CHAPTER TWENTY

Caitlin lost all track of time and place. She had no idea how many hours she’d been in this secret back room of this rare bookstore, combing frantically through stacks and stacks of books. There were mountains of them. Worse, they were all thrown in haphazardly, in so many different positions and directions, it was almost as if someone had deliberately tried to keep them disorganized. Perhaps that was the point: perhaps whoever did this wanted to hide that book.

Caitlin had seen chaos throughout her career in bookstores and libraries—but she’d never encountered anything like this. Not only were there so many books, but they were also each so rare, so valuable. She was astonished. She’d never seen such an abundance of riches under one roof. Some of the books that she’d already passed through her hands, she knew, would be worth millions of dollars on the open market. Why had anyone treated them this way?

Clearly, Aiden knew what he was talking about when he sent her here. And now she u