Page 50 of Cross & Crown

werevaluable. Not necessarily that they wereimportant. He pushed up onto his elbows and looked at Kelly through the

darkness. “Explain.”

“Okay, going with your treasure hunters theory.”

“Kels, I was joking about that. Intergalactic time travelers?

Come on.”

“I know, but listen. They went forbooks, dude. Your

average dead guy in the street can’t sell rare books on the black market, and pawnshops don’t deal with shit like that. Where

are you going to get money for a rare book?”

“An antiquarian bookshop.”

“Right, and you just fucking robbed it. So you’re not

trying to make money off your haul. What are books

good for?”

“Hitting intruders?” Nick mumbled. He rubbed his

eyes again. “Doorstops. Insomnia. Special interrogation

techniques. Silencing bedmates in the middle of the night.”

“All totally valid. But I’m talking about information.

Books are good for information.”

Nick continued to rub the heel of his palm against his eye,

ruminating on that. He finally looked up, seeing stars briefly

before Kelly’s face swam back into focus. “You’re saying they

weren’t after things to sell, but they’re looking for something in particular.”

50

Kelly shrugged. “Makes as much sense as robbing a

bookstore, dude. How’d you know which books were stolen,

anyway?”

“We recovered them at the scene.” Nick sat up, staring at

the mirror that lined the closet across the cabin. “Huh.”

Kelly’s hand drifted over Nick’s bare back, tracing the

lines of his tattoo and making him shiver. “What?”

“I saw someone that morning; I’d forgotten about it. I

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