Robbery.
Lieutenant Cabe had said “robbery,” she realized.
The magnitude of the situation, what all of this chaos and Henry’s death meant, finally cut through her shock. She spun around, the next most important question after Swann’s safety repeating frantically in her mind.
What did the thieves take?
Her eyes rose to the gallery wall, where the pride and joy of the NYPL’s collection, Abel Buell’s New and Correct Map of the United States of North America, 1784, had hung for years. Nell had been there, just nine years old, filing paperwork for pocket money from her father, when the crate came in from the Chathams, some of the library’s most generous benefactors. There were only seven copies of the Buell map still in existence, and they all had been housed at museums or hanging in private collections for generations—including this one from the Chathams, which they had purchased from another family several decades ago for a million dollars. At the time, Nell had wondered why they were willing to lend such a rare, precious piece to the NYPL, tax break or not. She had been terrified it would be stolen. And now it had been.
Except it was still there on the wall.
“I don’t understand,” she finally said.
“What do you mean?” Lieutenant Cabe asked.
“The Buell map,” she murmured. “It’s still there.”
“It is,” he agreed. He was studying her closely. “Why are you surprised?”
“It’s the most valuable piece in the Map Division,” she replied. “If someone broke in, I don’t know what else they could have been searching for but that. Even if they were after something else, to walk right by and not take it . . .” She turned to Lieutenant Cabe. “What did they steal?” she asked desperately.
She could not read his face except to know that he was telling the truth when he finally spoke.
“They didn’t steal anything.”
“What?”
“Not a single thing.”
Nell couldn’t make sense of it. “You’re saying that thieves broke into the most historic library in New York, didn’t trigger the alarm, killed Henry, had free run of the entire collection, and then just . . . left?”
Lieutenant Cabe opened his hands to indicate he didn’t understand it either. “As far as we can tell, yes. Either they were spooked by something, or maybe what they were looking for wasn’t in the library.”
Nell’s blood ran cold.
It couldn’t be.
There was no way that what the burglars had been after was her father’s map.
“What do you know, Nell?” Lieutenant Cabe asked.
Nell blinked, surprised. “Nothing! I had no idea anything was wrong until I saw all the police cars out front.”
He nodded placatingly. “I’m not accusing you of anything. We just have to cover all our bases, like I said before. First your father’s death, then the same library where he passed away was violently burgled, and I find you in the lobby—”
“Before yesterday, I hadn’t been to this library in years,” Nell said. “And the only reason I came was because you ordered me to meet you here. I returned today to check on Swann, to make sure he’s holding up all right. And then I saw the sirens, and the blood, and . . .”
“That’s the truth,” another voice said, and Nell whirled around to see a woman looking at them from her place among another cluster of police officers. She was a few years younger than Swann and her father but wore her age far better than either of them. The silver hue of her chin-length bob combined with the impeccable lines of her black blazer and pencil skirt gave her the air of a retired fashion model, or perhaps assassin.