review and the suggestion that great opportunities lay ahead for his client, when the chest pains had begun.
This latest correspondence marked the arrival of a slow-moving train that carried as its freight pain and misery, secrets and lies. That proverbial train had always been just a speck on the horizon, never making progress. But now it was a full barreling freighter growing larger by the day, impossible to stop, despite his many efforts. Sitting behind his desk, he stared at the middle shelf of the safe. A file folder was stuffed fat with pages from his investigation. An exploration that, during times of sorrow and angst like tonight, he wished he’d never embarked upon. The ramifications of his findings, however, were so profound and life-altering that he knew he would be empty had he not. And the idea that his own lies and deceptions might soon crawl from the shadows under which they had rested for years was enough to cause his heart to, literally, ache.
He wiped the layer of perspiration from his forehead and worked hard to fill his lungs with breath. His biggest fear was that his client would soon be free to continue the search. The investigation, which had been declared fruitless, would enjoy a resurgence once his client walked from prison. This, he knew, could not happen. Everything in his power must be done to prevent it.
Alone in his study, he felt a new chill come upon his body as his saturated shirt pressed to his shoulders. He closed the safe and spun the dial. The chest pains returned, his lungs tightened, and he leaned back in his chair to fight again the panic of suffocation. It would pass. It always did.
CHAPTER 2
Chicago, October 1, 2019
RORY MOORE INSERTED HER CONTACT LENSES, ROLLED HER EYES, and blinked to bring the world into focus. She despised the vision her Coke-bottle glasses offered—a bowed and distorted world when compared to the crispness of her contacts—but she loved the shelter her thick-rimmed frames provided. So, a compromise. After her contact lenses settled, she slipped nonprescription glasses onto her face and hid behind the plastic casings like a warrior ducking behind a shield. To Rory, each day was a battle.
They agreed to meet at the Harold Washington Library Center on State Street, and thirty minutes after Rory had dressed in her protective armor—thick-framed glasses, beanie hat pulled low, coat buttoned to her chin with the collar up—she climbed from her car and walked into the library. Initial meetings with clients always took place in public locations. Of course, most collectors had trouble with this arrangement because it meant hauling their precious trophies out into the daylight. But if they wanted Rory Moore and her restoration skills, they’d follow her rules.
Today’s meeting called for more attention than normal, since it had been arranged as a favor for Detective Ron Davidson, who was not only a trusted friend but also her boss. Since this was her side job, or what others annoyingly called her “hobby,” some part of her was honored that Davidson had reached out. Not everyone understood the complicated personality of Rory Moore, but over the years, Ron Davidson had broken through to win her admiration. When he asked for a favor, Rory never gave it a second thought.
As she walked through the library doors, Rory immediately recognized the Kestner doll that was housed in a long, thin box and resting in the arms of the man waiting in the lobby. The blink of an eye and a quick glance at the gentleman holding the box was all it took for Rory to run through her appraisal of him, her thoughts flashing like lightning through her mind: midfifties, wealthy, a professional of some sort—business, medicine, or law—cleanly shaven, polished shoes, sport coat, no tie. She quickly backtracked and rejected the initial thought of a doctor or lawyer. He was a small-business owner. Insurance or similar.
She took a deep breath, arranged her glasses squarely on her face, and walked up to him.
“Mr. Byrd?”
“Yes,” the man said. “Rory?”
The man, a full twelve inches taller than Rory’s five-two stature, looked down on her petite frame and waited for confirmation. Rory offered none.
“Let’s see what you’ve got,” she said, pointing at the porcelain doll that was carefully packaged in the box, before walking into the main section of the library.
Mr. Byrd followed her to a table in the corner. The library was only scantly populated in the middle of the afternoon. Rory patted the table and Mr. Byrd laid the box down.
“What’s the issue?” Rory asked.
“This is my daughter’s Kestner doll. It was a gift for her fifth birthday, and has been kept in pristine condition.”
Rory leaned over the table to get a better look at the doll through the plastic window in the box. The porcelain face was badly split down the middle, the crack starting somewhere beyond the doll’s hairline, running through the left eye socket and down the cheek.
“I dropped it,” Mr. Byrd said. “I’m beside myself that I was so careless.”
Rory nodded. “Let me have a look?”
He pushed the box toward her and Rory carefully unlocked the latch and lifted the lid. She inspected the damaged doll like a surgeon’s initial assessment of an anesthetized patient lying on the operating table.
“Cracked or shattered?” she asked.
Mr. Byrd reached into his pocket and produced a ziplock bag that contained small pieces of porcelain. Rory noticed his thyroid cartilage rise and fall as he swallowed hard to control his emotions.
“These
