Thorne's Tome: Death Hunter Series Book 3

197 pages

Chapter 1: Plainfield, Connecticut

Osborne took the cap off with a jaunty spin, then dropped it onto the desk. He loosened his tie, raised the bottle in a mock salute, and enjoyed a long drink. A smile spread across his face as the vodka raised the specter of warmth in his cheeks, and he took another pull from the bottle.

He was about to put it away when the door opened, and his sister walked into the store.

As always, he froze.

The look of disappointment on her face drove shards of embarrassment through him, and he looked down, ashamed, as he hastily put the cap back on the bottle. There was no use trying to hide it from her. She had already seen it and had she not, she would have guessed it.

Not that it’s hard to guess anymore, he thought, sliding the bottle into the drawer.

“Osborne,” Katrina said, her voice low. “You haven’t even left the store yet and you’re drinking.”

He winced at the disappointment in her tone.

“I was celebrating,” he replied, hating the lameness of the statement.

She raised an eyebrow, her green eyes fixing him with a doubtful stare.

He swallowed and cleared his throat.

Katrina folded her arms over her chest, and he could hear his sister’s foot tapping on the wood floor. “What are you celebrating?” she asked at last.

Despite his embarrassment, he grinned, got up, and squeezed himself between a stack of books to a safe half-hidden behind a filing cabinet. His fingers were slow to react to his mental commands, but after a moment, he was able to unlock the safe and withdraw a book wrapped in deep, purple velvet. He carried it with a sort of reverence to his desk, cleared a spot for it, and then set it down.

From the corner of his eye, Osborne could see his sister’s inquisitive expression.

He eased the velvet away from the book and saw his sister frown.

“Is that a first?” she asked after a moment, her voice low and full of awe.

Osborne nodded several times, grinning.

“How?” Katrina shook her head. “Osborne, how did you get your hands on a first edition of Huckleberry Finn?!”

“I was at an estate sale,” he told her, the words rushing out, one after another. “One of those run by Patty, you know. There wasn’t hardly anything there, just a bunch of miserable people pushing and shoving. But this was there. It’s in beautiful shape, Katrina. Beautiful. And it’s a true first! I checked everything. Checked it everywhere I could think of.”

His voice broke as he added, “And it’s signed.”

Katrina gasped. “What?!”

He nodded and let out a laugh.

“How much is that worth?” she whispered.

“At least twenty thousand. Maybe more,” he told her. His hands shook as he covered the book back up. He returned it to the safe, locked it, and then went back to his desk. Osborne took out his vodka again and had another drink to settle his nerves. When he lowered the bottle, his sister’s expression was one of sadness.

“If you don’t stop,” she said, “you’re just going to drink that money away.”

He stiffened. “I won’t.”

“You need to stop, Osborne,” she told him. “You’re going to drink yourself to death.”

He opened his mouth to reply and then closed it as the temperature in the room plummeted.

Katrina shivered and glanced toward the ceiling. “Did the air conditioning just kick in?”

“No,” Osborne answered. There was no tell-tale knocking of the old system, nor was it rumbling and spewing its tepid air out into the building. “I don’t know what it is.”

His sister looked around. “I don’t like it. It reminds me of the house in Jewett City.”

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