Dangerous Temptations

“Where do we even begin, Mike? It’s Harvard.”

“There is only one place I can think of to go. We start where Collins told us to. The library. There is a historical section there. I say we go there first.”

We walked a few minutes in silence, each of us trying to wrap our thoughts around everything we’d found.

“Okay. Thomas Hutchinson. Who is he?” she asked.

“He was a loyalist before the American Revolution. Then he worked his way up to governor until 1774 when they pretty much kicked him out, and he left for England. He wasn’t a very well-liked guy.”

“Why not?”

I unlocked the car and opened the passenger door for Sydney.

“Neither side cared for him—British or American. Samuel Adams didn’t like him because Hutchinson was for British taxes. The British thought he was a troublemaker. He was eventually exiled to Great Britain.”

Sydney looked up at me from where she was sitting in the car. “What in the world does this man have to do with all of this? And why was Vickie involved in any of it?”

Rubbing the back of my neck, I exhaled. “I have no idea. Let’s head over there, and if we don’t find anything, maybe we can dig more into his life.”

“Okay.”

Two hours later, Sydney and I sat down at a large oak table in the historical section of the Harvard library. We hadn’t found anything. Sydney’s unease about someone possibly following us had put me on alert. The only thing that had seemed odd to me was a couple that was sitting at one of the tables in the library. I swore I’d seen them earlier at the coffee shop, but the longer I watched them, the more I realized it was my mind playing with me. There was no way this couple had been following us. I’d have noticed. Then again, I had brushed off Sydney’s unease and hadn’t really been paying attention. Shit, I was losing my touch when this woman was around me. That, or I was getting caught up in this little adventure we were on.

“I don’t know where else to look or what to look for?”

It hit me when I looked past her to the other side of the library. “Syd, we’ve been looking all over this library for the symbol. It’s been right in front of us the whole time.”

She quickly looked around. “Where is it?”

“No, it’s not the symbol we are looking for. It’s Thomas Hutchinson.”

I pointed to the painting across the room. It was a portrait of Thomas Hutchinson, and he was holding a book in his hands. Sydney looked at it and gasped.

We quietly made our way over to the painting.

“Do you think there is something behind the painting?” she asked.

I studied the painting. He was holding a book. “History of Massachusetts.”

Sydney leaned in closer

and looked at the book.

“We need to find that book,” I stated. “Hutchinson wrote it. There should be three volumes.”

“I keep forgetting you have a history degree.”

I chuckled. “I have a bachelor’s degree in history and went on for my criminal justice degree.”