The rain struck the windows of Dr. Saul Geier’s office in intermittent slashes, as if the sky couldn’t quite make up its mind about the swirling chaos. Inside, Geier grunted, adjusting the flame of his desk lighter before leaning into his armchair. The scent of Captain Black pipe tobacco curled into the wood-paneled stillness.

Susan Lark, perched on the arm of the couch, peered at him over her coffee mug. “You realize we’ve had three cases in a row involving dead bodies. Maybe this time, something less morbid?”

Geier raised an eyebrow. “You mean like a missing cat?”

Before Lark could answer, a sharp knock broke the moment.

Detective Vasquez entered, soaked to the collar. “Hope you’re both in the mood for something shiny.”

The Vanishing Book

“I got a call from an old-money type, Vivienne LeClair,” Vasquez said, handing over a file. “Her great-grandmother’s rare book disappeared during a private showing at the Metro Museum. No signs of forced entry. Someone vetted the guests. Security cams glitchy. She swears it vanished into thin air.”

Geier blew smoke toward the ceiling. “So it’s a locked-room theft.”

Vasquez nodded. “And she’s threatening to sue the museum. She thinks it might be supernatural.”

Lark perked up. “Does she now?”

Geier leaned back and stared at the ceiling. “What makes this book so rare?”

Vasquez flipped through his small notebook, licking his finger to turn the pages. “LeClair says it’s 16th-century Persian, and it has some special qualities besides the intricately hand-tooled leather cover.”

“Like what?” Lark asked.

Vasquez closed the notebook and looked up. “She couldn’t describe it. She said the story inside was different for everyone. Made no sense.”

The Grit and the Gilded

The car ride downtown passed through pothole-laced avenues, steam rising from manhole covers like the city itself was exhaling. Street vendors hawked counterfeit handbags beside graffiti-tagged scaffolding. Lark watched it all with alert interest. Geier, on the other hand, cursed the smell of wet garbage and insisted on rolling the windows up.

Then, the city changed.

The elevator to Vivienne LeClair’s penthouse whispered upward past golden mirrors and quiet carpets. Her apartment was a vaulted, candlelit museum of inherited opulence: velvet armchairs, glass sculptures, and a high-security display stand where the tome had once sat under pressure glass.

Vivienne stood at the window, dressed in an emerald robe that probably cost more than Vasquez’s monthly salary. “It wasn’t stolen,” she said, voice like ice. “It vanished. I had the museum return the special pedestal it stood on to me here.”

“You just made our job more difficult,” Vasquez said. Seeing LeClair’s distress, he rapidly added, “Sorry. Moving evidence taints the scene. We’ll do our best, considering.”

LeClair shot a death stare at Vasquez.

Suspects

Geier inspected the glass-covered pedestal with a magnifying lens while Lark wandered, absorbing the mood.

“Tell me about the guests,” Lark asked Vivienne.

“Five of them. A museum curator, a tech investor, an old friend from Vienna, my yoga instructor, and my niece.”

Lark nodded, her brow furrowing. “And they were all there to see the book?”

“Yes. It was a preview the day before it was to be shared with the public. They displayed it for exactly twenty minutes. Then the lights flickered… and it was gone.”

Geier snapped his case closed. “No fingerprints. No scratches. Not even a smudge on the glass.”

Lark turned slowly. “The flicker. When the lights returned, was anyone standing near the pedestal?”

Vivienne blinked. “My niece. But she was as shocked as anyone.”

The Turn

Later that night, Lark walked through a Lower East Side alley near the niece’s address. She’d asked Vasquez to “lose” Geier for an hour. A faint aroma, expensive perfume, still hung in the air.

Lark spotted the tech investor exiting a nondescript brick building. He carried an antique mirror under his arm. Odd.

Geier rejoined her as she trailed the man to a basement antique dealer. Inside, the air was thick with incense and a metallic scent. They watched as the man placed the mirror on the counter.

“I think nobody took the book,” Lark whispered. “I believe it was shifted.”

“Explain,” Geier said, intrigued.

Lark pointed. “Light flickers, electrical disturbances, odd reflections. What if the book wasn’t stolen, but moved dimensionally? Hidden within a mirrored reflection.”

Geier paused. “A perceptual sleight-of-hand.”

She grinned. “Exactly.”

Reflection

They lured the niece back to the penthouse under the pretense of a second viewing. Lark adjusted the lighting, replacing one bulb with a mirrored flood lamp she’d acquired. When the room shimmered with angled reflection, the book reappeared suspended slightly to the left of the pedestal, within the mirrored glare.

Vivienne gasped. “Impossible.”

The niece crumbled. “I didn’t mean for it to go so far. He told me he could store it … just to spite you.”

Geier tapped the pipe against his palm. “Always beware the brilliance of the unworthy.”

The Book In and of Itself

Lark rotated the lamp and changed the angle of the mirror. The book reappeared.

LeClair’s mouth fell agape. Lark smirked with satisfaction.

Lark grabbed the book as if out of thin air. Its smooth, worn cover nestled in her hands. Still, she felt like there was a low vibration coming from it. A tactile illusion? She slowly opened the book and started to turn the pages. “This is odd. All the pages are blank.”

LeClair stuttered. “Keep looking.”

Lark carefully examined the pages. Letters gradually began to appear, faintly at first but then ever sharper as she paged through. She began reading. “Oh, my God!”

“What is it?” Geier asked.

“It’s about my mother and her suicide.” Lark started to rapidly flip the pages. “Here’s something about you and how we met…. This is my life story.”

She continued. “There is a description of today all the way up to our coming to the apartment right now.”

LeClair’s expression was vacant.

“What happens next? Keep reading.” Geier urged.

Lark leafed through more pages, but the letters faded to white.

LeClair suddenly seemed to morph into a decrepit old woman. Her hair became straggly and fell to her shoulders. Her skin wrinkled like the deep ruts of an ancient riverbed. Geier and Lark were so absorbed by the book that they didn’t seem to notice.

“The book didn’t wish to tell you your future…” LeClair said.

“Can It tell the future?” Lark asked. She handed the book to Geier.

He began paging through it cautiously at first like Lark had. His face by degrees devolved to a pale gray, and his breathing became faint.

“It’s’ all there. Medical school. Meeting Elissa. The patients. Hundreds, no thousands of patients. Meeting you. The cases we solved together.”  Then he began turning the pages more rapidly until he got to the last page. He dropped his unlit pipe. It dropped with a clank, spilling tobacco on the floor.

“What is it?” Lark asked.

He turned to the last page and closed his eyes. “My version has an ending…”

~END~

We’d love to know if you are enjoying the mystery stories of Dr. Geier and Dr. Lark. If so, please leave a comment below.

For more stories like this, check out: The Last Appointment: 30 Collected Short Stories
Catch up on my original fast-paced thriller NOT SO DEAD and the Sam Sunborn Series
They are available on Amazon and BarnesandNoble.com
Or my children’s adventure book: Nougo and His Basketball.

And read for FREE some of Charles Levin’s short stories:

The First Appointment
The Last Candy Store in East Apple
I’m Processing
Books Unread
Nora Delivers the Package
The Permission Slip
10 Life Lessons I Learned from Playing Poker
Missing the Ghost in the Palace Theater
Moon Landing Memories
Word Drunk

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