Bestiary Read Online Free PDF Page A

backpack, heavy with books and papers, on the parquet floor of the foyer. “Hello?”
     
     
    No answer. He’d expected to hear from Robin, the nanny they’d hired to help out with the baby.
     
     
    “Robin? You here?”
     
     
    He climbed the stairs—thickly carpeted by the owner when he learned that Carter and Beth had a one-year-old—and headed for the nursery. Beth was in the corner rocking chair, her sweatshirt hiked up, nursing little Joey. “I didn’t want to shout,” she whispered.
     
     
    “Where’s Robin?”
     
     
    “I didn’t go in today, so I gave her the day off.”
     
     
    “Still got that cold?”
     
     
    “I can’t seem to shake this one.”
     
     
    “The prince looks happy.”
     
     
    “Oh yeah—nothing bothers this guy.” It was something they joked about—Joey had yet to have a cold, an ear infection, colic, you name it. They’d been prepared by all the baby books for a litany of problems and complaints, but so far . . . nada. This kid was made of steel.
     
     
    “You want me to make some dinner?” Carter asked.
     
     
    “I’m not hungry. But there’s still some of that salmon from last night.”
     
     
    “That’s fine,” Carter said. “I’ll leave you to it,” he said, nodding at the busy Joey.
     
     
    Downstairs, he took a Heineken out of the fridge and, as there wouldn’t be any witnesses, drank it straight from the bottle. The mail was on the counter—some bills, a couple of catalogues—but what looked like a more interesting pile of papers lay scattered on the butcher-block table in the breakfast nook. Carter pushed out two of the chairs, rested his long legs across one, and turned some of the papers around so he could read them.
     
     
    The cover letter, addressed to Beth, was from Berenice Cabot, an important administrator at the Getty, asking her to examine the contents enclosed and prepare for a meeting with the owner of the work of art displayed there, a man whose anonymity Mrs. Cabot had been asked at this point to maintain. That wasn’t so unusual, Carter knew; museums often dealt with wealthy donors who didn’t want their names made public until they chose to do so themselves.
     
     
    By now Carter felt he should probably stop snooping. This was between Beth and the Getty, he thought as he took another swig from the bottle. But then, she had left it all out in plain view. In a court of law, wasn’t that justification enough? And what harm could it do just to take a little peek at some of the photos enclosed? Even a quick glance told him they were pretty unusual.
     
     
    He put the letter aside and looked at the glossy eight-by-ten that lay on top of the pile. It showed a massive old book, with what looked like an ivory cover, studded with jewels. A ruler, laid beside it in the shot to offer scale, indicated that its pages were large—perhaps two feet long and almost as wide. Although Carter was no expert in this sort of thing, it reminded him of ancient books he’d seen in Europe, most notably the Book of Kells at Trinity College, Dublin. That volume dated from the eighth century, and this book looked, to his unpracticed eye, to be in the same league.
     
     
    The other photos, their colors muted by what Carter guessed to be insufficient light, were of the book’s contents. And most appeared to be of fanciful creatures, mythological beasts made up of strange composites—the heads of lions on the bodies of snakes, a chicken’s beak on a lumbering bear, a towering giraffe with eight legs and a prominently displayed set of curving tusks. They were all rendered in the primitive, but forceful, medieval style Carter had seen in some of Beth’s textbooks from her days as a student at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London.
     
     
    “Snoop,” she said as she padded into the kitchen in her stocking feet.
     
     
    “You caught me.”
     
     
    She plopped onto his lap and leaned her back against the edge of the table.
     
     
    “Looks