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“It’s all the liminal space,” Diya chimed in. “And I can honestly say I don’t love it.”

“Sasha and I go up and down these stairs a hundred times a day,” Mr. Calvert commented. “You all need to be looking up, not down.”

“It’s not gonna help,” Avery mumbled.

“It’s really not,” Wade added from the back.

“Oh!” Graeme called out from around the turn where I couldn’t see him. “I have an Everest poster.”

“Excellent,” I replied.

“Thank God,” Mrs. Poole said with a grunt.

“Lead on.” Deacon prodded me.

Once we were all up and everyone was in the large room, they all saw that it went up two more levels on metal risers where you walked on grated floors, elevated platforms, and catwalks.

“No, no, no.” Mrs. Poole turned to me. “Darling, tell me we’re not going up there.”

“Not today.” I gestured at the row of industrial-style file cabinets that lined the wall to the left. “Who is getting the diary, and who’s filming?”

Both Wade and Diya were filming, along with Mrs. Poole, and I directed Graeme to walk down until he reached the Ds.

“The Ds?” he repeated.

“D for diary.” I smiled at him.

“No,” he said in disbelief. “You can’t be serious.”

“He is serious,” Mr. Calvert chimed in. “I tell people all the time, file under the easiest thing to remember, but no one but Sasha ever listens to me.”

I grinned at him.

“You’ve been an excellent hire,” he told me.

“Thank you, sir.”

Graeme checked the letters, moving briskly, finding first the Ds, then the second letter written on the tags, and easily found the hanging file folder in the drawer, but he hesitated to pull the diary out.

“Should I have gloves on?”

“Not for books,” I told him. “Clean, dry, bare hands are best for books. When we’re sorting documents, moving individual sheets of paper, we use gloves, but for rare books, bound books like that is, we just have to make sure we have clean hands. It’s why you can’t snack at your station when you’re reading.”

“Yes, it is.” Mr. Calvert nodded.

“Is this it?” Graeme held up the leather-bound journal, sounding a bit disappointed.

I nodded.

“This is all so very anticlimactic,” he stated as he returned to us.

“It’s paper, son, not the Ark of the Covenant,” Mr. Calvert said drolly.

I snorted out a laugh—I couldn’t help it—but covered my mouth quickly so there would be no snickering on the video. When I glanced over at Deacon, he was grinning, and those amber eyes of his were glinting.

Once Graeme reached us, he put the diary down on a table, opened it, and started flipping through it, showing clearly on the video what it looked like, the dimensions, and the fluid handwriting inside. Then he was filmed placing the diary into a police evidence bag that was then handed to Wade, who signed on the tape as it was sealed inside, followed by Diya. Once the video was done, Mrs. Poole announced that she was going home. Diya, Wade, and Avery had to deliver the diary to the crime lab, where it would be meticulously photographed and then held until an independent authenticator could be found.

“We work with an excellent firm in Los Angeles if you’d like me to call them,” Mr. Calvert offered.