The Lincoln Myth (Cotton Malone 9)

Luke had returned in time to catch the tail end of the conversation. Stay cool, the young man’s eyes signaled. This Frat Boy obviously knew of his connection with Cassiopeia.

“Let me get you back to your hotel,” Salazar said from the study.

Malone pointed to the open doorway six feet away, and they both slipped inside a darkened media room. Soft chairs faced a huge video screen, an obvious addition to such an old house.

They flattened themselves against the wall.

He heard movement from the study, then steps in the corridor outside. Both Salazar and Cassiopeia came into view outside the half-open door. He peered out and watched as Salazar grabbed Cassiopeia by the arm, drawing her close and kissing her.

Her arms embraced him, caressing his shoulders.

The sight was at once unnerving and disturbing.

“I have wanted to do that for a long time,” Salazar said to her. “I never forgot you.”

“I know.”

“What do we do from here?”

“Enjoy our time together. I’ve missed you, Josepe.”

“Surely you have loved and been loved.”

“I have. But what we had was special, and we both know it.”

Salazar kissed her again. Tender. Sweet.

Malone’s gut churned.

“I could stay here tonight,” she told him.

“That would not be wise,” Salazar said. “For either of us.”

“I understand. But know that I wanted to.”

“I do, and it means more than you can imagine. Tomorrow, I’ll come for you around ten. Be packed and ready to leave.”

“Where are we going?”

“Salzburg.”

They disappeared down the corridor. A door opened, then closed. A few moments later a car engine growled, then faded into the distance.

He stood still, his heart pounding.

“You okay?” Luke asked.

His mind snapped back to the situation at hand. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“That’s your girl and—”

“I’m not some high schooler. And how do you know she’s my girl?”

“Three guesses. Look, that would have hurt, if it were me.”

“You’re not me.”

“Okay. I get it. The subject is off limits.”

“Stephanie tell you to keep her involvement from me?”

“She and Salazar were not supposed to be here. Vitt’s job was to keep him away for the evening.”

“Her job?”

“She’s helping Stephanie. A favor. We discovered that she and Salazar once knew each other. They were … close. Obviously. We just saw that. Stephanie asked her to make contact and see what she could learn. She’s just working him.”

But he wondered. Was she playing a part? Simply trying to gain Salazar’s confidence? If so, she was an excellent actress. Every word had sounded believable. Now Salazar himself was enlisting her help.

“I need to take a look inside that study.”

He grabbed Luke’s arm. “Is that all you’ve held back?”

“You said back at your bookshop you knew about Mormons. Did you know Cassiopeia Vitt was born one?”

He glared at Luke.

“I didn’t think so. Part of the connection here is that she and Salazar were childhood friends. Their families close. Same religion, too.”

Seemed like a night of surprises.

“Could you let go of my arm?”

He released his grip.

Luke brushed past and fled the media room.

He followed.

They entered the study, a warm space with paneled walls painted a sage green. The lights remained on, curtains drawn on the windows.

He focused on the task. “He doesn’t have any staff in this house?”

“Reports say there are a few, but they don’t stay overnight. Salazar likes his privacy.”

But the remaining Danites could appear at any time. “Those two may have discovered the ruse with the bus by now. Do what you have to do. He was reading to her from something. That old journal, there.”

Luke moved toward the desk and, with his Billet phone, snapped pictures of the tattered pages, especially the ones marked with slips of paper. While Luke searched the desk drawers, Malone was drawn to the map displayed on an easel. He’d heard earlier when Salazar rattled off the places where Mormons had settled on their way west to the Salt Lake valley. He’d actually once visited Nauvoo, in central Illinois, where they headquartered for seven years. The temple that stood there now was a reconstruction, the original 19th-century version destroyed by mobs.

Hate.

What a powerful emotion.

So was jealousy.

And he was feeling both right now.

He needed to listen to himself—he wasn’t some high schooler—he was a man who cared for a woman. He’d been divorced three years, separated from his ex-wife going on ten years. He’d lived alone a long time. Cassiopeia’s entrance into his life had changed things. For the better. Or at least that’s what he’d thought.

“Take a look at this,” Luke said.

He stepped to the desk—huge, inlaid with ivory and decorated with an ornate onyx inkwell. Luke handed him a catalog for Dorotheum, one of the world’s oldest auction houses, headquartered in Austria. He’d dealt with them while on Billet assignments and with his bookshop.

“Seems there’s an event tomorrow night,” Luke said. “In Salzburg.”

He noted the date, time, and place from the catalog. Thumbing through, he discovered it was an estate sale. Furniture, porcelain, china, books. One page was dog-eared. An offering for a Book of Mormon. From March 1830. An original printing. Published by E. B. Grandin. Palmyra, New York.

He knew that volume.

There’d been many editions printed since 1830, but only a few of the original lot still existed. He recalled reading a few months ago how one had sold for nearly $200,000.

“Apparently Salazar wants to buy a book,” he said.

And not just any book. One of the rarest in the world.

He stepped from the desk and again studied the map. Someone had taken a pink highlighter to Texas, Hawaii, Alaska, Vermont, and Montana.

“Why are those states colored? And don’t tell me you don’t know.”

Luke stayed silent.

He placed his finger on Utah, which had been highlighted in yellow. “And this?”

“It’s the center of the whole damn thing.”

Utah was the home of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Several splinter groups of that religion existed, but its main body was headquartered there.

“The center of what?” he asked.

“Hard to believe, actually. But Stephanie told me on the phone there’s a connection between Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, James Madison, and Abraham Lincoln. One that she’s just been briefed on. It stretches straight back to the Founding Fathers.”

“Involving?”

“The U.S. Constitution.”

“Leading to what?”

“A whole bunch of really bad trouble.”

TWENTY-ONE

DENMARK

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9

9:20 A.M.

SALAZAR SPOKE INTO THE PHONE BUT STUDIED THE MAP. HE was in his study, finally connecting with Elder Rowan, explaining some of what had happened yesterday in Denmark. Their fears were now confirmed. The U.S. government was focused on him.

“They found you through me,” Rowan said. “There are people in Washington who do not want us to succeed.”

That he believed.

There’d always been animosity.

“From the beginning, Josepe,” the angel said in his brain.

Every Saint knew how Joseph Smith, in 1839, knocked on the door of the White House—which he described as a palace, large and splendid, decorated with all the fineries and elegance of this world—and requested to see President Martin Van Buren. When Smith asked to be introduced as a Latter-day

Saint, the request was viewed as nonsense. When he insisted, Van Buren merely smiled at the label.

“With his arrogance, Josepe.”