(a.k.a. “Missing”)
The fire in the big fireplace flickered and popped comfortingly. The books in the library on the second floor were silent witness as Dr. Alexander Karim nudged the chairs into a more precise line and nodded his satisfaction. “There. Everyone take a seat,” he declared.
Veris scowled and crossed his arms, making his big muscles bunch. As usual, he wore the sleeveless cotton shirt and scuffed leather trousers he favored when he wasn’t required to wear a suit. The firelight made his blond hair look mildly red. “This is childish,” he muttered.
Brody threw himself into the chair at the end of the row. “You could halt it all now. Just confess and it all stops.”
Taylor stepped over to the middle chair and smooth down her silk skirt over the slight bulge of her belly as she sat down gracefully and crossed her legs. She glanced at Alexander. “Alex, really. This is unnecessary.”
Alexander sat in the wing chair that faced the three chairs lined before him and leaned forward. “The three of you are making this necessary. So, let us begin. Each of you will speak in turn. No one else will speak while the other does. At the end, I will announce what the crime has been, if any, and what the consequence are to be, if any. Do you all agree to abide by my ruling?”
“Yes,” Brody said instantly and flatly.
Taylor glanced at him, then back at Alexander. “I suppose, yes,” she said. Then both of them looked at Veris, who still stood to one side of the remaining chair, his blue eyes dark with anger.
“Veris, please,” Taylor said softly.
Veris growled and threw himself into the chair. “This is a waste of time,” he observed.
“We wouldn’t be wasting time if you’d just own up to destroying my book,” Brody shot back.
Veris rolled his eyes. “I’ve just got back from a six week medical tour that was so mind-numbingly boring I wanted to go back in time and throttle Hippocrates before he opened his mouth. I could be tasting Taylor’s flesh right now, but because you’ve got this thing about your books, we’re sitting here instead.”
Brody scowled. “Northman.”
“Celt,” Veris growled.
“Shut up both of you,” Alex said sharply, slapping his hand on the flat wooden arm of his chair.
Brody threw himself against the back of his chair with a hiss.
Veris grinned.
“Brody, you can begin,” Alexander said. “Try to keep yourself to observable facts and civilized language, hmm?”
Taylor smothered a soft laugh with her fingers.
Brody sat forward again. “Fine. I don’t have a big book collection. Not like these two hogs. But the books I do have are important to me. I’ve collected them over the centuries and they all mean something. Especially the manuscript of Eadweard of Ashwick.”
“Because you knew him,” Alexander interposed.
“He met him in an English tavern one evening in the fifth century. He didn’t even share a drink with the man!” Veris protested. “He didn’t know who he was until the manuscript turned up ten years later. It’s not even completed! It’s a fragment!”
“You are not supposed to speak until it is your turn,” Alexander pointed out. He looked at Brody. “Is he correct?”
Brody scowled. “Of course I didn’t share a bloody drink with the man. I was a vampire by the time I returned from Constantinople. He didn’t finish the manuscript because the bloody Saxons killed him. They didn’t like what he was writing.”
“Why?” Alexander asked.
“Because he was writing about my father,” Brody said. He pulled his hair back and tossed it over his shoulder in a tired, defeated gesture. “The only fucking Saxon in England who could read and write and they killed him because they objected to his subject matter.”
Taylor reached over and squeezed Brody’s wrist in silent sympathy.
Brody sat up again. “So I tracked down the only remaining copy of his manuscript and stole it. It took me years.” He turned in his chair to glare at Veris again. “And now it has gone again...and that bloody great lummox did something with it. He was screwing around with my stuff last week. I saw him there and didn’t think anything of it at the time, but now it’s missing.”
Alexander nodded. “Thank you. Taylor, now it is your turn. What have you to say about this matter?”
Taylor placed her hands together on her lap. “I refuse to answer on the grounds that any response I make may incriminate me.”
Brody’s eyes widened. “Taylor!” He sounded wounded.
She stared steadily ahead.
Alexander considered her for a long moment. “Very well. Veris?”
Veris growled deep in the back of his throat.
“Have you anything to say?” Alexander asked.
“How much time have we wasted at this?” Veris demanded. “What is the time?”
“You’re ducking the spotlight,” Brody accused him.
“It’s three p.m. almost exactly,” Alexander said. “But that’s quite beside the point—”
The chime for the front door sounded, cutting Alexander off.
“Finally!” Veris said and got to his feet.
So did Alexander and Taylor.
“Wait!” Brody cried. “We’re not done here! You’re not getting out of this just because someone is at the door.”
Veris ignored him and left the room.
“The son of bitch,” Brody muttered, watching his lover leave.
Taylor and Alexander were silently rearranging the chairs. Together, they moved the small side table to sit between all four of the chairs. From the front of the house came the sound of the door closing.
A moment later Veris appeared, carrying a large crate in both arms. He dropped it on the table and smiled at Brody. “Happy birthday, you cranky old Celt. It’s two days early, but we couldn’t figure out a way to deliver this on the day and not give the game away.”
Brody touched the crate diffidently. “Is it...?”
“Eadweard’s manuscript,” Veris confirmed. “Only, it’s the full and complete story of your father’s life. I wasn’t at a medical conference last week.” He smiled. “I was in England when Eadweard was alive, too, Brody. So Taylor and I jumped back to England last week and stole one of the complete manuscripts before they were destroyed.” Veris shrugged. “You had a good idea. We just got there before you did. Time travel is useful, that way.”
Brody pressed both his hands reverently against the rough wood, staring down at the crate.
Alexander picked up the poker from beside the fireplace and held it out silently to Brody. “Muslims had better methods of preserving manuscripts back then than any of the western societies, so I gave them a few ideas on what they could do with it once they had it, in order to keep it whole and have it survive until they could give it to you today.”
Brody took the poker and fitted the tip under one of the cross-braces. “This whole thing about the missing manuscript...it was all a set up.” He ripped the wood away with a single shove of the poker. “I could have cheerfully killed you two.” He glanced at Taylor. “Pleading the Fifth!” It was a curse.
She moved around behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her face against the back of his shoulder. “Happy birthday.”
Brody looked down at the ancient handwritten and bound book carefully packed inside the crate, then leaned over and grabbed Veris’ shirt and pulled him close to kiss him soundly. He drew Taylor around his body and into his arms. “It is a happy birthday.”